Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween from my scarecrow and cowgirl/boy!

Halloween Teacher Gift

I saw an idea for making a ghost treat for teachers on Pinterest and I thought it would be perfect (and simple!) to make for N2's teachers.  I thought it would be nice just to give them a little treat not at a holiday.  The original directions call for a bottle of soda but I wasn't sure what their teachers drank so I used a Dasani water bottle.  I think having a bottle with a longer neck may be better.

So here's how I made it:
1.  Tape a full size candy bar to the water bottle (or soda bottle).  I bought a cookies and cream Hershey bar.
2.  Use a 20x20 square of white broad cloth (I think you could get away with making this smaller) and put it over the top of the water bottle and center it.
3.  Tie a ribbon around the neck of the ghost.  Poof the ghost head so that it is rounder.   My ghost's head is smaller than the example one so I'm thinking a soda bottle would be better so you have more room to poof.
4.  Draw eyes on the ghost with sharpie.  You could also glue on googly eyes.  It was tricky to draw on the eyes on the first one.  One the second one I flattened the face on the top of the bottle and drew the eyes.  That was much easier!
5.  Attach the tag to the ribbon.  Here's an up close of the tag.  I got the saying from the site that I found the ghost.

I used my kit Frightful and Delightful to make the tag.  If you want a copy, just let me know!  Their teachers LOVED the ghost and thought it was really cute.

Goebbert's Farm

We met up with my multiple's group last week to visit Goebbert's Farm.  We were so surprised to see at least 4 different field trips, if not more.  There were TONS of people there!  But we still had a great time.  We first went to feed the giraffes-N2 remembered that from last year.

Look at that tongue!  Noah only fed the giraffe once and then was done.  He didn't really wasn't interested in feeding animals this way.  He may have been overwhelmed by the number of people there.

We didn't spend too much time in the animal tents but we did spend a lot of time in the play yard.  They've now fenced off the play structures and you have to pay the animal land fee to get into the play yard.  That's too bad.

We also had to take pictures with all the cut outs!

River Trails

I met up with some of my moms of multiples friends at River Trains Nature Center last week.  It was a fairly nice day so we played inside for a while and then walked outside in the woods.  A lot of other moms must have had the idea to meet up because there were tons of people there.  We've never seen so many people there!  We had 5 sets of twins in all so that's a lot of kids to be watching!   I had my camera so I was the designated photographer!  I didn't really get many good indoor photos.

The colors were just gorgeous outside!

 It was fun to walk in the woods with so many kids.  They ranged from N2's age all the way down to not quite 2.  The older kids liked to run ahead and one of my friends walked up there with them (there was no way I was going to be able to catch up to them in my state)!  We tried to get some pictures of all the kids.  That was a fun experience!

They had some really cute decorations outside the center.

Pumpkin Patch

Today was supposed to be a beautiful day so we planned on taking N2 to Stade's Farm to get pumpkins and do get on the tractors and wander around like we've done the past 2 years.  Good thing we were running late as Grandma and Grandpa Weidner got there and discovered that they added an admission charge of $10 a person!  That didn't even include the cost of the pumpkin.  Yikes!  It may make sense for those people who let their kids ride on every ride multiple times but not for us who just let N2 ride the bucket train.  So we turned around and looked up other pumpkin patches.  We found a nice one out in Marengo (where we went apple picking last year).  It's called Cody's Farm.  They hayride to the pumpkin patch was free and pumpkins were $5 or $2-$3 for the small ones.  They also have a bucket train, a bouncy house and a tractor yard that was just $5 a kid. Much more reasonable!  We went to the pumpkin patch first (after eating lunch as we found out the hayrides only leave on the half hour every hour).  N2 showed me what size pumpkin they were going to get.  Sorry, not the best pictures.  For some reason, they did NOT want their pictures taken.

N2 wanted every pumpkin the patch when we got there.  They very arbitrarily picked 2.  Not the two they started with.  When I tried to get pictures of them in the patch, Noah threw a fit because he thought the tractor would leave without us as we were the last people back.  So I got no good pictures in the patch.  I didn't get great ones of them with their pumpkins either because Noah was being so silly when we said "don't laugh." He treats that as make funny faces and stick out your tongue!

The driver thought N2's pumpkins were small so he only charged us $10 for all 3 pumpkins.  Wow!  Noah insisted on holding his pumpkin the whole hay ride back.  He was very protective of his pumpkin.

After we got back, they went into the kids' area.  Take a look at these fun tractors they had!  They could have ridden on them all afternoon!  They even had little trailers on the back and N2 would unpin them and try to hook them up on another tractor.

