Happy Halloween! Halloween Activities for the Family

Happy Halloween everyone!

This is one of my favorite holidays! I go all out. There's something amazing about the new Fall weather and spending time doing things just to make your kids happy. It just makes Halloween one-of-a-kind. Yesterday my family did all our Halloween activities in one night because we have been so busy this month! This is what we did.

Halloween Bingo!

This game has been a family tradition since I was a kid. My family played this every single year, and every single year I looked forward to it. In our married life, we have usually lived close enough to home that we could go to my Mom's house to play every year, but this year we are on our own, so I made our own Halloween Bingo cards! I think they turned out pretty cute. I got the pattern from Artsy Fartsy Mama. She actually has printables for it, and they are ADORABLE. Unfortunately for me, printables are for when your printer is actually working. I would have just printed mine off since they are so cute, but since I couldn't I made my own based on her pictures and bingo cards. It's ok though, it was hard work but I feel like it gave a more personal touch to it and I will treasure it a little more with each passing year.

So, bingo is a pretty simple game and the rules are basic. The only thing you do differently with Halloween Bingo is that you use candy for your markers. Then, when someone calls BINGO! you forfeit all the candy on your card to the player that won. Then after each round, you rotate your cards clockwise.

Vincent enjoyed himself immensely. As you can see by his huge candy pile, he won most of the rounds.

And as you can see by Max's lack-of-candy-pile, he didn't win at all. Haha, don't worry he's only pretending to be upset for the camera. It's actually funny, because he usually won almost every round in previous years. This bingo set must be enhanced with magical kid-advantage powers. =)

Another tradition we have is making Ghost Suckers!

All you need is lollipop sticks, aluminum foil, and chocolate. It is so much fun and tasty too!

This is something else I grew up with. My Mom had us make ghost suckers every year around Halloween. Once again, loved it and always looked forward to it. The picture above is Vincent's "Big Smile Ghost" and also his "Boo from Ruby Gloom" ghost. This is what we normally had when I did it with my Mom growing up - just melted white chocolate and milk chocolate chips. But now I am an adult. And like I said, I go all out for Halloween.

This is my ghost. She's dressed up for Halloween. This year she is going as Little Red Riding Hood. Unfortunately for her, in this version she gets eaten by the Big Bad Gela. =)

Here we have just a couple of the ones Max made. He made a Deadpool sucker for himself (left) and a Spidey sucker for Vincent (right). Turned out great right? He's so talented.

Here's another one Max made - The Grim Reaper! He looks so happy to be here for our Halloween party, doesn't he?

We just happened to have the red and black melting chocolate leftover from Eva's and my birthday party over the weekend. (More on that in the next post! Stay tuned!) But if you are feeling as ambitious as we were, melting chocolate in virtually all colors can be bought at most local crafting stores. I got mine at Jo~Ann. 

And of course, we also carved pumpkins!

Well, I have a long day full of trying to keep my kids' Halloween anxiety down before the fun stuff tonight. Wish me luck!

Happy Halloween!!

101 in 1001 Update

Hi everyone!

I promised you all an update on all the fun stuff I've been doing this month. So here it goes!

I haven't officially crossed anything off of my 101 in 1001 since my past post, but I have been working on it. For starters, I worked on #90: Donate blood twice. I actually made an appointment and went to the donation center last week, and they ended up turning me away because apparently my iron levels were too low. So I got home, made another appointment, and took my iron pill every day until that appointment came around. When I went back, I was able to donate. And you know what? My husband came with me and donated too. It was such a good experience. They really take care of you there, and the feeling you get from doing something good for someone else is just amazing.

I have also been experimenting with #74: Try a juice detox for 10 days straight. I haven't actually started the detox yet, but I started experimenting with making the juice/smoothie. Here's some pictures of the drink that came out of it:

It looks nasty, right?? But you know what? IT WAS DELICIOUS! I couldn't put it down after I made it. Here's what I put into it:

Approx. 1 cup frozen spinach leaves

1/2 cup frozen cucumbers

1/4 cup frozen sliced strawberries

1/2 cup banana slices

1/4 cup frozen cantaloupe

1/4 cup frozen green grapes

1/4 cup frozen honeydew

Filled to the top with water & blended well.

The fruit really does a great job hiding the veggies behind yummy flavors. I can't wait to start incorporating other fruits and veggies like kale, carrots, mangoes, pineapple, etc. I have to admit that I am actually excited to start the detox after trying this, and am planning on starting it near the beginning of November! Wish me luck!

I also started on #8: Try 10 of the amazing tutorials I always see online. Technically this wasn't one for my business even though it's under the "For the biz" category. I dunno what I was thinking putting it under that! But now it's there, and moving it would mess up my numbering, so there it will stay. Anyways, the tutorial I did was this. A Time-Out Bottle. When your kid gets in trouble, you shake up the time-out bottle and give it to them, then send them to go sit somewhere. Tell them that when all the glitter is down at the bottom, they can come out. Meanwhile, your child calms down while watching the glitter settle, and if they don't calm down and throw a fit, it shakes up the bottle and makes their time-out longer. Good idea, right?

Found this idea on Pinterest, and since Vincent seems to be going through a defiant stage, I thought I would give it a try.  Basically all you do is take an empty bottle, fill it up about half-way with water, then dump in some extra-fine glitter and a matching color bottle of glitter glue. Then glue the lid, of course. Don't want your kids trying to drink this stuff.
So, I tried it out when Vincent was being a stinker the other day.....
He refused to hold it.
I tried just setting it in his lap, and he would just take it and put it on the floor. I tried to explain to him that this is how we do time-out now, and he wouldn't budge. I will give it a few more tries, but I'm thinking maybe it's not going to work for him. Too bad, I was so excited about it.

