Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Timeless Halloween Crafts

I love to do holiday themed crafts with my kids.  I try to plan a few activities/craft projects to do each month and we have a great time doing them together.  The majority of our art time during the days is unplanned.  I just put out the supplies and let my toddler do what she wants.  She paints (watercolor and washable), colors with markers, crayons, colored pencils, plays with play-doh, stamps or does something fun with stickers.  We have rules in place so that she doesn't make a giant mess each time and she really enjoys doing art.

2016 Halloween Art Projects:

// 1 //
Foot Print Pumpkin Patch
I stamped one kid at a time, let all the orange paint dry and then added the stems & polka dots.  I couldn't believe how big Olive's footprint was compared to Fletcher's!  Wasn't I just stamping her baby foot on things??   I thought about doing hand print pumpkins, but getting a baby to open up their hand to stamp sounded like a terrible idea. 

// 2 //
Hand Print Witch on Halloween Night
I let Olive paint the canvas background by herself while I was working with her brother.  She got to use one color at a time, could request any Halloween color and she had a variety of tools to paint with (dotters, various sized brushes and her fingers).  We let the background dry overnight and then came back the next day to do the witch.

Her background turned out so cute!  It's no surprise that she picked purple as her main color.  I stamped her hand and then we worked together to add the features of the witch on day 2.  I let her pick the colors for the witch and then she decided the whole thing needed some more yellow polka-dots when we got the witch done.  She was SO PROUD of her Halloween art.  She ran right to get it when Kevin got home from work so she could showcase her art to him.  It's now a treasured piece of our Halloween decor - I dated the back of both of them.

 // 3 //
We Love BOO! Halloween cards

I stamped Fletcher's foot on each card and tried to keep him from eating all the paint supplies around us.  He was so busy knocking things over and was so excited to see all of the new supplies out.  He giggled through the foot painting and was pretty pleased with the process.  Once he was done getting stamped, I gave him Cheerios and then Olive got busy making finger print pumpkins on each card.

I told her to add pumpkins to each card and gave her a plate with orange paint on it.  I had to show her how to press her whole finger print on the card instead of just dipping the finger tip.  She caught on quickly and I love that each card is different.  We let the pumpkins dry and then I went back to add stems on each one, add faces to the ghosts and write we love BOO!

We made foot print cards for several holidays when Olive was a baby so I was excited to carry on this tradition with Fletcher.  These went out to family and friends earlier this week :)



 I also asked Olive to write a message on each envelope.  I had already addressed and stamped them so I was hoping she'd have fun adding a message to the back.  She would narrate... "Dear ________ Happy Halloween" as she scribbled her note on each one.

We mailed a card to one of her best little buddies.  I told her it was for him and she promptly drew a heart and said, "It's because he's my very best friend!"  We've been practicing shapes so it was so sweet for her to add the heart unprompted.

 Also worth noting... Olive enjoyed painting the paint plate just as much as she enjoyed doing the art project.  She loved working with me and loved being creative.  So we had the best of both worlds - a structured project with an end result and fun free time for her to paint whatever she wanted with no direction from me.

Supplies Needed:
styrofoam plate
variety of brushes and dotters
crayola washable paint
2 blank canvas
blank notecards and envelopes
wet wipes or paper towels
water
crayons
sharpie

 I love making art with my kids!!

Have you saved any hand print art from your kids over the years??

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Pumpkins, Hayrides & a Dose of Reality

We had a pretty nice Fall weekend at our house.  Sure the baby was teething and no one slept great, BUT we did get to do lots of fun things.  We crossed so many things off our Fall Family Fun to do list.  I'm going to focus on the positives, throw in a few doses of reality and show you all the family fun we had with pumpkins, s'mores, hayrides and hot dates :)  Have you gotten your pumpkins yet??

 The leaves are falling and Olive loves to play in them.  She was excited to wear her O pumpkin shirt and head to the pumpkin place.  Reality: she refused to wear pants and a coat and shivered her way through the pumpkin picking.

 It was so cute to see these two deliberating over which pumpkin was best and then picking out one for her and one for Fletcher.  Real life: Kevin wished he would have picked out a pumpkin for himself but didn't have enough hands to carry them all.  We also forgo the actual pumpkin patch because our kids are too little to care.  They love going to this local nursery and picking pumpkins out of the pumpkin dome.





 

Last year we announced our pregnancy with Fletcher by saying we were adding another pumpkin to the patch.  This year we have a darling, chunky little pumpkin hanging out at the patch.
Reality: He loved all the pumpkins and would have licked them all if we let him.


 Sweet sibling moment.
Reality: It's nearly impossible to get two little kids looking and smiling in the same direction.

Olive's favorite part of picking out pumpkins every year is finding a bunch of tiny ones to bring home with us.  Here's she's telling me she has a really great idea!  Let's make a pattern with our pumpkins!  Sounds good and we ended up going home with a bag of mini pumpkins.


 See what I mean about pumpkin licking :)

On Saturday we went to our country club's Halloween party.  It's our second year to go and we had a great time.  It was even better than last year.
The bounce house was a huge hit.  
Reality: Olive loved it so much Kevin almost had to climb in to pull her out.  Since she loved bouncing so much we did get to visit with some other families.  We're trying hard to make friends so this was a good way for us to visit while all of our kids bounced.

Olive roasted her first marshmallow.
Reality: She promptly decided she didn't like black marshmallows, gave it to me and then grabbed a handful of mini marshmallows and chocolate to snack on instead.  Then she knocked over my cup of hot chocolate so we cleaned it up and left the area.

Kevin made me a delicious s'more.

Time for a hayride!!


