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I know it’s the day after Halloween but I wanted to get a few more posts in to help give you ideas for next Halloween. Throughout October, I’ve been trying to spice up my daughter’s school lunch since both she and I are getting bored with her lunches. She only eats two kinds of sandwiches, so we get a little limited. I was looking for ways to add a joke or put in some unusual foods to add an element of fun and surprise. Here are some of my ideas and others I found online to make a child’s school lunch more special around Halloween.
Have fun with your Halloween cookie cutters by cutting out sandwiches or even pieces of cheese. I used a pumpkin and skeleton cookie cutter to make these PB & J sandwiches for my daughter. The strawberry jelly makes the eyes look creepy. My daughter, who is 9 years old, loved them!
I even cut her sandwich diagonally and added candy corn eyes and tooth to make a goofy looking monster sandwich. Lame, I admit, but she liked it.
Finally, Jill over at Meet the Dubiens Blog always has some great lunch idea using bento picks and cookie cutters. She inspired me to buy some Holiday shaped mini cookie cutters so I can get creative with lunches in November and December.
What do you do to spice up your kids’ school lunches? I need more inspiration!
Have you heard of the Pumpkin Fairy? Or, the Switch Witch? If you want to discourage your kids from eating all of the unhealthy candy they collect on Halloween night, you might want to start a new family tradition and have the Pumpkin Fairy take their candy in exchange for little toys, trinkets, or other fun stuff.
Last year, my daughter was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes so she wasn’t really looking forward to trick or treating until she heard about the Pumpkin Fairy. Why go collect all of that candy if your Mom won’t let you eat most of it, right? Well, we happened to have a diabetes check-up visit before Halloween and her doctor and nurses told her about how the pumpkin fairy visits kids who can’t or don’t want to eat all of their Halloween candy. According to the story, if you leave your candy out for the pumpkin fairy on Halloween night, she will take it and exchange it for something else – money, little toys, etc.
Well, this was right up my daughter’s imaginative alley so she decided to create a fairy house out of a pumpkin, so the pumpkin fairy would have someplace to sleep on Halloween night. She drew a picture of what the house should look like. As you can see from the photo of the pumpkin house, we didn’t come that close to the drawing. Oh well! My daughter and I had a blast making it together.
You can see the bed and “couch” inside the fairy house that we made out of extra pumpkin pieces. We used a leaf for a blanket. Although not a natural substance, we added a battery tea light to give her some light.
She felt that the pumpkin fairy wouldn’t be traveling alone (who would on Halloween night?) so she left pet treats in the fairy house for the fairy’s two pets, you know, the flying jack o’ lanterns. (I told her they should be flying monkeys but she didn’t like my suggestion.) She wrote a letter to the Pumpkin Fairy about how she had diabetes and wanted to trade in her candy, in case the fairy didn’t understand her rationale for a trade.
Then we went trick or treating in the cold for hours to collect enough “booty” worth trading. Even when it was cold and dark and my son, who is older, had called it quits on trick or treating, my daughter kept going because she wanted A LOT of candy to trade in for a better exchange.
The next morning she was thrilled that the candy was gone. The fairy left her a note and 2 art kits. She was most excited that the fairy’s pets, Spooky and Squash, ate the treats. She felt that building the fairy a house and providing her pets with treats, put her over the edge to get a better exchange. She’s an enterprising young gal and she’s already planning for next year.
Did the pumpkin fairy come to your house? What other Fairies visit your house to provide a fun solution to a parenting challenge?
Halloween night can’t come soon enough for my kids. They are ready to turn into gremlins, goblins, and ghosts and start raking in the candy. I’ll be excited as soon as I have their costumes done. Nothing like cutting it close to the wire with a homemade costume. Whew!
To make sure Halloween night is fun for your kids, everyone needs to stay safe by following some rules. Here are some helpful tips to make sure your kids stay safe and have fun trick or treating.
Adult Participation Required. Walk with your kids if you don’t think they’re old enough to trick-or-treat on their own. There is no “right” age to let your kids trick or treat alone. I’ve heard anywhere from 8 – 12 years old as the magic number. But it really depends on your child, the neighborhood, and how far they will be walking. If you’re nervous about it, go with them. Better yet, make it a party and trick or treat with your neighbors. This way the older kids won’t feel like you’re “watching” them if you all go in a big group.
Safety in numbers. If they’re old enough to trick-or-treat without an adult, tell your kids to stay in a group. Give your oldest child a cell phone so you can call or text to find out where they are. If you really want to keep an eye on them, you can track your little gremlins with the Trick or Tracker 2.0 App for your smartphone. (more…)
Looking to start a new family tradition this year? Celebrate the Mexican Holiday Day of the Dead. Our family really looks forward to el Dia de los Muertos each year. It has become one of our favorite family traditions because it is all about remembering and celebrating our loved ones who have passed away. On November 1st, we spend the day decorating, cooking, and in the evening we host a special dinner where we laugh and share our favorite memories of those we miss.
To help share the tradition with your family, here are some ideas on how to celebrate Day of the Dead with your kids and make it fun.
Set up an altar.
This “altar” or ofrenda is not for worshipping, it’s just a fun, colorful reminder of the people you miss. Usually Day of the Dead altars have 3 tiers, which have some significance that you can read about here if you are going for accuracy, but set it up however you want.
We like to include marigolds (the traditional flower of Day of the Dead), candles, skull candy (calaveras), papel picado tissue paper scenes, and some Day of the Dead folk artwork that we’ve collected. The National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago has a great gift shop to buy little trinkets and figures for decorating. La Fuente imports and MexicanSugarSkulls.com sells quite a few items online, as well.
