Happy Thanksgiving!

I made a Thanksgiving themed word find, but this year I made it in the shape of our travel trailer due to our travels. 

PDF Version for Printing

Answers Below:

Halloween

It's October! It's going to be Halloween Time! I'm getting excited for Fall.

Although we haven't Boo'd anyone yet, I do have the Boo Bag ready to go. I'm going to wait until a little closer to Halloween this year. Since we are in a campground this year, I am only doing one Boo Bag. (If you are wondering why we are in a campground this year, check out our family trip website at Tepe Travels). 

We are still floating easy costume ideas, decorate, and need to find a local pumpkin patch. Although the RV kitchen can be challenging, I think we will probably still be able to roast the seeds. I did find some easy decorations at the local dollar store and now need to figure out how to put them up.

I know COVID may change a lot of Halloween plans around the country. If Halloween is cancelled, we can still make it fun for the kids: maybe by booing the neighbors or friends/family, trick or treating within your tribe, or having a movie night and decorating cookies. Some of my past Halloween posts would be good for staying home Halloween fun.
 
ACTIVITIES:

• It's Time To Boo! (Boo Bags). Also has non-food ideas which are great for The Teal Pumpkin Project!
• Halloween Tic Tac Toe.
• Feed The Monster Game (also a craft).
• Spooky Storytimes. Many local libraries and bookstores have Halloween themed story times! The link has some of my favorite Halloween books so you can make your own story time too!
• Scare Up Some Cookies. We had a friend over to decorate Halloween cookies. It was lots of fun.
• It's A Spooky Glow Party. Halloween cookies that glow in the dark!
• Halloween Bingo. Great for when you are the one stuck at home handing out the candy!
• Pumpkin Patch and Pumpkin Picking. Every year we go with friends to the pumpkin patch and let the kids pick out a pumpkin. We usually end up at the farm's store eating apple fritters or apple cider donuts. It's a great time! (See Food below for my apple cider donuts recipe!) 
• Haunted Gingerbread House. Why should Christmas have all the fun?
• Halloween Scavenger Hunt.
• Halloween Crossword Puzzle. 
• Word Finds: 
• Halloween Word Find.
• Pumpkin Shaped Halloween Word Find.

• Halloween Mazes:

• Candy Time
• Monster Time
• Pumpkin
• Maze

• Coloring Page.
• Pumpkin Soccer or Bowling. Use a small pie pumpkin as the ball. 
• Soccer: Split into two teams and create goals (small plastic cones work well). Have kids spider walk (aka crab walk) and kick the pumpkin soccer ball with their feet.
• Bowling: Make pins from rolls of toilet paper.
• Ghost pins: Decorate rolls with black paper eyes and mouth.
• Mummy: Wrap a piece of toilet paper around a roll and add eyes.
• Witch: Wrap in green tissue paper, add construction paper eyes/nose/mouth, and top with paper hat.
• Vampire: Add fangs/mouth/eyes, and a black paper cape.
•  Frankenstein: Wrap in green tissue paper, draw with sharpie or add black paper stitch marks/scars. Add eyes/nose/mouth.

FOOD:

• SNACKS & DESSERTS:
• Apple Cider Donuts.
• Witchy Pretzels.
• Ghost Pretzels. 
• Spider and Eyes Sugar Cookies. 
• Pumpkin Oreo Cookies.
• Candy Corn Jello.
• Ghost Brownies.
• Jello Worms.
• Cookies and Monster Donuts. (Frankenstein, Eyes, and Spider cookies)
• Candy Corn Brownies.
• Roasted Pumpkin Seeds. We roast the seeds every year after carving the pumpkins. The kids love eating them!
• Frankenstein Cups. Super cute Frankenstein snack holders made from green ice cream cones, pretzels and candy!
• Rice Cereal Ghosts, Frankensteins, and Mummies! Great if you love Halloween and Rice Cereal Treats!
• Haunted Parfaits.
• Monster Apples. These are a great snack! For an extra sweet tooth, add a fruit roll-up or fruit leather tongue. You could also dip in chocolate and add candy eyes. (TIP: slice apples, soak in lemon water for a few minutes, dry off really well. Dip in chocolate, place on wax paper to let chocolate set. If you are going to store them in the refrigerator, let them set up in the fridge as the chocolate will harden faster.
• Caramel Apples.
• Jack O'Fruit Bowls.
• Pumpkin Dip. Great at Thanksgiving, but works well with pumpkin theme at Halloween too!
• Rainbow Cupcakes. We made these for St. Patrick's Day, but they will work great for a Candy Corn Halloween cupcake too! Use a white cake mix/recipe. Divide batter into 3 bowls. Color 1/3 of batter yellow, 1/3 orange, leave 1/3 white. Layer the different colors in the cupcake pan and bake according to box/recipe directions. (Link to post has more detailed directions.)
• Spider Suckers.
• Monster Eggs.
• Orange and Pepper Pumpkins.
• Candy Corn Spiral Cookies. See my Christmas Swirl Cookies post for directions. Instead of using red coloring or Christmas, use orange or yellow food coloring in half the dough. If you are really ambitious, divide the dough in thirds and color 1/3 yellow, 1/3 orange, and leave 1/3 white. Or use fun colors like purple, lime green, black, and orange and make Tie Dye cookies.
• Dog Treats: Peanut Butter Pumpkin Dog Treats (It might be fun to have a water bowl and a bowl of dog treats out for any dogs that are walking around during Trick-Or-Treating too!)
• Dog Yum: Roasted Pumpkin. I take the freshly cleaned out pumpkin guts (minus the seeds) and roast/puree them for J. She loves getting pumpkin on her dog food.

