Friday Book Project- Go Away, Big Green Monster!

This week's Friday Book Project was based upon the book Go Away, Big Green Monster!

We made our own Big Green Monsters.

I mostly cut everything for them and they glued in all on themselves. They traced my letters at the bottom.

I wanted to share a couple other Halloween books that I read over and over to the kids. They are so good that I never get bored of them!

There are so many great books out there. Have fun searching and reading!

{{MoNsTeR mIx}}

I made some Monster Mix to bring to the kids school.

I made a little extra also for Noah's soccer team. It's my day to bring treats and I usually bring cookies shaped like whatever type of ball for whatever sport, but soccer balls?! Exhausting just thinking of it. I would have to make a hexagon stencil to make them all nice and purdy.

Since the game is on Halloween, I'm just bringing some of this yumminess!

The original post where I found this doesn't really have measurements. When I went to the store, I wasn't sure how much to buy. So, 1 batch was enough for 1 class (30 students) and I made a 2nd batch for the 2nd class (another 30 students).

For each separate batch I bought: 1 box Oreo cookies (try looking for the orange centered ones), 1 bag Candy Corn, 1 bag Halloween colored Plain M & M's, 1/2 bag Marshmallows and I sprinkled some Heath Toffee Bits in there. I used 1 1/2 bricks of Almond Bark Vanilla flavored (This really works better than white chocolate. It melts so smoothly and dries fast).

I put all of that in a bowl (crush the Oreo cookies first, not too much though).

Melt the Almond Bark according to instructions.

Pour on top of all the goodies in the bowl.

Spread onto was paper and let dry.

I found these cute bags at Walmart for $1. I wanted to make tags that said "Monster Mix" but my printer wasn't working and I was not going to hand write 60 tags.

This was a really simple & spooky homemade treat for their classes, family, friends or neighbors!

SPOOKY Smoothie.

We made some Spooky Smoothies for an after school treat.

In a blender, put 1 banana. Add 2 cups of orange juice. Throw in 4 scoops of vanilla ice cream or orange sherbert (it will make it darker orange and give it a little different flavor).

Blend and pour into a cup. Using whipped cream make a ghost on the top of the smoothie. Add mini chocolate chips for eyes/mouth.

Slurp your spookiness!

Pumpkin Patch

Warning: If you suffer from a bad heart, look away. Too much CUTENESS can cause heart problems.

We went to the Pumpkin Patch last weekend for our Family Day. We had a blast!

My girls looking all dolled up in their Halloween clothes.

By the way, I let the two little ones pick out their own shirts and they did not want a girl's shirt. They walked to the boys section, which was connected, and picked out these boy shirts! So, I made them tutu's to put on over their leggings and they were not having it. I hope they know we're doing tutu's for Christmas pictures!

Going through a corn maze. Noah was leading the way and we didn't get lost. We made it through safe and sound!

The kids are looking at the farm animals.

Maelyn looks silly but I had to put this up. Carmendee's smile is adorable!

Doesn't she look exactly like her Daddy? She might have my eyebrows but a different color?! Daddy's little girl.

She wants them all.

Super model Maelyn telling us where to take pictures of her.

Me and my baby girl.

These are all my cuties. I love these memories.

I needed a picture of me and the girls before we left.

It was a fun family day!

Haunted Treats

I just wanted to share a few Haunted Treats that I have made in the past for Halloween.

Pure Spookiness and maybe a little Cuteness?!

These Witches were made out of Nutterbutter cookies (Love those! You can make so many spooky treats out of them- ghosts, spiders, witches). We used green icing for the hair and as the "glue" to put the M&M eyes/mouth and candy corn nose. The hat is a Hershey bar that I broke into triangles and the rim is part of an Oreo cookie.

This Eyeball Cake was really simple and fun to make. I frosted a layer cake (used 2 8-inch pans). To give the buttercream a different taste, I added a little cocoa powder into it and some black food coloring (that's how the color came about). The white eye part is just frosting. The pupils are Gummi Life Savers and black gel icing and red gel icing.

One of my favorite things to bake are cookie bouquets. This Halloween Cookie Bouquet started off by making different types of cookies (spiders, candy corn, cats, witches hats). Put the sticks onto parchment paper on a cookie sheet- then place the cut out cookie dough on top. Press down a little so that when the cookie bakes, the sticks stay in better. When cool, decorate!

You can place the cookie sticks in mugs, baskets, etc....I use this Chinese Take-Out boxes. They are $1 at Michaels. I cut a block of styrofoam to fit inside the box. Usually, I put a sandwich bag or Saran Wrap around the styrofoam before inserting it (just because the little styrofoam pieces can be messy). Put tissue paper first and then the styrofoam. Place cookie bags around the cookie sticks. Tie with ribbon. Insert the cookie sticks into the styrofoam. The only bad thing about using the Take-Out boxes is that I can usually only put around 5 cookies if they are made with big cutters. I love to give these out. I even donated a bunch to the schools auction one year.