We were excited about the hayride through the golf course.  We looked around for animals because we usually see turkeys or deer.  I just knew Olive and Fletcher would love it.
Reality: Olive did love it and throwing hay off the side of the hayride was her favorite part.  Fletcher was undecided about the whole thing.  He couldn't get comfy and fussed through about half the ride.  He kept trying to pull hair and eat hay.  Also, toddlers hate selfies and babies love them.

Date night!!
Reality: Olive was bouncing the night away after we ate dinner, I walked Fletcher around in his stroller until he fell asleep and then we had a few quiet moments to ourselves.  That counts for a parent date night - right!?!?  We'll take what we can get :)



Can you reality to any of our parenting realities!?!?


It's time to link up with my favorite ladies this week for 
Tuesday Talk and All Things Pumpkin Party!
pumpkin

Be sure to join us with your favorite posts of the week :)

Polka-Dotty Place

Monday, October 24, 2016

October Recipe Round Up

The weather has cooled off a bit and I've been doing a lot of cooking this month!  I have some delicious recipes to share with you so I hope you can find something good enough to add to your menu.  Our usual routine is to eat at home the majority of the time.  I cook 5-6 nights a week and then we get take out once or twice.  It's nice to have a night or two off from making dinner.  I'm not going to share every single recipe I made this month - just my favorites!

// MEXICAN PIZZAS //
My FAVORITE meal of the month was MEXICAN PIZZAS!!

They were SO yummy!
I baked a 9x13 pan filled with the following ingredients:
 1 can black beans drained
1 can sweet corn drained
1lb seasoned ground beef
black olives
salsa
jalapenos
purple onion 
sharp cheddar
pepper jack cheese


Baked until the cheese was bubbly and browned.
Scooped out about 3 scoops into a tortilla shell and ate it like a pizza.
It was heavenly right out of the oven and for leftovers.

// CHILI //
First batch of Homemade Chili this Fall and it was so good.
My recipe calls for one an of tomato soup!

// BIG SALADS//
 We ate LOTS of salads packed with veggies this month!  I tried to do a big salad for lunch most days and then side salads for dinner.

// BAKED TACOS //


These were really tasty tacos!  I normally don't make baked tacos with all the toppings so these were a fun treat.  You'll need:
6 soft tacos
1/2 lb seasoned ground beef
purple onions
sweet peppers
jalapenos
taco sauce
favorite cheeses

Build the tacos in a baking dish.  Bake them at 350 until the cheese is bubbly and then serve with lettuce, sour cream, pico.  We each ate two soft tacos and then had leftovers for lunch.


 // BREAKFAST //
 Waffles were our go to comfort breakfast on Saturdays.

Pumpkin Swirl French Toast was a pretty perfect Fall breakfast.

We had fun making this Breakfast Bark out of greek yogurt, fruit & granola.


What have you been cooking this month??
Any yummy recipes you'd like to share with me??

I'm linking up with three of my favorite cooking ladies today
and we're all sharing our best recipes from the month.

Whitney @ Come Home for Comfort
and Stephanie @ Wife, Mommy, Me
October's Busy Days Menu

Head over to their blogs to see what delicious meals they are sharing this month!
 We've also started a Pinterest Board called
New Recipes We've Tried and Loved!
Be sure to check it out and get some great ideas for meals at your house.

Friday, October 21, 2016

The Highlights

It was a good week at our house.  We got to see lots of family, had mostly great weather, did some fun Halloween things and are ready for the weekend.  Kevin's been super busy with work giving presentations, guest lecturing, teaching and much more.  The semester seems to be flying by and we're working hard to squeeze in all the fun we can.

The Highlights:

// 1 //
HALLOWEEN
I'm a big fan of cute, smiley Halloween things.  I love friendly monsters, cute ghosts and happy pumpkins this time of year.  So we broke out the monster pjs, ate kid meals on our favorite Pottery Barn Kids Halloween plates, got donuts and watched several Halloween cartoons.  I have big plans to get some Halloween crafts done with the kids this weekend.  Wish me luck!

 // 2 //
FOOTBALL
Our beloved Notre Dame is having a surprisingly crappy football season.  We are plugging away eating delicious game day food and wearing cute football clothes to try and distract ourselves.  They've got a bye week this week so we're hoping for a reboot and a better second half of the season.  I'm sharing this Mexican Pizza recipe on the blog on Monday.  It was my favorite recipe I've made all month - super easy and super delicious!!

 // 3 //
BACKYARD FUN
I thought Fall had arrived in the Midwest, but temps were back up in the 80s again this week.  So we played outside as much as possible.  Olive calls her sandbox her beach so she made sure to get some good beach time in and Fletcher is fascinated by the leaves.  We also go to go on several good walks this week because of the good weather.

 // 4 //
BREAKFAST BARK
My friend Katie mentioned this breakfast bark several months ago and I finally got around to trying to make some for myself.  I love the idea of having a healthy, frozen snack or breakfast option in teh freezer ready to go.  It was super easy to make and really fun to eat.  I think I'll be trying other flavors of greek yogurt and experimenting with the fruit/granola combinations.  My toddler helped me whip up this batch.

 // 5 //
BIRTHDAY PARTY
My Mom's birthday was yesterday and we got to have her up for a fun birthday dinner this week.  We planned their visit last minute so I quickly pulled together a fun birthday meal.  Olive made her a card, sang to her and wished her a happy birthday about a million times.  Kevin grilled burgers, I made all the sides, chocolate chip cookies and banana cake for dessert.  It was such a fun day!  The kids loved getting to see my parents and I loved having them here.  My dad helped with some projects around the house and Kevin fixed our ice maker.  It was a great time!!






We also got to see a few of our cousins + my brother this week :)


Favorite Posts from the week:



What was your FAVORITE part of the week??

I hope you have a really great weekend!!