Spooky JELL-O JIGGLERS!

If you are looking for a fun activity to do with your kids, or a simple treat for all those upcoming Halloween parties...look no further!  JELL-O has got you covered this year with lots of great ideas you can find at Jello.com.  We were inspired by their Halloween Cat Eyes JIGGLERS to create our very own Spooky JELL-O JIGGLERS!

These were incredibly easy and the kids LOVED making these all by themselves.

First up you get out some bowls, and 2 different JELL-O flavors.  Don't forget...to make JIGGLERS you need 2 6 oz packages :)  Then I had the kids mix 2 1/2 cups of boiling water and 2 packages of JELL-O for 3 minutes until it was all completely dissolved.

 

Then they sprayed down a muffin tin with non-stick spray and filled each cup about 2/3 full.

After about 3 hours our JIGGLERS were ready to go!  We simply popped them out of the muffin tin, and using candy eyeballs and candy corn we decorated our Spooky JELL-O JIGGLERS.  The kids got such a kick out of them, and of course they tasted delicious too :) 

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

Monster Mash Snack!

 Happy Monday everyone!

Before I share our fun treat we enjoyed today I just have to say...this is my 600th post on Blue Skies Ahead!  I have never been super consistent with this blog, or very been good at the business of blogging.  I stink at social media, and I realized if I spent too much time on growing my blog I would miss out on time spent with my kids, creating all these fun memories.  Even so, I am always amazed at how many people look at my little corner of the blog world, and grateful for the kind comments and emails I always receive.  This blog has always been a place for ME, a place to look back on all the great (and some NOT so great) times raising my young family...but it makes my day when someone tells me they used one of our family nights, or did a fun activity with their kids that they saw here :) 

 What I am really trying to say is...THANK YOU!!!  

Thank you for joining us as we look for the good in every day.  Thank you for taking moments out of your busy life to share with me.  Thanks for supporting Blue Skies Ahead, I'm excited to see what the next 600 posts bring!

Now, back to the REAL reason for this post ;)

Today is my kids last day before they go back to school after Fall Break.  The weather has been cold and rainy so I figured we would be spending a good portion of the day inside.  To cure the boredom, I thought it would be fun to have a Halloween Read-A-Thon...with a cute Monster Mash snack to go along with it!

Disclaimer!  I am a huge believer in healthy snacks for kids...this is NOT one of those! :)  Luckily, I put this in individual-sized bags so it didn't get too out of control :)  Here is what made up our Monster Mash snack:

Marshmallow Ghosts

Bugles Vampire Fangs

Sour Patch Kids Zombies

Candy Corn Jack-O-Lantern Teeth

Whoppers Werewolf Poop

(I know, the last one is gross...but my kids loved it!)

I mixed all that goodness up in our favorite Halloween bowl...

And then scooped it into these darling chevron treat bags from Pick Your Plum.  These are the perfect size for kids and work wonders for portion control! 

Once I passed out the snacks we were ready to start reading!  I had the kids gather all of our Halloween books and bring down their bean bag chairs.  They snuggled up and we snacked on our Monster Mash and read through our favorite books.

Some of our favorites are Room on the Broom, Ten Creepy Monsters and Spooky Wheels on the Bus.

I love this picture.  I call them my mini-me...and my mini-mini-me :)

As you can see, a good time was had by all! :)

Thanks again for stopping by today and reading our 600th post here at Blue Skies Ahead!

Spooky Service and Pumpkin Parables for your family!

 Hello friends!  How are you all doing?!  We are enjoying our first day of Fall Break.  And by enjoying I MIGHT mean just barely surviving ;)  Honestly, the kids have been a little stir-crazy today, and I am hoping tomorrow the weather is nicer so we can get out of the house!  

Today I wanted to quickly share with you 3 things we have done at our home around Halloween to serve others and learn some important lessons.  I love holiday activities that are not only fun for the kids...but help make lasting memories and strengthen our family!

The first activity we have done is a great service project if you have any new neighbors in your area!  We called it "Welcome to the Neigh-BOO-hood!" and we took around these cute ghost treats with a packet full of great info for new neighbors.  Check out the link for details HERE.

The second activity is one of my favorites!  We did a great family night called "The Parable of the Pumpkins".  This fun story talks all about two pumpkins, Perry and Patty.  One is nice and kind, and always says sorry when he makes mistakes.  The other is rude, obnoxious and never apologizes!  The kids get to take a look inside each pumpkin and see what they look like on the inside...an in turn decide how THEY want to be on the inside too :)  My kids STILL talk about this one...a great Halloween activity for sure!  Check it out with the printable story HERE.

