Halloween Costume Watch 2014: Clash of Clans Barbarian King

Jammy had a lot of trouble figuring out what costume he wanted to wear this Halloween. His brother 3Po already had an awesome Chinese dragon head, and Jammy is extremely competitive by nature, so he wanted something with a significant "Wow" factor.  He and his friends are crazy about the Clash of Clans game, so I suggested dressing up as a member of the clan: the barbarian king.

Must-have items to take with you while Trick-or-Treating

Costumes? Check. Trick or treat bag? Check.  House keys? Check.  Phone? Check.  You may think you're all ready to go out trick or treating, but consider this: you're going out walking, in the dark, with a group of excited kids who are likely to consume large amounts of candy and get even more hyperactive.  Unless you want the evening to dissolve into tears and tantrums (or an early abandonment of your trick-or-treat plans), you'll want to bring a lot more than that.

This is our 14th year of taking a child trick-or-treating on Halloween night, and over the years, I've amassed a must-have list of items to have with me.  Here's my list of items to pack in your Halloween night purse to make trick-or-treating less stressful and more fun:

Halloween Costumewatch 2014: Chinese Dragon

I don't mind spending on Halloween costumes -- it's my favorite holiday, after all -- I try to encourage the kids to alternate between buying a costume one year, and then making or assembling it the next. I've been kind of lax in enforcing it with the boys, so this year I redoubled my efforts to get them to make their own costumes, and save a few bucks in the process.  As it turned out, I think I spent more on raw materials for this year's costumes than if I had just bought costumes from a store.... but we did have a great time making the costumes, and they ended with kickass costumes that will blow those generic store-bought costumes out of the water!

Wordless Wednesday: Nuts

Today, October 22, is National Nut Day!  No, not the crazy people kind of nuts, the yummy, nutritious snack kind of nuts.  To celebrate, I'm posting a photo of one of my favorite kinds of nuts -- pistachios -- as well as a link to my recipe for Nutty Howloween Cookies_.  Enjoy!

Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Festival

I've just realized that this blog is over 8 years old and has absolutely no mention of the Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Festival.  This is a serious omission, because the Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Festival is our favorite festival in the entire region (I did write about why I love the HMB Pumpkin Festival over on Silicon Valley Mamas a couple of years ago).  We've attended the festival every year for almost a decade, and despite the crowds and traffic, we can't wait for the next festival to arrive.

Halloween Boo Bag Printables

We've halfway to Halloween night, but around here the spooky fun begins long before October 31. There are just way too many Halloween crafts and activities and parties to enjoy -- and we put in way too much effort on our Halloween costumes to show them off on just one night -- so we like to celebrate Halloween all month long!

How to make a Chinese Dragon Mask for your American Girl Doll

This year, 3Po decided he wants to be a Chinese Dragon for Halloween.  I put my creative hat on and helped him search for tutorials for make-your-own Chinese Dragon costumes. I found a great YouTube tutorial for a parade dragon and came up with a pattern based on their dragon head. I decided to make a small-scale prototype to see whether it would be feasible for us to make it without all the industrial equipment on the video.  By this time, I had spent so much time on the project, I decided to turn the prototype into an American Girl doll craft!  After all, dolls need Halloween costumes too, right?

Pumpkin Chocolate Cheesecake Bars

I had some pureed pumpkin left over from last week's Pumpkin Cranberry Cookies, and since those were gobbled up pretty quickly, I decided to make another pumpkin baked treat.  After all, there's no sense in letting perfectly good pumpkin puree go to waste!  I just happened to have another box of spice cake mix (I always buy cake mix in pairs!), so I went back to The Ultimate Cake Mix Cookie Book -- but I couldn't find the combination of ingredients I was hankering for, so I decided to use the cookbook's basic bar cookie recipe as an inspiration to create my own!

For this treat, I wanted a pumpkin bar cookie, with some cheesecake batter swirled in.  I also wanted to add some chocolate chips, because let's face it, chocolate makes everything taste better. Here's what I came up with.  The name -- Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Bars -- is quite a mouthful, but then so is the treat.

How to weave an American Girl Doll Rug

Thanks to fairy tales like Sleeping Beauty and Rapunzel, most kids know that cotton is spun into thread, and thread is woven into cloth, but most kids these days have never seen a spindle or a loom in action, let alone know how to spin or weave. Most of the looms available in craft stores are the rainbow kind, but if you want to give your child a basic idea of how to weave thread into cloth, all you need is some yarn and a paper plate.

We first tried paper plate weaving at St. Fagan's National History Museum in Wales, and I couldn't believe how it kept all 3 of my kids occupied -- they were 11 and 8 at the time, and they hadn't done yarn crafts for years!  They wanted to stay in the crafts center and continue weaving, allowing Alfie and me the opportunity to enjoy a romantic walk around St. Fagan's Castle (hey, when you have 3 kids, you take romance whenever you can find it!).  The resulting circle is perfect as an American Girl doll rug!

1. Draw 8 lines through the center of a paper plate, dividing it into 16 equal wedges. Cut about 1" off the edge of the plate.
2. Wind yarn through the slits formed by the cuts you made, forming spokes of yarn...
3. ...coming across the back of the paper plate.
4. Starting at the center, weave yarn in and out of the yarn spokes.
5. Once your rug is the desired size, slip off the loops of yarn, cut and tie.
6. Flatten your doll rug. Iron and starch if necessary.

Head over to my latest post on Bedtime Math for more detailed, step-by-step instructions (with photos at each step).  It's a lot of fun, and it will keep kids of any age busy for hours......

Pumpkin Cranberry Chocolate Chip Cookies

It's almost October, and my fall baking season has begun!  I've already stocked up on Trader Joe's pumpkin bread mix, and I've bought lots of pumpkin puree for those other times when I want to bake from scratch.  My first baked treat of the season is a mixture of both:  you start with a cake mix, but you add flour, eggs, and other ingredients to make it your own.  This one is from The Ultimate Cake Mix Cookie Book, and it's called Whole Wheat Pumpkin Breakfast Cookies.  Since it has whole wheat flour and pureed pumpkin, I guess the author figured it was as least as healthy as the breakfast muffins you buy at your local bakery.  I added chocolate chips, so I'm not even pretending that it's anything but a yummy treat :)  These cookies are soft and cakey and super delicious.  However, they're on the dry side -- so you'll want to have them with a cup of tea or a glass of milk!