We just got back from our 2nd annual "Halloween" camping trip. We had so much fun last year that we just had to do it again! Last time, we went with one other family. We recruited one more this time around which made 6 adults and 8 kids. During an outdoor play session back in August, Ella and I were talking about costume ideas for the weekend (I think she was excited about her upcoming camping trip!). I suggested that we try to think of something everyone could do together...like um...a pack of crayons or something. She loved it, the other kids gave their vote of approval and the moms started planning!

I made the most colorful trip to Jo-Ann fabrics and got tons of felt for the costumes. Then I made a "crayola" stencil by taping letters together from a pack of purchased alpha stencils and used fabric paint to decorate each crayon. The only hard part about the costumes was making sure they fit each individual child. Since we have a slight range in height, broadness and um...booty size, I had to make sure to measure each kid and try the costumes on several times before Susan and I were able to sew on the back hooks. Susan made the hats (see pictures). We opened one party hat, used that as a pattern to cut out a piece of each color and glued them to more party hats (thank you Lipnick department store <-- that's Susan's basement!) using tacky glue. We even assembled a giant crayon box (again...see pictures!)

Before we left, Susan, Anne and I used fabric paint to make tee shirts for ourselves that we planned to tie-dye at the campsite. Mine said "Who Let The Crayons Out?". Susan's said "Crayons Gone Wild" and Anne sported "Crayon Control"
Unfortunately, Brian had a business meeting in Wisconsin on Friday and wasn't going to be able to get to the camp site until around 8pm...way too late to do any set up. My plan was to take the older boys with me earlier than everyone else and do what I could to get the tent up and our gear unloaded. Grandpa stayed at our house while Brady napped and then took him to spend the night with him and Meemaw. Pete decided to take the Lipnick gear out and set up his tent early as well. Despite a forecast for rain the whole weekend, it looked good Friday afternoon so we packed up and left. It started raining the MINUTE we parked our cars at the site. We set up a pop-up shelter in the rain, dragged one of the picnic tables under it and unloaded what we could. We even started some tent assembly under there. After a while, we decided to just go for it. We got a little wet, Aiden & Logan wouldn't stay in the car watching the movie I had for them so they got a little wet as well, but it stopped raining as we were finishing up the tents and it never rained again. The weather was actually wonderful, no where near as cold as last year! I also packed a bunch of Halloween decorations that we bought at the end of last season..thank you Target! (I can't wait to put these up in the yard!)

Here's the gate where we set up the candy hand-out during trick or treating. They have a camp site decorating contest (and there are some people who go ALL out). Surprisingly, we won 3rd place for the tent camping sites (the seasonal renters had their own contest). Pretty funny! I was sort of impressed with myself because I had to unbox all this stuff last weekend and figure out how many cords I needed. Brian gave me our outdoor timer and I managed to set it all up to go on and off at specific times of the day.
The boys did a GREAT job going to bed and staying asleep the whole night on Friday! Aiden was so exhausted that he was pretty much snoring as his head hit the pillow. The other families were still getting ready for bed and he was OUT. Logan went down easily as well. Brian and I emerged from our tent before the other parents and we did a "this never happens to us" celebratory dance because we were the first ones done. The boys were, however, the first ones up in the morning. They were happy to see each other and did some spontaneous hugging before I rushed them off to the showers in an effort to keep the site as quiet as possible for any other still-sleeping campers.

After a breakfast of cereal and bagels, two groups, including our family, had to rush off for soccer stuff. The camp site is only about 25 minutes from our house and we needed to get Bear anyway. Logan and Aiden did their classes, we picked up Bray and went back to camp some more! OH...and the cereal was so fun...Brian had the idea to buy Count Chocula, Boo Berry and Franken-berry for the Halloween theme.

Brady is here! He loves Mackenzie's pink chair and spent a lot of time in it!

