Happy Halloween!

Happy Candy Corn Day!

Oh yes! It really is a day! I promise!

In celebration of this wonderful day Maddie made a super cute scrunchy candy corn! We did an apple with the same technique a few weeks ago and anything involving glue and scrunching paper is a hit with Mad!

Materials: scrap cardboard*, yellow/orange/white tissue paper squares, glue
Optional: yellow/orange/white paint

I decided to section off each part of the candy corn and paint a colored dot to help Madison remember where to put each colored tissue paper square. This also meant that I could clean the kitchen while she worked on her project all by herself!

Look mom! All done! Now can I have CANDY please! Please! Please!

*I cut out the sides of cereal boxes so we always have some scrap cardboard laying around the house!

Pumpkin Seed Art

I would love to post cute pictures of Madison carving a pumpkin but they don't exist. This year Madison wanted absolutely nothing to do with the pumpkin and continued to say it was yucky - what a girly girl I have!

I was hoping to come up with some great craft to do with the pumpkin seeds I saved but decided to let Madison lead me in a craft this time.

Armed with scrap cardboard, crayons, glue and pumpkin seeds Madison decided she wanted to make a tree! She asked me to draw the tree for her and then she took over with the glue and pumpkin seeds.

Madison was thrilled that I handed over the whole bottle of glue! I was surprised to watch her deliberately put little dots all over the branches for the pumpkin seed leaves.

Time for the pumpkin seeds!

I am so proud of Madison and here cute little pumpkin seed tree!

Happy Birthday Milo!

Milo at about 1 week old

Our teeny tiny puppy turns 1 today! Of course such a big milestone couldn't pass by without a bit of a celebration!

We made a special puppy friendly birthday cake just for Milo. You can find the recipes at the Dog Treat Recipe Exchange. We made the Peanut Butter Delight Cake with the Cinnamon frosting.

Peanut Butter Delight Cake
From the Dog Treat Recipe Exchange

1 cup white or whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 cup shredded carrots
1 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup honey
1 egg

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C)

Mix together flour and baking soda. Add remaining ingredients and mix well. Pour into a ring mold sprayed with a nonstick spray for 40 minutes.

Cinnamon Frosting
From the Dog Treat Recipe Exchange

Combine the following ingredients and blend thoroughly:
12 ounces nonfat cream cheese (room temperature)
3 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp honey

A new toy for the birthday puppy!

New toy destroyed an hour later, for such a little guy he is really destructive!

Muffin Tin Monday

We are back! We did do Muffin Tin Monday last week but I never got a chance to post, oops! Well we are back today for a Halloween/Fall themed Muffin Tin Monday.


Left Column: a forked eyeball, apples slices with caramel, pumpkin and bat shaped pretzels
Right Column: candy pumpkins, chocolate pumpkin ghost muffin, vanilla yogurt tinted orange

Sorry! We don't have time for a cute Halloween craft today, or busy to-do list just a got a bit busier! Tomorrow we will be celebrating Milo's first birthday though so stop by!

Upcycled Pumpkins

At one of the after Christmas sales last year I picked up a few of these cute little containers filled with bath beads and couldn't bring myself to toss them after I used up all of the bath beads. Finally the time came and I knew exactly what we would do with them! PUMPKINS!

Materials: small round container, orange acrylic paint, sticker paper, black marker, green ribbon, green craft foam

After I rinsed out the containers I added some paint with a just a bit of water. Maddie rolled around the containers and played catch with dad to get the paint evenly spread.

To help the paint dry and drain out any extra we tipped them upside down on an old magazine and some paper towels. Daddy used the marker on the sticker paper to draw a fun pumpkin face.

After the paint was dry Maddie added the sticker face. We finished them off with some ribbon vines and a craft foam leaf. I just adore how these came out!

Halloween Goodies

Tomorrow all the children will be dressing up in their Halloween costumes at church for a little parade and I decided to make a few goodies too!

* sorry! I had already sealed the box when I took the picture so you can see that I wrote Chocolate Pumpkin Muffins!

Bake at 350 has some amazing recipes and even more gorgeous cookies! She recently posted her recipe for Chocolate Pumpkin Muffins. I have used similar recipes in the past and they are always a hit! I like to say that they can't be that bad for you since the main ingredient is a whole can of pumpkin!

I also made these way to sugary sweet Halloween Cookie Pizza slices! I used two boxes of Jiffy Sugar Cookie mix for the base, frosted them with about half a can of cream cheese frosting and then topped them with candy corn, Halloween M&M's and melted chocolate!

I think the children may be leaving church tomorrow on a sugar high!

Do you want to join us?

