Easy Mom Halloween Costumes

Halloween is a fun time! I have such great memories dressing up as a child but once I hit about 20 years old, I stopped spending tons of money on a costume. And now that I'm a mom of two boys, all my money goes to them first. But since my oldest is in school and will be trick or treating longer than 7 houses, I wanted to dress up too! Here are some very easy, fairly cheap, throw together ideas:

1. Baby: this costume is so easy! I was a baby for a few years in a row. I have a little mermaid pajama bottoms and a matching shirt, I put my hair in pigtails and bring a stuffed animal.

2. Biker Chick: I wore black pants, black boots, a black shirt, plaid shirt (or leather jacket I'd you have one) and dark bandanna on my head.

3. Pirate: Nearly the same as the Biker Chick but I smeared my eye makeup to look more smoky, painted my nails black, added my black lace gloves i have had over a decade and some skull jewelry.

4. Cat Lady: Wear your jammies (happy dance!) complete with slippers and a robe. I tied together a bunch of stuffed animal cats and wore it like a scraf. And I threw my hair into a messy claw clip. So simple and comfy!

Other easy ideas I don't have all items for:

- A Princess: fancy dress & tiara
- Identity Thief: sweater with a bunch of "Hello...My Name Is" stickers on it with names
-Woods Person: plaid shirt, jeans, boots, beanie and toy axe
-Ghost: white sheet with holes cut out
-Nurse/Doctor: matching scrub top & bottom (I'm sure you can get them cheap someplace)

There are so many awesome, last minute costumes you can whip together in a short time! Pinterest is an amazing source! Don't let your kids gave all the fun! They'll look back and remember you joining in the Halloween fun with them and it'll make that memory all the more special!

Happy Mommy-ing!

DIY Toddler Family Photo Album

We are going home a little over 30 days. I am going to be flying, by myself, with a 5 year old and a 2 year old... boy am I crazy! So in preparation for my journey home on at 6 hour plus, by myself with two young kids, I have been doing multiple posts on what I'm taking in my carry on (post coming later), and my "Busy Bag" items that I am doing for my kids. This idea came to me when I saw a Pin where a lady took a photo album and had alphabet letters like roads for her kids to trace with cars (link here). There's also tons of ideas on Pinterest making family photo albums that are kid-friendly [again link here].
Both of my sons have those Sassy books of "Who Loves Baby?". It's squishy, and you can put photos in but it only holds 7 pictures.

My mom made me a photo album of me with my grandparents and uncles when I was about five or six and I still have it to this day. I love it so I decided to make a version of it for my kids for on the airplane.
I found pictures on Facebook, Instagram and my phone of all are different family members from both sides of the family and even some pets, used my photo editor on my phone to put labels on it to say who the person was in the picture:

Uploaded them to Sam's Club to have a printed (cheapest thing $0.17 a picture):

I found a photo album for a dollar:

Filled it:

Added Scrapbook Paper to the front cover: 

Done! Plain and simple!
Now I can quiz my kids on who everybody is, especially our two-year-old. He kind of knows everybody but it takes him a little bit to get comfortable with everybody. He seemed to love it! And he learned a few new faces 😁

Restaurant Kit Simplified

So I am an over packer 😶 I am that mom that has something for any situation that might arise when it comes to my kids. Not necessarily a bad thing per say, however in my experience with my kids it doesn't pay to over pack. When I have too many options for them, they tend to misbehave more or go through the items more quickly in order to do every single activity I have packed for them. Too many options confuse them.

Here is my old restaurant kit (link to full post here)

This kit was great! It held everything and anything my kids would want in order to keep them happy while we were dining out. I will keep this kit in my car but I wanted a smaller, simpler version for when it is just me with my youngest. Something compact that I could grab and go with a few diapers in my purse. A bag of some sort with snacks and distractions to get through a lunch with a friend.
Pinterest has tons of ideas but the one idea that I fell in love with was making a kit using a make up bag! Those bags in the Pins looked like this:

However this type of bag retails for 25$ or more! For a bag I was just using once in a while, I couldn't bring myself to spend that much of it. Luckily I stumbled upon this bag:

On clearance for only 10$! Score! That was too good to pass up so I got it! I was disappointed in the fact that it doesn't have a middle section like the ones in the Pins did. I was even trying to figure out how to attach one to it...before I started filling it! I didn't think it would hold what I needed because I'm so used to over packing. But I was wrong! This little bag holds the perfect amount of items! Everything fits perfectly with room to spare! 

