More Pumpkins, a Birthday, AND Halloween!

This was a very busy week for us, but we still managed to get in a few fun activities here and there. I get the question all the time: "how do you have time to do all of this?" and I'm never sure how to answer it. If the question is about how I have time to prepare everything, it honestly doesn't take this "teacher-brained" lady much time to throw things together. I can usually do my internet searches, printing, and making the games/projects while the girls are in bed. If the question is about how I have time to actually do the activities with Little Bear and/or Little Tiny.....well, I'll be honest and say that we don't always get them done. We try our hardest to maintain a pretty simple life around here (by this I just mean that we are at home a lot, without a crazy, busy, on-the-go schedule), but weeks like this one can throw us off when LIFE takes the front seat to "school time." I have also found that some activities take only a few minutes and others can provide a good half-hour of "entertainment" for the girls while I am getting something else accomplished around the house. Okay, enough of that, I just had to get that off my chest :)

I didn't have my camera handy for every single thing we did this week, but I tried to capture most of it.

Pumpkin/Halloween Playdough :)
I found these cute Halloween cookie cutters at, you guessed it, the Dollar Tree. Little Bear could have played with the playdough and cutters for hours if I would have let her! She hasn't quite gotten the hang of rolling out the dough yet, but she had fun stuffing as much playdough into the cutters ;)

While Big Sister played with the cookie cutters and playdough, Little Tiny was busy trying her hand at the pumpkin puff ball game. She is really into taking things out of containers and putting them back in so this was the perfect game for her! I only had to tell her 2-3 times to keep the puff balls out of her mouth ;) She's getting SO big!

Christian Jack-o-lantern
I found the printables for this wonderful activity here. I'm sorry to say I don't have a picture of Little Bear with her finished product, but here you can see her using a tiny piece of sponge to paint her pumpkin orange. We have never tried this before and she LOVED using the sponge! She could either blot it or smear it. This was a 2 step project for her...we painted in the morning when we had just a few minutes, then she added the symbols for the face later that evening. What a fun little project with a very special message!

Pumpkin Patch Parable Coloring Book
A friend of ours gave us this book a couple years ago and we dig it out every year as we carve our pumpkin. We absolutely love the message it sends about sharing the light of Christ with others. So of course when I found this coloring book printable on the 1+1+1=1 site, I was really excited. Little Bear enjoyed hearing the story several times this week and coloring the pumpkins in the coloring book. She especially loved the page where it showed all the "yuckies" that came out of the pumpkin :)
Halloween Cheerio Treats
Having little ones in the house means we should buy stock in Cheerios (insert little trademark symbol here). So when I came across this recipe, we had to make it! Little Bear did all the pouring and counting and taste testing (her favorite part). We can't wait to dig into these later today! Ahem, others might not notice, but I have to point out that she is wearing her Butterfly Fairy Princess dress, wings, and her little sister's shirt ;) Love her!

Grilled Cheese Pumpkins
Those fun cookie cutters I found at the Dollar Tree were really put to use this week. The girls both adore a good grilled cheese sandwich so I just *knew* they'd gobble these adorable pumpkins right up! By the way, I absolutely LOVE Jessica Seinfeld's version of grilled cheese, using butternut squash puree and shredded cheddar cheese in place of cheese slices, found in her Deceptively Delicious Cookbook :) Little Tiny DID gobble hers right up, but it was a different ending to the story for Little Bear. I'm not sure if she just didn't want to mess up her beautiful pumpkin or what, but I ended up tossing it down the garbage disposal :( She was entertained by it though and told stories about it throughout the whole lunch time!

A Birthday!
Friday we celebrated Little Tiny's 1st birthday (I know, already!). We started the day meeting some special friends at the Donut Bank for breakfast. Unfortunately, Tiny was not feeling so well all day so it was a pretty relaxed day around the house for her. Little Bear and I made and iced the King-sized cupcakes (see pics here) and got everything ready for our celebration. We are truly blessed to have 2 wonderful girls in our family! Here they are being sweet together:

Sweet baby girl playing with her new toy from Sissy

Trying out some birthday cupcake, Mmmmmmmm

I also found these pumpkin songs and rhymes that we continue to work on. I am hoping to get at least one "performance" on video, but we'll see ;) And as for Halloween....we have one Butterfly Fairy Princess and one sick little baby girl at our house today. The Princess will be doing her first *real* trick or treating (last year she trick or treated at the hospital!), while the little ladybug stays home to get well. And in case you haven't noticed, being a Butterfly Fairy Princess is nothing new to Little Bear on Halloween...she has worn her *costume* daily since Grandma got it for her several weeks ago :D She truly is our "princess."