N2 love barrel trains.  So they ride on that.

They also had a corn crib and a huge sand box that were free to play in.  N2 loved to make "corn angels."

We had a great time and would definitely go back in the future!  Their pumpkins were so nice and a nice size and the cost was just right!

Halloween Decor

I decided to be crafty this October and make various Halloween decorations.  After having a hard time finding cute Halloween shirts and making Noah's, I decided I might as well just make both of them shirts this year.  So before mom and dad left on their cruise, we got together and made shirts.  They each picked what they wanted (after showing them some shirts on Etsy).  Here's what they picked.

I also made Natalie a ghost bow because I found it on Pinterest and loved it!  It was not the easiest bow since you had to somehow give the impression like the ghost is curved at the top with just using straight ribbon.  But I figured it out!  The ribbon is fraying so I just trimmed it and put clear nail polish on it to see if it won't fray anymore.  I wish I had had black ribbon for lining the clip so that the bow on the ghost would stand out but I didn't.

N2 and I did a craft the other day to replace our Earth Day hangings on the chandelier in the dining room. We made egg carton bats.  Egg cartons are not easy to cut, so maybe instead of using scissors, try an exacto knife?  All you need to do is cut the egg carton into fourths so that you have 3 egg spots together.  Then trim the bottoms of the outside two and make them zig zaggy.  Paint black.  Let them dry and then use a glue gun to glue on googly eyes and a ribbon hanger for the top.

I had to post both because Noah decided he didn't want matching sized eyes on his bat!  Finally I made myself a wreath because I didn't have any Halloween door decor.  I found a couple wreaths I liked on google image search and combined them together.

Supplies:
Wide orange ribbon (2 inches in width at least)
Foam wreath form
Random black lace (or if you have to buy it 1/2 yard for a 10 inch wreath form)
Black ribbon (you don't need much)
Spider placemat from Target ($2.99)
Spiders
Glue Gun
Pins

Wrap the orange ribbon around the wreath form, gluing occasionally.  Cut the lace into a circle and cut out part of the center of the circle.  Cover the front of the wreath with lace and glue it on the back-stretching it as you glue so that the lace is nice and tight.  Take the placemat from Target and put it behind the wreath.  Center it how you would like it to be-I made the center off center.  Then start pinning it on the back-make sure to pull it tight.  Then trim the outsides off.  Glue spiders onto your wreath wherever you would like them to be.  I got these cute pop up spiders at Target instead of more realistic spiders.  They were on suction cups and hot glue would NOT hold them.  So I took an exacto knife and cut the suction cups off.   Hopefully they'll stay better!  Use the black ribbon to make a loop and bow.

Cowboys

Natalie is going to be a cowgirl for Halloween.  If I say she is going to be a cowgirl, she often tells me that she is going to be a cowboy but if I saw a cowboy, she'll say cowgirl.  I just can't win with this one!  Aunt Marcie was kind enough to lend us a horse riding costume and her horse on a stick so Natalie could decide which one she wanted to use.  Natalie is INSISTENT that a cowboy/girl must have a horse so I was supposed to make her a horse to pull along.  Luckily Aunt Marcie saved the day!  We got the costumes on Tuesday and both kids will NOT let their horses out of site.  It might be hard to return these!

By the costumes was a jumper of Natalie's that I thought was Amelia's so I brought it with us to return to Marcie.  Since it wasn't hers, we brought it home.  It was in the pile with the horses and the pink cowboy hat, so Noah thought it was a cowboy outfit and put it on.  Natalie wanted the pink cowgirl hat and Noah wanted a cowboy hat (the one we bought was in the closet) so he went to his dress up clothes box and found a hat and gloves.  Here are our tough cowboy/girl pictures!

Hiking

Instead of saying that this was a walking in the woods trip, I'm saying it was a hiking trip!  The trail was a little more rough and there was more up and down especially for me!  But after 45 minutes of fairly painful, slow walking, I all of a sudden felt much better.  Good thing Aunt Marcie is very capable of watching 4 small children!  I didn't get too many pictures as I was normally walking by myself as everyone else could walk much faster but I did capture some good photos of Natalie on the way back when she decided she was tired of walking.  Luckily Natalie and I dawdled enough so that everyone else caught up with us so I could get some other pictures.

While we were waiting, Natalie enjoyed sitting on various logs/stumps.  While she was sitting on one of the stumps, she used her walking stick and "called" Grandpa Dueber on her "phone."  She had quite the lengthy conversation with him about being on a boat.

Here are a few shots of Amelia and Megan that I got after they caught up.

This is the best photo I got of all the 4 kids.