Home-made Fun & Memories

I poke around the ether quite often for holiday inspiration. I love to gather ideas from Martha Stewart, Better Homes & Gardens, Danielle :), and the likes. But often, those are not the kinds of crafts little kids can help with.

This season, I wanted to focus on things I could do with my kids. One day while Henry and I were playing with scissors at the white table, we just started piecing together jack-o-lantern faces from shapes we'd cut. In an instant, my mind was flooded with all kinds of cut-n-paste ghouls we could create together.

Next thing we knew we were excitedly cutting big orange circles, little green stems, snaggle-toothed smiles, and finally, we were gluing. Henry loved the messiness of the glue. I loved the synergy of our combined creativity. Over the next few weeks, we made additional spooks out of paper, glue, and a little bit of washable paint. We had so much fun concocting ghoulish forms - monsters, ghosts, jack-o-lanterns and scary black blobs. We laughed about the faces Henry made with his clumsy brush strokes.

When we'd amassed a nice little collection of frightful faces, I hung a length of twine from the fireplace mantle and Henry helped me attach our creations with mini clothes pins.

I couldn't love a Martha masterpiece more.

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Another fun activity we did together was a Halloween scavenger hunt. We just did it one morning while Lily was napping. Henry went into his room while I hid half-a-dozen clues -- inside a shoe, in the oven, tucked inside a library book...

They lead him to a little Halloween DVD I had picked out at the beginning of the month. When he found it, we watched it together. It was a fun way to create excitement and a memory around a simple gift.

Hope you've filled the month with Halloween magic - and if you haven't, there are still a few days to squeeze in some simple fun!