HTV bling

I added an HTV necklace to this dress for a little girl's birthday:

Thankful for our Teachers

There's been lots of talk about things we are grateful for at our house this month.  One of the things we are grateful for are the teachers at school.  We have had a pretty good year, so I let my kids fill out the acorn card telling their teachers something about their teachers they are grateful for, then attached  some fun leaves with the card to some sparkling cider.

FHE Thanksgiving

We did some fun activities for FHE this month that focused on Gratitude and Thanksgiving.  I loved how the kids' prayers changed over the month as we talked about things to be thankful for and how we should express our gratitude. 

Paint Sample Turkeys: The kids thought of things that they were grateful for and wrote/drew them on the "feathers" 

We also found this simple and fun game and played it one night for Family Home Evening:
Game from The Moffatt Girls

Star Wars Birthday Gift

Nathan got invited to a super awesome Jedi Training Birthday party.  He came home with a Jedi costume, Pool Noodle sword and certificate of completion along with his own little paper R2D2 he'd paper crafted at the party.  Talk about an awesome mom at that house! 

Well I got my Silhouette busy and made a few star wars items:

I threw in some glow sticks and Nathan colored a Star Wars card to complete the gift. 

Wooden Fall Leaves

They are incredibly simple, but they look great with my Thanksgiving decor. 

Wooden Block Pumpkins

I had a great girls' crafting day with my mom, sister and sister-in-law.  I love when we get together and have great conversations while creating cute decor for our homes!!  This time we worked on fall decor.

Turkey Toes and Fingers

Had  a little Turkey fun with Kyla over the weekend:

Colored CTR rings

Kyla's been asking for a white ctr ring....so I finally made a few new colored rings:

Classroom Party Drinks {First Grade}

I signed up to be a room helper for Nathan's class.  I got the privilege of providing the drinks, so we went shopping for some fun drinks and found these cute mini sodas at Walmart.  {I had some other cute ideas, but I let Nathan pick since it was his party}  Nathan decided this is what he wanted and I grabbed some orange and grape sodas.  I was able to fit 24 in this cauldron, making it a fun way to serve them up at the party:

Halloween Classroom Party {3rd Grade}

So I signed up to be room mom {again} for Kyla's class.  Our school tries to have two moms in charge of the parties and 3 helpers.  This year I am working with a terrific mom that loves to party :)   Planning was fun and the class was fantastic!! We decided to have a carnival style party and it worked great.  The kids wondered from activity to activity and had a great time.  Then we stopped for treats and drinks while we tallied the votes for best costume and found the winners of the estimation game.  Here's a look at our party:

Games: Ring Toss, Bean Bag Toss, Pumpkin Bowling, and Build a Skeleton Race

 Contests: Estimating and Best Costume

 *Winners took home the jar of candy. 

*We gave trophies to the top 3 votes (the other room mom found the tombstones at The Dollar Store, I added vinyl "Best Costume" to make them a trophy:

Craft: Spider Webs
*We used paper plates, yarn and spiders to make some spider webs.  I also brought some stamps along so they could stamp the paper plate if they wanted.   It was a little time consuming, but it worked. 

Treats: Chocolate tomb cake with chocolate skeletons. 
*This was assigned out to a helper parent.  We let them pick the treat and bring it.  They went all out and had different color skeletons and sprinkles in those cute tomb cakes!  It was a big hit with the kids!

Drink: Juices
*Assigned out to a mom.  They were little jugs of juice with mini straws.  I didn't get a picture...

6 year old {boy} Halloween Party

Invitations: 
I used my silhouette to create these invites (file from Sil. store)

Drink:  Vampire Blood Floats

Treat:  Donuts on a String Game
Messy, but entertaining....

Games:

Science Experiments:
Ghost  Balloon 
1 Tbsp of baking soda in the balloon, water bottle half filled with vinegar.  Attach balloon to bottle and pour the vinegar in....

Flying Ghosts
Playing with static.  Balloon rubbed on hair to pick up tissue paper ghosts. 

Craft: Skeleton Puppets

8 year old {Girl} Halloween Party

Invitations:  
*I used a file from Sil Store to create these

I

 Drink: Witches Brew Floats
Grape Soda poured over vanilla ice cream.

Treat: Skeleton Brownies
I served up some brownies and white chocolate bones.  The girls used whatever bones they wanted to decorate their brownie. 

 Games:
 

 Last "ghoul" standing:  A variation of this game we found at A Girl and A Gluegun

beforehand:
tape them up around the room...one on each wall.

to play:
everyone starts out at whatever picture they want. if they want to stand by the witch they can..
you draw a card and let's say it's the Frankenstein....whoever is standing by frank is out and goes to their seats.

 now, the people who are left  can stay where they are or move...then you call time when everyone is settled and pick another card (the frank card gets put back in)
the object of the game is to be the last man standing (that is why the title is the last man standing in case you didn't see the connection) you can move around as much as you want just don't get caught!!!!

Craft: Bracelets
Kyla wanted a 'girl' craft, so I found some Halloween charms and glow-in-the-dark beads for them to make bracelets with.  
 

 

We ended by dancing to This is Halloween on the wii (Just Dance 3).   Then we read jokes as the party wrapped up.  I chose my favorites from here and here and let the girls take turns telling them.

5 year-old {Boy} Halloween Party

Invitations:

Drink: Bat Juice Floats
Caden wanted his drink to be labeled "Bat Juice."  I used some vinyl and made it happen in a breeze:

 

Halloween Treat: Ghostly Fruit
My son LOVES fruit, so these were a perfect fit for his party:

 

Stories: 
We read Skeleton Hiccups (cute, they loved it!)
and Dear Vampa (We weren't super impressed...not a good choice for preschoolers)  

Craft: Flying Bat 
I found this idea on pinterest, recreated the template in Silhouette to let it do the cutting and hole punching for me.  Then I let the kids help assemble if they wanted and of course they wanted to decorate: (You pull on the string and the wings flap)

*Idea and template from Spoonful

Games: 

Then we ended the party by dancing to This is Halloween on the Wii (Just Dance 3).  It was so fun to watch them!  I think I had as much fun as the kids (if not more) at this party!