Can you guess what that blessing is? Yep, you guessed it! We are expecting our third little pumpkin…errr…baby!!! 🙂
Tiebreaker!
As you can see, blessings #1 and #2 are quite excited about the eventual arrival of another little cutie patootie! Now the competition starts…who will win the tiebreaker? 😉 Our five year old is rooting for a girl, if you couldn’t guess that. Our two and a half year old isn’t old enough to know to have a preference. He just wants a “baaaaby”. Mommy & Daddy are with him on that.
I am just hoping this pregnancy goes much smoother than either of my first two, and have lots of hope that it will. I may just have to post about that later, but I’m not ready to go there yet. For now, I’m just happy about the expected blessing and riding the waves of nausea and rollercoaster energy levels.
We were given a few of the best Halloween books from my mother in law’s expansive collection of all things autumn.
Halloween was her favorite holiday, by far. We lost her recently, so even though I don’t generally go all out for this particular holiday, I decided to do a Halloween themed story time with my munchkins in her honor, complete with a craft, game and treat. She also loved all things crafty, and was a retired Head Start teacher, so I know that she would have enjoyed it.
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It’s quite the cute little book, and not the least bit scary. My little girl is strongly opposed to all things “creeeeepyyyyy”, as she says, so that was a must. 🙂 This book and activity would be fun any time of the year, but especially for fall and Halloween. I love that it fits the season without being too scary for little kids.
Pipe cleaner arms and legs
First on our agenda are ghost and monster puppets!
To make these, you just need craft sticks like Loew Cornell 1021254 Woodsies Craft Sticks, 1000-Piece (or popsicle sticks), Crayola Construction Paper, Assorted Colors, 240 Sheet (99-3200)or cardstock, pipe cleaners like these Creativity Street Stetems/Pipe Cleaners 12″ X 4mm 100-Piece Assorted Colors, tape and something to color with. I sketched the requested outlines for their ghosts and monsters, but if you don’t have a knack for drawing, just print or trace the outlines. While I let my five and two year olds loose to decorate their respective puppets, I grabbed a couple of pipe cleaners and snipped them into four pieces each for the monsters’ legs and arms. You need one pipe cleaner per monster. I just twisted loops at one end of each to make hands and feet. Once they were finished coloring, I cut out their creepy (bahaha!) creations and helped them tape the arms and legs on the monsters and the craft sticks on all of the puppets. See? Super simple, easy peasy!! As I mentioned, even my two year old could participate in this activity.
If you don’t want to bother making your own puppets, this set of teeny tiny finger puppets is super inexpensive and awfully cute Monster Finger Puppets – Collect all 8!
Halloween Monster Back
Below you see my munchkins proudly displaying their one-of-a-kind ghosties and monsters. Quite the colorful creatures, aren’t they? 🙂 They get all the credit, since Mommy literally left them to it while she finished the legs and arms and worked on dishes.
Monster and Ghost Puppets
Now for the next part of our freaky fall fun fest!! Halloween storytime, with a game!
I settled them down in our oversized chair, and instructed them to hold up their ghost puppets when they heard the word “ghost” and their monster puppets when they heard the word “monster”. As you can see, they had to concentrate to hear those key words, but they did really well and thought it was the neatest way to read a book together.
Halloween Game
We weren’t ready to be finished with that, so the kiddos put on a Halloween puppet show for me using their new monster puppets.
While I won’t pretend that the script was riveting, they were pretty doggone cute in their attempts at a story line. My two year old really didn’t get it, and wound up watching his sister’s puppets more than doing anything with his own, but they had a blast, anyway. Puppet time is great for creative children!
Monster and Ghost Puppet Show
For the grand finale, I brought out their trick or treat buckets from the fall festivals we attended the other day and let them both pick out a sweet treat. As you can see, they were quite pleased with that finish! 🙂
Do your little ones enjoy books and puppets? What are your favorite books for autumn? For a fun pumpkin activity to do with your little ones, try No Carving Pumpkin Family!
“Dinner for a dollar?!?” they exclaim, “It can’t be done!!”.
Let me tell ya, honey, it most certainly can! Tonight I made this delicious pasta dish for less than a dollar. It fed my five year old, two year old and me with leftovers…and we all ate seconds!
I am challenging myself to stretch our grocery money as far as possible, and cook from the pantry as much as I can to help with a money crunch while my husband is taking a career furthering class for several weeks and missing a lot of work to do so. I haven’t been shopping in about a week and a half, so I am doing pretty well with it thus far.
