I can almost smell it in the air...

I can't wait to fill this cute calendar up with fun Halloween goodness.

My cute friend and I made these after seeing them on this awesome blog.

It was so much fun to make.

Restless Risa is way to awesome.  

I had to make mine a nine day calendar to keep the cost down.

I used my cricket and sticky felt for the numbers.

The pockets are filled with things we love (and do anyways)

I know the Monday night before Halloween we will go to the pumpkin patch so that was in that day.

I like to make sugar cookies so I put a cookie cutter in that spot.

There were glow sticks on Halloween night.

Pencils and erasers

etc..

Make sure that everything is Halloween themed.  This adds to the fun.

I got ribbon to tie it with.

The bags had Halloween on them.

The kids will love this.

Only 38...

I have been feeling a little meloncoly now that my kids are back in school. 

I MISS THEM!

So when I read this on my cute cousin's blog it made me smile.

Seriously what a cute mom.

I would have loved to come home to a sign like this.

Maybe next year I will copy.

What do you do to make your kids feel special and know you want them around?

With you as my teacher...

This year I did a teacher gift that was simple.   

I had planned on making cookies but didn't think about a cute tag.

 Finally after some blog searching I found the saying I wanted. 

"With you as my teacher
I am going to be one
Smart Cookie."

I found the saying over at eighteen25
I love that blog.

It helped to make the cookies in advance.  Cookies freeze very nicely and so I froze enough for each teacher and then the day of school I just pulled it out of the freezer and gave them to the kids.
I put the tags on them the day before school.  I just used stamps but the cricket would work great. 

My son's teacher told him on his first test he get an A+, because a cookie is just what she needed.
That made his day.

Beat the Heat...Slip 'n' Slide Baby

I love slip 'n' slides but they are usually pretty small and pretty expensive. This year I decided to change it up a bit. Painters plastic is really sturdy and so off to Home Depot we went to buy us some. Yikes, it was way more expensive than I thought. I bought black and went home and checked things out on the internet. Apparently black ruins the grass. I looked into things and Lowe's was way cheaper than Home Depot so I headed there for the clear visqueen. We got a 10x25 feet long one. There is bigger but I thought this would work for us.

You can basically put ANYTHING in google and find something.  So again, I put homemade slip 'n' slide on google and this lady turned out to have the easiest instructions.  Just simply pour baby shampoo all over the visqueen and turn on a sprinkler.  I used the bike wash and it worked like a charm.  We set it up and soon enough the neighborhood poured in.  We love having friends over.  It really was a lot of fun and the kids loved it.

Supplies

10x25 feet Clear Visqueen (Painters Plastic) Lowe's was the best price for me

1 bottle of Generic Baby Shampoo

Sprinkler or Bike Wash

Water

This cost me about $10 and it will last for the summer.  Can't beat that.

Caterpillar Craze

My kids were putting a warm fuzzy (pom pom balls) in a jar every time that they did a good deed.  

Just like every other ploy or tactic I use to get them to be nice this 

-FAILED-

I think it had something to do with one sibling asking
"Can I get a warm fuzzy for not hitting my sister today."

Like I said

-FAILED-

Now I had a big ole jar of pom poms.

What to do?

Hahaha, not really

My kids immediately were in heaven. 

They made all sorts of things.

ducks, bunnies, pigs, birds, etc, etc, etc

but my favorite of the bunch had to be the caterpillar.

How cute would it be to make this and give it as a gift with "The Hungry Caterpillar" book.

My 3 year old and her BFF played with these the rest of the time they were here.

Who knew pom poms could be so fun.

Why does my oven look like  fish tank in this pic???

We just used hot glue and I had the girls hand me the color they wanted next.

I put three smaller ones on the ends and googly eyes on the heads.

They were so cute and SIMPLE...
and really, who doesn't love simple. 

Fabulous Maxi Skirts for the ladybugs

I have a few blogs that I love to visit. When I saw this skirt on Brassy Apple I just knew I had to make it.  We ran out to our local thrift store and bought six stripped shirts at $2 a piece.  Then we made 3 skirts.  It was so easy and my girls LOVE them.  Check out her tutorial she has easy to follow step by step instructions.  LOVED this project.

The Bike Wash

If your kids are like mine then you will understand how excited I was to find a project for them to work on and a toy for them to play with in one. 

My sons mind is constantly going.  

He loves to create things, invent things destroy things, etc. etc. etc.

This was the perfect project for him.

He helped me come up with the concept

and even added his own plans to it.

What you need:

2 PVC Pipe 7 feet

4 PVC Pipe 3 feet

2 PVC Pipe 2 feet

1 can of PVC Pipe glue

3 cap end

3 "T" shaped

(for the base and middle that screw in.)

2 Elbows sprinklers

1 hose attachment.

1 sprinkler hose thing (blue piece)

1 flower or full coverage sprinkler head
Hand drill with a small bit

If you have any questions or alterations the Home Depot guys are great to help out.

It was ready to go in about 20 minutes.

The kids loved it.
You can't see it in the pic but we drilled holes in the PVC pipe along the insides and they spray the kids also.

We had a long line of neighbor kids ready to ride their bikes through.  

It got dubbed the "Bike Wash".

It is a ton of fun and super easy to do.

I'd love to see what you come up with so let me know.