The most important element is to include on the altar are photos of your loved ones – we even include our pets. Then add objects that represent what they loved or reminds you of them. We’ve included some of Grandpa’s favorite food, a can of his favorite beer, and a blanket Grandma made of his old shirts. We include some cat toys for our deceased pets, too. Then you can decorate with Day of the Dead inspired folk art or crafts.
There are some amazing designers out there who are nice enough to share some of their work with us non-creative types for FREE. (Actually I consider myself very creative, but I just can’t draw!) Here are a few of my favorite Free Halloween Party Printables to help make your Halloween parties and treats so much more impressive this year. Thank you ladies for sharing and definitely cruise their sites for other party decorating ideas.
I always envied families that created a theme for their Halloween costumes each year. We’ve only been able to do it once. My kids have VERY STRONG ideas about what they want to be each year for trick or treat. My husband and I always wanted to do a Star Wars theme – He’d be Han Solo, I’d be Princess Leia, my son could be Darth Vader, my daughter would be Princess Amadala and our furry dog would be Chewy. The dog already makes that weird Wookie sound. We couldn’t get the kids to go for it.
However, one year we did pull off a Family Themed Halloween Costume Idea and it was a blast. We went with a Frankenstein theme – my husband was a Mad Scientist or Dr. Frankenstein. I was supposed to be the lab assistant (think Teri Garr from Young Frankenstein) and my son would be Igor. However, he refused to wear the hump and the Marty Feldman-esque eye. So, I was Igor, my son was Frankenstein, and my daughter was a spooky, black lab cat. It was so fun to have us all trick or treat together in matching costumes. If you can convince everyone in your family to go with a theme, it’s a lot of fun and makes for great family photos. Here are some family costume ideas to get you inspired. (Some of these costumes you can buy online, for others you might need to be creative and make them yourself.) (more…)
One of the cutest games I’ve seen lately for a classroom Halloween party or any kids Halloween party is Pumpkin Bowling. I’ve come across some incredibly clever ideas from other Mom blogs on how to make Halloween themed bowling pins. Here’s a round-up of some of my favorites. Some are easier than others, but all look like an incredible amount of fun for the kids.
Jeanetics.com created a super-cute and super-easy version of Pumpkin bowling with toilet paper rolls.
If you haven’t been Boo’d or Boo’d someone else, you are missing out! Last year, I was introduced to the Boo Halloween tradition when one of our neighbors left a basket full of Halloween treats and a Boo poem at our door. I had read about this fun new activitiy online and wrote a post on it, although I had never done it. That very same day, one of our neighbors Boo’d us. Spooky but cool! So, if you’ve never heard of Boo-ing and want to start the tradition in your neighborhood (or even your office), here’s how to get started.
What is Halloween Boo-ing?
Booing someone is a fun way to kick start the Halloween spirit and interact with friends and neighbors. The idea behind the Boo is that you gift a basket of Halloween treats for a neighbor and then they do the same for another neighbor. Hopefully it will spread around the neighborhood so that everyone gets a basket. You need to get started by the middle of October so everyone has time to participate. I’m sure Boo-ing will be new to some people so to keep the chain going, Boo one or two neighbors to start or when you reciprocate.
How to Boo a Neighbor
1. Have the kids help you put together your Boo Basket filled with Halloween treats.
4. Pick a neighbor to Boo, leave the basket on their doorstep, ring their doorbell, and run. (The kids LOVE this part.)
5. Once you have been Boo’d, make sure you put your sign on the door to let all of your neighbors know, so you don’t get hit multiple times.
If you have a fun neighborhood and everyone participates, you’ll see Boo signs on all the doors in the neighborhood!
What to Put in the Boo Basket?
Basically, anything goes. Usually, the goodie basket will include some Halloween treats for the kids or the whole family, a “We’ve Been Boo’d” sign, as well as a mysterious note or Boo poem. The note or Boo poem should explain the tradition of Boo-ing and how the Boo “victim” now needs to reciprocate and Boo someone else. Don’t panic, you don’t have to write a poem from scratch unless you want to. Download these super cute Boo Poems that we designed by very talented people.
This year I want to be more creative with our Boo baskets. Last year, all we did was candy and I could tell that everyone was sick of candy before we even went trick or treating. You can only handle so many POUNDS of candy before your body rebels. (Read these ideas on what to do with your leftover Halloween candy this year.) I’ve seen suggestions for small toys for kids, Halloween hand towels, a Halloween decorating magazine for Mom, an inexpensive Halloween decoration or mug, and Halloween drawings that the kids have done.
Don’t wait for someone else to begin the Boo! Get your neighborhood started and Boo someone this weekend. Read up on these other Halloween family traditions for even more fun.
There have been so many cool Halloween treat recipes floating around the Internet that I just had to do a round-up post of some of my favorites. I’m hoping we get around to making each and every one of these in the next two weeks. I’m inspired by these Ghosts, Vampires, and Mummies, oh my! I may need to throw a party so someone will help me eat all of this.
Chocolate Covered Peep Pops
These cute and relatively easy Chocolate Covered Peep Pops from LovefromtheOven.com look awesome. This would be the perfect Halloween party treat. I’m thinking of making them for my daughter’s school party.
Vampire Bite Cookies
If you are looking for something a little spooky instead of cute, try these Vampire Bite Cookies from BrightIdeas.com.
Boo-tiful Ghost Cake
This ghost cake from the I am Baker blog looks amazing! It looks a little tricky to make, but the visual impact is so cool, I have to try it or find a way to modify it to look similar. The shine on the chocolate drizzle is what makes it look so cool.