I found some pasta with no crazy ingredients, just semolina and durum flour, marked down for 25 cents each when I was shopping a couple of weeks ago, so I grabbed several packages. I used half a pack of those noodles for this dish, plus a can of Italian diced tomatoes (66 cents), a sprinkling of parmesan, a handful of mozzarella cheese and the last few slices of ham lunchmeat we had in the pack before we go grocery shopping tomorrow.
Dinner For a Dollar? It’s Doable!!
I mixed the cooked pasta with the tomatoes, let my oldest sprinkle on the cheese and the shredded lunchmeat and warmed it in the oven for about five minutes. TADA!!!!A super cheap and yummy supper created in less than 10 minutes! 🙂
While this cost me less than a dollar, with more average prices it might cost closer to two dollars. Even still, it’s a budget friendly and speedily prepared meal for the penny pinching parent who is crunched for time.
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My newly turned five year old and I are continuing our fun journey into reviewing the
Tracing E With Pompoms
alphabet and adding in the phonics side of things as we go.
She looks at school time as one of her favorite games, since Mommy is playing it with her and she is actually learning. I’m lucky that my kiddo inherited my odd fascination with learning new things, so it makes homeschooling her (thus far) more of a joyful journey than a chore.
This lesson is one we did several weeks ago, and is all about the letters D, E, and F. We did all of the activities over the course of a couple of days, along with other things we were working on. My little peachy princess really enjoyed all of the things I came up with for these letters! 🙂 I’m not going to list these alphabetically as much as by activity, to keep it from being too befuddling.
Tracing F With Pompoms
My little girl loves colorful pompoms and art projects, so it was easy to dream up this first activity! I filled an empty wipe box with multi colored pompoms Pepperell Craft Making Assorted Pom Poms, Standard Colors, 750 Per Package and wrote the letters D, E, and F in large print on three pieces of paper. I had her trace each letter using the pompoms, talking about the sounds each letter made as she traced it. She was very pleased with the results, and wanted to glue them to show off later, but we didn’t have enough pompoms for all that. 🙂
D is for Dog and Disguise
Next, we talked about what words started with each sound. She was delighted to realize how
E is for Elephant
many words she could come up with beginning with each sound. From there I asked her to draw or color a picture of something she really liked starting with each letter sound. She chose to wear a “disguise” while coloring a picture of “dog” biscuits for the “D” sound, to draw a picture of an “elephant” for the “E” sound, and to draw a picture of her daddy, the firefighter, for the “F” sound. She was so proud of her artistic abilities, and learned to write some new words. 🙂
F is for Firefighter
For some outdoor educational fun, we went on a hunt for flowers to go along with the “F” sound. Since we were still enjoying ourselves so much, we created a beautiful letter “F” on our back deck using some of our flower finds. My peachy princess was fascinated with her floral creation! 🙂
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I’m a stay at home mom, married to a firefighter paramedic who is literally gone over half the time just for work. I spend a lot of time alone in the crazy kingdom of kiddos….and it’s definitely a craaaaaaazzzzzzyyyyy place to be.
Want some examples? Happy to oblige! Maybe it’ll make someone else feel less alone in their own personal kingdom of kookiness. 🙂
Just the other day, my 4 year old decided that it would be a good idea to use a cooler and the counter to climb up and get the candy Mommy has safely stashed on top of the fridge to prevent the candy coma inducing binges she is so wonderfully prone to. My intervention was met with howls of indignation, instead of appreciation for the fact she didn’t break her stubborn little neck.
On the same aforementioned day, my potty training 2 year old came running up to me with a huge smile saying “Mama, me pee! Me pee!”. When I asked where, he proudly pointed under the kitchen table to the spreading yellow puddle. “Me pee!”. Yep, you pee… but don’t expect a treat for this one, baby boy!!
Some days my 4 year old doesn’t want to get dressed, because she thinks her jammies are the coolest outfits in the world. You know what? Sometimes I let her. Hey, a mommy gets tired! Ever heard the phrase “Choose your battles”? It seriously applies with small children of the strong willed variety. If I’m not doing a daggum thing other than puttering around the house, and the kid wants to wear her princess jammies all day, who am I to fight? I’ll fight when she wants to jump off the deck railing because it looks like fun or when she doesn’t want to brush her teeth because the toothpaste makes her milk taste funny, but wearing clean jammies all day now & then doesn’t hurt anything.
