Some posts from Halloweens past!

I love October and Halloween has definitely become my favorite holiday. Being so pregnant this year with baby #4 arriving exactly one week before Halloween, I am not going quite as crazy with Halloween unfortunately (no party). I figured we’d start early decorating though just so I didn’t “forget” or get too pregnant. Ethan and I got out a bunch of decorations the last week of September and for days he kept asking to put up more (I guess we got out about 1/2 to 2/3 of what we normally put up). I tried to hold him back because I am not looking forward to having to pack it all away with a newborn in tow but it was hard to say no! Anyway, I’m not sure how much new Halloween things we’ll do this year so I figured I’d share some things we have done previous years:

Halloween ghost window curtain

Bat making

Spider cookies I better do these again since they are EASY

Monster cupcakes

Our favorite Halloween book

Pumpkin bread

Unplugged Project: Planes & Sunset

At first I had no idea what we’d do for the “SKY” themed Unplugged Project this week and then I thought that the boys were so into planes since the model demo and big airshow we went to last month so we decided on paper airplanes. I downloaded some plane plans online but the standard one was the only one we ended up making (oh and one of the whirly helicopter ones too). Ethan wanted to cut out his own plane designs and made some that way also. I didn’t end up with many pictures of our project so I was VERY excited when we had a gorgeous sunset a few nights after. We actually get lots of nice sunsets in our front yard but this one was extra nice.

Unplugged Project: OLD sculpey clay

This weeks Unplugged Project is OLD and I imagine there will be a huge range of projects made with such a theme. I decided to use this as an opportunity to use up some VERY old sculpey clay. John and I used this is college and I know we haven’t bought any since but for some reason we still have a pretty huge supply of it. Ethan has been wearing this necklace that makes him look like a little surfer and so I thought the boys might like to make beads. I of course was wrong (no beads) but they did love the sculpey and made a bunch of little dinos. This kept them busy for a long time and I even left the 2 of them alone at the table for maybe 1/2 an hour after I got tired of it. Ethan (the one who actually knows how to wear a shirt) really did well with it and his dinos came out really cute. He even got the sculpey out the next day and made 4 more on his own. Ben only made 1 dino that we baked but he just had lots of fun playing with the sculpey (he made some dinos that he then “turned to fossils” and luckily he didn’t mind when I didn’t bake the remains).

Unplugged Project: Plastic Caps and Soda Bottle Terrarium

I was very excited when I read that this week’s Unplugged Project was PLASTIC because I knew I wouldn’t have to buy anything (not that I have for any of the projects so far actually) and there are so many great things to do with plastic items you would otherwise recycle or have to throw out. I mentioned in the “Metal” project post about how I save odds and ends of things that I think we could use for some kind of project. You’d be surprised at the neat caps that different products you use have, like my Ban deodorant has these see through green plastic caps that I picture the kids using to make eyes for a 3-D alien someday! I have a collection of caps from our seltzer bottles, OJ and 1/2&1/2 containers, and various other products we use and I was planning on giving them to the boys for the project this week but we didn’t get to it yet. I did get a picture of Jamie with a bath toy she loves: the cup-like caps to my Skintimate shaving cream. We also made a seltzer bottle terrarium (mostly done by me though). Jamie helped me add the dirt and plant some cilantro we grew from seeds. We’re planting the rest in a pot and will do a little experiment to see which grows better.

Although its pretty straight forward here are my bottle terrarium tips:

• leave the label on at first and use it as a guide to cut the bottle more evenly
• poke a hole in the bottle with a razor to get started but then cut it apart with a pair of scissors to get a cut thats cleaner, more straight and with edges that are less sharp
• cut some slits all around the top part so that it fits more easily into the bottom
• poke or drill some drainage holes in the bottom or else things will be way too wet

Unplugged Project: Sticky Glue Goop!

When I read that this week’s Unplugged Project was “sticky” I wish I had taken a picture of the roll of scotch tape that Jamie had gotten a hold of and turned into a big sticky tangled mess the day before! I decided to make some glue paint with the kids but they just wanted regular paint so we did that and as soon as they were done we made some goop instead (not as sticky as I would have thought but FUN, my other option was going to be homemade glue and that would have been very sticky). I had gotten a recipe online and changed it slightly, here is what we did:

First add 3/4 cup water to your bowl and then squeeze out as much glue as you can easily get from two 4 oz bottles of glue.