Halloween Ghost Cake
This cake from HowSheDoesIt.com is just as cute and might be a little easier to make.
Mummy Cookie Tray
The Hostess with the Mostess Blog highlighted some very creative Mummy inspired recipes and decorations last year. I love her Mummy Cookie Tray.
If you have a Halloween treat recipes you’d like to share, I’d love to feature it on the blog. Just shoot me an email at sue (at) chocolatecakeclub.com.
We love to read before bedtime and Halloween is one of our favorite seasons. Bedtime storytime is one my favorite time of the day – snuggling with the kids on the bed on a crisp Fall night and reading a story that makes us smile or giggle or shiver. Here are our favorite books to read to get ready and excited for Halloween:
2. Inside a House That Is Haunted by Alyssa Satin Capucilli. This is a very funny story that uses Rebuses so the kids get to help “read” the story by saying the right work when they see each picture. The illustrations by Tedd Arnold are so cute. I think we read it every night for two weeks straight.
Once they learned to read they loved:
3. Halloween, Jerry Seinfeld. Hands down, my kids favorite book. Whether I read it or we listen to Jerry read it on the CD, they laugh and laugh.
5. Winnie the Witch by Valerie Thomas and Korky Paul. The stories aren’t about Halloween per se but my kids love reading about Winnie and her cat and the illustrations are too funny. You need to really scan the pages to see all of the little creatures and details.
6. Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson. This is a fun rhyming book about a witch who tries to find room on her broom for all of her Halloween friends. It’s a very cute read-aloud book. My kids like to take turns reading the book out loud to me.
7. Zen Ghosts by Jon Muth. Stillwater the Panda is back with a surprise for his young friends. A mysterious stranger tells the kids a wonderful and spooky story, with a moral, of course. We love the Zen books!
8. Goodnight Goon by Michael Rex. This is a quick read by my kids think the parody of Goodnight Moon is pretty funny. The illustrations are super cute.
Now that I have a tween in the house, he likes:
9. Hank Zipzer: My Dog’s a Scaredy-Cat: A Halloween Tail by Henry Winkler & Lin Oliver. Both of my kids love the Hank Zipzer series about a boy with ADHD who runs into all kinds of challenges because he can’t focus or study well in school. We usually listen to these books on long car trips because Henry Winkler, aka the Fonz, narrates his stories. In this book, Hank decides to create the scariest haunted house ever to scare the school bully but ends up scaring his weiner dog Cheerio.
10. The Zombie Chasers by John Kloepfer. There’s a zombie attack and Zack and his friends have to stop these monsters and save the world, before his Mom finds out. The book is silly and the illustrations are gross and icky, yet funny.
What are your favorite Halloween books? I’d love to discover some new favorites.
Note: Unless you buy the Just a Minute book from our sister company ChocolateCakeClub.com, we don’t make any money on these recommendations. We love these books and I just gave you the links to buy the books to make life a little easier for you.
The candy is coming, the candy is coming! I dread the mountains of candy that comes home with the kids after they trick or treat their hearts out Halloween night. After a few hours, everyone in the house is bored with it. Even the dog stops begging. But we have tons of it and it seems like such a waste to throw it out.
After not knowing what to do with all of the leftover Halloween candy last year, I wrote a post for Patch.com on What to Do with Your Kids Leftover Halloween Candy. Check out the ideas on how to repurpose or donate your extra candy.
How do you get the kids to cut back on devouring their Halloween haul? Any other ideas on what to do with the leftovers or where to donate them?
My daughter and I were surfing online to find some cute yet easy Halloween craft ideas to make this weekend. We wanted to share some of the coolest ones we found. Which one is your favorite?
Finally, check out the Halloween Tootsie Pop Ghosts my daughter and I made last year as party favors. They would look so cute stuck in a Halloween wreath.
What are your favorite Halloween crafts to make with the kids? Feel free to add a link to your idea.
Thinking about hosting a kids Halloween party this year? We’ve put together some fun, easy and inexpensive ideas to help you serve up some spooky Halloween fun.
HALLOWEEN PARTY INVITATIONS
There are certainly a variety of cute Halloween party invitations out there, both paper versions and as e-vites. However, sometimes sending a homemade invitation makes all the difference and creates a great first impression for the festivities. Your invitations can be as simple as taking a photo of the kids from last Halloween and writing the party details on the back.
There are so many ways to decorate for Halloween, it’s mind boggling. I like to use everyday objects in the house and “spookify” them in some way. For example, drape cobwebs over your picture frames. Wrap muslin strips around a candle and add googly eyes to make it look like a mummy face. Cut a black mask out of construction paper and tape it to your large candles.
Our favorite easy Halloween decoration is to make Scarrots. Read my Easy Halloween Party Decorations post to find out how to make scarrots.
PARTY GAMES & ENTERTAINMENT
Mummy Wrap Limbo – You’ve all played Mummy Wrap where one kid wraps another up in toilet paper to look like a Mummy. Take it a step further and make them do the limbo. Whoever breaks their toilet paper wrapping is out.
Freeze Dance – Get some spooky Monster Mash music and have the kids play freeze dance in their costumes. Grab your video camera! Play the music and when you stop, have the kids freeze. The last one moving is “out” and gets to run the music next.
Halloween Storytime – Especially if you have little kids at the party it’s nice to calm them down for a few minutes by reading them a Halloween story. Here are some of my family’s picks for Best Halloween Books for Kids.
Halloween Cupcakes – The kids and I made some fun Halloween cupcakes last year. Check out the instructions to make Jack Skellington, Owl, and Spiderweb cupcakes.