On the Left: I decided to store eating items and snacks. Things like cut down bendy straws, kid sized utensils, a throw away bib (not that my youngest wears them, he pulls them off) and a throw away table topper.

 Next to the eating items I packed this thing full of tons of snacks to keep my youngest happy. His favorites are Gerber Grabbers and Organics Happy Tot pureed pouches. If I allowed him, he would eat 10 a day! I limit them to one or two a day depending on what we are doing. Both my boys love applesauce pouches as well. Other favorites are fruit snacks, cereal bars and Goldfish crackers. Recently I purchased Simply Balanced fruit leather bars from my local Target, hoping they would be like the Fruit Rolls they had in the produce section from my childhood. Although tasty, they sadly were not like the Fruit Rolls I remember; this brand was more sticky and not as dry and textured as the Fruit Rolls. Still good and something my youngest and myself like (hey we moms need snacks every once in a while, see the Fiber One Bar, when the food is taking too long to come or it's been awhile since you last ate while you are out running errands, it happens and nice to be prepared!) 

Now these are all non perishable items that I can pack up and leave in there until I need them which is a mom's best friend in my opinion...I like having things packed and ready to go instead of running around last minute packing things and forgetting half of what I needed. I have 3 diaper bags packed at all times for various outings but that's another post coming soon 😉 so back to the kit:

 On the Right: I have a Fun On The Go Finding Dory coloring kit (stickers, coloring pages & tiny markers), a Zootopia mini coloring book from a Play Pack, scented Crayola twist-able colored crayons, a Hot-wheel, Giant deck of cards in Finding Dory and a Finding Dory cardboard book (Gee can anyone guess as to my youngest favorite character right now?!). 

Very simple and non confusing for my youngest. As a back up for in the event he wants nothing to do with anything in this kit, I have apps on my phone to entertain him. I also always have my portable highchair/cart safety strap/walking harness in the car because it's amazing and a must-have when I go out to eat with my youngest (since he throws the biggest fit when we put him in a highchair and will not stay seated in a normal chair, which leaves me holding him. No thank you!).

We went out for my youngest birthday and that was the first I used this new kit and it was a mild success 😕 I don't know if it was because my youngest is not feeling well, he was upset by the fact that I put him in a booster seat that was very similar to a high chair or if he just didn't like the kit. He played for a little bit but once the food came (I ordered his as soon as we were seated so it came out sooner) he went nuts! He wanted to color and eat at the same time, he was eating pancakes with syrup so his hands were very sticky and I didn't want the crayons getting super sticky too.

Things I will doing differently the next time I use this kit (that very well may be when we fly to California) I will be adding: Suckers with plastic sticks and more fruit snacks. He ate all three fruit snacks and I believe if I had packed a sucker, he would have sat there and not cried or tried to get down. It's the little things that count!

Every mom should have her own version of a kit that they can use to hold snacks and entertainment items for a stress-free, well maybe less stressful, outing with their toddlers...This kit is a "Busy Bag" in itself and as such is ideal for restaurants, doctor's offices, dentist offices, eye doctor's, DMV, income tax appointments, Heck anywhere you need to keep your little monster in one place and happy.

HAPPY MOMMY-ING!  

MORE Felt "Busy Bags"

So if you followed my previous post on felt busy bags (link here) you might have been asking, "I got 7 sheets of felt left...what do I do now?" I personally do not like having extra supplies of anything laying around, it makes me feel lazy and like I need to do something with them. 

1. Fish Game: My mom (like I said in the previous post) already did several busy bags for me. Had she not I would definitely do the fish game cut up fish with the felt, glue a paperclip in between, find magnet for rope and pencil - got yourself a pond with fish in it.