Oh, don't worry. I have lots of other news, but my time is a little pressed right now because I have a HUGE birthday party to throw tomorrow! My life is crazy right now! But as always, thanks for stopping by and be on the lookout for my other fun October Adventures!

~*~Gela~*~

Costumes and #50!

Halloween is getting closer!!

I LOVE this time of year. The trees outside our windows are turning yellow, the air is getting cooler, and our hot chocolate supply is running low.... I love the Fall.

I have lots of great stuff coming up this month that I am looking forward to! But the thing I'm most excited for is Halloween. Especially since my costume arrived in the mail! My husband Max and I are going as SWAT team members. Here's some pics....

Just in case you were wondering.... Those are BB Guns. Don't freak out. Lol! (I'm terrified of actual guns.) We look pretty awesome, though, don't we? We had way too much fun trying them on. Halloween is going to be a blast!

So, here's some even cooler news. I have crossed another item off my 101 in 1001 list!!

#50

Pull an all-nighter for fun.

My husband and I stayed up all night just spending time together on Wednesday. There was no school on Thursday due to Fall Break, and he also had Thursday off of work, so we figured.... Why not? We felt like we hadn't seen each other in days with everything that has been going on, so we stayed up and watched shows and played video games and drank hot chocolate and Mountain Dew and just enjoyed each other's company. I'm amazed that I wasn't even that tired. We ended up going to sleep at around 5AM, and by some MIRACLE the kids actually slept until about 10, so we managed to still get about 5 hours of sleep! It was crazy. We had such a great time. I wish I had pictures to show you all, but we were having so much fun I just completely forgot.

Well, that's it for today. Got a busy week ahead that includes Vincent getting glasses, Eva getting her ears pierced, and my first pedicure ever. Be sure to check back in so I can tell you all about it. =)

~*~Gela~*~

Ghost Story~ Happy October!

I just recently posted something new in my shop. It's a

HALLOWEEN HEADBAND!!

Isn't it just the cutest? I'm pretty much in love with it. So is Eva. She likes playing the korker bow and clicking the two ends of the headband together. What a sweetie pie.

It's also October 1st today.... Don't know if anyone has noticed....

But I'm seriously in HALLOWEEN MODE right now. I have lots of fun activities planned throughout the month to do with my family (thank you Pinterest!), and I am so psyched to share them all with you! But for now, I have something else on my mind....

I wanna tell a ghost story~!

(Dun dun DUN!!!!)

So, I won't get too freaky.... This is a family friendly blog after all =) But I do want to get a little personal. The story I'm about to tell is 100% true. And I know this because it happened TO ME. Here goes.....

When I was a preteen, I was up late at night playing video games, unbeknownst to my parents of course. I couldn't have any of the lights on because if my parents were to wake up and see the living room light on from under their door I would be busted. So I sat in the dark playing video games alone. Normally this never bothered me, but tonight was different. I started hearing a rustling sound. I looked around and didn't see anything, so I went back to my game and thought nothing of it. But it kept going on. I tried not to let it get to me, but eventually I couldn't stand it anymore. I HAD to know. So I paused my game and got up to investigate. I walked toward the sound, and realized it seemed to be coming from the kitchen. So I walked in and looked around. There were grocery bags all over the floor from when my Mom had gone shopping earlier that day and they hadn't been cleaned up yet. One of them was moving across the floor on its own. Me and my amazing logically-sound-12-year-old mind figured "Eek! There must be a mouse under it!" So I mustered up all my courage and lifted the bag......

No mouse.

Hmmm....... My brain started to turn. Then what could it have been? Then I realized.. "Hey, the air conditioning vent is on the floor of the kitchen. It must have blown the bag around when it kicked on." So I put my hand over the vent on the floor.....

Nope. It's not on. And the bag.... Started moving again.

It was just ever-so-gently drifting across the floor. I couldn't think of another explanation, but it wasn't that freaky so I turned back to my game and ignored it. I sat down for only a few minutes before I heard a different kind of noise. A rattling sound. This time I got up right away because I recognized that sound. It was the knob on my parents' bathroom door. I thought they were coming out to bust me. I knew I wouldn't have enough time to turn off the TV and act like I wasn't doing anything, so I turned around and waited to face my punishment and get sent to bed.

.......And nothing happened. The rattling just continued.

It almost sounded as if the door was locked and they were trying to come out but they couldn't figure out the handle for some reason. This went on for a while, so finally I mustered up the courage to walk over to their bathroom door. (I had to pass the kitchen with the moving bag to get there, luckily the bag was motionless by this point.) So I crept up to the door and stared at the doorknob. I could see it rattling. And yet, there was no light on in my parents' bathroom. And I knew my eyes weren't playing tricks on me because my Mom used to keep her hair ties on her bathroom doorknob so that in case any of her girls ever needed one we could just grab one off of it. And I could see the hair ties bouncing up and down with each rattle of the doorknob. And as I approached, the rattling got more violent.

So, I bolted my little self as fast I could to my room, closed the door, turned on my light (closet light too!) and went to bed. That was enough excitement for one night.

If that was my parents playing tricks on me somehow, they sure got me good.

I never played video games late at night again.

The End.

Have fun trying to get to sleep, everyone! =)

Mwahahahahahaha!!

Happy October!

~*~Gela~*~

P.S. I told Vincent that I was telling a scary story on my blog today, and he said he has a good one for you all. It goes like this, "I had a strange dream that there was TWO Vincents. It was very, very, very strange."

Hehe.