Halloween Bento Boxes – While these fun ideas from AnotherLunch.com were to create a Halloween Themed Bento Box Lunch for your kids, you could easily use these creative ideas for a Halloween party and give each child their own bento box or have the food out on larger plates for them to take. It would still be super cute!
Beefy Pumpkin Tostadas – If you want to serve more substantial food for the party, try this recipe for easy Beefy, Cheesy Pumpkin Tostadas.
Ghost Pretzels – These White Chocolate Ghost Pretzel snacks are so easy to make that the kids could do it as an activity at the party or make a bunch to take to your child’s school Halloween party.
Here’s photos of some otherHalloween cakes for more inspiration.
PARTY FAVORS
A Halloween bag full of candy is certainly fun as a party favor but why not get the kids to help make Ghost Tootsie Pops for your party favors? It’s super easy. You’ll find more ideas for party favors there as well.
Got any great party ideas you’d like to share? I’d love to hear about them, so leave a comment with your tips! Have a great party!
My daughter was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes this year so she wasn’t really looking forward to all of the Halloween candy, until she heard about the pumpkin fairy. We happened to be in the doctor’s office before Halloween and her doctor and nurses told her about how the pumpkin fairy visits kids who can’t or don’t want to eat all of their Halloween candy. According to the story, if you leave your candy out for the pumpkin fairy on Halloween night, she will take it and exchange it for something else – money, little toys, etc.
Well, this was right up my daughter’s imaginative alley so she decided to create a fairy house out of a pumpkin, so the pumpkin fairy would have someplace to sleep on Halloween night. She drew a picture of what the house should look like. As you can see from the final, we didn’t come that close. Oh well!
You can see the bed and “couch” inside the fairy house that we made out of extra pumpkin pieces. We used a leaf for a blanket. Although not a natural substance, we added a battery tea light to give her some light.
She felt that the pumpkin fairy wouldn’t be traveling alone (who would on Halloween night?) so she left pet treats in the fairy house for the fairy’s two pets, you know, the flying jack o’ lanterns. (I told her they should be flying monkeys but she didn’t like my suggestion.) She wrote the fairy about how she had diabetes and wanted to trade in her candy, in case the fairy didn’t understand her rationale for a trade.
Then we went trick or treating in the cold for hours to collect enough “booty” worth trading.
The next morning she was thrilled that the candy was gone. The fairy left her a note and 2 art kits. She was most excited that the fairy’s pets, Spooky and Squash, ate the treats. She felt that building the fairy a house and providing her pets with treats, put her over the edge to get a better exchange. She’s an enterprising young gal and she’s already planning for next year.
Did the pumpkin fairy come to your house? What other Fairies visit your house to provide a community service?
It Dia de los Muertos or Day of the Dead today. It’s a wonderful Holiday that reminds us to remember and cherish the memories of those we have lost. We built our family’s Day of the Dead shrine and tonight at dinner we will have fun talking about what we like most and miss most about our family, pets and friends who are no longer with us.
How cool is this! I just published a post earlier today about Halloween Family Traditions and I mentioned that I had seen people online talking about the tradition of Getting Booed, but I had never heard of it. Well, I just came home and saw that we were Booed! (So, now I know that someone other than my Mother reads the blog.)
Yeah! Some incredibly nice friend or neighbor left us a Halloween bucket full of candy and an inflatable black cat which my daughter has now adopted and named Meiu. (“Say it with a French accent, Mom.”)
OK, we’re ready to carry on this tradition. I’m off to create the Boo basket we’re going to give and print our Boo signs.
Halloween is one of my favorite times of the year. What’s not to love about fun, treats, costumes, parties, and spooky chills. We have a few family traditions we do every year and I’ve seen a few more online that I would love to adopt. Read on and plan some fun for this week.
1. Decorations. If you haven’t decorated the house yet for Halloween – get on it! One of my favorite parts about trick or treating is seeing how everyone spooks out their house. I love the creativity. Whether you prefer fall elegant to grotesque to friendly ghosts and monsters, let’s see your Halloween spirit.
2. It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. Watch it. Love it. Need I say more? It’s on this Thursday night on ABC at 7 p.m. CST. (Scared Shrekless is on at the same time on NBC. I haven’t seen it so can’t recommend it, but I’m going to DVR it.)
3. The Nightmare Before Christmas. I am a huge Jack Skellington fan. The kids still get a little creeped out by this movie so it’s a tradition for my hubbie and I to curl up on the couch and get our annual movie fix. Not all family traditions need to involve the kids. (We made Jack Skellington Cupcakes this year. See how.)
4. Read Halloween Stories before Bedtime. We love to read Halloween stories in anticipation of the big day. Read my post on the Best Halloween Books for Kids (as voted by my kids). I just read about how DesignMom.com and her family have a tradition of reading Halloween stories by candle light. I love it! We’re going to read by the flickering flames tonight.
5. Neighborhood Halloween Procession. Our neighborhood trick or treats together which makes if more fun for kids and parents alike. We’ve got some wagons to pull the younger ones who get tired. We’ve also got some thermos’ with hot chocolate if it’s cold.
6. Boo Your Neighbors. Now, I have never heard of this tradition but I saw a post on it the other day and it sounded pretty cool so I thought I would share. (I’m probably the only one who hasn’t so don’t laugh at me.) Basically, you make up a goodie bag for a friend or neighbor. You then leave the goodie bag at their house with a poem and sign that they have been “Booed.” The neighbor then is supposed to reciprocate and “Boo” someone else. This post explains it pretty well. You can download some very cool Boo signs and instructions for free at TomKat Studios.
