Ghostie Footsies!

Booooooo...those are some Scary Steppers trying to come in our window! This is a super cute & fun & EASY way to make a Halloween decoration/keepsake. This is also a family tradition and our front door is COVERED with these Ghostly Prints...eight for Louie, four for J. and this is Kat's second Spookable.

I snagged this idea from a very good friend, Kathy. Back about a decade ago, I was helping her out in her at-home daycare. She did this project with the kids and I thought they were so cute. A couple of years later, Louie entered the scene and we've done this every year since!

You need: Black construction paper, white paint, a black marker & some (willing & ticklish) feet! That's ALL! Paint the foot bottoms and step on the paper. Let the paint dry and then draw on the face you want. Google eyes would be cute, too. Then I cut around the foot print. Taa Daa! Instant Cute Spookiness! We also laminate them so we can hang them up every year.

Apple Pickin'

I feel so lucky to be living in the middle of the USA. We are towns-folk to the core, but it's nice to be able to drive in any direction and, within 10 to 20 minutes, be in the middle of beautiful green countryside! This also means we are close to MANY apple orchards and we literally have our "pick" of where to go get fresh apples.

So we headed out a couple of weeks ago (I have been incredibly slow and lazy about downloading these photos to my computer) and did some apple pickin'! The three kids rounded up 10 pounds total. Enough to make Apple Butter (ohhhhh sooooo gooooood), homemade applesauce (eh. I'm looking for a better recipe) and my Great Grandmother's Apple Strudel. And we still had left-overs to munch for breakfast and with lunches!

Here's Miss Kat. Perfect round apple for chubby little Fingers.

Here's J. Three seems like the PERFECT age & excitement level for this job!

Here is Louie...can't you tell he is SO excited to have Mom taking MORE pictures of him?

Back with a Project

It seems that I've fallen off the Blogging Wagon! This summer was a crazy hodge podge of activities, crafts, zoo trips, road trips...you name it! Now that we're in the school groove, it's time for me to dust off the computer and get back to blogging.

Yesterday my 2nd grader and pre-schooler both had a day off from school. It was a beautiful Fall day and we got LOTS of stuff done. Something I've been wanting to do for a long time, but never gotten around to was Crayon Cakes. I've got a leaf rubbing project that I want the boys to do this weekend and these cute little cakes are perfect for that and for chubby Kat hands!

I borrowed the idea from here, and followed the directions that I found here. This is our version:

Grab a bunch of old crayons. I found these packed away with my old toys at my parents house. They were battered and abused and ready to be repurposed! Pick off all the paper (kept Louie busy for half an hour!) and break them up. I didn't do anything to prepare the muffin tins. I also separated the colors, but I think mixing colors up would be fun, too!

Here they are ready to be "baked"!

I set my oven to 275 and checked on them every couple of minutes. I think it took about 8 minutes before they were completely melted and looked like this:

We let the tins cool for a few minutes and then put them directly into the freezer. Then we went for a walk (much like the Three Bears) and did some leaf gathering and playing at the park. We were gone for an hour and when we came back I turned the tins upside down and the Crayon Cakes popped right out!

This was a great fun project! The boys helped to peel and break the crayons. J was fascinated by the melting process and how something solid can become something liquid and then turn solid again only in a different shape. Louie loved the reuse/recycle aspects and I think I'm creating a Trash to Treasure Monster. We'll be doing this again. And again. And again...

Our Little Lady Turned ONE!

Last weekend we celebrated Little Lady Kat's First Birthday. Kat has been an amazing Blessing in our lives. We were happily truckin' along as a family of four when BAM, we found ourselves expecting a third. Since we already had two boys, I let myself assume that we would have another one. The day we found out that we were going to have a girl was crazy. James was over-joyed. Me? I don't know. I wasn't depressed or angry. I was so thankful that the baby was healthy and growing like she should. But I wasn't happy, either. What on Earth would I do with a girl??? Girls are just...so...girly!

Then June 5th, 2009 arrived and with it this little bundle of cuteness. I thought it would be awkward having a girl, but she looked at me with these ageless, piercing blue eyes and it clicked. I couldn't take my eyes off of her. She was perfect. And that has been the story for the last year. Time has gone by so fast with Kat. It makes me sad, because I am enjoying her so much. I don't know if it's because she's a girl, or because she's the third and I'm much more relaxed.

So now our Little Lady is One and we celebrated in Grand Lady Bug Style!

I made this cake by layering two round cakes. Then I star tipped the whole thing. The "black" frosting is chocolate, and the red is strawberry frosting with no-taste red coloring. The eyes are marshmallows.

Centerpieces were the rocks I painted a month or so ago. I also took mini flower pots and painted them red and black. Then I used my pinky to dab black dots on them. We filled these with daisies.
Finally we have the LadyBug Princess herself. I made her tutu by following a tutorial (tutu-orial!) I found here. It was fun and easy and took about 20 minutes total! We will be making many more of these...Kat LOVED wearing it! Then I made her birthday crown by using the pattern I found here. I'm still not very good at sewing, but this took me about an hour. I also sewed a cover to put over the elastic in the back. The crown was a hit! Making it from felt made it comfortable for Kat, and she kept it on for most of the day. Finally, for her "1" shirt, used the applique process I found here. Put this all together and you have the Lady Bug Birthday Princess!

