Halloween "I Spy" Bottle

I'm very slowly starting to read blogs again after an almost 6 months hiatus, and I was excited to see this idea for a Halloween "I Spy" bottle on Pink and Green Mama.  What a fun idea...and SO easy to implement! 

I gathered a bunch of small Halloween themed items from around our house.



I drew black eyes onto white beans to make them look like ghosts.



I combined all of the items with black beans and black eyed peas in a plastic bottle.  I had O in mind when I was making the Halloween I Spy bottle, but E turned out to love it much more than O.  I am not exaggerating when I say that we shook the bottle and found the cat at least 15 times in the first 20 minutes after I made the bottle.  She kept saying "cat!" over and over and over again.  This afternoon she saw the bottle and started yelling "cat! cat!"  So we found the cat many more times.  What fun for my cat obsessed baby!



I love the idea of holiday themed "I Spy" bottles, and I'm wondering why I never thought of this!  I'm looking forward to making Christmas and Valentine's Day bottles!

Fun with Mr. Potato Head

I put a basket with a potato head and several accessories on E's Montessori shelf, and she thinks it's pretty cool!  She needs help putting the pieces in and getting them out, but she loves to try to get them out (and really works her little finger muscles while trying!)...sometimes (often) she resorts to using her mouth :) 

Playing with Mr. Potato Head is a great way to learn body parts and colors!  And it's fun, of course!

Talking on the Phone

This old phone is always a hit with babies and toddlers.  E loves to pretend to talk on it, and O makes calls to her imaginary friend with it.   I'm actually a little surprised that they recognize that it's a phone...it looks so different from the phones we use now :)  I guess I should show them a record player.  That would really blow their minds!

Skeleton Puzzle

Here's another repeat! 

O loved her skeleton puzzle last year, and she's enjoyed it just as much this year.  She liked looking at the skeleton on her flip chart as she put the skeleton together.  After she finished (with help), we labeled the bones and talked about them for a while.  She's very interested in this kind of thing since she plans to be a doctor (as well as a ballerina, fire fighter, artist, and mama) and LOVES to pretend to have broken bones. 

The Easiest Crockpot Lasagna EVER!

O and I recently made the easiest and yummiest crockpot lasagna ever!  I love to cook with my crockpot, but I do not like recipes that require any preparation...I like to just throw everything in the crockpot, turn it on, and forget about it for a few hours. 

To make crockpot lasagna (veggie lasagna since we don't eat red meat), we used a jar of spaghetti sauce, uncooked whole grain lasagna noodles, cottage cheese, parmesan cheese, garlic powder (fresh would be even better), dried oregano, fresh basil, frozen and chopped spinach, and frozen and sliced carrots.

We spread a layer of spaghetti sauce on the bottom of the crockpot.  O covered the spaghetti sauce with uncooked noodles.   Which we then covered with more sauce, cheese, and frozen spinach. 



The next layer was noodles, sauce, cheese, frozen carrots, and a little more spinach.




Then more noodles, sauce, fresh basil, and cheese.



After we finished our layers, we topped it with more sauce, cottage cheese, fresh basil, and parmesan cheese.  I cooked it on high for about an hour and on low for about 3 hours.  Fun, easy, fast, and delicious!

Halloween Cookie Cutter Stencils

Cookie cutters make great stencils!  O was very excited about this activity, but she (surprisingly) lost interest fairly quickly.

All About Orange

I introduced the color orange to E this week.  She LOVES playing with our orange playsilk!  Playsilks are definitely the best "toy" that we own!!!

Halloween Greeting Card Puzzles

O was excited to see her Halloween greeting card puzzles last weekend! (they've been packed away in our Halloween bin since last year)

To make the puzzles I  cut the back off of a greeting card and then cut the front of the card into several pieces to make a puzzle.  Easy, cheap, and fun!

Egg Carton Art

O confiscates just about anything that I try to recycle or throw away and insists that I put it on her art shelf.  She even keeps the trash from bandaids!  She kept an egg carton on her art shelf for weeks before she finally started making art with it.  She worked on her egg carton art for more than a week.  I love all of her creative egg carton art, and I think these will look great in a shadow box one day!