2. Build-able Racetrack: Another felt idea is to make roads that the kids can build. I had black felt and yellow felt so I took the black and cut up for curve pieces and several straight pieces so they can make a track Then I cut out tiny yellow pieces to put in the middle of the road pieces and hot glued them together (careful it's super hot and tricky because the yellow pieces are tiny!) I picked through the hundreds of Hot wheels my boys have for some flat race cars for them to race (plus the flatter the car, the easier they stay in the bag). And that bag is done!

3. Shape/Color Matching: I could not figure out what other projects I wanted to do. You can cut little pieces and have it make a picture but I thought that would be too many little pieces for the airplane and my youngest . I also wanted something both my 2 year old and my 5 year old could benefit from. So I decided to trace the same 5 shapes (triangle, rectangle, square, circle & star) on each leftover felt square. I cut them out and now I can teach both boys different things...For my youngest: same color & same shape. For my oldest: same as my youngest & same or different (put like a square and circle together and ask him are they the same color, are they the same shape, which one is bigger, which one is smaller, which one is taller, which one is shorter, etc= basic opposites). Both my boys enjoyed these felt pieces. They sorted them and stacked them. Perfect!

That project used up most of my extra felt! I kept the yellow so I could make more street pieces for that busy bag. So for under 15$ you have yourself 4 or 5 "Busy Bags" completed!

1. Felt Shapes

2. Felt Fishing Game

3. Felt Crazy Straw Beading

4. Felt Race Car Track

5. Felt Button Snake (I did not do this, below is the one my mom made me but I cut up more than enough felt for the Crazy Straws that I could have done this as well)

Happy Mommy-ing! 

To See The Mother Load of all the Busy Bags I have, Check out this post here

The Mother Load of "Busy Bags"

Wow! I was looking through all the "Busy Bags" my mom had made me a few years ago and I had NO IDEA I had so many wonderful bags at my fingertips! I even re-created some because I had not checked my stock pile:

Not a "Busy Bag" but a really cool book with a manga doodle attached

Coloring: Mini White Board and Dry Erase Markers

My Mom found this at a Craft Fair: Left side holds six cars in pockets and the street is sewn on

Building: Beads and cut up straws with yarn and shoelaces

Matching: Paint swatches (FREE) and Poms Poms 

Matching Game: Felt sewn together to create a pocket and popsicle sticks with felt glued on

Lacing Cards

Puppets: Paint swatches as puppets and finger puppets

Cards: Dollar Store Flash Cards

Coloring: Coloring, Stickers and Paper

Building: Colored Popsicle sticks and printed, laminated pattern cards

Building: Wiffle balls and pile cleaners

Button Snake: Ribbon with button sewn on & cut out felt with slit in the middle

I Spy: colored rice and small items to hide (inside a Ziploc, in the pencil pouch, glued zipper and safety pinned!)

Building: Colored Popsicle sticks with Velcro circles on them

Matching Game: Felt Hands with matching paper clips

Matching: Cardboard Alphabet puzzles 

Building: Felt pieces with snaps to make rings

Activity: Felt Fishing Game (magnets sewn in-between felt, yarn on pencil with washer on the end and felt pond)

I Spy: Magnifying glass and small animals

Building: Cut up sponges as quiet blocks

Matching: More Puzzles (Letters and Numbers) 

WOW is all I can say! That was what my mom blessed me with years ago and I have added to it so here are those: 

Building: Crazy Straws and cut out felt pieces with slits in the middle

Coloring: Grab and Go coloring pack and Crayons

Matching: Five cut out felt shapes in five colors

Cards: Huge deck of playing cards 

Activity: Build-able street pieces and car

  I have 27 "Busy Bags" at my disposal! Holy Cow!!!! You would think I have the most quiet kids when we go out to eat or while waiting at places but honestly there are a few bags that I need to help my kids with and there are some that they do not care for. Only a handful hold their attention for longer than a few minutes. It's not reasonable to take this entire box and all 27 bags with me everywhere I go! I always have some sort of coloring for my kids, some sort of cards (playing cards or flash cards) and cars with me at all times: both in the car and the diaper bag. But these little bags are AMAZING! I cannot stress enough that every mom, no matter how much money you can spend, no matter how much time you have, no matter how old you child/children are: "Busy Bags" are a must for moms!