Can you believe Halloween is here already??? Well we can and for that special occasion we wanted to share some ghastly and ghoulish Halloween recipes from all around the web. Hope you enjoy these eerie treats with everyone!

Martha Stewart – I Scream Sandwitches

Pillsbury – Crescent Mummy Dogs

Chow – Tricked out Caramel Apples

Epicurious – Halloween Spiderweb Cookies

Elle’s New England Kitchen – Worm Covered Rotten Apple Bars

All Recipes – Bat cupcakes

Wanda’s Halloween Cookbook – Jack-O-Lantern Pizza

Delish – Disgustingly Delicious: 8 Gross-Looking Halloween Recipes

And don’t forget to enter our Mott’s Halloween Costume Photo Contest! – We are giving away a $500 target gift card to the member who uploads the Halloween kids costume photo that gets the most votes.

Happy Halloween!!

H1N1. I cringe when I hear it, how about you? It seems like we hear about it about it constantly these days, and that is definitely not a good thing. Deaths come with the tagline of being suspected to be caused by H1N1. Schools are doing flu clinics. Parents are freaking out in search of the vaccine.

Above all, prevention seems to be on everyone’s minds. Head on over to Real Moms Guide to learn ways to prevent and protect yourself against the H1N1 Swine Flu. There are some easy and natural ways to try to keep the germs away.

So, you’ve hit every pumpkin patch, apple orchard and harvest festival in a ten-mile radius. You’ve carved the jack-o-lantern, eaten the doughnuts and sipped the cider. Nothing to do but wait for the first snowfall, right?

No way! There’s still plenty of autumn fun to be had with your kids. Here are some ideas:

• Create a nature table. This Waldorf-inspired activity is a wonderful way to bring the outdoors in year-round, but the fall is a particularly abundant time for natural treasures (and since they’re laying around on the ground they’re easy for little eyes to spot and little hands to grab). It doesn’t have to be fancy: any small table or little corner of your home will do. For inspiration, check out this beautiful example of a nature table by Eren at The Magnifying Glass.

• Make sun prints. Take advantage of those beautiful, sunny fall days by using the sun’s power to make a pretty record of your discoveries! Photosensitive sun print paper is easy to use and even works when it’s not super bright outside. Have your child collect treasures (small, flat items with a little weight to them work best as the item will need to stay still on the paper for up to 5 minutes) and then use them to make unique works of art. Or get really creative and try this idea from Allie at No Time For Flash Cards.

• Rake the leaves. The great thing about yard work? It doesn’t feel like “work” to little kids. They’ll gladly rake (if you can, acquire a child-sized rake or two to make it easier), stuff leaves in bags, pick up sticks, sweep off steps and sidewalks, and of course, jump in piles! Check out this blog post featuring leaf-loving kids by Sarah at Running Mama.

How will you enjoy nature with your kids this week? Please share in the comments below!

It’s not everyday that a celebrity cooking show host makes your lunch, but for children in the New York City public school system, it may become a regular thing. In fact, just last week, about 400,000 students enjoyed a Rachael Ray-created chicken taco lunch. The initiative was launched by Ray’s nonprofit Yum-o!, which contacted the Department of Education to work together in serving up healthier fare.

Getting kids to eat healthy is becoming more of a priority these days, but I can tell you from experience, it’s a challenge when you have a picky eater on your hands. Programs like this that introduce fun, healthy foods are a great step toward getting children to eat things other than fat-laden chicken nuggets and french fries. We try to apply the same ideas at home, trying approaches like cutting the food in  fun shapes or offering dipping sauces to get them to eat their veggies, but for school, it’s a tad more challenging.

Because my son is only in kindergartenI have to pack lunch, and there’s not much he’ll eat. For the last two weeks it’s been bagels with butter. I know, I know… not the best choice, but at least it’s something. He just won’t do sandwiches, and the teachers don’t want us sending in “complicated” lunches so things like soup are out. We tried rolled up turkey, diced cheese, and crackers for a while, but he left 90 percent of it. The only thing healthy I can sneak in occasionally is sliced apples, applesauce cups, or when he’s in the mood, carrot sticks.

I think he will do better with hot lunch options (which he’ll get next year). I can’t wait! And how cool will it be if he gets to try out recipes from Rachael Ray?

Lunch packers, how do you get your kids to eat healthy at school (or eat at all!)?

Halloween is right around the corner, do your kids have a costume yet? If they do or even if you have pictures from Halloween’s past come on over to our Facebook page to enter our Halloween giveaway!

Grand Prize: $500 Target gift card and $50 worth of Mott’s products!
2nd Prize: $200 Target gift card and $20 worth of Mott’s products!
3rd Prize: Mott’s coupons totaling $30

Contest ends November 6th so get busy entering!

Good luck!

My first year out of college, I was working at a small newspaper in northwestern Connecticut where there is a fabulous and freeky haunted house every Halloween. In covering it for the newspaper, I was asked to work the night there to really experience the fun and the horror. Hundreds of people traipsed through as I hid in the shadows and grabbed at their ankles. It was a blast — especially when they screamed bloody murder.

I really love Halloween.

When I was a child, I almost always chose a creepy costume. Before big costume stores with hundreds of variations on every idea popped up, I was dressing as a vampire princess with blood dripping down my whitened chin and doing all sorts of variations on witch costumes.  Heck, I still dress up most years.

