Happy Halloween!!

Costume Fun 2011

Emily the Peacock

Since last Halloween, Emily decided that she was going to be a Peacock.  We had a lot of fun making her costume.  She wore a pair of brown leggings and brown boots.  Then she wore a hooded sweatshirt (it actually has Ariel on the front of it) and a long sleeved teal shirt (to hide Ariel).  I made her feather fan from a piece of foam core board, which I covered in felt half circles in different shades of yellow and bright green.  Then I glued the peacock feathers to stick over the top.  The feather fan stayed on with elastic that I sewed into a circle and threaded through 2 holes in the middle of the foam core board so she could wear it like a backpack.  Finally I made an alligator clip for the head feathers.  I covered it in teal ribbon then hot glued 3 pipe cleaners to the middle and then hot glued pieces of black and blue feathers.

We were stopped throughout the night by other trick-or-treaters of all ages to comment on how cute her costume was!

Juliette the Ladybug

I am not sure how we decided that Juliette was going to be a ladybug, however the whole month of October if you asked her what she was going to be she knew and answered “a ladybug!”

My mom and I sewed the wings for her costume out of felt and used elastic to attach them over her arms like a back pack too.  She wore a black long-sleeved onesie and black leggings with black socks and shoes.  I knew she would never wear a headband for the antenna so I lined 2 alligator clips with black ribbon and hot glued a pipe cleaner to each one.  Then I rolled the top of the pipe cleaner into a ball.  She loves clips so they stayed on the whole day without any problem.

She loved wearing her costume.  I love that we can now add it to our dress up collection.

  Trick or Treating 

The girls loved being able to pick their own candy at the different houses!

Waiting to yell “Trick-or-Treat”

Cousin Brianna the Cat walking with Juliette…they had so much fun together!

Off to the next house for more treats!!

Once we got home Emily couldn’t wait for Daddy to dump all of her candy on top of her, I think this will be a yearly picture!!

      Then Emily sorted all of her candy!

(I used to love doing the same thing with my candy when I was little too)

Happy Halloween!!!

stART ~ Stellaluna

Welcome to stART!  I hope that you will enjoy our story and art project and maybe even share your own too. All I ask is that you link back to A Mommy’s Adventures somewhere in your post by either adding my button or a text link, so that others can see all the other great projects that everyone shares too! The linky will be open all week.  Be sure to stop by and visit the different links…every week there are so many different and fun book and craft ideas!

Check out the  stART tab in my navigation bar where you can find our past stART projects.  All the books that we have read and did a stART project for are listed in alphabetical order.  I have also included a list of all the blogs that participate in stART.  **This is a work in progress so if you have participated and would like to be added to the list, leave me a comment and let me know :0)

Emily and Juliette enjoyed listening to Stellaluna, by Janell Cannon.  This is a wonderful story about a bat that is separated from its mother after they are attacked by an owl.  Stellaluna lands in a bird’s nest and is then raised with the family of birds.  She begins to act like the birds, eating bugs, sleeping at night and sleeping upright in their nest.  One day when she learns to fly she finds her mother and learns that she can see in the dark and that she is supposed to sleep upside down.  Stellaluna is excited to tell the birds what she has learned, but they soon find out that although they are very similar to each other, they are also very different.  Emily was happy that they were still friends at the end of the story.  I thought this was a great story, and liked the facts that are included throughout the story and on the last to pages as well.

To go along with this book we made toilet paper tube bats.  I folded the tops of the tubes down in opposite directions to make the two points for the ears and point at the bottom for the body.   Emily and Juliette painted their bats and once they were dry glued on there wings and used small red dot stickers for the eyes.

The girls finished bats.

Now it is your turn!! Click below to link up a book you read and the project or activity that you did to go with it.

stART ~ Corduroy’s Halloween

Welcome to stART!  I hope that you will enjoy our story and art project and maybe even share your own too. All I ask is that you link back to A Mommy’s Adventures somewhere in your post by either adding my button or a text link, so that others can see all the other great projects that everyone shares too! The linky will be open all week.  Be sure to stop by and visit the different links…every week there are so many different and fun book and craft ideas!

Check out the  stART tab in my navigation bar where you can find our past stART projects.  All the books that we have read and did a stART project for are listed in alphabetical order.  I have also included a list of all the blogs that participate in stART.  **This is a work in progress so if you have participated and would like to be added to the list, leave me a comment and let me know :0)

This week we read Corduroy's Halloween, by B. G. Hennessy.  This is a cute lift the flap book that tells the story of how a little bear named Corduroy prepares to celebrate Halloween.  Emily and Juliette love looking under the flaps to see the fun surprises underneath while we are reading the story.

Both Emily and Juliette liked the Jack-o-Lanterns that are in the story so we made our own out of paper.  To make them a little more special we made them sun-catcher Jack-o-lanterns.

I cut a pumpkin shape out of card stock paper and the girls picked which way they wanted to hold it so they could have a tall skinny pumpkin or a short squatty one.  Next,  Emily had fun drawing a face on hers.  Then I cut it out with an Exacto knife type of a cutter.   For Juliette I drew the face and cut it out.

