Surviving At Home

Dressing up your toddler for Halloween is a lot of fun. Enjoy it while you can. Before you know it your sweet little toddler will be in kindergarten or first grade and will have developed a much stronger opinion on his or her costume choices and you’ll no longer be able to dress him in the costume of your choice. Here are a few ideas for toddler Halloween costumes to get you started. Of course there are plenty of other options out there as well. With a little creativity, the possibilities are endless.

Dwarf
Start with earth tone pants and shirt. Brown and dark greens work well. Put your child in some boots as well. Make a simple hat out of felt, similar to a witch’s hat but with a smaller brim. Finish the outfit with some gardening tools. Your little dwarf right out of “Snow White” is ready to go trick or treating.

Pumpkin
Start with a large orange sweatshirt. Cut eyes and a mouth shape out of black or yellow felt and glue them on the front of the shirt. Put the shirt on your child, fold up the sleeves, then stuff the belly and back area with newspapers or quilt batting to make it look nice and round like a pumpkin. Top it all of with a green cap. You can even cut some leaf shapes out of green felt and glue them to the top of the cap.

Sunflower
Dress your child in a green shirt and pants. For smaller children, especially those in colder climates, a one piece pajama-type outfit with feet works well. For the flower part, start with a brown hat or cap. Cut flower petal shapes out of yellow felt and glue them all around the hat. If you’d like you can cut two large leaf shapes out of green felt and glue them at the back of each of the shirt’s sleeves. A little plastic watering can makes a cute pail to carry candy in.

Article by:
Would you like to quickly make creative Halloween costumes that you and your children will be proud of — for a fraction of the price of store-bought? Susanne Myers has co-authored a book to show you how — no sewing involved. Visit www.ILoveHalloweenCostumes.com to learn more.

Make a Spider Web
All you need for this fun game is a ball of black, white, or silver yarn or string and a few kids. Have everyone stand around in a circle. Ask one child to hold one end of the string and then toss the ball to another kid. Each child holds on the string and then tosses it to someone else. Before you know it you’ll have a great spider web.

Mummy Contest
Grab a few rolls of toilet paper and match the kids up in pairs. Of course you could also have them choose partners. Ask each pair to decide which one of them will be the mummy and who will do the wrapping. Then – you guessed it – have one of the children wrap the toilet paper around the other, creating a mummy.

You can either make it a contest of speed or one of creativity. For the first, the team that has a completely wrapped mummy first wins. For the second contest, the kids take as long as they need to and you get to play judge and pick the best looking mummy.

Eyeball Race
Start with a plain ping-pong ball for each child. Use a Sharpie marker and draw on it to turn it into an eyeball. You can simple draw the pupil, or for a scarier version, add some red wiggly lines to make the eyeball look bloodshot.

Give each child a spoon and drop one of the eyeballs in each spoon. Now it’s time to race. The child that reaches the finish line with the eyeball in the spoon first wins.

There you have it – three fun games you can play with your kids to pass the day until it is time to go trick-or-treating. These games are also a lot of fun at a Halloween party. Get your kids playing them and watch all the spooky fun.

Article by:
Would you like to quickly make creative Halloween costumes that you and your children will be proud of — for a fraction of the price of store-bought? Susanne Myers has co-authored a book to show you how — no sewing involved. Visit www.ILoveHalloweenCostumes.com to learn more.

Other than dressing up in costumes, Halloween is all about yummy treats. Of course you are not limited to just candy when it comes to Halloween food. Here are some great snack and meal ideas. These are perfect for a Halloween party, or as a way to enjoy the excitement as you count down to the big day.

Ghostly Sandwiches

Fix your favorite sandwich on white bread. One of our favorites for these ghostly sandwiches is a turkey and cheese sandwich with just a touch of mayonnaise (all white ingredients for a spooky white ghost). Fix the sandwich as usual, then use a ghost cookie cutter to cut it into ghost shapes. If you don’t have a ghost cookie cutter, you can cut the ghost freehand or make a simple pattern out of cardboard or wax paper to use as a guide.

Bat Cookies

Make a batch of your favorite sugar cookie dough, or use a pack of refrigerated dough from your grocery store. Roll out the dough and cut out bat shapes. Use a bat-shaped cookie cutter, or cut them freehand.