Stir and then add some squirts of washable paint.

In a separate bowl mix 1 tablespoon of borax and 1/4 cup water then dump this into first bowl.

Stir until a blob forms and remove blob. Then add an addition portion of the borax/water mixture and you’ll get a second blob.

This made plenty of goop for the 3 kids and I was very surprised and how long it kept them busy.

They used cookie cutters and playdoh scissors with it.

They loved it and had fun seeing how far it streched and how it broke apart if you pulled it fast. It has kept nicely in a sealed container for days of play now.

At some point Ben lost his shirt, he has that problem daily!

Unplugged Project: Metal

Well it finally worked out for us to do an Unplugged Project again. When I first saw this week was metal I was stumped but then I thought about how the boys have been so into robots lately and how I have been saving little odds and ends that looked neat instead of throwing them out. I gathered a container of parts for Ethan and set him loose with scissors and glue and a heavy piece of old mat board. He wanted some help with parts like when he wanted one of the arms to move and I had to poke some holes so he could attach whatever those brass fasteners are called. Other things used were a metallic frozen pizza thing (that you use if you cook it in the microwave), the inside gears and metal strips from my empty Advair inhalers, the metal top to the cinnamon rolls frosting container, a googly eye and an old antenna part. The red stick on jewel is supposed to be a light up eye. I was originally going to give him some foil but I decided to keep it a project that used all old junk. The only new items were the glue and the one goggly eye (even the mat board had been used on the other side and I pulled the red jewel off an old gift bag). The kids are fighting some nasty stomach thing off and on for over a week now and we’re going to head to the Dr tomorrow morning to find out if its something more serious than a virus so I just did this with Ethan today since he is currently doing okay. Ben has been in our bed throwing up and having the d-word since 5:45am! UGH!

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Unplugged Project: Eggs!

I’ll follow Piseco’s lead and post what we did early this week. For our Unplugged Project I decided to do something with Ethan that I’d done before but never with the kids: eggs dyed with onion skins. I have no foreseeable need for onions so when I was in the produce isle I took a bag and filled it with all the loose onion skins from the bins. I got a lot from the red onions but also the yellow/white skins. Next I hardboiled some eggs with my FAVORITE method, my Oster egg cooker (also does poached eggs). This is the only way I’ve found always comes out perfect for me with nice easily peelable eggs. BUT then I realized that to do the onion skin method I needed to BOIL the eggs wrapped in the onion skins (it was a while ago when I last made these eggs).

John was conveniently throwing out a holey pair of socks so I cut those to wrap up the eggs covered in onion skins. Ethan and I put some ivy leaves on some of the eggs before covering with the onion skins. I used Jamie’s hair elastics to hold them closed, but most of them came undone when they got boiled. Luckily they still came out pretty good but its hard to see the ivy leaves. I do remember them coming out better when I’d made them as a kid. This was fun and there are other natural ways to dye eggs, but I’m really looking forward to the bright colors we’ll do tonight. I bought 5 dozen eggs to color this Easter and we will use the traditional egg color kit with the kids for the rest! It makes me so excited to think of when my future chickens start laying eggs. Next Easter I’ll have some wonderful blue/green eggs ready made from my birds!

Tutu Time

I made my first homemade tutu for Jamie this week. Its hard to get a good look at it in these pictures but its not bad. I’m going to buy some more supplies and try out some changes to the next one I make (I’d like it more dense). Once I get the hang of it I’ll have to do a post with instructions and pictures where she is standing so you can really see it.

Unplugged Project: Shiny

This weeks Unplugged Project had REM’s Shiny Happy People going through my head every time I thought about what we might do (it wasn’t so helpful really). I also kept thinking of the book Dazzle The Dinosaur so I almost did something related to that but when I looked through my saved junk I thought necklaces and bracelets might be fun. I gave the kids shiny pipe cleaners, elastic, bells and ribbons. I showed them how to wrap the pipe cleaners around a pencil to so that they could string them on their elastic. It turns out all our shiny stuff was too itchy to wear so Ethan got Lion Cub and Ben got Cattie and now their friends have shiny, jingly necklaces. Jamie didn’t seem to mind hers being itchy so she has a bracelet to shake (she was too sad looking after a morning of throwing up and the D word so I didn’t include her picture this time).

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