• DRINKS:
• Have your Cider and eat the cup too! Use an apple to create an edible cup!
• Mommy's Little Helper. WARNING: This is an alcoholic drink. BONUS: It looks super spooky with dry ice!
• Witches Potion.
• Eyeball Ice Cubes.
•  MEAL IDEAS:
• Breakfast: 
• Ghostly Toast. Check out my Egg in Toast post, but use egg whites instead of a regular egg. Use a ghost cookie cutter to cut out the shape to make it Halloween themed! If you don't have a ghost cutter, scramble an egg, and use a pumpkin cookie cutter!
• Pumpkin Face Pancakes. Easy Halloween themed breakfast: decorate pancakes with whipped cream, berries, and candy corn.
• Pumpkin Face Oatmeal. Easy Halloween themed breakfast: Add banana slices and blueberries for eyes, candy corn for teeth.
• Pumpkin Muffins
  
•  If you don't feel like making breakfast, IHOP has a Mummy Face pancake through 11/2 for $3.99. I am not sure if they are doing the free pancake on 10/31 this year.
• Lunch or Dinner:
• Haunted Shepherd's Pie.
• Ghoul Burgers.
• Mummified Hot Dogs.
• What's For Dinner Mummy? Mummy meatloaf, with recipe.
• Mummy Mini Pizzas. Super easy to make with English Muffins!
• The Not So Spooky Lunch. You can carve a jack o' lantern face into almost anything (apple halves, radishes). If you have a ton of extra time, cut large carrot into round slices. Trim the top to form a pumpkin with a stem.
• Pumpkin Soup.
• Attack of the Monster Veggies.
• Pumpkin Sloppy Joes.

CRAFTS:

• Venus Fly Trap Costume. 
• Pirate Trick Or Treat Bag.
  
• Erasable Pumpkin (Chalkboard Paint).
• Feed The Monster Game.
• Spider Web Placemats.
• Toilet Paper Witches Boot.
• Attack of The Play-Doh Spiders. A little time consuming, but a bit hit. Great for school parties or Halloween goodie bags!
• Ghosts and Spiders using egg cartons.
• Pumpkin Pots. Easy pumpkin decorations using a clay pot and a sharpie. If you have green pipe cleaners, it just adds to the fun!
• Pumpkin Stained Glass. Easy craft with tissue paper and contact paper.
• Ghostly Handprints. Great for a craft or a card to send to family!
• Pumpkin cards.
• Pumpkin Boats. We made these for Talk Like a Pirate Day, but they work for Halloween too!
• Pumpkin Carving Alternatives.
• Sweep Your Way Into A Snack. Broomstick bags: great for decorations or goodie bags!
• Gourd Lighting (a pumpkin candle holder).
• Toilet Paper Roll Monster.
• Pumpkin Toilet Paper Roll.
• Monster Time Craft.
• Homemade Tombstones. I am not good at cutting out shapes from wood, so I used cardboard. These are not waterproof though!
• Spooky Bushes! Cut eye shapes in the side of an empty toilet paper roll. Cover one open end completely with a dark tape to keep the light from escaping out the sides. Duct tape works great. Insert activated glow stick. Tape open end closed. Place in yard for Halloween spooky effects. Last year I placed in the bushes and by the gravestones. TIP: Use the thicker glow sticks to get the most light. I used a few glow bracelets and they did not work as well.
• Easy Halloween Luminaries (stencils included). 
• Killer Venus Fly Trap
• Easy Trick-or-Treating Pumpkin for suckers/lollipops
• Ping Pong Eyeballs
• Wreaths
• Eyeball wreath
• Halloween themed wreath

TIPS:

• My list of Best and Worst Halloween Treats.
• Trick or Treat, Halloween Safety.
• For an easy Halloween treat, push suckers into a pumpkin (or drill holes into a craft pumpkin to reuse again). Kids can take the one they want and you simply refill when it gets low.

Some of my Fall Fun links work great for Halloween too!

OTHER FUN LINKS: (Links are external links, not to DailyMesses.)