7. Day of the Dead Dinner. This is the day after Halloween but every year we celebrate Dia de los Muertos in our house honoring and remembering our loved ones who have passed on. We build a shrine in our house where we display photos of the people and pets we want to remember. To celebrate at dinner, we usually make one of Grandpa Kirchner’s favorite meals and as a family we talk about our favorite memories of Grandpa and our pets who have died. It’s a nice way to keep memories alive and share stories about what we remember and what we liked best about those we miss.
What Halloween traditions do you enjoy with your family?
This past weekend for our Halloween fun activity, we decorated cupcakes. I had seen so many incredibly cool cupcake designs on other sites that I wanted to see if we could recreate them. The goal was to make them for the kids’ school Halloween parties this Friday, but guess what? They’re gone already.
There are a million cupcake recipes out there to make the cupcakes from scratch (go ahead, Google Cupcake recipes and prepare to be overwhelmed) but we made life a little easier and just chocolate cupcakes from a mix. We were in the mood to decorate, not bake. So, how did we do?
Jack Skellington Cupcakes
I love the movie Nightmare Before Christmas so when I saw these Jack Skellington cupcakes on the Disney Family.com site, I started to drool. I thought it was easy to do and the instructions were very helpful however, my daughter got mad because she couldn’t get the face to come out right. You need fairly good icing control. Her cupcakes looked like a cool ghoul, but not exactly like Jack.
Spooky Owl Cupcakes
Owls are the “it” animal this year, as I said in my post Owls are Hot! Hoo Hoo Knew? So, my daughter, who was a big fan of Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole wanted to make these cupcakes. You can find slightly different versions of these owl cupcakes on a variety of different sites (as I said, owls are hot) but we chose this photo at TheCupcakeBlog.com as inspiration.
We used, chocolate frosting, Oreos, white frosting and M&Ms. These cupcakes were super easy and my kids could put them together like pros. We frosted the cupcake. Split open Oreo cookies for the eyes and “ears.” Once the Oreos are split, take the piece without the white center and break them into “ear” shapes. Then put M&Ms on for eyeballs and an M&M turned sideways for the beak.
The only two issues we had were that the Oreos were hard to break open. I remember as a kid you could just twist them apart so I don’t know what’s in these cookies now but the centers are like super glue. These needed to be pried open with a knife or they would break in pieces. Also, when we did get them to break open cleanly, the white center part had black crumbs all over it from the other side of the cookie. It didn’t look like a nice, clean, white eyeball. So we used white frosting on the inside of the cookies which actually made it easier for the M&M eyeballs to stick. All in all, a great recipe for the kids.
Spider Web Cupcakes
Our inspiration for these easy spider web cupcakes came from Bakerella.com. We did it in reverse with white frosting on the cupcake and a black web. We also used M&Ms for the spider since we had them out anyway.
Finally, we just got out our collection of sprinkles, almond slivers, and other toppings to create our own ideas. Creating bats, cats, tarantulas, and werewolves was a pretty fun afternoon with the family.
Have you made any cool Halloween cupcakes that you’d like to share? Send me a link to your photos and I’ll post them on the blog.
We love to read before bedtime. It’s my favorite time of the day – snuggling with the kids on the bed and reading a story that makes us smile or giggle. Here are the Kirchner Kids’ favorite books to read in anticipation of Halloween:
1. Halloween, Jerry Seinfeld. Hands down, my kids favorite book. Whether I read it or we listen to Jerry read it on the CD, they laugh and laugh.
3. Winnie the Witch by Valerie Thomas and Korky Paul. The stories aren’t about Halloween per se but my kids love reading about Winnie and her cat and the illustrations are too funny. You need to really scan the pages to see all of the little creatures and details.
5. Inside a House That Is Haunted by Alyssa Satin Capucilli. This is a very funny story that uses Rebuses so the kids get to help “read” the story by saying the right work when they see each picture. The illustrations by Tedd Arnold are so cute. I think we read it every night for two weeks straight.
What are your favorite Halloween books? I’d love to discover some new favorites.
By the way, unless you buy the Just a Minute book from us, we don’t make any money on these recommendations. We give you the links to buy the books to make life easier for you.
It’s the weekend before Halloween and all through the house, there wasn’t enough spookiness, not even to scare a mouse. So what are you waiting for …
You’ve still got time to have some Halloween-themed fun with the kids this weekend. Here are 6 ideas to get your fun on.
1. Corn Maze – I never really got into corn mazes until I found out you could do them in the dark. With flashlights! Why didn’t anyone tell me this sooner!?! I wouldn’t recommend that you take toddlers to the corn maze at night but for older kids (and some weird adults like myself), this is a blast. If you are in a group of 4 or more, split into teams. Give each team a flashlight and a compass and see who can get out of the maze first. Look online to find the largest corn maze in your area and make it a night.
2. Pumpkin Farm – Pumpkin Farms are fun for the kids but they are priceless to adults for the photo ops. There is nothing better than photos of your kids standing amidst a field of orange pumpkins. Go now. Don’t forget the cider donuts.
3. Halloween Baking – I have seen so many cute Halloween treat ideas online that I am paralyzed by what to tackle first. We are going to tackle cupcakes this weekend but I am totally into Bakerella’s Halloween Cake Pops. I have to make these Spider Brownie Bites. But wait, look at these Spooky Sweet Pops. Ah! I can’t decide. (BTW, Bakerella has a new Cake Pops cookbook out. I’m going to get it this weekend, because I need more food porn.)
