Family Halloween and Fall events in Arizona

Get ready for some great fun in the Tempe area. Last year we had a blast with our two kiddos. There are vendors selling food and tickets for small games where Trick-or-Treaters can get candy, stickers, or other small items.  Some booths are free.  Free admission too!

Tolmachoff Farms in Glendale is having fun with a corn maze,pumpkin patch, petting zoo, and more. If you go to their site, you can print out this coupon there as well for $2.00 off admission. Admission is $9.00 for everyone over the age of 2.

MacDonald's Ranch in Scottsdale also has a pumpkin patch. You can bring a can of food to receive $1.00 off of the $10.00 entry fee.  The ranch has hay rides, a hay bale maze, train rides, panning for gold, and other western games.

I guess Desert Ridge Marketplace is trying to come up with a new word for a more 'mellow' Halloween? Anyway, this event is free and takes place on Saturday October 26th. from 3-6pm. Desert Ridge is at the loop 101 and Tatum Blvd. in Phoenix.

This looks like a lot of fun! Halloween Spooktacular will take place Friday October 25th from 5:30-8:30 in Chandler, Arizona at the Downtown Library and Plaza center. This event has free admission. There are an array of games, costume contest, and a haunted house.




There are plenty of other things to do in the valley. Hopefully, this lists gives you some great ideas. Have a fun and safe holiday.

Dino Sandwich 2.0!

Sometimes a sandwich cut into the shape of a Dinosaur just isn't enough. Sometimes you have more time to play with the food you are about to serve.

• First, make the sandwich as you normally would. In this case - I took some peanut butter chocolate spread and put it in between some Country White bread.

• I used my little dinosaur sandwich cutter and went to work with the decorations. I ended up using the silver jimmies to make spikes on one dinosaur and spots on the other.  I gently pushed the spots down onto the dinosaur's back.

• The other dinosaur got spikes via a gentle nudge of sprinkles onto his back.  Two tiny blue sprinkles made perfect eyes.

These little dinosaurs make a cute change up.  Feel free to use whatever you have on hand to jazz up your sandwiches.  Look at what you have in the cupboards to add to your sandwiches.  Sometimes just decorating the plate can spice things up for your little eater.

Hopefully this takes the tediousness out of lunch for you.  Feel free to share any more ideas that you have in the comments section.

Car Seat Check & Free Ballpark Tickets!

If you live in the Phoenix area, you may consider making an appointment by calling the number at this ad.  This event is for August 31st, 2013 and the tickets are for that night at 5:10pm.  

These events are always nice  because of the freebies, but if you just want your car seats checked out go to www.seatcheck.org or this link at www.safekids.org.  Car seats can be difficult to install.  Protecting your child is always a smart move. Don't be embarrassed if you get there and they fix something that you didn't know needed fixing. These events are to keep our children safe. 

Owl - Line drawing

Office doodle

Carrot and Tomato drawing

Above is a simple drawing use to entertain myself and my little girl.  I am in no way proclaiming myself as an artist. This is simply my attempt to get a drawing up.  

Making Green Slime

My daughter loves watching PBS Kids and will view episodes on the IPad repeatedly. One day, she was methodically watching Sid the Science Kid, green slime experiment video,over and over again. She had the hand movements that the children do at the very end down to, well, a science.   :)

She was bored and I wanted to attempt to cook something without interruption.  I quickly whipped up a batch per their instructions and let her have at it.

I ended up using some blue food coloring, but we still had fun.

Note to parents - test out the ratio of cornstarch to water for yourself.  I ended up adding a lot of cornstarch because the mixture was too runny.

Cleanup - As you can see from the photos, it was a gooey mess.  The mixture dried and it was just a matter of getting rid of the cornstarch mix - pretty harmless. Just watch out for the food coloring dye to  make sure you don't get it on your clothing.