This Weekends Trick & Treats-including a spaghetti skeleton!

So this is a BIG weekend! It is the weekend before Halloween, so that means Pumpkin Carving time, at least in our house! So for this weekend, I am putting all three days into this one post. I don't have my pictures from Saturday or Sunday yet, but I will post them on those days.

So today I actually combined two different activities for Tricks & Treats. The first craft is one that I got a bunch of ideas the more I look at it, so next year I think I will be making this same thing, just much fancier!

Spaghetti Skeleton

This Italian has just about every noodle in my house at all times. I think that there is a noodle for every dish, and I LOVE noodles. So, you can choose which noodles you want to use, or simply use the ideas that I give you.

Materials

• Noodles (spaghetti, mostaccioli, small shells, spiral, macaroni, egg noodles)
• Appetizer or regular paper plate
• Green Felt
• Fake leaves
• Rock
• White paint
• Permanent Marker
• Hot Glue Gun
• Scissors
  

Directions

1. Paint the rock white
3. Place the plate face down on the felt and cut around, leaving about two extra inches to glue on the under side of the plate and account for the dip in the plate. 
4. Turn the plate back over and line with the hot glue. 
5. Place the felt evenly along the plate
6. Turn the plate back over and glue the flaps down. It may be necessary to cut slits to make it smooth. 
7. Glue the noodles on the plate per picture. If you choose to put a head on as well (mine is under the tombstone, but my hubby said this is gruesome) I would recommend a wheel noodle or simply make a head with a medium size shell.
8. Glue some random dead leaves. 
9. Write R.I.P and whatever else you choose on the tombstone.
10. Place some leaves and a stretched cotton ball above the skeleton, and glue the rock on top. 

HINTS:
For the fingers and toes, I used teeny tiny cut spaghetti noodles. I used tiny shells for the joints, spirals for the arm and leg bones, short spaghetti noodles for the ribs, egg noodles for the pelvis (I would have cut in half, but son thought cutting the "ribbon" was mean, and this was for him after all) and mostaccioli for the shoulder blades and spine.

Next year, I will be adding some wispy cotton or spider webs, along with a little toothpick fence around it. Cool huh?

SATURDAY'S ACTIVITIES

It is pumpkin carving time, baby! This is our last year of having homegrown pumpkins from my dad (and we have a BIIIIIIIG one to paint this year), and next year it will be back to the pumpkin patch! We have a little family tradition of drinking hot cider while we carve our pumpkins. My BF has told me she has an AWESOME recipe for a cider that she leaves in the crock-pot all day long so her whole house sounds fantastic. Then I dry the pumpkin seeds and bake them and have a yummy snack. I will never forget, the first year we were married, we were moving a few days after Halloween and we found our pumpkin seeds that I had left drying in the stove still in there, and all dried out! But before carving day, it is a good day for Halloween fun! We actually went to a local nursery with the kids today, and tomorrow we will be heading to a corn maze! If you don't have a local nursery, today is a fantastic day for a pumpkin patch, corn maze, haunted houses (My friends sister is actually taking a limo with her girlfriends around to different haunted houses! Ahhh, to be single!) or something else Halloween-related! I will post my pumpkin pictures on Sunday, but here are our pictures from today. The nursery had bouncy castles, little mazes, corn to play in and fun ways to take pictures!

Little Man throwing bean bags into wholes. Why is it the simplest games are often the most fun?

Bug and his buddy going through the kiddie maze to the corn play area.

My sweet baby girl enjoying the corn. For some reason it is much more fun OUT of the box.

 

And little man having fun with the trucks in the corn. There was a little bridge between the two boxes that they loved to drive the trucks over, but baby girl couldn't quite seem to crawl across!

AND, SUNDAY'S ACTIVITY

 I am all about Sunday being family day. Unfortunately, we are not always all together on Sundays, but whoever is, still spends it together. (Don't worry, we always make time for full family days!) So, today is a good day to pull out the hot chocolate and blankets, pillows and scary/Halloween movies, and cuddle up and watch some scary movies with the lights out (even better if you are a fellow expecting-snow state!)

Here are some suggestions:

• The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown
• BeetleJuice
• The Nightmare before Christmas
• Pooh's Huffalump Halloween movie
• Mickey's House of Villians
• Bedknobs and Broomsticks
• Witch Mountain
• Casper
• Hocus Pocus
• The Black Cauldron

If your kids are OLDER!:

• Pet Semetary (I still think the first one is the best!)
• Freddy Krueger stuff
• Halloween stuff
• The Grudge
• PumpkinHead
• Children of the Corn
• If you happen to like the classics, the hubby said House of Usher is AWESOME, and if you want the real effect, try to find it in black and white.

As a mommy-caution, I strongly recommend staying away from Hostile. I felt like I was watching a sick adult film.

Happy Haunting!