4. Organize a Neighborhood Trick or Treat Procession – My neighborhood rocks. We do such fun things together. When we moved into our first house, the neighbors who lived behind us showed us the fun of a Trick or Treat Procession. You get a bunch of friends and neighbors and go trick or treating together. What was cool about their procession was that they had wagons full of snacks and hot chocolate, wagons to pull the young ones who get tired after 3 blocks, dogs on leashes in costumes, and plenty of cameras and video cameras to capture the fun. While trick or treating as a family is fun … why not multiply that by inviting 3 or 4 families? Now, the adults can have a blast walking around too.
5. Costume Frenzy. You’ve got the school Halloween parties coming up on Friday so this is your weekend to finish the kids’ costumes. Whether you are buying or making, get it all done this weekend so you aren’t panicking at the last minute. If making, have fun working together on the construction. We’re making a gingerbread and gladiator costume this weekend. (For even more fun, go back and look at past Halloween costume pictures for some nostalgia and big laughs.)
6. Day of the Dead - If you live in a town with a large hispanic population, go online and see if there are any Day of the Dead or Dia de los Muertos exhibits to check out. Chicago’s National Museum of Mexican Art hosts the largest Day of the Dead exhibit in the country. It’s AWESOME! We go every year to get inspired to make our Day of the Dead shrine even cooler. Never heard of Day of the Dead? Read why I love it and think it is a great Holiday to share with kids.
It was a dark and spooky night in the middle of a cornfield in Missouri ….
Actually it was sunny and lovely on a recent trip to Iowa to visit family. We made a short trip to Missouri for a family reunion and one the way back, we decided to visit the Zion Cemetery where the original Kirchner family who came over from Germany was buried. After several wrong turns and stops to ask for directions, we found the cemetery in the middle of nowhere in the cornfields.
Lo and behold, what do we see but a tombstone for Charles and Susie Kirchner. FREAKY!!!!!!! We were trying not to smile because you know, no one smiled in the 1800s. They were always so serious in photos. While I would rather be caught dead than called Susie, it’s still a pretty spooky encounter, don’t you think?
I was in a pancake mood last weekend so the kids and I decided to see if we could make Halloween pancakes. We didn’t have any Halloween pancake molds (I know Willams Sonoma is selling some) but we were able to “draw” them freehand with our pancake batter pen we purchased from WS.
We added black food coloring to half of the batter to use for bats and cats. We then used the white batter for ghosts, skulls and tombstones.
Sprinkles, almond slivers, and cinnamon hearts helped us be more creative. Although cute, we just used Bisquick pancake batter and they were pretty dry and boring tasting.
(The Gruyere and canadian bacon scrambled eggs my husband made were pretty darn tasty though.)
I was on ABC 7 Chicago news this morning talking about fun, easy and inexpensive ideas for planning a Kids Halloween Party. Check out the video segment so you can see the ideas in action.
My kids had a blast helping me make the scarrots, pretzel log ghosts and ghost pops so that I could show them on air. You can see a printed version of my Halloween Party ideas on the ABC Chicago 7 site or click here to see all of my Halloween Family Fun ideas.
Are you planning a Halloween party for the kids this year?
Looking for some party favor ideas for your upcoming Kids Halloween Party? Well, in addition to candy, candy and more candy there’s always small toys, spider rings, bubble jars, glow sticks, erasers, and stickers. You can even find books or coloring books at the Discount stores for $1.00. What else can you make and what do you put these fun items in?
As a unique party favor, create some Lollipop Ghosts. Take 2 or 3 Kleenex tissues and place them over the top of a Tootsie Pop. Cinch the Kleenex sheets at the bottom of the lollipop and tie with a Halloween ribbon or yarn. Have the kids help you draw faces on these “ghosts on a stick” with markers. Place all of the candy ghosts in a cup for a nice decorative effect.
Get some brown paper bags and have the kids help you decorate them as goody bags. Use crayons, markers, or Halloween stamps to create some cute decorations.
You can create Halloween hobo bags. Take Halloween fabric and cut 12 x 12 inch squares. Place your goody bag items in the center, bring the four corners up and twist. Tie the bag at the center of the twist with black yarn, Halloween ribbon or raffia. Makes a very cute and very easy gift bag. If your items are bigger, cut a larger square.
Over at ChocolateCakeClub.com we sell some very cute and sturdy felt Halloween treat bags.
We hope we have inspired you to start planning your Halloween party. Scare up some Family Fun! Don’t forget to read all of our Halloween party ideas on:
I’m always looking for ideas on how to make lunch more fun for my daughter. She has Type 1 diabetes so we need to not only control her carb intake but also know exactly how many carbs she’s eating. It’s just easier and healthier to bring lunch every day. But as you know, it can be challenging to come up with something new to send in her lunch box. And since she has to deal with shots every time she eats, I look for ways to make her day a little more fun.
I love, Love, LOVE this spooky Halloween Bento Lunch box menu that I found over at the Another Lunch blog. Melissa, the site author, has put together some super cute Halloween lunch and snack ideas. Here are 3 of my favorites:
Head on over to Melissa’s site to see all of her super cute and creative creations and get the instructions for how to make these Halloween lunches and snacks.
You can certainly buy a ton of Halloween decorations at the various Party and Discount stores but using a little creativity to dress up your existing home decor to have a Halloween flair can be the most fun of all.
If you are throwing this party for toddlers and young kids, don’t make the decorations too scary. You don’t want the kids afraid to go into a room of the house during the party. Stick with the familiar Halloween images like friendly ghosts, witches, and pumpkins. If your kids are older than 5 years old, you can get a little spookier with cobwebs, rats, monsters, and mummies.
Don’t feel like you have to use only orange and black in your color scheme. Throw in some deep purples, neon green or yellows into your decorating scheme. Most of your decorations for the table can be the food itself. If you plan on making some Halloween themed treats, then your food can take center stage for the table decorations.