Cake Explosion

I've always liked to bake. During Louie's first year I never really thought about whether to make or buy his birthday cakes. My cake experience involved the cake staying in the pan and me spreading frosting on top of it. So when my hubby's Aunt Jo volunteered to help me make Louie's first cake (a replica of the cake she made for James' first birthday) I was excited. Since then Louie has had a couple store bought cakes, but the majority have been done by me. This year he wanted a volcano. Dum Dum Dummmmm (scary suspenseful sound inserted here.)!

I started with three round cakes (chocolate was his choice this year). I left one whole and gradually made each other one smaller. I used leftovers for the top and fourth level. I frosted each with chocolate frosting and frosted in between layers.

Now it was time to add the cascading lava. For this I used some extra strawberry frosting I had on hand. I added no-taste red food coloring. I loved this cake in that you couldn't mess it up, because volcanoes are already a mess!
A good exploding mountain needs rocks and boulders. I used CoCo Puffs for rocks and chocolate donuts for boulders.
Finally I needed something to explode out the top. I Googled homemade lollipop recipes and found one that wasn't too hard. Sugar, light corn syrup and water. I added red food coloring to half and yellow to the other. Then, instead of filling a candy mold, I drizzled it on top of greased wax paper. I only burned myself once (and in the process I learned that a meat thermometer is NOT the same as a candy thermometer)! It hardened overnight and was ready to insert into the top of the volcano (or Mt. Wanna-Hawka-Loogie as I fondly think of it) the next morning.

Party Games

As I mentioned in my last post we decided to let Louie celebrate his 7th Birthday with only a few friends. We were supposed to have his party at the park with a few organized activities, pizza for dinner and the rest of the time spent running and climbing on the park equipment. Wind, rain & ridiculously cold May temps had us re-plan and have the party at our house instead! So I had to come up with a few quick ideas to keep six 7-year-old boys entertained!

As the boys came we let them just run around and play. Louie gave them the grand tour of his room and introduced everyone to Hammy the Hamster. When everyone was here we sat down and had pizza for dinner. I had two party games planned and let the boys vote on which one to do first.

The "Human Knot" won. I remember playing this in grade school. The boys sat in a circle and then reached into the center. Everyone grabbed someone else's hand. Then we "cut" the string in one place and the boys had to un-tangle themselves to form a line. Here they are in the midst of un-tangling.


The other game was "Pin the Saber on the Jedi". I got the idea for this game here. This is a poster from Louie's room. I made these (highly unrealistic) light sabers out of construction paper. We blindfolded the boys and had them sticky tack their saber to the poster. Not bad!



Then we had them sit down and to the Marshmallow Shooter craft that I detailed in my previous post. The boys LOVED creating their own versions. They sat still and quietly working for almost half an hour! Then they raced downstairs to attack our wall with marshmallows!

Next it was cake time! If you couldn't already tell, Louie is a Star Wars fan. His "cake" was a light saber made up of cupcakes. I got the idea here .

We did presents and then wrapped up with a Darth Vader Pinata. We found the kind with strings and the anticipation the boys had each time someone pulled the string was hilarious. This way the pinata wasn't ruined and Louie has a Vader hanging above his bed.

So even though we were excited about having a Park Party, the boys had a fun time. Their excitement level and energy was great to see! Louie told us it was his "best birthday EVER!" And, "I knew, Mom. I knew that being seven would be awesome."

Marshmallow Shooter Party Favors

Oh my Goodness! It's been awhile. I'd like to say that I haven't blogged for so long because I've been crazy busy doing projects, cleaning the house & gardening like a mad woman...but that would only be about half right! We've been crazy busy 50% of the time with school, activities and a FEW projects. The other 50% of the time has been taken over by laziness: napping with J and Kat, cuddling with James and the DVR , reading fluffy novels & becoming addicted to The Secret Life of the American Teenager (sad. but true.)!

So we have since celebrated Louie's 7th Birthday. I can't believe that the 10 lb 4 oz bundle of cuddle is already a seven year old! Anyway, every year we have a whopping big family party and this year we told him he could only invite a few of his class-mates to a small "friend" party. This was an agonizing process, because the boys in Louie's class are very close and all get along well with each other. So do us Moms!

A couple of weeks before Louie's big day we were at a craft fair and saw these Marshmallow Shooters made out of PVC pipes. "We could make those!" is a common thing you hear me say at craft fairs. James agreed and we did a Google search for homemade Marshmallow Shooters. Here's what we did:

Louie & James cutting the PVC pipe. We bought two lengths of PVC from Lowes and bags of T joints, elbow joints & end caps (forgive me if these aren't the correct terms). After cutting, we sanded down all the edges.

Here is what each boy got in a zip lock bag. The long piece is 7 inches. The shorter pieces are three inches. Each boy also got a baggy of mini marshmallows.

This is what the gun was SUPPOSED to look like. During the party, though, to stretch the time out James had the boys experiment and design their own guns. Each boy had a different way to put all their pieces together and each design worked!

Here was Louie's design. The boys then headed downstairs to our family room to open fire on the wall (no shooting each other). They had SO much fun and didn't really want to stop for cake and presents! Our basement floor looked like it was covered with marshmallow snow!

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