Happy Halloween!

 

Halloween is in full swing over here. Liam took his first Kindergarten field trip to the pumpkin patch last week where he experienced a hay ride, fed some goats, picked a pumpkin and learned a little bit along the way. He had a great time but I'm pretty sure the highlight of the day was his very first ride on a school bus.

 

A couple days later we had a fun family day at our community's Fall Carnival. The kids rode ponies, jumped in bounce houses, played carnival games and won prizes. Liam actually won a ring toss game and picked a big Pluto stuffed animal for his little sister. Is he adorable or is he adorable?

 

They got balloon animals and Brygit got her face painted. Liam loathes the idea of getting his face painted and he was very concerned that Brygit was even getting it done. He fretted over whether it would come off in the bath and we had to assure HIM repeatedly while Brygit sat perfectly still and got her entire face painted like Hello Kitty.

 

We have since carved pumpkins in our front yard and took a walk through our neighborhood to check out a few houses that like to go all out for Halloween.

 

 

Liam had to wear his shirt backwards to school for a Red Ribbon Week event. Thought I should explain.

 

Tomorrow holds way too many fun Halloween plans. Here's hoping I survive it all and the kids make it to bedtime without a sugar crash.

 

Back Yard Sugar Cookies

We have made Halloween sugar cookies with the kids twice this month already. We took a few pointers from our messy, frustrating Christmas cookie experiences and moved the task to the back yard this time around. This way, we were able to let the kids do all the egg cracking, flour eating and dough rolling their little hearts desired. Then we followed it up with a bath before frosting and decorating. 

Then we sampled them all with a side of milk in a pumpkin cup.

The Color Black and Nocturnal Animals

The past couple of weeks I have been working with Brygit on the color Black and on learning a bit about nocturnal animals. She made this cute black cat and took pictures of black items she found around the house for her color book. 

Then we talked about nocturnal animals and did this "night creature" craft with google eyes and sticks we collected from outside.  I also talked to her about which animals are nocturnal. I drew some pictures that are too embarrassing to post and she colored them.

Then today she made this bat craft. The stars were technically supposed to be in the sky to symbolize night but she insisted they needed to go on the "starry bat." Oh, and he needed google eyes.

Sea World Halloween

Paul works halloween night this year so he will miss out on taking the kids around the neighborhood in their costumes. We have a few festive plans throughout the month to make up for it. The first one was a trip to sea world for their "halloween spooktacular." We surprised the kids over the weekend and they seriously never even asked where we were going until we got to temecula. They were very excited and they were, magically, on their best behavior. They got to see animals, experience some up close encounters, watched some fun, halloween themed shows, and stopped at trick or treat stations along the way.

I know sea world doesn't compare to disneyland but having been to Halloween parties at both parks I have to say that I, personally, had more fun at sea world than I did at disneyland and, believe it or not, I think it was more kid friendly. For starters it's during the day and not in the middle of the night. It wasn't dark and the music wasn't super loud. We went on a Sunday and it wasn't horribly crowded. AND, the Halloween party is included with park admission meaning it's FREE to passholders. It doesn't get any better than that.

It's Fall!

Temperatures have officially dropped below 100 degrees so I thinks it's safe to say California's fall is here. We spent our evening yesterday at Liam's fall festival for his school. The kids ate way too much sugar, got lost a couple of times, had a ton of fun and made it to the bottom of our stairs at home before both completely melting down. Liam slept in until 7:30 which is a miracle in this house and Brygit continued her meltdown throughout the day today. The plan is to put them both to bed early and head to Sea World for some Trick or Treating first thing in the morning. I can't wait to kick this season off and I am hopeful that we will be graced with some pleasant attitudes along the way!

 

The Color Orange

Now that I have more one on one time with Brygit, I have the opportunity to work with her on learning colors and shapes and whatnot. I looked into doing a preschool curriculum online with her and I found some pretty amazing (and free!) stuff on Pinterest but I decided to take it a bit slower and just personalize some fun learning activities with her. This week, we have focused on the color orange. I am planning on doing orange and black with her this month because, well, obviously it's October. We start each day by listening to the "Orange Song" on Youtube then we do a little orange activity. Yesterday we hunted around the house for orange objects and I helped Brygit take a picture of each one (a little cell phone photography lesson never hurt either). We printed her pictures out and glued them on a piece of paper to be put in a color book we will eventually be making.

Today we did a little cutting. 

And tearing.

And we glued the scraps onto a pumpkin shape.

Oh, and we played with these.

I love how Brygit gets so excited about doing things together and making things like brother gets to do at school. And I hope she's learning a little too.