Then they painted their pumpkins.

After they dried they glued yellow tissue paper to the back of the pumpkin over the holes for the eyes, mouth and nose.  Emily was determined to cover her entire back with tissue paper.

Finally they glued on the stem, leaf that was cut out of construction paper  and the vine which is a piece of pipe cleaner.

Emily’s Jack-o-Lantern

 

Juliette’s Jack-o-Lantern

 

I love how when the sun is shining it really lights up the Jack-o-Lanterns face!!

Now it is your turn!! Click below to link up a book you read and the project or activity that you did to go with it.

Kids in the Kitchen ~ Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

This year after carving our pumpkin we saved the seeds to roast.  This was the first time that I have done this and I have to say I was actually tempted to buy another pumpkin just to roast the seeds again!!  Emily really enjoyed them so I think we will definitely be buying them in the store for a snack or to add to salads from now on.

Our Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

I googled recipes and then combined the basic ideas that I read to make ours.

First, I boiled the seeds in salted water for 10 minutes, this was supposed to make actual seed inside have a salty taste.  I couldn’t really tell if it made a difference, so next time I will have to try it both ways.  Then I set them on a cookie sheet to dry over night.

Once they were dry Emily mixed together 1 Tbsp of melted butter and 1 Tbsp of Olive Oil with a pinch of salt.

 

Next, she added the pumpkin seeds and stirred to coat them in the butter.

She dumped them onto a baking sheet

and spread them out.

We put them in a 300 degree oven for about half an hour.  I just kept checking them to see if they seemed like they were done.  Not that I really knew what done looked like :0)

After they cooled a little bit we cracked them open and enjoyed them.  I did read that you could eat the whole seed shell and all, but when I tried it was too hard for me.

What is your favorite way to roast pumpkin seeds?

Pumpkin Carving

After going pumpkin picking we had to carve our pumpkin.  We picked a nice big one to carve and we waited until the week before Halloween to carve it.  This was Emily and Juliette’s first year carving a pumpkin.  Both of the girls and Mommy too, were very excited and had fun helping. 

Emily and Daddy picked out which design we were going to use.

Daddy cut the top off so that we could see what was inside.

Me: Wow what is in there? (Expecting seeds as the answer)

Emily: Spaghetti (In a not so excited tone)

Feeling the inside of the pumpkin

Juliette had to go first because Emily was not so sure about it!

      Emily and Juliette taking turns marking the design.  We used the poker things for a few seconds and then we realized a sharpie marker was much more time efficient!   Mommy and Daddy carving the pumpkin  Emily carving the pumpkin too!

Our Kitty Cat Pumpkin

I love how it turned out!!

  And…

…just for fun Emily shooting fire from her finger!!  A fun Halloween Trick :0)

Halloween Hunt

As a special treat on Halloween morning I created a Halloween Treasure Hunt for Emily to go on.

It started with a clue on her placemat which she found as soon as we came downstairs in the morning.

The clues led her to a few different places in our house. The clues were very simple and were places that she was familiar with throughout the house.

Finally she found her “Treasure” a Winnie the Pooh paint set for Emily  and Halloween Book to share with Juliette.

 

Emily loved the Halloween Hunt and I can’t wait to make another one.

 

Click on the image above to download the Halloween Hunt that I created for Emily.

Happy Halloween!

Costume Fun 2010

Emily the Bunny

This year Emily wanted to be a Bunny Rabbit, I love bunnies so I was thrilled.  Here is my cute little bunny rabbit.

This costume was fun and easy to make.  She wore white pants, shirt and shoes.  I made a large pom pom and sewed it to the back of her shirt.  We had the bunny ears from Easter I just added the pink foam in the middle and my mom sewed her a felt play food carrot (you can check out all her other felt play food creations in our Yummy Felts etsy store!)  which we added a ribbon to so she could wear it as a necklace while trick or treating.

Juliette the Candy Corn

            When I was going through boxes of Halloween decorations I found Emily’s Candy Corn Costume and realized it would fit Juliette this year.  I loved this costume so much I was so glad that Juliette would be able to wear it.  She wouldn’t wear the hat, but I still think she was the cutest little candy corn.

Trick or Treating with Friends

Emily and Juliette had fun spending the afternoon trick or treating with their friends.  The three older girls took turns ringing the door bells.  I loved watching them holding each others hands while walking!

  Juliette LOVED Halloween

This was the first year that Juliette could really participate in Halloween and she loved everything about it.  She ran from house to house.  And when she was at the doors waiting she pushed herself right up to the front of the line holding her own bucket filled with candy.

The Candy and Family!!

Emily and Juliette in their pile of candy.  I love the bottom picture that Daddy took of Emily covered in her candy!

We were also able to spend Halloween with our Family.  Juliette is with her God-Mother and Emily is with her God-Mother.

I can’t wait until next year when cousin Brianna will be joining the girls running from house to house trick or treating!!

Happy Halloween!!