The kids always love running, running, running around the forest, but Susan and I decided after our last trip that we needed some more structured activities. She brought a TON of awesome crafts and coloring pages. I wrote up a photo and collection scavenger hunt while Susan supplied all kinds of awesome gear like magnifying glasses, little play binoculars, whistles, GI Joe masks and bags. Here, she hands out the goodies.

Here is the list I typed up for each team. They had to take pictures of things like a witch, a monster, a pumpkin, something black and white, an insect etc. They had to collect things like a bottle cap, a piece of candy, a yellow leaf, a cool rock and a stick shaped like a Y. Each mom took a team (Logan and Aiden wanted to be together so I ended up with team Houck) and we set a time limit of 20 minutes. It was a blast, especially with all the decorations to check out.

Here is Logan, testing out the binoculars.

The 6 big kids ready to roll (everyone had on their Halloween shirts too!)

AJ and Aiden

Here are some of the pictures Logan took during our hunt: the pumpkin

The insect (we actually took about 4 pictures of different insects...it was hard to keep them on task at times)

The witch....she was on my shirt (totally legal...we said we could include things we were wearing in the pictures).

A victorious team Houck heading back to camp with a fully checked list. :) I'm pretty sure that each team finished the search. We never had time to check because it was time to get dressed for the costume parade! Do you think the kids even noticed that we didn't "finish"? Nope...the hunt was the fun!

So....here is our "practice" session at camp. Susan, Anne and I figured that we needed to tape 2 big packing boxes together so that everyone could fit inside. We left one end open and the whole thing folded accordian style for easy carrying through the costume parade. Pete had the paint store match the color to an actual crayon box. I used my copier to enlarge pieces of a copied crayon-box image and glued them, along with two different kinds of green felt, to the box. Susan and I cut the edges to make it have an upper and a lower level. The kids weren't allowed to have their hats until we were ready to parade. Each child had one and only one hat; we feared someone would have a breakage before we headed out...

Logan and Aiden getting ready for the parade!

Brian manned the camera during the parade (The moms were adjusting our own shirts and bringing up the rear). He got some great shots!

AHHHHHH....It really IS Crayons Gone Wild!

I thought this picture was so funny....we were running to catch up. I am obviously hamming it up for the camera. I included this shot because it's a good one of our shirts. They had a tie-dye pattern called "polka dots" which took a LONG time, but it looked like we were splattered with spots of paint...perfect for the moms of the crayon gang. Our shirts were NOT dry in time, but smart Susan remembered there were paid dryers, ran them up and had them ready just in time to start the parade.
Brady got a ride pretty much the entire time. He is such a grampy's boy! So...story on his costume: I had wanted to make him red and experimented the final design on dark blue, which was supposed to be Aiden's costume. It ended up fitting Brady much better than Aiden (I made the rest of the costumes a bit longer so Aiden's looked too short). I had to beg, plead and bargain with A to be light blue. He finally conceded, BUT insisted on wearing Brady's dark blue hat during the parade...funny!

We also had some problems getting AJ or Logan to be any color other than green. Logan is actually darker green while AJ is a Kelly green...MacKenzie chose lime green so we had a very blue & green-heavy box o' crayons :) Here, Brian had them make funny faces....

...and then they had a group hug! We were waiting for their turn up on stage during the costume contest. They do individuals first by age group and then the family/group costumes. Last year we let them go up with the individuals and then again during the group section. We just waited until the end this year so we had a lot of time to kill around the stage.

They were all so excited to get up there! Here, Susan arranges them in 2 rows so we can unfold their box around them.

We planned to put Matthew (pictured in Anne's arms in yellow) on the floor next to the box. He only stayed there for about a minute. Brady didn't even want in the box and refused to wear his "point". I just held him in the back with Matt. We found out today (Sunday) that they won first place!

Aiden, with the proper hat, trick-or-treating. The kids all tie-dyed pillow cases again this year for candy gathering. I thought the best part of trick or treating was walking around the entire camp checking out all the decorations. I am NOT kidding....some people seriously go all out with monsters, blow-up things, giant spiders that they drop from trees to make the kids laugh...

