October Nature Table

Here is our October/Autumn nature table.

I used my mom's sparkly black and gold stole over top of some orange silk placemats.  I love the effect and it seems so Halloweeny.

I've also used lots of leaves preserved in beeswax and some tiny gourds.

 Here it is again without the flash.  (Dear Santa, I've been a really good girl this year could you please bring me a better camera : )

 We made the cute little ghosts by dipping some white felt in a glue and water mixture and molding them over some peg people.  I found the idea and tutorial over at WeeFolkArt.

This is one of my favorite nature tables so far.  Every time I look over at it I get excited for Halloween!

L's Spooktacular Halloween/Birthday Party Part Two

Here is L's cake. I couldn't resist using the little tropical frogs. It was seriously experimental as I used blueberry jello for the pond and pistachio pudding for the grass. Yum yum.

I think one of my favorite bits of the party was after we sang Happy Birthday and L blew out her candles we started to sing Five Little Speckled Frogs. When we got to the jumped into the pool bit L took the blue frog and jumped it into the pool. Then all of the other children joined in and finally all of the frogs were in the pool. They loved it.

We had 17 adults at the party and we asked them to bring a carved pumpkin with them. We put them all around my uncle's back garden and the effect was breathtaking. A big thank you to Uncle Jason who took all of the night pictures.

Once it got dark we had a disco with sparklers and glow sticks and everyone danced the night away. It was totally fab! Now what am I going to do for next year.....

L's Spooktacular Halloween/Birthday Party Part One

I think I was truly blessed when my daughter was born so close to Halloween. Anyone who knows me knows I go a bit mad and absolutely LOVE Halloween parties. Since this would be L's last birthday in England I thought I would go all out. What fun!

We decided to have a night party and luckily the weather cooperated so we could have most of it outside. Here is L in her giraffe costume. The bizarre thing is that when I asked what she wanted to be she said "a giraffe" and I thought oh ya sure. Well the next day when I was talking to my mom she was so excited to tell me that she found a costume for L and yes wonder of wonders it was a giraffe. If only everything in life was so easy : )

We had lots of games set up outside. Here is the ghost skittle area.

A spooky center piece for the adults buffet table inspired by Chasing Cheerios.

and the piece de resistance.... the spider pinata. Here it is hung up inside

and here it is in action. The kids had a go and then we blindfolded the dads who all had a go. What fun.

Preparations for L's Spooktacular Halloween/Birthday Party

This past week has been a crazy rush to finish all of the preparations for L's Halloween/Birthday party. It's seriously time consuming when you decided to make all of the decorations and activities!

L's first time cleaning out a pumpkin. Yes she had to use a spoon as she wouldn't let any bit of the guts touch her fingers. Talk about taking after her daddy!

Decorating her pumpkin. A very serious business.

Way back I had the great idea to make a pinata. Last week I realised I must have been out of my mind! Here are the beginnings of a spider pinata filled with little trinkets, stuffed animals, stickers and raisin packets.

Gluing on little pieces of tissue paper. Yes I must be mad!

Stay tuned to see pictures of the finished product plus pics of the Spooktacular event.....

More Halloween activities and a silver lining

Here are some more Halloween themed activities L has been doing. The ever messy spooning bugs out of colored rice(thanks itty bitty love). I used the old egg carton tray from a previous color sorting activity and I should have know that L would try to spoon the bugs in by color! She did the best she could but of course me not thinking about that at all didn't change the colors to match the bugs!! This is such a sweet activity and I'm afraid I can't remember where I saw it. It's so simple to just cut out different shapes and let her get creative making Jack-o-lantern faces. After she got the idea she added cheeks, ears, hair and even a hat with the shapes provided.

Now this is what happens when you leave your child alone for two minutes with a colored rice activity! Two minutes and I came in to find her having a wonderful time sprinkling all of the rice over the carpet. I have to admit it looked cool and it must have been seriously fun to do! So I got out the vacuum cleaner right away. Now this is the good bit. L has always been terrified of the vacuum. It makes a really loud noise and she always either cuddles with me while my husband does it or huddles on the couch. Well the colored rice did the trick. She just couldn't resist having a try when she saw how much fun it was to suck it all up.

She did most of the carpet and even wanted to help me do the kitchen. What a breakthrough! I'll take colored rice on the carpet any day if it means my little one is now wanting to help with the vacuuming!

Autumn fun with Granny

We found this amazing farm on the weekend that does a children's introduction to Halloween. There was a beautiful Halloween display inside a huge barn with pumpkins and hay bales. There was also a Halloween palace that the children could go through that was brightly lit with witches doing funny things, friendly ghosts and black cats. It was really well done and L wasn't scared at all.

Here she is picking her pumpkin.

The amazing corn maze! So many things to discover around each corner.

Across the road was a duck pond with a tree tunnel path that lead to an enchanted forest.

What a magical place!

It's beginning to look at lot like..... Halloween!

We've started preparations for L's Birthday/Halloween party now that my mom is here. We've been making decorations and costumes left, right and center. Halloween is by far my favorite holiday so I'm in my element.

Here's L doing her counting activity with some spooky things to count.

Some double doodling. This is really cool. It's just some paint in a Ziploc bag and cotton buds for drawing. I got the idea from here.

Some decorations for the party. Bat idea was from here and cat idea from here.