Melt some dark chocolate and brush it on the bat cookie. Of course you could also dip one side of the cookie in the melted chocolate and set the cookies on some wax paper until the chocolate has a chance to harden. After that they are ready to eat or store in an airtight container.

Jack-O-Lantern Tortilla Wraps

Start with a plain flour tortilla. Spread some pimento cheese on it, or layer some sliced ham and shredded cheddar cheese on there. Anything orange works well. Wrap the tortilla tightly, then cut it in ½ inch slices. Lay each of the slices on its side and use some nuts, raisins or small pieces of veggies (like yellow or red peppers) to make the eyes and mouth of your little Jack-O-Lantern tortilla Wrap.

Pumpkin Pizza

Start with your favorite pizza dough or a ready-made crust. Top it with pizza sauce and your favorite toppings. Add a layer of cheddar cheese on top. Then use slices of green pepper to make the ridges of the pumpkin – you’ll arrange them in ( ) shapes around the pizza pan. Use pepperoni slices or red and yellow pepper slices to form the jack-o-lantern’s face. Bake as usual.

Article by:
Would you like to quickly make creative Kids Halloween Costumes that you and your children will be proud of — for a fraction of the price of store-bought? Susanne Myers has co-authored a book to show you how — no sewing involved. Visit www.ILoveHalloweenCostumes.com to learn more.

Are your kids excited about Halloween yet? We don’t have a day go by where my daughter doesn’t ask me if it’s time to go trick-or-treating yet. Keep them busy while they wait with these easy kids craft ideas you can do together.

Ghost Hand Puppet
Kids love playing with puppets and there’s hardly an easier puppet to make than a ghost. All you need is a white paper towel, or a white handkerchief, a rubber band and a black marker.

Ask your child to spread out her thumb and pinky, but keep the 3 other fingers together. Drape the paper towel over her hand and secure the rubber band around the three fingers. This will be the ghost’s head; the thumb and pinkie form the arms. Draw eyes and a mouth on the paper towel and the little ghost puppet is finished.

Ghost Lollipops
Dress up the lollipops you are giving away for Halloween by wrapping a white tissue or small piece of fabric over them. Secure it with a piece of string or a rubber band. Take a black marker and draw eyes and a round mouth on the ghost’s face.

Spider Webs
What would Halloween be without spiders and spider webs? Make these cute little spider webs with the kids and hang them in the window. All you need are 3 craft or clean popsicle sticks and some white or black yarn. Take two of the craft sticks and glue them together to form a cross. Glue the 3rd one right in the middle, forming a star shape. Tie one end of the yarn around one of the craft sticks in the center. Start weaving it over one craft stick and under the other. Keep going around, forming your spider web. Make sure you leave at least 1/4th inch of the craft sticks sticking out and secure the loose end by tying it to one of the craft sticks. Glue a small plastic spider in the center and hang your spider web up.

Witch Broom Pencil
Witch broom pencils make a cute Halloween gift that doesn’t involve candy. You can turn any pencil into a witch’s broom with a handful of household items. All you need is a regular pencil, some small twigs out of the yard, some string and a little glue.

Break the twigs into equal lengths pieces and line them up around the unsharpened end of a pencil. Make it look like an old fashioned broom. Secure the wigs with string, and then apply a thick layer of glue to keep it all in place.

Cauldron Candy Dish
To make this cute cauldron candy dish, start with an empty round plastic container (like a cool-whip container). Clean it, dry it, and then paint it black. Paint three small wooden balls black as well. After the paint is dry, glue them to the bottom of your plastic container. Add a handle made out of wire if you’d like and your candy dish cauldron is done. Just add some of your favorite Halloween candy.

Pumpkin Painting
Carving funny or scary faces into a pumpkin is a lot of fun, but it also gets quite messy and small kids can’t really do much since there’s a knife involved. Buy a few small pumpkins instead, or in addition to the big carving pumpkin. Use permanent pens or acrylic paint to draw funny faces on your mini-pumpkins.

Make a Halloween Costume

Article by:
Would you like to quickly make creative Kids Halloween Costumes that you and your children will be proud of — for a fraction of the price of store-bought? Susanne Myers has co-authored a book to show you how — no sewing involved. Visit www.ILoveHalloweenCostumes.com to learn more.