Grandpa had Brady on a "treat" and "eat" plan. He would get a piece of candy, walk and eat it, then get another one farther down the road. It worked very well!

Here he is learning the ropes! He even said "tank too" (thank you) after he got each piece.

Back at camp, we had a little movie time while dinner was prepared. Brian packed this TV as an emergency, in case it rains and there isn't anywhere to go but inside the tents, activity. He brought along the Charlie Brown Great Pumpkin Movie.

...and it was a hit.

After we lost the kids to the woods again...Susan brought out another treat - silly string! They all had a little fight around our tents...and then ran off again :)

Mackenzie and Ella spraying each other.

After that whole day of fun, the kids all went to bed very well...even the parents turned in relatively early. Aiden woke up first the next day. Again, in an effort not to wake everyone, I drove with him into the nearest town and bought a big box of coffee for the camp site (plus my little errand-runner earned a donut for his assistance). The dads made a wonderful breakfast for the adults (eggs, bacon, cheese and hashbrowns all mixed together...yum!), but the kids elected to have cereal again. We packed up and left by 11:30 to pick up Brady. The Lipnicks represented at the costume and site decorating results thing and brought home the news of our victories. All in all, a fantastic, fun and very successful camping trip!

Back at home: I had to take a picture of the boys because they were SO muddy. It's hard to tell how dirty they really are though. Since it was raining a lot the week before our trip, the whole wooded area behind our sites was slippery and muddy. In fact, Ella got stuck in he mud about 3 minutes after the Iwinski family arrived. I slipped and landed on my rear at one point and my kids were pretty much confined to gross and dirty cloths. I changed them several times, but it was a matter of minutes until they slipped again and re-mucked themselves. When we got into the house, I had them take everything off in the laundry room and go straight to the bath. I rinsed them and then had to drain/refill the tub so they could play a little. The water got muddy brown almost immediately. Ahhh....but isn't that the point of camping? hah.

This past Sunday was the Bear's first game of the season at Soldier Field. Daddy was out of the house and on his way there by 8:15am. He didn't return until 8:45pm. Now, I'm no stranger to spending days alone with the boys...even days-at-a-time alone with the boys. Weekends always feel different for some reason...like I should be taking them somewhere and doing something "not so normal". I sort of panicked on Saturday night thinking "what in the heck are we going to do all day long?" It was a rainy day, but we found plenty to do around the house and ended up having a great time!

First off, I wanted to make our typical weekend pancakes for breakfast. This is normally a daddy job and Brian usually tries to make a big A for Aiden and a big L for Logan out of the batter. Well...Aiden asked me to write his entire name for him. That's a lot of pancake for a little boy...until I came up with a (toot my own horn) genius idea: put the batter in a squeeze bottle! We have a ton of them left from Aiden's birthday party when we made sand art so I mixed up a batch, poured it in one of the bottles and went to town. We have a giant skillet that Brian inherited from his company (long story) so it's easy to make "big" stuff. Aiden stood on a chair and directed pancake production, "make my name...now make a little Aiden man by my name..."

Here's a picture of our almost final plates. I made some little dot pancakes to go around the men too. I put syrup in a bowl for each of them. They tore the pancakes apart and dipped them into the bowls.
We're camping next weekend and I needed some time in our basement crawl space to pull and organize supplies. After breakfast, the boys went "to help me", but ended up requesting a Geo-Trax setup. They played with this thing ALL morning and some of the afternoon....until they destroyed it by bouncing giant balls around the basement. Brian had previously expressed some concern about Brady messing up the set-ups like he used to last year, but he had his own train and sat with his brothers happily playing away. Now the oncoming winter is starting to seem less daunting :)
We had some unexpected and very welcome company in the afternoon. Connor and Anna came down to play with the boys while their daddy enjoyed some solo-football-watching. When they left, I tackled another typically-daddy job: home made pizza dough. The four of us all made our own mini pizzas and had a floor picnic in the living room. Here is Logan ready to roll out his dough. Aiden is sneaking cheese while he waits.