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Madison and I recently participated in a Sticker Swap, Madison enjoyed sending out stickers and was thrilled to receive a few in the mail! I don't know about your kiddo but mine is over the moon when she gets mail!

I was thinking about getting together a Sticker Swap here on Funny Days. Depending on how many people are interested I have some fun ideas to carry it on. Possibly a monthly swap or even some themed sticker swaps!

If you are interested leave me a comment so I can get an idea of how many people would be willing to participate.

Thanks!

Yes that is Madison peeling the last of this stickers off that she stuck alllll over herself, if only I could find the picture of her covered in them!

The Little Scarecrow Boy - Margaret Wise Brown

We recently found The Little Scarecrow Boy in the seasonal section at our library and Madison has been reading it over and over again since. Of course I couldn't return the book to the library without a fun craft first!

Materials: Construction paper, glue, scissors
Really it doesn't get easier than this!

This was also a perfect time to discuss shapes and colors - granted this is something Madison knows VERY well but a refresher is always good!

My only role in the project was glue distributor! Madison knew exactly where every piece belonged and directed me in the glue placement.

Mad was so thrilled with her new friend and has been cozied up in the living room with her picture and book all morning!

Halloweenie - Part II

I had no idea there was going to be a part two until I saw Babalisme made a just as adorable little boy paper doll! I set to work at naptime yesterday so Madison would have a fun surprise when she woke up.

Once again armed with a roll of contact paper I set to work! This time I felt a bit more adventurous and cut out the shoes too. I knew that single shoes wouldn't last so I had to get a little crafty!

*Sorry! The picture is rough, I took it with my phone camera!

After cutting out all of the shoes I lined a piece of contact paper on top of the dolls feet (sticky side up) then I was able to line up exactly where the shoes should be to fit on the doll. Now instead of having two shoes there is one magnet with both shoes on it that line up perfectly!

Madison has been happily playing with her new doll all day! Her favorite is to dress the little boy as a princess and the little girl as a pirate!

One of THOSE days.

I posted a while back about my utter frustrations with Madison and her ability to turn into a different child at the drop of a hat. Well things have settled down a bit, yes we still have regular meltdowns but I have been able to keep my cool and for the most part sail through them. Then we have a day like yesterday, ugh.

We generally go to story time at the library on Thursday because they do a morning session at 10am which leaves the afternoon open for Madison's much needed nap. Instead of sticking with the routine (yes, routine is good so this is my own fault) I opted to do Tuesday story time which is in the afternoon and would mean no nap. Bad, bad idea.

Of course we had tantrums and tears at the library as expected (once again I did this to myself so I really can't complain) but a trail of tears followed us home for a rough afternoon too. Needless to say there were tears, screams, kicks and all around chaos until bedtime.

**Madison figured out how to open doors a long time ago and not long after figuring that out she also figured out how to unlock a door. At bedtime we stick a child safety door knob cover on the inside of her door so she can't let herself out alllllllll night long. When we head to bed we do take it off!!! No hate mail!**

We generally give Madison three tries at bedtime because she is using the potty now. If she comes out of her room and lays in the hallway and plays with the doors and lights we go upstairs and put her back in bed. When number three rolls around, and it always does, we go upstairs and stick the safety cover on her door.

We hit number three last night and Madison knew the drill she solemnly walked to her room with her head hung and as I reached for the safety cover that is always sitting on her bookshelf she turned to me with bright eyes and a huge smile.

"I don't want the lock on mom"

"Madison you know the rules, you came out three times"

Wait! Where is the lock!!!

"I hid it momma! You can't find it! No lock on my door!"

Really I felt like screaming in the inside, it had already been a long day and I just wanted this battle to end.

"Madison where is the lock?"
"Oh over here, I hid it this morning! Here he go! You can put it on now!"

The laughter started. Not only did she hide the lock but she planned this all along in the morning! She handed the safety cover over with no complaints, climbed in her bed and went to sleep. I won't even bother trying to figure out what she was thinking but I know that I managed to go back downstairs with a smile on my face even though it was one of those days!

Halloween Dress Up Doll

Have you been by Babalisme? Neither had I until a friend mentioned a super cute Halloweenie dress up doll printable!

How gosh darn cute is that!!! There was no hesitating for me I printed out cute little Halloweenie right away and set to work making it Madison friendly. Paper dolls last all of 1 minute in our house before they are forever destroyed so I made a few alterations so this one will last a little longer!
Madison had a kiddo sized cookie sheet in her play kitchen that I snagged just for this project. With my handy dandy masking tape I taped down the title and the naked doll. Then I cut out all of the dress up clothes and covered them with contact paper.