My munchkins were both playing happily with their water table recently as I watched out the kitchen window while doing the dishes. What I didn’t know was that the little stinkers had dumped a bunch of dirt into the table, and my little guy was smearing the resulting mud all over himself. By the time I did realize what they were doing, he was a pretty mess. In fact, the face in the photo came just before he started hollering “Bath!” and running for the house. You know a boy is filthy when he’s actually begging to be cleaned up! 😉
My 2 year old is all boy, no doubt about that. What he doesn’t yet know is that allowing your big sister to deck you out in her sparkly purple princess dress Disney Princess Sparkle Dress – Rapunzel 4-6Xand outgrown white Mary Jane shoes does not a macho man make. Gotta give the kid credit: He can almost make that get-up look masculine, as he struts around making superhero sound effects and rolls up the front of the dress to make it easier to charge around on his little red fire truck “saving the world” one stuffed animal at a time.
Yep, this kingdom of kiddos is completely crazy, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. 🙂 What craziness has happened at your house recently? “Penny Pinching Peach is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com”
I am always looking for ways to make learning fun for my munchkins. Lately, one of the things I am doing with my daughter is reviewing the alphabet, making sure she can write each letter well and knows the phonetic sound that goes with each one. She’s not crazy about repetitive copy work, so I am having her do that part first so she can get to whatever fun game or activity I have planned with it.
Here is my lesson plan, if you can call it that, for the “Fun, Find and Food” theme for the letters A, B and C…
Letter A:
Color the A page in her book, then fill in the practice page for writing the letter A.
Attach the coloring page to the lid of a shoebox, as shown.
Have her make the long A and short a sounds, and tell her to search the house for anything starting with those sounds.
Watch as she runs excitedly around the house hollering out words for items to see if they start with the letter A.
Give her a snack starting with an A, in this case, an apple.
Additional snack suggestions: Apricot, Apple Pie, Almonds.
In the above picture, she found: ape, apple, apron, antlers, animal, alligator, angel.
If you want to do all three letters in one day, you could have them collecting the ingredients for their snacks over the course of the three letters, then eat the snack at the end. For example, you could do a fruit salad with chopped apples and/or apricots, sliced bananas and shredded carrots or some craisins. You could also do a fruit trail mix with a mixture of any or all of the following: dried apples or apricots, almonds, dried bananas or berries, and craisins.
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I am a different parent the second time around. The first time I was nervous, worried about what people would think & what society said I was supposed to do, and more insecure & unsure of my decisions as a parent. The second time my child and I almost didn’t make it, which in turn made me realize the little things didn’t matter nearly as much as I’d thought they did, and I didn’t give a flying flip what anyone thought or what current parenting trends said I should do. My first child was an amazing gift, and she’s a beautiful, vibrant, one-of-a-kind little person, but the first time parent jitters caused our start to be a wee bit more difficult. Our family is not typical, my kids are individuals, and as long as we are a happy & healthy little family, it’s alllllll good! If someone thinks my second child method of parenting isn’t up to par, I’ll listen, smile, and generally continue with life as usual.
Sleep.
Sleep is a big issue for parents of small children. My baby right now is two, and he still comes calling for Mommy at some point in the night over half the time. First time around I was blessed with a baby girl who inherited her mommy’s wonderfully interrupted sleep problems and tendency toward insomnia. Not only that, I tried to fight to sleep train her, because everyone said that would make it all better. HA!!!! We moved her from the bassinet by our bed to her crib in her own room at six weeks old. Attempted to let her cry it out, insisted on her staying in her own crib regardless of how many times she got me up and other conventional methods of sleep training, none of which ever worked. The result? We were exhausted, grumpy and loopy, and I spent most nights for the first two years and beyond in an insanely frustrated attempt to make her sleep like a “normal” child.
My second child was born premature with undeveloped lungs, and spent time in the NICU before we could bring him home. I was scared he would stop breathing at night for a long time. He spent many night sleeping on my chest while I was propped up, since it seemed to be the easiest position for him to breathe in. He also stayed in the bassinet by our bed (propped at an angle until his breathing troubles lessened dramatically) until he outgrew it around six months old. Once we did move him out, he slept okay in his crib for a few months before he started thrashing around and whacking his head and arms on the rails. I moved him to the futon in the living room because he napped so well there, and I lay there with him when he doesn’t sleep well at night so my husband can get some rest before having to head in for a 24 to 48 hour shift at the fire department. The result of this more relaxed approach? We are all better rested and less cranky. This method has extended to my daughter, in a compromise now that she’s older and more reasonable. She is allowed to come snuggle in Mommy’s bed after daylight, and if she sleeps through the night without waking me until then, she gets a sticker on her sleep chart. Once she gets five stickers, she gets a small prize (we started with three stickers). Guess what? We all sleep better than when I was fighting it out trying to follow normal expectations. Relaxing works, y’all! 😉
Sleeping Booties
Breastfeeding in public.
