Halloween Party - toddler style

Today we had a Halloween party for all of Tristan & Talia's new friends.  Now that we are out and about a lot more than ever, we've been lucky enough to meet some great new friends.  And we wanted to celebrate one of our favorite holidays with all of them :)  But really, a huge reason why I wanted to do it this year is because I seriously miss celebrating this holiday in my classroom.  Every year I would throw a huge a Halloween party for my students, so I thought this would be another great excuse to get out all of my old holiday materials and put them to good use!

We had snacks and goodies galore, along with multiple goody bags from some of the parents.  We set up "Spooky Stations" all around the house, including Ghoul Walk, WitchCrafts, cookie decorating and Pin the Jack-o-Lantern.  I LOVE Halloween!!

Some of our spooky décor! (And seeing these pics makes me realize just how much we need to paint our walls!!!)

Gotta have some healthy foods on Halloween, right?!

The GGs all dressed up and ready for their guests!

One of the cookie decorating stations

WitchCraft Station

Pin the face on the Jack-o-Lantern

Not too bad...?

Ghoul Walk!

Yikes, the playroom was a disaster!

And the kitchen wasn't much better :)

I love decorating for Halloween :)

Pumpkin Patch trips

We were lucky enough to go on two pumpkin patch trips this year! The first one was with a few other moms who came along with us so that we could have a big enough group for a tour. DD Ranch was a perfect place for a bunch of 1-4 year olds running around in organized chaos. We got some great pics of our second field trip for the GG Academy!

Dressed and ready to go to the pumpkin patch!

They even let us in to see all of their farm animals. 
We got to pet pigs, chickens, goats, bunnies, etc. The kids loved it!

And we got to take a hayride - so much fun!

Feeding the donkeys

Petting the pigs

It even had a mini-carousel ride!

Stopping for a snack

Indoor toddler playhouse

Gotta love these photo opps :)

On our way to pick out our pumpkins!

Love :)

 

Decorating our pumpkins - so much easier to use stickers than cutting them open.  Not a big fan of cleaning out the "guts".

The next weekend, we went to the Pumpkin Patch at Smith Rock.  The views were amazing!

And the horses were HUGE!

Wheelbarrow rides!

Seriously, amazing views

Fam pic

One of my favorite pics of these two

Trying to find just the right pumpkin!

The only way Talia would leave the patch, is if she were to exit in the wheelbarrow.  This girl has no fear.

Since we could see Smith Rock in the background while collecting pumpkins, we decided to get a closer look.  Pictures do not do this place justice.  What an impressive site.

Dress-up

I love having "vintage" clothes that my mom saved from my childhood and being able to pass them along to Talia.  We even a have a few clothes that have been passed down from Lincoln that once belonged to Travis when he was little.  One of these outfits was from a wedding that both my brother and I were in when he was four and I was seven.  Since Tristan is close to that age now, I knew I needed to dress him up in this memorable outfit!  And luckily, Talia also had a red dress that looked similar to the one I wore as flower girl years ago.  I'm not sure how the kids felt, but I thought it was pretty fun!

Hamming it up for the camera :)

SO cute :)

Trying to re-enact the original picture.  Pretty close, except we're missing the red bow-tie that really completes the outfit :)

And this pretty much sums Talia up well :)

Not the best quality, since this is a picture of a picture, but you can see the resemblance.  Gotta love the 80s!!

GG Academy

Now that Aunt Michelle has gone back to school for nursing, we have been watching Eli each day while she is in class.  At first, the plan was always to have Tristan start preschool this fall, but since we watch Eli on a daily basis, we've put off enrolling him in preschool for now and have started our own mini-preschool called the GG Academy (George/Goody).  It has allowed me to utilize my teaching skills and pull out teaching items that have been collecting dust in the garage.  I never realized that one year of teaching PreK would help me in the future with creating a schedule for my own one day! 

Along with having a set schedule of Free Play, story time, snacks/lunch, we also have a new letter we learn each week with activities to go along with it.  I also try to plan a theme to go along with the letter that coincides with the season/month we are in.  I pretty much have the next several months already planned and am excited to do the fun activities that are ahead :)

Here are a few of the things we have done so far:

Each morning, the boys "sign in" by tracing their names.

Getting pretty good!

Bringing their A game.

Since we were learning about the letter A and we're in the season of fall, we made applesauce to end our week!

For some reason, they've been really into playing a crazy game that involves wearing socks on their hands.  Go figure.

In our third week, we were learning about the letter F and the season of fall.  Here they are making their fall shape trees.

Finding the letter L in the words!

Going on a fall scavenger hunt!

They had to put an X next to each fall item they saw outside.

Practicing our cutting skills!

Learning about the letter C and reading stories by Eric Carle.  Here we made our own counting caterpillars after reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Field trip to Shevlin Park for a fall walk!

Beautiful walk along the Deschutes

Loved being able to find fall trees even in Bend!

Magic sticks are so popular with boys :)

Talia lasted about half of our walk in the stroller - pretty good!

Out of the stroller and trying to keep up with the boys!

Perfect bench for a picnic lunch :)

Love the view :)

Looking forward to more adventures with the GGs!