Unfortunately, I can’t yet indulge my son’s fascination with scary costumes (yay! he likes them too!) since his school expressedly prohibits scary attire. (Seriously? … it’s Halloween!). But, what I can do is whip up some very tasty and freakish snacks.

Creepy Carrot Fingers
serves 2

2 carrots, peeled
cream cheese or peanut butter
raisins

Cut the carrots in half, lengthwise. Then cut each in half. Place a dab of cream cheese on the skinnier end of each carrot (on the rounded side). Press one raisin into the cream cheese on each carrot. Use a knife to cut three shallow slits (knuckles) in the center of each carrot.

Serve.

Ghostly Cheese Snacks
make one per guest

1 block mozzarella cheese
sliced black olives
cream cheese

Slice the mozzarella cheese into 1/4 inch thick slices. Using a knife, cut the slice into a ghost form. Attach three sliced black olives (two for eyes, one for mouth) to the slice with a dab of cream cheese.

The pumpkins are perched on porches everywhere. The impromtu graveyards dot suburban neighborshoods. And the costumes? They are waiting to be worn. This all can mean only one thing: Halloween is just a week away.

For this week’s Mott’s Minute, we scoured the web to find some fun Halloween giveaways. Click through to enter them all, but beware the dates — they are the deadlines for entering. Muwahahahahah!

Enter our very own Mott’s Halloween Costume Photo Contest! – We are giving away a $500 target gift card to the member who uploads the Halloween kids costume photo that gets the most votes.

The Plumber’s Wife – Beaded Skull Earrings giveaway (10/24)

The Mommy Files – Hershey’s Halloween Candy giveaway (10/25)

Manicure Mommas – OPI Halloween Nail Polish giveaway (10/26)

Mom Start – Make It Your Yourself Halloween Gift Pack giveaway (10/26)

Delightful Chaos – Wubbzy Goes Boo DVD giveaway (10/29)

Ms. Modern – Candy Corn Scented Skull Soy Tarts giveaway (10/30)

Linus’s Blanket – Spine Chilling Book Giveaway (11/1)

What would you do for a friend in need?

These days, that’s a pretty real question – not hypothetical. In the past week, I learned that a father of one of my son’s friends lost his job. In the past month, several friends lost their jobs. In the past year, nearly every household I know has suffered a layoff.

But layoffs aren’t the only undercurrents at work right now. There’s a failing real estate market too … people are losing their homes, selling their homes or otherwise trying to wiggle out from the crushing pressure of property bought high. It’s staggering.

How many people do you know in one of these situations?

There’s a must-read story over at Real Moms Guide. It’s a tearjerker that really explores generousity, friendship and what it means to truly help someone in these tough times. I suggest you check it out.

There have been some beautiful, sunny days here lately. I intended to take advantage of the great weather and booming harvest at our local pumpkin patches and apple orchards, but that isnt happening. Instead, I am home with five sick kids, a raging fever and a headache, and time on my hands. Did I mention the five sick kids? It’s been a regular fever-a-thon over here, and the only glimpse I’ve gotten of the great outdoors is the view from my bed out the window.

Since we can’t actually make it out this week, I chose the second-best thing: living vicariously through the posts, photos and videos of other parents in the blogosphere:

- Angie of Gray Matters Online shares a video of her family’s trip to the orchard.

- Shannon at The Mommy Files shares her best tips for visiting the pumpkin patch with your kids.

- Check out these adorable pumpkin crafts at What Are We Doing Today, Mom?

Enjoy, and try to stay well.

What autumn outings have you taken lately? Share in the comments below!
Photo credit: mensatic from morguefile.com

I love rules! Just yesterday, my son came home and said, “We have to respect school property — that’s a rule, you know. What’s property mean?” So funny. I went on to give examples of how to be respectful, like not writing on your desk, and making sure trash goes in a garbage can. He got the point.

I think kids need to have rules, even from an early age,  and there should be appropriate consequences when the rules are violated. But sometimes, we’ve got to get real.

I’m of course referring to the recent over-the-top school rule enforcement that made the news — the first-grader who brought a glorified spork to class and nearly faced 45 days in reform school for the oversight. After lots of media coverage, the school district reversed their decision. Thank goodness common sense prevailed, even though it took a few days of grief for that poor family.

Hopefully, educators took notice and will use some discretion and common sense the next time something like this happens. The idea of zero tolerance at the first grade level is plain silly. In this case, confiscating the item and consulting with the parents to let them know an item like that could be dangerous, and therefore should be left at home, would have been effective, don’tcha think?

So far, nothing outrageous has happened in my limited school parenting experience, but I’ve heard other parents talk about some seemingly unfair punishments. There’s the teacher who made one boy pick up a dirty tissue of the floor and throw it out even though the tissue wasn’t his (ewww!). Apparently she didn’t believe it wasn’t his. I heard about another kid getting detention for drinking from the water fountain after gym class without asking permission. Poor kid was thirsty! Or how about when the whole class gets punished for something only a handful did? As annoying as all of these minor incidents are, you can see why a teacher would resort to these methods. Teaching children to respect property, ask permission, and behave as a group are all good lessons to impart.

And, of course, keeping weapons out of school and ensuring that our children safe is perhaps the most important concern educators have.  But somehow I don’t thin a first-grader with a camping tool isn’t the one we need to be afraid off.

Parents, sound off: What school rules do you thing are over the top? Answer in the comments section below!

-Dawn Papandrea