Most first time breastfeeding moms are self conscious. My husband was more self conscious than I was. I don’t know that he had ever seen a woman breastfeed before our daughter was born, covered or not. It’s not that common to breastfeed for any extended period of time in our area. I was nursed, and always knew that’s how my babies would be nourished, but he was even more self conscious about people seeing it than I was, in spite of being extremely supportive and proud of my choice to breastfeed. When we were attending church, I never made it through a service without having to go to a back room to cover and breastfeed our little girl. I had to nurse her in the back seat in parking lots, back rooms everywhere and all sorts of things. At work with my dad, though, I just did my work as I fed her, with a covering, as when we were visiting with other family. Otherwise, breastfeeding made me feel very isolated, but I still happily breastfed for 17 bonding months with her.
Our second child could not stand to have anything over his head or face, maybe as a result of his time covered with tubes and contraptions in the NICU. My give a *bleep* had busted on all things ridiculous by this point, and my husband was completely comfortable and on board with whatever kept his wife and babies healthy & happy, so if my munchkin didn’t want covered, I sure as tootin’ wasn’t covering him. I used strategically placed toys and carefully draped blankies to prevent embarrassing nipple flashes, and if anyone had a problem with knowing that my baby was eating as God intended him to…well, let’s just hope they weren’t crazy enough to say something about it. 😉 We had an openly happy nursing experience for 21 months.
Ouchies.
As first time parents, we were more likely to fret about all the little booboos and bug bites. Honestly, my husband couldn’t imagine a bug biting his little princess’ tender skin, and would get mad about it. My response generally being something along the lines of a drippingly sarcastic “Yes, honey, I should’ve told that mean ol’ skeeter that it didn’t have permission to bite your little darlin’.” LOL By the time our son was born, we’d both calmed down a lot about it, and realized that bruises, bumps and bites just happen, and they’re okay.
Getting dirty.
This one was all me. Hubby never minded our daughter getting dirty, but I was not too keen on her smearing mud in her curls or messing up her pretty outfits. I’d allow it, but I’d cringe at the thought of the mess. After nearly not being here to enjoy my little piggies wallowing in the mud, I am able to focus more on their happy grins than on the big whoppin’ disaster they’ve made of themselves. Well, unless they decide to take off running through the muck in their Sunday best, because then manic mommy is coming out to play! 😉 As you can see from the picture, they find plenty of dirt around these parts. I didn’t even have to suggest a bath, though. From the adorably horrified expression on his little face, can you tell that right after the shot he took off running to the house hollering “Yuck!! Bath! BATH!!!!”? I’m so glad I didn’t freak out, because that, my friends, was priceless!!! 🙂
Muddy Mess
Life.
The point of all this? It’s normal to be a bit uptight and insecure and worried about what other people think. We all do it sometimes. Don’t let it get so out of control that you can’t just let loose and have fun and enjoy childhood with your munchkins. You won’t regret having to wash that laundry, kiss that booboo, hide that nipple, or let that kid sleep in a weird place that makes him feel comfortable. You will regret it if you miss that dirty grin, the joy of running freely outside with a giggling child, snuggling up to that nursing child or just letting them be little. Embrace the crazy! Don’t be afraid to adapt to your own unique family situation and each child’s different needs. If people judge you, that’s their problem. Don’t waste energy worrying on it, as long as your life is truly working for you. Childhood goes by so quickly, but the moments can be so long at times. Don’t get so caught up in those frustrating details that you miss the magic of life with your kids!
I’m glad I got the chance to relax by the second time around. 🙂
My children are like any other child I’ve known: fascinated by the worlds in their own imaginations. I am always looking to find things that keep their busy little hands and imaginations occupied without a lot of expense or mess. Something they’ve been having fun with lately is a huge box. I have given it to them as their own home within our home, to decorate as they please and have altered at whim.
