Happy Halloween

Windsock and painted jack o' lantern plate courtesy of Buby.

Halloween Boxes

Here's the plan: The wee ones will trade in all the preservatives, artificial ingredients and saturated fat they collect tonight for two super secret boxes of awesomeness. Last year we gave Buby a black {Easter-like} basket from us at the end of the night. It was filled with goodies that were also good for him, in addition to one gourmet lollipop from his mom + pop.


We couldn't use the same basket, as there's only one of those and two trick-or-treaters now. So... I found these fancy stacking boxes in my "orange section" of the attic and cut out a bat design for Buby's and a cat for Bleu's.


And just in case you're thinking we're the meanest parents EVER for not letting our four year old go to town on a 10 lb. bag of sugar, Buby loves this tradition of ours. He's totally down with going door to door like the big kids and then exchanging his loot, in its entirety, for something he deems much sweeter: A present from us. He looks forward to it for months. And we all go to bed happy.


Plus: This week Buby's brought home plenty of treats from his preschool pals. Delicious pumpkin chip bread. A red velvet cupcake. Two dumbbells. Salty bat-shaped pretzels. Spooky cheese ball things I would never buy. So it's perfect. That stuff sits in a bowl on the fireplace mantel, and he will help himself to some of it over the next week.

i-spy: Tigger

Buby's class {minus John, Alexa and Karrilynn}. And yes, Tigger's belly is padded A LOT.

Halloween Tree

Dressed in ornaments collected over time from Buby + Bleu, Grandma DJ, Tom G., and my dear friend Maria. Thank you...

Paper Craft

Buby wanted to give each of his school friends a lil' treat for Halloween. We threw out some ideas and decided on creepy cool pencils with personalized pumpkin tags.


I tailored the project for Buby, who is quite enamored with writing utencils these days. Every step reinforced some skill he's been working on. For instance, he's just beginning to read and write independently... starting with his own name and those of each of his classmates.


Buby loves to sit around the kitchen table in the evenings and teach me how to spell, sound out, and rhyme names like T-A-Y-L-O-R and S-O-P-H-I-A and N-I-C-O. Using a skinny pencil and cutting on lines are old skills he is forever fine tuning.


So we picked up 40 Halloween pencils at Target for just $3.99 and a new hole punch for $1.60 at the village pharmacy. I had the rest of the supplies in my inventory, including orange card stock, mini alphabet stampers, a blank ink pad, and orange curling ribbon.


Bleu napped for three hours on Tuesday. The house was unusually quiet. I had a lovely time sitting next to Buby and chit chatting about nothing in particular. Me telling him what a fab job he was doing. Him telling me how much his friends would love-love-love what he was making for them.


I've noticed Buby can come away from the smallest art and craft project with a huge sense of pride and accomplishment. I like that. Plus, we always want for one-on-one time. I think everyone with more than one babes craves it. Buby and I certainly do.

Step 1: Dump 101 plastic cookie cutters onto the playroom floor and look for anything resembling Halloween. Buby finds bats, cats and pumpkins.

Step 2: Figure out how to hold cookie cutter/stencil with one hand while drawing with the other.

Step 3: Space them evenly so as to fit three on a page.

Step 4: Work on pencil grip. His teacher has already pulled me aside to discuss. I'm almost 33 years old, and I've never once held my pencil correctly. I'm not sure I'm the one to be reinforcing this.

Step 5: Count pumpkins to make sure there are 11 total. Buby wants to make three more for Gilly, Lily, and Grace. Because in his mind they are his "really best friends."

Step 6: Stretch legs. Play hide-in-seek under the craft table. Because we can.

Step 7: Cut out pumpkins with big-boy scissors and remember not to chop off stems.

Next: Search teeny tin with 26 even teenier letter stamps in it for the correct letters of each classmate's name. Line them up in the right order.

Step 8: Stamp away. Try to evenly space the letters. This is not an easy task when working with such small stamps. Great for fine motor development.

Step 9: Use a single-hole punch for the very first time. This is the most fun step for Buby. In fact, after he finishes the pumpkin craft he hole-punches an entire sheet of 8x11 paper.

Step 10: Celebrate. You just traced, cut, stamped, and hole punched a personalized something something for 14 friends. All by yourself.

P.S. Turns out pencils are not a unique idea, as Buby received LOTS of them this year.

Village Places {today}

Bakery. We picked up a rustic loaf and a raspberry surprise cookie.

Library. Closed for lunch, so we dropped 6 hardcovers into the box.

The church lawn is a must cut-through. Lovely trees + leaves.

What It Is

Click to enlarge photo from this morning's walk.

A Baby Story

Photo taken March 2008.





Buby's four-year-old mind wants to know where babies come from. Or more accurately, how they come out. I wonder if his curiosity is sparked by the fact that ALL of his closest pals {Gilly + Nat, Lillian, Grace, and Reagan} are due to become big sisters sometime after Christmas. Who knows.


So we were walking to the post office the other day when out of the blue Buby interrupted our banter about "Dandy Lions" {as he calls the weed} with the following: "There is no crack in the belly for the baby to come out. So how does a baby come out of its mama?"


I was all... Oh. Um. Okay. My old standby goes something like, "Well, the mama goes to the hospital when she's ready, and the baby doctor helps the baby be born." To which Buby replied, "I KNOW, Mama. I know that. But HOW? If there is no crack in the mama's belly does the baby come out?"


Wow, I thought. He wants specifics. I'm not one to lie about the basics {like anatomy}, so I wanted my answer to be G rated but honest. For better or worse, I told him that babies are born one of two ways. The doctor uses a special tool, makes a small crack in the belly, and lifts the baby out. Then he sews the crack right back up. OR. The baby comes out on its own where the mama goes peepee.


Buby got quiet. I guess my answer sufficed. Or scared him silly. Either way, we found our way back to "Dandy Lions" and I bought myself some time to figure out better responses to this question and many others on the horizon.


Two days later while I was cooking dinner the kiddos sat at the kitchen table stenciling animals onto paper. Buby made a cow with a peculiar-looking tail.


He told me, "I made the tail extra fat. That's because the mama cow has to poop out her new baby."


What?


"The grandma and grandpa cows are standing there watching. They were babies, too, a very long time ago. The grandma and grandpa can poop out 100 babies at a time. Two of them will be the mama and daddy ones. The rest can be the babies."


Oops.


Have you ever explained the birthing process to a preschooler? I obviously stink at it. Please do share.

I'm Thinking NO

He told me he wants a skate board when he gets older. This was after seeing Mark {the very sweet neighbor kid he looks up to} hanging at the park with a bunch of skaters. Gulp.

Reposted: Pumpkin Cake

I had to throw away the entire pumpkin cake, minus three slivers. It was yummy and rich and all of that, but we're not really cake people. Even fancy cake people. Now pie... that's a different story. I've never thrown away a pie.