• Directions for a BB8 pumpkin.
• Pumpkin Stencils from PicMonkey. (I love this photo editing site!)
• Leaf Ghosts. 
• Edible Jack O'Lantern Ice Cream Bowls. (I really want to try these!)
• Marble Mini Pumpkins (with nail polish)
• Spider Webs (made from black trash bags!) 

What are some of your fun ideas/traditions for Halloween? Share in Comments!

Pirate Chest Trick Or Treat Bag

Last year the oldest when as a Zombie Pirate. We had a lot of the costume items from past Halloweens. Hubby helped make him a Pirate Chest trick or treat bag.

We used an old pillowcase, an empty shoe box, some plastic gold bars and coins, hot glue/gun, and a piece of plywood. 

Hubby cut a piece of plywood to match the size of the shoe box. He then cut a hole in the center of the box and the wood. The plywood was the bottom layer to add support, the pillowcase was threaded through the hole in the plywood with it's edges laying flat on top, and then the shoe box was on top. He attached them all together using glue and a staple gun.

The shoe box had been black to start with, so we just grabbed some brown paint and a foam paint brush to roughly paint it brown. We left it with streaks to look like wood grain. Once the paint was dry, we hot glued on plastic gold bars and pirate coins inside the box/chest.We kept the hole open for the candy to go through. 

Because he was a zombie pirate, and zombies do not talk much, he painted on Trick Or Treat on the top of the box to show at each stop, and then Thank You! on the inside lid for when he got the candy. It seemed to be a hit with the neighbors. 

National Parks Word Find

So far in our travels we have seen 9 National Parks! There are 62 total, so I don't think we'll get to them all this year.😉

I made a National Parks word find this morning. You can print from the image or from the PDF links. If you want more information on the National Parks, click on this link. You can also check out our travel blog for our experiences at the parks we've been too!

PDF links:

National Parks Word Find

National Parks Word Find Answers

 

 

ANSWERS BELOW!

Earth Day Scavenger Hunt

Wednesday is Earth Day. There probably won't be as many community celebrations this year, but there are still ways you can celebrate at home! I have a Scavenger Hunt today and will have more ideas in tomorrow's post. Below is the JPG image you can print, or I have a PDF version as well.

At Home Series: Cake Fun

Today's At Home Series will be about cake! Who doesn't love cake or cupcakes? We've made quite a few over the years. Bernardo loves a sponge cake and Higgins loves chocolate. I generally am a chocoholic as well, but love almost any kind of good cake.

Making cakes or cupcakes with kids is something almost everyone can help with! If you pre-measure ingredients, little ones can help dump the ingredients into the bowl. Cakes don't have to be pretty either! Hand some sprinkles or icing to almost any aged kid, and they will have fun decorating!

I have two word finds that are cake related, as well as some of my cake posts throughout the years, down below.

FUN:

• Cake Word Find
• Chocolate Cake Day Word Find

CAKES:

• Hidden Surprise Pound Cake
• Crumb Cake (Not cake in the normal sense, but still delicious!)  

  CUPCAKES:

• Butterfly Cupcakes 
• Alligator Cupcakes & Cookie Pops
• Rainbow Cupcakes (part 1)
• Rainbow Cupcakes (part 2)
• Chocolate Cookie Dough Cupcakes 
• Chocolate Cupcakes (Dairy Free)  
• Cherry Compote Filled Chocolate Cupcakes

CAKE POPS:

• Bunnies & Chicks Cake Pops (Originally for Easter, but fun for any time!)  
• Cake Pop Recipe and Monster Decorations
• Love Bugs (Lady bugs made for Valentine's Day) 

Minecraft Educational Content

It has been a struggle some days to keep the boys on track with their school work. Bernardo seems to be done extremely quickly, and although he gets it correct, I worry about him not being challenged or having enough to do. I have been "assigning" extra school work. 


I saw this in Facebook group and thought I would share. I'm hoping that this will help him learn some new things in a format he already loves!  Minecraft made some of the educational content free! (We are just now downloading, so I haven't tried them yet.)

At Home Activities: Veggies!

Today's At Home Activities Themed Post is going to be about Veggies! Luckily, my kids are really good about eating their veggies. I have a word find and some veggie food ideas down below!

WORD FINDS:

• Fresh Veggies Word Find
• This Week's Grocery Store List

FOOD:

• Veggie Trays: So many ways to make these fun! Make animals, shapes, or different patterns out of the veggies. Serve with lunch or dinner. 
• Green Food Ideas. This was for St. Patrick’s Day, but you could have a challenge to have different colored food days! Green Monday, Orange Tuesday, etc.
• Ghoulish Burgers (Zombie burgers) 
• Grilled Brussel Sprouts 
• Stuffed Zucchini
• Broccoli Salad
• Veggie and Fruit Tray with Pepper Ranch Cup
• Christmas Tree Veggie Tray

For Fun: Identify This