They scribble on it at whim. I’ve put in window flaps and ceiling flaps and little eye shaped peepholes galore. They think it is awesome, and have spent hours and hours pretending it’s their castle, house, doctor’s office, art center, restaurant and who knows what all else. It’s their creative corner. I am thinking I should give them stickers to put on it, but I’ll have to supervise that one pretty well. 🙂
This is a simple, free activity that brings them endless fun. I’d encourage you to try it with your kiddos. 🙂
Ideally, we’d all have time to cook a balanced and delicious dinner every single night. Since we don’t live in an ideal world, and many of us just plain enjoy going out to eat at a restaurant with our family now and then, I’ve scoured the web for resources for finding those infamous kids eat free specials that make eating out with children so much more affordable. I’m sharing a few of my favorite links here.
Kids Eat Free This site lets you search for your state and city, giving you a list of restaurants who have any sort of free kids meals, including details about times and eligibility. Really great site!
Kids Eat 4 Free Super duper user friendly, this site allows you to either search by city & state or by zip code and distance. It also gives clear details about the when, where and how of all the bargains listed.
Kids Meal Deals Not only listing free kids meals, but also places with super special bargains, this site has a simple search engine where you type in your zip code, select a day of the week (or all days) and there you have your results. Click for details of each. 🙂
Out to Eat With Kids This site has a similar search system to Kids Eat 4 Free, but each of these sites seem to have slightly different lists of restaurants where munchkins can eat free. It’s worth doing a quick search of each to see which you can take advantage of.
What restaurant do you wish had free kids meals? Which are you happy is participating? What is just plain your favorite restaurant to eat at with your kiddos?
I decided to come up with healthier versions of premade snacks my kiddos can just open the fridge and get out when I’m in the middle of something.
My kiddos are always munching away, and often get hungry when I really don’t have time to make even a quick snack. By the way, I actually do tell my kids when their food is healthy, because I want them to know they are eating well and still enjoy what they’re eating instead of thinking junk is better. It sounded cute, though. 😉
Here are a few of my ideas for quick and healthy snacks…
One idea I came up with for inexpensive premade snacks of the healthy variety is to chop up some veggies into little stick shapes, get some ranch dressing or other preferred veggie dip and put it all together in a two sided container. In this case, I used a KFC Go Cup, because it is about the right size and already divided into two sections for the two parts. I have a lot of cucumbers from the garden and carrots are cheap, so that was my choice for this particular cup. Some other suggestions would be celery sticks, cherry tomatoes, sugar pea, broccoli, cauliflower or baby carrots.
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The above suggestions have to be refrigerated if not being used immediately, but the ideas below are good for a snack drawer or shelf the kids can free range graze. 🙂
In small sandwich baggies, put in handfuls of homemade snack mix. One that I tried recently was Taco Seasoned Chex Mix. It could be adapted with your own seasonings you’d normally use in tacos, I was just trying it following their recipe to start. I like that it has very little sugar (a small amount in the cereals) and is fairly filling.
Another sandwich bag filler is GORP: Good Old Raisins and Peanuts. I mix two parts each of raisins and peanuts with one part M&Ms or chocolate chips, and it is soooooo yummy! I wouldn’t call it a health food, but it will fulfill your kiddos’ junk food cravings without allowing them to completely binge on sugar.
You can whip up a batch of my Yummy Oatmeal Banana Healthy Cookies and put a couple in each baggie for a great quick and healthy snackeroo that will satisfy even a hungry hubby. 🙂
This premade healthy thing can be applied to simply putting various fruits, veggies or nuts into serving sized containers for your kids to grab at will. Children tend to eat what is easily accessed, just like adults, and it is up to the grownups in their lives to provide them with solid choices.
What are some of your favorite homemade convenience snacks? Need more snack ideas? Check out After School Snacks!
by Kay Winters for our fun Halloween themed activity time.
or cardstock, pipe cleaners like these 
, tape and something to color with. I sketched the requested outlines for their ghosts and monsters, but if you don’t have a knack for drawing, just print or trace the outlines. While I let my five and two year olds loose to decorate their respective puppets, I grabbed a couple of pipe cleaners and snipped them into four pieces each for the monsters’ legs and arms. You need one pipe cleaner per monster. I just twisted loops at one end of each to make hands and feet. Once they were finished coloring, I cut out their creepy (bahaha!) creations and helped them tape the arms and legs on the monsters and the craft sticks on all of the puppets. See? Super simple, easy peasy!! As I mentioned, even my two year old could participate in this activity.
, as low as free!
and outgrown white Mary Jane shoes does not a macho man make. Gotta give the kid credit: He can almost make that get-up look masculine, as he struts around making superhero sound effects and rolls up the front of the dress to make it easier to charge around on his little red fire truck “saving the world” one stuffed animal at a time.
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