Spiders & Ghosts

Let the Halloween crafts and events begin! This particular craft has been one of the most popular crafts that I've hosted in our local playgroup. These pictures are from a park playdate, but we completed this craft again at today's Halloween party since many members missed out the first time.


This is such a simple craft! All you need is construction paper or cardstock, washable or acrylic paint, a paint brush and some wiggle eyes. When making the spider, only paint your child's 4 fingers and half way down his or her palm. You don't need any paint on the thumb. Paint one hand, press down and then paint the second hand and press down. Perfect spider! The ghost is super easy--just paint the bottom of your child's foot and press down.


Here's Ian showing off his spider handprint.


Don't forget Nathan! He was also very proud of his completed projects.

The Best Snack Ever

...according to my 3-year-old.

By now everyone knows that we rarely have a difficult time getting our little ones to eat healthy food. Nevertheless, I get bored serving food the same way day after day. To make our afternoon snack just a bit more interesting, we decided to mix things up. Literally.


Ian is more than happy to help prepare his "special" snack. Here he is dumping some cinnamon into a ziploc baggy filled with chopped apple squares.


An up-close shot just for fun!


Make sure you seal the ziploc baggy well, unless you like sticky, cinnamon all over your counter. Nathan is ready to shake up his apple snack.


Shake, shake, shake! They just thought this was hysterical.


Yummy cinnamon apples. How easy is that?

Muffin Tin Monday

A few weeks ago I hosted another Muffin Tin Monday playdate. These themed playdates are so much fun! The only problem is that now I am obsessed with muffin tins of all shapes and sizes and think that I might need to install another kitchen cabinet to keep them all organized. I'm sure I can come up with some way to justify that, right?


This week we had an ocean themed MTM. Forgive me because I took a photo of Nathan's muffin tin before I served him the shell pasta. Whoops! I was babysitting a 2-year-old girl this day so I was distracted at times. The other fun themed snacks included blue jello, Swedish fish, colored gold fish crackers, starfish rice crispy treats and octopus hot dogs. Too fun!


For the craft, each child painted a paper plate blue to create their very own ocean. They then attached fun foam fish and shell stickers. Our playgroup includes children ages 2-5, but now that school is back in session, we mostly see 2 & 3-year-old children at our playdates. This was a perfect craft. After all, what young child doesn't like to paint?

I rode in an ambulance...

and all I got was this lousy "balloon".


The flu has come and gone in our household. We are so glad it is over and hope that all the other strains stay far away from our family this flu season.

10 days ago I picked Ian up from school and his teacher said that he kept getting chills throughout the morning. They checked his temperature and it was normal. He was perfectly healthy when I dropped him off that morning. Less than 2 hours after we returned home, Ian was shaking and spiked a fever of 104.6. That was the beginning of our crazy flu experience which culminated in a call to 9-1-1 and Ian's ride in an ambulance. Mind you, Ryan was in Fallon, NV for this entire experience. He always misses all of the fun.

Our entire family was ordered to stay home as soon as the flu was diagnosed over the phone. We were told to avoid the doctor's office and hospital unless the symptoms became so severe that they required medical attention. (I didn't know Ian would go from normal to unable to breathe with a 105+ temperature in a span of less than 15 minutes one evening). Anyway, I am grateful for my friends who brought me medicine (and Starbucks--extra thanks to Melanie for that) for my sick child and who volunteered to bring us groceries. I'd like to give a thumbs down to the Navy for the broken transport plane and their lack of desire to send our loved ones home in a timely (read: commercial airlines) fashion. This would have saved Tricare the cost of an ambulance ride...probably the equivalent of flying my husband home 10+ times.

Nathan and I never developed anything more than typical cold symptoms. Poor Ian is still using an inhaler to help him breathe--the flu resulted in an upper respiratory infection (half the reason I had to call an ambulance to help me get him to the hospital safely). The doctors never tested him so we can't be 100% sure what strain of the virus he had, but they said it didn't present like H1N1.

Well, I hope all of you stay healthy this year! Let's hope we can avoid another round of the flu!