Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!!  This outfit is what I am putting myself through today, all for the children. :)  My setting out of the Raggedy Ann doll DID help most of the kids to figure out who I am dressed up as.  I am loving all of the costumes this morning!

Charlie Chaplin was the first to arrive.  Can you spell out PERFECT with me?  What a great idea!!  He has been very somber this morning, and i asked why.  "Charlie Chaplin doesn't smile!" He informed me.  I love it.

Spiderwoman arrived shortly after.  We are feeling pretty safe now that she is here!

Cinderella is in the house!  My favorite princess of all time, here she is! 

It wouldn't be Halloween 2014 without Elsa!  I can almost hear the ground freezing everywhere she goes.  She has been in character since she arrived. ♥

FINALLY-- a cat who can talk!!  Look at this craftsmanship!  There is something special and unique about home made costumes.  This was just perfect!  The cat is my favorite animal, I'm sure that you know that.   

My boys are able to dress up as book characters today, so Aiden is the big bad wolf and Ethan is Finn from the Adventure Time series.  

Look what arrived this morning.  Not only one, but two children brought treats to share with their friends.  I love when the kids think about each other.  A mom asked me this morning if I am tired yet.  The answer is YES, it's early and we haven't even begun our celebration, and I am tired.  Thank you God that today is Friday and most of us get to sleep in tomorrow.  

Yesterday we got out the cinnamon playdough and played for 45 minutes.  I did not take many photos, but the kids were wonderful about sharing and trading tools. 

My prayer for all of you is for a safe night tonight!  It's going to be a soggy one here in Washington, the first rainy Halloween in several years.  It's nothing that some rubber boots and an umbrella can't solve!

Happy Halloween!

Marilyn Manson's version of "This Is Halloween".  Love it!

♥♥♥Happy Friday!♥♥♥

Fall Magnets

We created some small magnets yesterday.  I ordered the magnet kits from Oriental Trading.  While the kit that is shown in the link depicts breast cancer awareness designs, you can use or create whatever design you choose to create.   Just cut out some paper in a small circle like in the photo above.  

I wrote each child's name on it with a sharpie marker.  The kids used colored pencils to color it.  I took over at that point with a hot glue gun.  A small leaf was a good fit, and luckily we had them on hand.  

Another squirt of hot glue was added and the top part of the magnet was then pressed on to spread the glue evenly.  

The final step was to hot glue the magnet to the back side.  I love the way these turned out!  It required only minimal work from the kids, but it was something they could take home and use on the fridge forever.

We have been so busy that our annual Ghost Bingo game has been pushed back over and over.  We finally got it out yesterday and played.  It was good to have the school age kids here to join us.  The more, the merrier!

We used candy corn as our bingo pieces.  The kids were good about not eating it, and because we have some coughs going around, I tossed the pieces when we were done.   We played until everyone got a "Bingo" and then we played until everyone had a "Blackout".  I gave out stickers and glow sticks to winners. 

The kids always look forward to Bingo.  It's a classic! 

♥♥♥Happy Thursday!♥♥♥

Four Spiders & Halloween Favors

We are still counting to four.  We created four spiders that began with four thumbprints.

I showed them that the idea was to draw four legs on each side of each spider.  I spent individual time with each child and we counted to four over and over.  They were doing really well!

Using some metallic glue, we counted four eyes for each spider.

Gross!  Quick, I need a shoe!

It was pouring during our morning outside time.  We opened the door and had a dance party. :)

Meanwhile, I was preparing some Halloween favors for the kids.  If you have the large industrial size coffee filters, they would be ideal.  I tried to make the first favor using just one regular size coffee filter.

It only worked if I removed one of the candies, and it wasn't as fluffy as I hoped it would be.

I took it apart.  Why on earth would I want to short them candy?  No.

The second time, I taped two filters together like this.

They turned out much fluffier.  Ghostier.  Spookier.  Perfect for Halloween!

Smudge was caught in the rain yesterday, too.  I had to towel him off because of course, because he was soaked, he felt like snuggling.

♥♥♥Happy Wednesday!♥♥♥

Duck The Rain

We are working on the letter Dd.  When I say "working on", that just means looking at it, saying words that start with the letter d, repeating the sound that it makes, recognizing it, and tracing and or writing it. 

I had a small group of three year olds yesterday who all did an incredible job tracing the letter D!  I could not believe my eyes.  They all had such control over their crayon.  I was impressed!  This is fantastic for three year olds. 