Next up the magnets, one on each dress up piece and we are ready to go! I added a few little decorative Halloween stickers to the background and now Madison has a quiet, church friendly toy for today!

We joined the spooky fun!

If you run in the same bloggy circles that I do I am sure you have seen the Halloween sensory tubs that are all the rage! Well we finally joined in, I picked up a bag of rice and black beans at the grocery store and then with a quick trip to the Dollar Store voila!

We have done sensory tubs before and they have always been a big hit but it really never occurred to me to theme them around the holidays. During our Dollar Store trip I scoped out all the Christmas goodies too, I will be prepared for the next sensory tub!


Madison has been busy for the past hour playing with all of her spooky fun!

Oh, yum!

I love to bake but pies have never really been a passion of mine, then I watched a few episodes of Martha Stewart and may have a little obsession.....

The thought of making pie crust never crossed my mind before Martha came along. I would only bake a pie once a year come apple picking season and that most definitely included my trusty friend the pre-made pie crust. Then Martha came along and introduced me to her Pate Brisee (or pie dough for us plain folks). Not only is this dough so incredibly easy if you have a food processor but it blows any store bought pie crust out of the water.

Since the discovery of this amazing yumminess I have made apple pies, apple turnovers and apple tarts. I was getting a little sick of all the apples so I tried something new this week. Over the summer I had the most amazing cherry pie ever, thank you Suzanne! Of course I could never match that so instead of baking a pie I went for teeny tiny cherry pie pockets.

My Teeny Tiny Cherry Pie Pockets

a batch of Martha Stewart's Pate Brisee
1 can cherry pie filling
1 egg beaten
sugar for sprinkling

Roll out dough to about an 1/8 inch thick. Cut out circles with a 3-inch cookie cutter (or any other size you have).

Spoon cherry pie filling onto the center of each circle. If you are using a 3-inch circle you can fit one single cherry in each pocket.

Fold circle in half to form a half moon shape and press along the seam with a fork.

Arrange pockets on an ungreased baking sheet (there is plenty of butter in the crust to keep them from sticking!). Brush the pockets little with an egg wash and then sprinkle with a bit of sugar.

Bake at 350F for about 10 minutes or until golden brown.

YUMMMM!!!
If you haven't tried Martha's pie dough yet you must and you will never turn back!

Dollar Creations

I ♥ AC Moore and all of its bargains! I picked up three cute wooden Halloween masks for a dollar each as soon as the Halloween goodies went on display and we got around to making them this week!

I plan on putting the masks away after Halloween for next year so I didn't let Madison go as wild with these as I normally would. Instead over the past week Madison painted away with orange and black and after everything dried I added some glue and glitter to finish them up.

Too cute!

These will be great for dress up play next year and they double as cute Halloween decorations!

Where do they live?

Madison is really at the must ask questions all day long stage and sometimes its cute, sometimes its annoying and sometimes I want to scream I don't know!! Well Great Grandma from Montana will be flying in later this month and I have heard "Where is Great Grandma coming from?" more times than I count. All the questions inspired a quick little family geography lesson earlier this week.

Armed with our Dollar Store United States map, sticker paper and the handy dandy computer we set to work as a family figuring out where we all live.

Daddy pulled up maps of the states so that he could rather accurately place the pictures and arrows in the appropriate spots.

We included a picture of Madison when she was a baby because she was born in Washington but we currently live in Connecticut.

We also added our little family, grandparents and great grandparents.

Now whenever Madison asks me where Great Grandma is coming from I tell her to look at the map! Although now I am working on explaining that Montana is not the same as Hannah Montana!

We are on friendly terms

The sewing machine may not be my best friend yet but I don't tremble at the sight of it anymore either. This past weekend I fell in love with the chair backers at Pottery Barn but thought "You know what? I am not going to buy these I am going to go make them!" And that I did.

Canvas is actually surprisingly cheap so I bought a whole yard with hopes of making a chair backer for each season for Madison. I haven't ventured to the seasonal ones yet though, instead I went for an every day look.

Hubby picked out the patches, cute huh?!

Madison said she thought the bag was a good a idea because "You can leave me surprises in there!" Now I just have to explain to her that there won't be a surprise in there every day!

Muffin Tin Monday

Today's theme is kabobs, one of Madison's favorite ways to eat! But....we opted to do Muffin Tin Snack today instead of lunch because daddy was home and treated us to this yummyness for lunch!

Oh yes, creamy New England style clam chowder

and my favorite Manhattan style clam chowder with super yummy clam fritters!

Madison did get to enjoy these yummy fruit kabobs after nap time though! I skewered strawberries, pineapple, mango, cantaloupe and watermelon. I LOVE going to our local grocery store and raiding the salad bar for Muffin Tin meals!