Finally, a really fun way to throw some service into your October!  Take your kids Trick-AND-Treating!  The trick is performing an act of service...and then you leave those you served with a treat as well!  We have done this with my Young Women's group, and with my kids to neighbors or to Senior Centers.  Check out the full post HERE.

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There you have it...a few ways to spend some real quality time with your family and serve others around you too!  Thanks so much for stopping by Blue Skies Ahead today!

Halloween Subway Art Printable

 Today I'm taking a quick break from our Leaves Week to post a cute Halloween Subway Printable I threw together last night as we put up our spooky decor :)

I love the printables trend...it is so awesome to be able to make something that matches your decor perfectly!  Feel free to right click, save and print for yourselves if you like!

Here's how the finished product looks, we all love it!

Have a great day!

Leaves and Letters Matching Game

 This week we are learning all about leaves!!  Today I wanted to share a SUPER simple way you can play with your preschooler while teaching them a little something too ;)

My 4 year old is still needing a lot of work on recognizing his letters so I thought a fun way to work on that together would be to make our very own

Leaves and Letters Matching Game!

This is absolutely as simple as it looks.  This morning at WalMart I picked up a package of foam leaves.  I grabbed a permanent marker and wrote upper case letters on the back of each one, making sure each had a match :)

Then you just lay them out on the floor and play away with your little one.  My guy loved this game, and by the end was much more familiar with the 6 letters we played with.

You could also have your kids match upper and lower case letters, pictures to starting letter, and so much more!  The great thing about this too is once you make them...you have them forever!

Thanks so much for stopping by today, come back later in the week for a yummy fall drink and some crafts your kiddos will love!

General Conference Store!

 Hey everybody!  I hope you all had a great weekend!

Today I wanted to share what we did last year to make the most out of our General Conference experience with our children.  I have to say...I got this wonderful idea from my sister-in-law, so ALL the credit goes to her!  I have tried a bunch of different things to keep my kids quiet and attentive during conference and so far, this has been the best!  They don't end up all hyped up on candy, and they are listening with intent...win-win for everyone!

Last April we opened up our very own General Conference Store!

To get started I found 4 buckets I had laying around, and using chalkboard signs I labeled them with individual topics.  I let my older kids pick out a subject that they were hoping they would hear about and filled in the rest.  Then I filled each bucket with tickets I got at the dollar store.

As we listened to conference each time the kids would hear one of our words, they could get one ticket out of the bucket.  I loved this so much more than getting candy...we tried that the year before and they got a little wild by the end ;)

By the end of conference all the kids had buckets full of tickets and couldn't wait to spend them!  I loved my sisters idea of having her kids wait to use their tickets until Family Home Evening the next night, so we did the same thing.

The next night I set out our same buckets, but this time filled them with different items I had purchased earlier in the week.  Each bucket had a different ticket value on it depending on what was in the bucket.  I went to some local stores like Seagull Book and Deseret Book and picked out a bunch of things for the kids to choose from.  Some of the things we had were:

Scripture Pencils

CTR rings

Coloring Books

Article of Faith Cards

Matching Games

Gum

Fruit Snacks

I loved that the prizes they were able to buy were things that (mostly) would encourage them to continue to grow in the gospel.

I am so grateful to my sister Camille for this wonderful idea!  The kids are so excited for our conference store this year, and I could not be more ready to receive counsel and guidance from our latter day Prophets! :)

Hand Print Sheep Craft {Farm Week}

 Today I am sharing with you guys a fun, simple farm craft you and your little ones will love!  This was great for my kids because they could all participate, the 2-year old up to the 6-year old.

Here's how you make a Handprint Sheep!

All we needed to make these darling, fuzzy sheep was some black construction paper, glue, googly eyes, and White Poms sent to us by our friends at CraftProjectIdeas.com.  I love their pack of white Poms because it comes with a bunch of different sized poms.  They work wonderfully because you have different sizes you can use to fill in smaller spaces :)

So to start off you help your kids trace those cute little hands!

Once you have your hands either cut them out or let your kids work on those scissor skills a little bit ;)

Once you have your hands cut out let your kids go to town gluing poms all over the palm of the hand cut-out.  Make sure they don't cover any fingers or thumb.

Finally let your kids pick out their favorite googly eye and stick it right on the thumb, finishing off your cute, cuddly sheep!

I LOVED how these cute sheep turned out and had a blast making them with my kids!  Thanks so much for checking out all of our Farm Week fun and have a wonderful weekend!!