We left a blank space above our letters to create a duck.  Everyone had a turn getting their hand painted brown.

They glued on a head, duck bill, eye, legs and a feather. 

D is for duck!

"Duck", as in.."Duck the rain!"  This morning, we were thinking we could beat the rain at the bus stop and went out this morning without our umbrellas.  The rain won!  We enjoyed an invigorating run back here from the bus stop!  It was fun to get drenched, everyone was pretty happy about it. ☺

♥♥♥Happy Tuesday!♥♥♥

God Is My Strength

It breaks my heart that this isn't the first time I have blog posted the heartbreak that I feel about another school shooting.  I can't even muster up the eloquence to voice the feelings that are happening as I send my babies off to school.  We have had violence like this in our own High School.  As a mom, I'm worried sick.  As a Christ believer I can feel at peace. 

Ephesians 6:10  "Finally, my brothers, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might."

I've just got to remember that God is my strength, and that He goes before me and after.

♥♥♥Happy Monday!♥♥♥

Baby Food Jar Candles & Scones

My mother-in-law gave me a bag of baby food jars.  We have used baby food jars for two projects: shaking our own butter & candle holders.  If we had the lids for the jars, we would've made butter.  That's a fun project!  Just pour some heavy cream into a jar, tighten the lid and shake!  It will turn to a blob of butter.  Kids love that-- we have done that to represent the letter b.  Yesterday, we created Fall colored candle holders.

We have made this before, and I still use mine.  Baby food jars are the right size for either a tealight candle or a votive, and that makes me love them even more.  Warning:  once it's been burning for a while, it is very hot!  Make sure you keep it out of reach.  We turned off the lights to see how nicely it glows.

The kids each have a small cup with a mixture of Elmer's glue and water.  I don't measure,  but you just need to make sure that you have more glue than water.  The water thins it out.  The mixture should be very watery!  The kids then hold a tissue paper square into place on the outside of the jar, and paint it with the glue and water mixture to secure it.  This can take forever.  The goal is to keep the pieces as flat as possible.  That can be very difficult for a child to accomplish.  I usually make my rounds and help each child near the end to ensure ample jar coverage, and to try to smooth out the bulging paper blobs.

Set it on a paper plate or paper towels upside down to dry. 

I like to add twine.  To everything.  So I did.

I popped a tealight into everyone's jar so they can light it at home with mom and dad.  There is never a candle shortage in my house.  Need candles?   Pop on over to my Partylite Consultant's website and order some.  They can be delivered to your door.  I love Partylite because they burn smokeless, the melted wax does not burn skin, and they burn completely down to the end of the wick and leave no wax behind.  Even the White House uses Partylite.  If you do go online shopping-- check the clearance.  It's called "Online Outlet".   

 Meanwhile, it is pajama day at Henle House!  I finally have an excuse to wear sweats to work!  It's the best day ever!  I baked some scones.  You can find the recipe HERE.  They are amazing with coffee and sweat pants.

♥♥♥Happy Friday!♥♥♥

Birds, Leaves and Cat Puppets

We were in the middle of group time, and something was happening outside the window that I couldn't ignore.  We took a closer look.

Click on the photo to get a better look, but there were a couple of birds feeding on the leftover seeds from the sunflowers.  I had recently pulled up all of the others, and left this one just for the birds.  We were glad to see that some of them stopped by!  We have also seen quite a few crows every day on our way to the bus stop.  Adam and I were watching a great documentary about crows and how smart they are.  Crows are one of three animals in the world who use tools.  (Chimps and elephants are the other two.)  Did you know that if you do something mean to a crow, the crow will recognize your face and tell ALL of the other crows that your face means bad behavior?  They will ALL respond to you accordingly and warn others of your presence.  Amazing!  They also have dialects with each other, and have a crazy amount of calls that mean different things. (Cat- person- food etc.)  

On our way home from the soggy bus stop yesterday, we gathered some leaves to bring back and take a closer look at.

I like to grab one that still has some green on it so the kids can compare the color change.

They took some time and just examined the colors.

These ones reminded me of fire.

Off to the table we went to create a black cat paper bag puppet.

The kids colored a large black oval onto the bag.  This would be the body.

I didn't take photos of the "building" of the cats.  The kids had some help.

We hadn't created a paper bag puppet in a while, so the kids had to learn what to do with their hand to make the puppet talk.

This is how they created the inside of the cat mouth.

We continue name writing with the kids who can do it.

We hung up some of the leaves because God makes art, too.

♥♥♥Happy Thursday!♥♥♥