Our Haunted Mansion cake was Spooky!

I have a castle shaped Wilton pan. I try to look for alternative ways to use the pans, otherwise they won't get that much use. I found this idea on the Wilton website. It has complete directions.

These Worm Cupcakes are perfect for class parties. My kiddos love when I bring these to their school. A couple years ago I bought a cupake tip kit at Michaels. It was Wilton brand. I know they still have it, because I'm always down that aisle. It was either $5 or $10 but so worth it. I use it all the time! I used one of those tips for these cupcakes. We crushed Oreo cookies for the dirt and placed Gummi Worms on the tops.

Letter {Gg} Week

The two little ones studied the Letter Gg this week. I thought it would be Good since Ghosts and Goblins and Ghouls start with the guh sound.

These were our Letter Gg GRAPES. They didn't turn out how I pictured. The girls dipped their thumbprints in purple paint to form GRAPES and then added sticker leaves. I couldn't find my grape stickers or my other leaf stickers. It would have looked cuter. You win some, you lose some!

My 4 kids all created handprint GHOSTS. I just had them put a white handprint onto paper. When the paint dried, they decorated them.

GREEN starts with the Letter Gg. We cut GREEN pictures out of a magazine and glued them onto GREEN construction paper.

The GUMBALL machine turned out really cute! I cut out a machine and had the kids glue it onto blue paper. Next, I traced some wax paper to use for a glassier look to the top of the machine. When the wax paper was cut out, they glued it on. The girls glued silver glitter onto the knobs on the GUMBALL machine. For GUM, I was thinking of doing fingerprints again but Maelyn actually told me "Pom poms look like gumballs Mom!" Boy, was she right?! Super creative.

We made our GOBLINS this week. They were really tasty and actually turned out. It was like a Rice Krispy after all. My Rice Krispies never turn out. It's a little difficult to see each one on the plate bunched together, but the kids used their creative juices. The recipe is here.

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Every week when I do my lesson plans, I pull out the books that I am going to read to the kids throughout the week. I leave them in a basket or on a side table and the kids grab them and read/look at them all week (as well as our reading time). Last weekend I started pulling Gg books out and noticed that I had quite a few.

Here are some of the Good books we read this week:

Virtual Home Tour {AGAIN}

After seeing and reading how other people organize their Halloween decorations, I got to thinking about my own. The whole family get our decorations out of the storage and usually just spread them wherever in our main rooms. I saw how others had a strategic system of putting their stuff out. Maybe not that in depth, but I did get inspired to rearrange a little bit.

I moved our Witches Broom by the door next to our Witches Sign.

I made a cute little sign that says "Leave Your Broom By The Door!"

The Eye Ball Wreath was missing something. So, I added some cobwebs onto it.

We had these up last year as well. I just added some orange paper lanterns that I had stored from my daughter's Alice In Wonderland birthday. I like the variety of colors.
I'm sure you have seen some type of candle idea on the internet using canning jars. Those jars are the best thing to use for a candle holder. So many possibilies! These are how mine turned out...!
The mantel was changed up just a little. I was thinking of adding ribbon and scrapbook the banner. Maybe I will get to it next year?!

We have so many candles in my house. I had never thought about grouping them all together. I used a cupcake stand as a candle holder. Grouping them made the effect so much stronger and spookier. I adore it!


We now have yummy treats. The rest are in the fridge in the garage because we have very sneaky hands in this house!

I didn't have anything on my stove this year. I usually like some type of candle or knick knack. It just sets the mood for me.
I made this Mummy Candle out of gauze from our First Aide Kit {I hope nobody gets hurt!}
We didn't buy new furniture or anything but I love these tiny improvements that were made to our Halloween Decor. I am always inspired by others!
Part of me does this because let's face it, I have a blast doing projects. Mostly though, the kids absolutely love it. You should see them showing their friends when they come over and how proud they look. My husband has even shown some of his friends our blogsite on his computer. The holiday season is so perfect for making memories!

Friday Book Project {Ghosts in the House}

For Friday Book Project we read the book Ghosts in the House! by Kazuno Kohara.

There was a girl who lived in a house that was HAUNTED! But the girl wasn't just any girl. She was a WITCH!

Her and her little CAT knew how to catch GHOSTS.

"How lovely," she said. "I hope there are some more!"

And there was! A big GHOST!

She hung them on a clothesline.

After drying, one became a RUG.

They were all very useful. This one became a THROW for the couch.

They made good TABLECLOTHS.

The little Witch and Cat became very tired from all their hard work.

They knew just what to do with the last two GHOSTS....

And they lived Happily Ever After!