Slime

     On Halloween I held a little party for the daycare kids complete with a spooky snack and some gooey fun.  I know it is late, but I wanted to share the slime that we made {it really is good any time of year}.  I got the idea from the Sid the Science Kid show.  It is really easy to make and the kids had a lot of fun playing with it.

Ingredients:
1 C. Flour
1 C. Corn Starch
1 C. Water
Touch of paint (we used green)

     All you have to do is mix all the ingredients together.  I started off by mixing the cornstarch with the water until it was all dissolved.  Then I slowly added in the flour so that the mixture would not be too thick.  I added the paint just before I thought we had enough flour.  And voila you have some slime.

     The greatest part of this slime {besides being homemade} is that it is a solid on a surface but gooey in your hands.  It made clean up super easy.

Things They Say Thursday--November 3rd

     A little insight to our Halloween evening, with future posts to come.  When we went trick-or-treating we had told the kids about only going to houses who have their lights on.  As soon as we were done with one house, Noah was quick to say "Let's go to that one with the lights on."  The path we took had us zigzagging back and forth across the street, and each time he was so quick to point out the next house.  When we finished trick-or-treating at one house instead of saying "Let's go to that one with the lights on," Noah said, "Let's go to the spooky house."  There was a house across the street with lights and Halloween music and creepy things out.  Noah was all for it until we got to the middle of the driveway and he looked up, saw a skeleton, and froze.  I kind of nudged him to go up, but he said the skeleton scared him (because he thought it was talking).  One of the people outside was kind enough to meet him and let him get his treat.  After that he was pretty much ready to go home.

Halloween

   It has been really busy for us, so here is a late recap of our Halloween weekend.  On Saturday we braved through a traffic jam on our way out to the zoo for a beautiful day at the Boo at the Zoo.  Mike had homework to do so it was just me and the kids.  I got them all dressed up in their costumes in anticipation of doing some trick-or-treating there and possibly participating in one of the parades.  This was the first time this year that we made it to the zoo.  We were all really excited to go since they now have a polar bear on exhibit.  It is really cool to see it swimming around and it comes right up to the glass.  The kids enjoyed seeing all the animals, but agreed that the polar bear was the best.  They also had fun getting candy from all the tables set up around the zoo.  We were even able to go on a hayride.  We ended the trip at the zoo by visiting the Haunted Valley.  I'm sure the kids would have loved to have stayed there longer to play, but I needed them to conserve their energy for the walk back to the car.  That afternoon we came home and lounged around until movie night.  It was Mike's turn to pick and appropriately he picks "The Nightmare Before Christmas."
     Sunday we had a lot of errands to run and things to get done around the house before taking the kids out trick-or-treating.  At night we made a quick dinner and got the kids into their costumes.  We had a lot of fun trick-or-treating.  We took the kids around the neighborhood following the path that we normally go on for our walks.  Mikayla thought it was fun as we kept running into one of the kids who rides her bus.  Noah kept me smiling the whole night.  He was sure to say trick or treat and thank you to each house, sometimes even helping to close the door.  But it was so fun to see his face light up as he exclaimed that he had found the next house.  Too cute!

The Polar Bear

They love the Buddha bellies

Taking a little rest

Her rest involved more posing

Working through the web

On the hayride



Beware of the pirate



Walking the plank

Pre-trick or treating

Showcasing his loot

A Spooky Little Craft

     Oh how I love finding new blogs to read and follow.  Lately they have been all things crafty.  One that I regularly read, Today's Creative Blog, featured the Two Crafty Sisters.  Check them both out.  I promise you can spend at least a good half day just oohing and aahing over just their most recent posts.  As soon as I saw the Halloween Village blog from the Crafty Sisters I knew that was something I wanted to make myself (on a much smaller scale--like one).  So here's a brief step-by-step of how I made the halloween haunted house.

1.  I gathered the supplies.  I wanted a slightly larger house so I found a barn (that came with a stuffed pig) to use as the house for $5 at Michaels.  I also bought the K&C pop-up Halloween Photo Frame ($3) to use as decoration.  For the paint I bought just a simple black ($1.20). I used a foam paint brush for painting.  To glue the pieces on I used rubber cement.

2.  I painted the house.  I ended up doing a little touch-up after the first coat, but for the most part one coat worked just fine.

3.  Then I removed decorations from the photo frame, trying to keep the foam intact.  I thought it would give it more of a 3-D look once applied.

4.  Some of the stickiness came off of the decorations in the process of removing them, so I just applied a little rubber cement prior to applying them to the house.

So there you have it.  A cute, fun, easy craft for under $10.  Love it!

A Frightfully Fun Weekend

     All summer we promised Mikayla that we would take her to Worlds of Fun.  But for one reason or another we did not make it.  After summer ended we said we would go once the weather cooled down a bit.  Well this past weekend some of our friends invited us and off we went for a fun filled day at Worlds of Fun.  Worlds of Fun is an amusement park with roller coaster rides and a special area devoted just for the young.  I love going there this time of year because they deck it all out in Halloween.  During the day it is not so scary, but the night is full of frightful things.  Before you go thinking that I am a bad mom exposing my kids to all the scary things, we actually did not do anything more than watch the parade of all the creatures.  Oh and by the way, my kids loved seeing all the creatures and were not scared at all.  They each went up to them and were giving them hugs and high fives.  I think it might be that I have taught them that there are real people acting in the costumes and having them see us get all ghouled out may have helped as well.  Back to the main fare, we had a ton of fun taking the kids to the Camp Spooky (aka Camp Snoopy).  They wanted to ride everything even the big roller coasters.  However, we saved those just for mom and dad.  Actually I only got to ride two rides and Mike rode one, but I think we both had just as much fun seeing the expressions on the kids' faces as they were on the rides.  It just seemed to have a different effect going there as parents.  We took lots of pictures...

Halloween Makeover

     Mike and I have a friend who has done makeup for haunted activities around town in the past and she was looking for some models to showcase her skills.  We offered our limited modeling services to get a ghoulish makeover.  Mike and I were a little concerned that the kids might be frightened by the makeovers, but I think since they saw us getting the makeup put on they were just fine.  She even painted a little skull on Noah and a spider on Mikayla.  And of course the kids wanted to take pictures with us too.  It was a lot of fun to get the makeover and to visit with them since it has been a while.