In Case You Missed It...

I posted about these Halloween Shirts last year. So, in case you missed it, I am reposting this for all you readers out there who need shirts for boys. Because, let's be honest, there isn't much out there for boys, yet TONS for girls! Don't get me started...

From last year:

Well, Halloween is this weekend and I never bought John a Halloween shirt! I made this one but he has only worn it once or twice. Is it just me or is it hard to match a grey shirt with shorts? (...assuming you are like me and don't have black shorts for your kid right now!) It is too hot to wear jeans, and quite frankly it is hot to wear long sleeves past 10 am!

So, I decided he need something a little snazzier for Friday when we are going to Brad's work where they have a HUGE Halloween celebration. The office is just short of shut down for most of the day as they put on skits, play games, and entertain. It is so fun! So, I had a black shirt from Walmart (still long sleeves, but oh well!) and I made a Halloween version of the 4th of July shirt.



If you kind of squint so that the white lines don't look so wavy, it is a pretty cute little shirt! I can't wait for John to wear it Friday and it is perfect because it will match Matthew's outfit which is also a black shirt.

So, which shirt do we like better? The graphic...



...or the argyle?



I can't decide which to put him in at the Halloween party on Sunday!


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Halloween Party - 2010

You read the post title correct- this post is about my Halloween Party from last year. I never posted about it so I figured I would do it now so if anyone wanted to use my ideas, they had time to get it all together!

So, only one year late, here is what we did last year for our fun party!

Prior to the party, John helped me paint toilet paper tubes orange. Then we made them into pumpkins. At the party, I 'hid' them in the front yard so John and Bella could hunt for pumpkins. They really liked this game and wanted to play it a couple times.





I took our bowling set and cover the pins with tissues to make ghosts. Then we used a small pumpkin to bowl. All family members played this and Aunt Emily won! She got a cute little bucket of candy for her prize.











The adults also played a partner game. The guys taped a cup around their chest and the girls had to throw ping pong balls into the cup. The original plan was to throw eggs, but considering my son is very allergic to eggs, having broken eggs around wasn't a good idea. This was a funny game to watch...and the pics turned out funny as well!







I made two Halloween themed foods- mummy hot dogs and severed fingers. The fingers looked so real and gross in person. They were almost too creepy to eat!




Now I need to get my butt in gear and plan this year's party! Thankfully I just went to a friend's party who did a fabulous job of activities so I have plenty of ideas now. :)

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Dinosaur Costume

Can you believe Halloween is almost here?! I have been a slacker and haven't done any fall/halloween activities with the boys. :( I did, however, make a costume for John! He has been saying for about a month he wanted to be a clown for Halloween. I kept asking him hoping he would change his mind and FINALLY he said he wanted to be a dinosaur. WAY cuter than clown! So, I made him this cute costume.





Now, before you think I am super creative, I totally got the intructions for the hoodie from DIYing to be Domestic. The only thing I added was the grey felt to the tummy. Since she has very easy instructions, there is no need for me to type them up!

I got the basic idea for the tail from The Train to Crazy but modified it slightly. I didn't make the waist band. Instead I sewed mitten clip thingies on the end of the tail and clipped the tail to John's shirt under the hoodie. Very simple.

So, starting with this plain hoodie from Walmart...



came this sweet stegosaurus...



And let me tell you, John LOVED this costume! He wants to wear it all the time. I was worried I would put in all this hard work (all 60 minutes of it!!!) and he wouldn't wear it. So, I consider this a total success. I thought I might rip out all the stitches after Halloween and get this back to the original blue hoodie so he can wear it, but my sister said it was so cute and he could wear it as it. Well, we might just do that. John can be a cute dino all winter long!


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Halloween Themed Freebies

Now that Halloween is coming up, I wanted to share some of the freebies I had last year for toddlers and kiddos. Feel free to use with your own precious little ones!

Halloween Matching Game:



Mr. Pumpkin Head:



Candy Corn Letters #1 and #2:




Pumpkin Patch Letter Game:



Cat Shape Game:



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For ME Friday - Halloween Mantel

Woohoo for Friday! I am super excited about this weekend because my best friend is in town and we are partying it up this weekend! (which means I will be up past my usual 10pm bedtime!)

Anywho, I have another For ME Friday post. A couple weeks ago my neighbor threw away this perfectly good shutter:



I am talking this bad boy had it's price tag on it still and was in perfect condition. It was also huge! The shutter was sitting by the garbage for a couple days before I was brave enough to take it back to my house...while taking Matthew on a walk so I had to tuck it under my arm while pushing the stroller and hoping no one saw me!

Anyways, I painted it white and distressed it with Brad's power sander. Very very easy! Brad attatched it to the wall above the mantel and I added some other randomly aquired Halloween/Fall themed items. Some items were from garage sales, some from the dollar store, and some were gifts from my mom over the years. I made the boo bunting last year for my Halloween party and thought it looked cute on the shutter.











I usually don't do a whole lot of decorating for holidays, but I like how this turned out and when I see it, it makes me happy! Now if I can just get the rest of the house in order...