Here are some of our ideas for creating some super easy, spooktacular decorations for your next kids Halloween Party. Your kids can help you make a lot of these, so it’s Family Fun time as well.
Buy black masks and put them on your pillar candles so that they look like mysterious bandits. Or you can make them with black construction paper. Use ribbon or string to tie the mask to your pillar candles.
Make some “Scarrots!” Put full size carrots upside down in black candlestick holders to look like candles. Add googly eyes for a scary, yet very funny decoration.
Use old trick or treat bags or small decorative treat bags to hold candy or Chex Mix as snacks around the room.
We like to take the kids artwork from the last few Halloweens and hang them around the house as our decorations. It’s cute, not too scary, and reminds the kids of what they made last year.
Let the kids draw ghosts and pumpkins on the windows with window markers before the party.
Take some muslin cloth cut into 1” strips or gauze and wrap it around objects in your house to make them look like a mummy. Vases, tall candlesticks, and plant bases are all great objects to wrap. Have the kids add googly eyes and you have some funny Mummy decorations.
We like to use the colorful Mexican Day of the Dead paper cutouts for Halloween decorations too. The bright pink, blue and yellow tissue paper cutouts feature scenes from everyday life but with skeletons. You can order them from this site or this one.
Piñatas are a fun decoration and activity for the party. You can find some great Halloween piñatas here.
If the party is for older kids, top off glasses with red cake gel to look like dripping blood.
If you have any other easy Halloween decorating ideas, please click on this post, leave a comment and share them.
There are certainly a variety of cute Halloween party invitations out there, both paper versions and as e-vites. There are also a lot of Halloween invitation templates that you can search and find on the web. However, sometimes sending a homemade invitation makes all the difference and creates a great first impression for the festivities.
Here are some easy ideas:
Cut out orange pumpkin shapes, let the kids decorate the front with pumpkin faces and write in the details of the party on the backside
Fold gray construction paper in half. Cut the shape of a coffin around the fold so that the “door” swings open. With a black marker, decorate the outside with RIP. Inside, write the party details.
Draw a large skeleton on white paper. Cut out the bones. Write the party details on the bone pieces and send one to each guest. Ask the guests to bring the bone invitations with them to the party. Reassemble the skeleton by the door as they walk in.
If you have seen any other great Halloween Party invitation ideas out there, please let me know.
Here’s an easy recipe to make Halloween tacos for a kids Halloween party or as easy dinner after trick or treating. (It’s also a great way to get kids to eat leftover taco meat – disguise it as something new.)
Beefy, Cheezy Pumpkin Tostadas
You’ll need:
Flat, crispy corn tostada shells
Ground beef
Taco mix
American or Cheddar cheese slices
Green pepper cut into 1” x 2” slices
Note: If you can’t find tostada shells in the Hispanic section of your grocery store, you can make them a day ahead of the party. Take corn tortillas and fry them flat in oil until they are crispy and golden brown. Drain well and store in an air tight container until the party.
Brown the ground beef and add the taco mix, following the mix instructions. While the meat is cooking, take slices of American or Cheddar cheese and with a small, sharp knife cut the cheese slice into a circle or pumpkin shape. Then cut eyes, nose and mouth of the slice of cheese.
Spread a layer of the meat mixture on the tostada. Place the cheese pumpkin on top and place on a cookie sheet in a 350 degree oven for 2-3 minutes until the cheese starts to melt. Don’t let it melt too much or you’ll lose your face shapes.
Take out the tostadas and add a green pepper “stem” to the top of your pumpkin.
Planning a Halloween Party for the kids this year? We’ve put together some of our favorite games and activities to truly distinguish your house as the most Haunted Party Palace. I have listed these activities in order of age appropriateness to appeal to kids ages 2 – 12 years old. You’ll have a blast with these game ideas and make sure to take lots of pictures and video!
Pin the Stem on the Pumpkin
Similar to Pin the Tail on the Donkey, cut out a large pumpkin out of oversized orange construction paper. You could also draw one on a 3M Sticky White Pad, like we use at work for meetings, and that way it will stick to the wall by itself. Cut stems out of green construction paper and write each child’s name on the back so you know who’s closest. Use a bandana or scarf as a blindfold, turn each child around 3 times and let them at the pumpkin. Whoever sticks the stem closest to the correct spot wins a prize. (Suitable for ages 2-6 years old.)
Halloween Freeze Dance
This is a perfect video moment. Have the kids play freeze dance in their costumes. Turn the music on and off. Whoever doesn’t freeze, steps aside and gets a prize. Or just keep everyone dancing and everyone wins. This game is a favorite because it lets the kids release some energy and it’s so fun to see the kids dancing in their costumes. (Suitable for ages 2-8 years old)
Catch the Donut Game
I’ve got a thing for donuts so I prefer this game to bobbing for apples. Tie a string or yarn around some cider donuts and then hang them from the ceiling, spaced about 2-3 feet apart. (If you can’t hang them from the ceiling, you can tie the donuts to a broomstick and have two volunteers stand on chairs to hold the stick up.) The first child to eat the whole donut without using their hands wins. Note: Don’t use donuts with powdered sugar or heavy amounts of sugar coating. You’ll just create a mess on the floor and on the kids costumes. (Suitable for kids ages 5-12 years old)
Mummy Limbo
This is a little twist on the traditional mummy wrap game. Have the kids take turns wrapping each other up with toilet paper, pinning their arms to their sides. Once they are all wrapped up, hold up a broomstick, turn on some music and watch the kids limbo. The guest who can not only go the lowest but keep their mummy wrappings wins a prize. (Suitable for ages 6 – 12 years old)
Are you a Bill Harley fan? We sure are. If you love to laugh, grab one of his kids CDs and have a blast. We discovered his wonderful kids stories about 2 years ago on NPR and now every time we take a road trip the kids ask if we have a new Bill Harley CD. He has some funny, clever songs as well but we want his stories. More and more stories.