And now Aiden is rolling and Logan is eating the cheese!

More cheese went into tummies than on to pizza for sure! Here's Brady stuffing his little face

And here is Bray painting on olive oil for mommy's pizza.

Phew! Sunday home Bear's game 1 of 4 survived! (Brian goes to 4 of the home games a year and then he and his fellow super-fans take an additional game each. Look for pics of Brian taking Logan to his very first Bear's game while Aiden, Brady and I do the up-coming Juvenile Diabetes walk on October 4th!)

Family Fun Magazine strikes again! So...I had been saving our toilet paper and paper towel tubes all summer thinking that Logan's pre-school teacher would want them like Mrs. Jenn did last year. Well....no dice. She said she'll send out a message if they have a project in mind, but that she doesn't have much storage right now. I figured I would either save them for a future need or go ahead and put them in recycling. Literally, that same day, I got my monthly Family Fun Magazine and found an article all about crafts made with paper tubes. Not only did they have some fun ideas, but they had the PERFECT craft for all of the little trinkets the boys (namely Aiden and his lizards/frogs/worms) collect here and there.





Here is the picture of the magazine. The plan: cut tubes short enough to fit inside of a shoe box with the lid on. Dip one end of each tube lightly in glue, press into rows filling up the whole box, decorate and voila!
I'm pretty sure they used a Stride Rite box because the one I had laying around looked remarkably like the picture in the magazine. I only had one so I sacrificed a good-sized Yahtzee box for Logan. Here is our test to make sure we had enough tubes. I wrapped the box tops in plain paper. Logan sort of lost interest after the glue part was finished, so Aiden and I did all the art work. Aiden requested a fish, a basketball and a lizard on his. I think my lizards need some work!

Oops...side-ways picture! Logan got a rocket, a fish and a "pillow" that Aiden drew (the rainbow looking number on the side).

The absolute best part of this craft was going through the playroom hunting for treasures. We seem to have quite a few key chains laying around! Other items of interest: mini flashlights, extra special cars, small wind-up toys and the little pieces to some of Logan's star wars action figures that are easily lost in the shuffle. The boys love pulling these out and playing with the little treasures inside which is a second bonus because most of this stuff was previously just taking up space.

Again I say...Family Fun...genius.

I mentioned in a previous post that Aiden had purchased a window art set, courtesy of Aunt Sara and Uncle Pete. The kit comes with: what is basically a page protector, 6 sheets of paper with lots of different designs on them, black outliner liquid and about 6 other tubes of colored liquid. You slip your design into the page protector, outline with the black, let it dry for 1/2 an hour, then squeeze in the colors. The whole thing dries over night, then peels off the page to be placed on the window.


The first day we had the kit, the older boys did 2 designs each and they both went with an underwater theme. That night, I free-formed some waves and bubbles for the fish.

Over the next few days, we made lots and lots and lots of window clings. When Aiden asked for hot air balloons, I printed some off of the Internet. They required some adjustments so I shrank/enlarged them with our copier until they were the right size. The rainbow heart pictured below was made by Aiden "for you mommy". Sweet.
Then Aiden, of course, wanted some lizards (and we managed to find some good ones!). Here are two of his creations drying on the counter. The guys had to learn a lot about the overuse of the paint. Several of our designs "drowned" and had to be tossed...mostly because they would never ever dry.
Logan was working a space theme. He made a rocket (this is one I found for him), an astronaut, some planets and stars. I might have helped and made a sun :)

It's hard to see, but we ended up with three different levels of window clings: space, the air and the water. This is NOT the final window. We have a added a few more since I took this picture. I just made a rainbow outline for Aiden today.

Also...Logan liked just making small puddles of the colored paint. One night, I drew black lines around them before they were dry. These turned into "balls" that we put in the water to entertain the sea creatures. Window art is so cool!!