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Thriller Flashback

Two years ago, when I was a cheer coach and thus had to plan all the pep rallies, I organized this teacher dance. Seeing as it is appropriate for Halloween coming up, I thought I would remenisce a little and share the dance with you! We had so much fun (it was our 2nd annual teacher dance) even though it was kind of a pain leading up to it. I put the dance together (after watching the Thriller video of course!), taught the teachers, etc. It was annoying trying to get a bunch of busy teachers together to practice and it was making me miss cheer practice with my girls. But the end result was perfect and the kids loved it! I am in the front in the middle by the W...you know...the one who was EIGHT months preggo!! :)



Here is a pic of me (on the left) with my assistant coach, Coach R. She had her make up done by the theater teacher which is why she looks WAY better than me!




Ahhh...memories...these are the fun things I miss about teaching. :)

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Halloween Shirt #2

Well, Halloween is this weekend and I never bought John a Halloween shirt! I made this one but he has only worn it once or twice. Is it just me or is it hard to match a grey shirt with shorts? (...assuming you are like me and don't have black shorts for your kid right now!) It is too hot to wear jeans, and quite frankly it is hot to wear long sleeves past 10 am!

So, I decided he need something a little snazzier for Friday when we are going to Brad's work where they have a HUGE Halloween celebration. The office is just short of shut down for most of the day as they put on skits, play games, and entertain. It is so fun! So, I had a black shirt from Walmart (still long sleeves, but oh well!) and I made a Halloween version of the 4th of July shirt.



If you kind of squint so that the white lines don't look so wavy, it is a pretty cute little shirt! I can't wait for John to wear it Friday and it is perfect because it will match Matthew's outfit which is also a black shirt.

So, which shirt do we like better? The graphic...



...or the argyle?



I can't decide which to put him in at the Halloween party on Sunday before he dons the pirate costume! I need your advice!


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Pumpkin shirt for ME!!!

So, I hardly ever make anything for myself. I really wanted something cute to wear at the pumpkin patch with the boys so I quickly threw together a pumpkin shirt. Then after making this shirt, I realized that since I don't have any daughters to make cutesy stuff, I can make it for myself!






To make this I just used a black shirt I already had (that I got for TWO DOLLARS at Old Navy!!) and some black and white fabric that I bought for a shirt for John. Throw in some heat and bond and some embroidery floss and call it a day! I like that it is cute but not too dorky and I can wear it for Halloween or just during the fall. I also ALWAYS wear black, so I figured the black/white/grey pumpkin suited me pretty well. This shirt was easy for me to make and took me all of an hour to make one night. What do we think?


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Skeleton Puzzle

To go along with our body parts theme this month, I found this skeleton at the dollar store. (I am really starting to love that place for inexpensive stuff for John!) John actually found it at the house before I could make the puzzle so while he was playing with it we pointed out the arms, head, legs, feet, chest, etc. Then a couple days later I traced the skeleton on a file folder and then cut up the skeleton. I gave John all the pieces and tried to have him put it back together on the file folder. He was pretty good at naming each body part but didn't really figure out placing them in a certain place on the folder! :) He had fun...and now we have creepy random bones around the house. :)






Don't we just use the most fancy high-tech games ever?! Don't be jealous..

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Pumpkin Patch Game Template {for older students!}

So, you know how yesterday I made up the pumpkin letters for the pumpkin patch matching game? Well, it was a modification of a game I thought of for teaching older students. I taught high school math for 8 years and this is my first year as a stay at home mom. So, my brain is still trained to think 'how could I use this in my classroom?' or 'this would a fun game to teach xyz.'. So, I made up a template for a pumpkin patch game. Teachers add in their own questions to each pumpkin (makes it quite versatile!) and post the pumpkins on the wall. Students pick a pumpkin from the 'patch' and if they answer it correctly, they get points depending on the size of the pumpkin they picked (bigger pumpkins have harder questions and are worth more points). The group who gets the most points wins! Want to check it out? Go HERE!

And yes, this is a shameless plug for myself. But, hey, it is my blog so I can do what I want! But to make up for it, how about a cute picture to look at?!





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Pumpkin Patch Game

I took the boys to a pumpkin patch today and on the way home I thought of an activity to do with my classes if I was still teaching math that deals with picking pumpkins off the board to work out problems. I figured you could use pumpkins for fall and not just Halloween. I am modifying the idea for John John! I made these pumpkins with letters on them:






Then I was thinking of how I could use them:

1.Make two copies of them. One set will be cut up and hung on the wall or maybe even outside on the fence. The other set will also be cut up and in a stack. When he draws a card from the stack, he would have to find the matching pumpkin and pick it off the wall. Would be cute if he had a little basket or wagon to put it in!

2. Make one copy, cut up, hang. Then I can just call out letters for John to find and pick.

3. Make one copy, cut up, hang up around the house and he has to go find all 26 pumpkins. Then we could practice putting them in alphabetical order.

That is all I have thought of so far but John is wanting lunch. Geez...I have to feed him AND teach him letters?!?! :)


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