If you have never heard him before, this is your chance to download a free kids Halloween story called the “The Eeny Weeny Beeny Ghost.” Perfect for Halloween and not too scary for little listeners. If you sign up for his newsletter, which I just did today, supposedly you’ll get a free download offer a month.
Here’s our review on his “Yes to Running” double CD. My kids LOVE, LOVE, LOVE “The Great Sled Race.” We’re going to start selling Bill Harley’s CDs at www.ChocolateCakeClub.com soon, we hope.
We love cooking with the kids as a way to spend some quality time together, creating “Chocolate Cake Moments.” This weekend, our goal is to try out some fun Halloween food to get in the spirit of the spooky Holiday and test out some recipes for our upcoming Halloween party posts. We’re also going to be putting our annual Dia de los Muertos or Day of the Dead shrine together. Check out my posts to learn more about Day of the Dead celebrations or How to Teach Your Kids About Day of the Dead?
On to the food!
TipJunkie.com had a great collection of Halloween food recipes that we are thinking of trying this weekend. I’m voting for the Parmesan Witch Brooms or the Banana Caterpillars.
It’s a big Cub and Boy Scout Camping Weekend so why not try these Halloween Owl S’mores from Living Locurto. They look yummy and easy!
Spiderweb pizza anyone? Gourmet Mom on the Go has an easy recipe.
Both of these sites have some great Halloween fun recipes and ideas so check them out and tell me about your favorite Halloween recipes.
The kids and I are cooking up some Halloween treats this weekend. Last year we had great success making Pretzel Ghosts. It’s easy peasy!
1. Put some vanilla chips or almond bark in a microwave safe bowl.
2. Melt vanilla chips according to package directions.
3. Dip or roll the pretzel logs in the melted white goo and stand up to let the candy coating drip down a little.
Don’t eat them yet!
4. Either stand these up in a paper cup to dry or lay flat on a wax paper covered cookie sheet.
5. When dry, take black icing (not the gel kind!) and draw ghostly faces on your pretzels with a toothpick or other very small icing tip. You can use cinnamon hearts for noses or any other sprinkles that catch your fancy.
These look so cute all bunched together in a cup on the table. They are a perfect treat for a kids Halloween party.
Hopefully you saw my post yesterday on Totally Cool Halloween Cake Ideas. I’m going to tell you how we made the “Scary Rats Eating Cheese” … Cake. It was pretty easy and my kids and I had a blast making the rats. (Some of them looked downright goofy and not scary so we had to play around with the faces a little.)
Our inspiration was a recipe from Redbook Magazine for Creepy Critter Cheesecake and Chocolate Rats. It was very easy to make although we couldn’t find some of the ingredients so we fudged a little.
For the Cake, I couldn’t find Famous Chocolate Wafers in the store so we used Oreo Thin Crisps. We could have also used Annie’s Chocolate Bunny Grahams, but the Oreos were darker. My son is 10 and I was really impressed that he was able to make the whole cake with just a little guidance from me and the Mixer. We followed the instructions for the cake exactly so you can grab them from the link.
For the rats, we couldn’t find black decorating sugar! It’s Halloween season and we could find every other kind of Halloween cookie and cake decoration except black sugar. ‘Sup with that? After 3 stores I was disgusted so we used chocolate jimmies to give the rats a “furry” texture. We also couldn’t find black rope licorice. What happened to rope licorice? Why don’t they make it anymore? Red or black. We had to use black Twizzlers and just cut strips for the tail. Finally, we couldn’t find “Yellow and brown candy-coated chocolate-covered sunflower seed. Personally, I don’t think these really exist. So we used a red cinnamon heart for the nose and we make the yellow eyes from candy corn. I just cut a small sliver of the yellow part of the candy corn, twirled the candy between my fingers to make it sort and then shaped it into the eyes we wanted.
Almond Ears for the mice:
Chocolate Coating:
Furry Sprinkles:
Rats on Cheese:
Rat Wearing a Party Hat(my daughter wanted hers to look more festive):
As I mentioned, we won for Most Original Cake in our class at the Cub Scouts’ Annual Cake Bake. Time to start planning for next year …
Cake + Spooky Creativity + Family Together Time in the Kitchen = Chocolate Cake Moment!
Every year the Cub Scouts hosts a Cake Bake in October and it has become a family tradition to make a scary Halloween cake. (There are themes every year but we just go for spookiness. What can I say? It’s how we roll.) This year we won for Most Original in our class with our “Scary Rats Eating Cheese” Cake. Tomorrow, we’ll tell you how we made it.
I am constantly amazed by the creativity these kids come up with every year, so I thought I would share some of the cake designs our family and our Cub Scout Pack have cooked up over the past few years.
Last year we won Most Original with our “A Cake Made of Vegetables? Scary!”
The year before the theme was Your Favorite Book. We chose Frankenstein. My son even dressed up as Igor. We won for Best Theme!
Pull Zee Switch!
Here are some of my favorites from the past few years:
Since this is our last year in Cub Scouts, I’ll have to make sure we keep this family tradition alive next Halloween.
Have you made any Halloween cakes? I’d love to see your cake creations. Send me your cakes pics to sue (at) chocolatecakeclub.com and I’ll post them on the blog.
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