Children are Never Disappointed with These Non-Candy Treats for Halloween, Party Favors, and Stocking Stuffers

Thank you to Moose Toys for providing complimentary product samples as non-candy treats for my children's classroom Halloween celebrations.  All opinions expressed are my own.

For the past two years, non-candy treats have been part of my children's Halloween fun.  In 2011, we had Trash Pack toys for trick-or-treaters who were 5 years and older.  In 2012, we sent in Trash Pack toys for classroom celebrations.  They were such a huge hit that we are thrilled to be able to do the same thing this year, except this year we will also be sending in the new Glitzi Globes as well.

In our school, there is a strict no-sweets policy for any type of celebration.  That means no candy on Halloween and no cupcakes on birthdays.  That coupled with all the various food allergies in each classroom, I find it much easier to send in non-food treats for all celebrations.  The Trash Pack were a huge hit last year, so I am happy to be able to be able to send them in again along with another fun new toy.

 If you are not familiar with them, The Trash Pack toys are small collectible figures that each come with their own trash can container.  Each figure is something you might find in the trash, but portrayed in a cute way.  All 3 of my children, both my sons and our daughter, love collecting Trashies.

Glitzi Globes are a fun new toy that are geared towards girls and also appeal to the collector.  They are little kits that come with everything you need to make a glitter globe.  All you need to do is add water!

Now the single pack samples I received to distribute are not available in-stores, but you can easily purchase multi-packs of The Trash Pack or Glitzi Globe toys and split them up to put in your treat bags or to just wrap each in cellophane and ribbon to hand out by itself.  I found 5-packs of the Series 4 Trash Pack here for just $4.79 each.  That's less than $1 per favor!  I have used these for non-candy treats in goody bags, in Easter baskets, for stocking stuffers, and to hand out on Halloween to trick-or-treaters and the reaction of the children have never disappointed me.

What other ideas do you have for non-candy treats?

Silly Monkey Stories: Silliness with Silly Putty

This year, the Easter Bunny had included Silly Putty in all 3 of our children's Easter baskets.  Although they have owned Silly Putty before, our children are still fascinated by it and spend quite a bit of time playing with it.  I have to admit that it is a wonderfully quiet toy that keeps the children occupied and sitting still (and did I mention quiet?).

Yesterday morning, before we all hurried to the school bus stop, our 6 year old son was playing with his Silly Putty.  As always, he was extremely excited to show me what he made.  There is always the usual snake, ball, hot dog, along with the occasional pizza, hamburger patty, and smiley face.  (Yes, my children do seem to be slightly obsessed with food.)  This time he said to me with great pride . . .

"Look MumMum!  A silly puttle!!"

Click here to read all our Silly Monkey Stories!

Happy Easter from the Easter Bunny!

For quite a few years now, I have been sharing photos of the Easter Bunny, as well as Santa and the Tooth Fairy, visiting our home to our children.  This year will be no different.  Our oldest son is now 9 years old, so I'm sure pretty soon he'll figure out what I am doing (if he hasn't already).  Until then, I will continue to add that extra touch of magic into their lives with the help of CatchACharacter.com.

It used to take me forever to make the photo just right, but now I am becoming a pro at it.  You can choose your character, the character's pose and size, edit the background photo size, edit the characters color saturation, and edit the character's brightness to fit in with the background.  The photo above took me 5 minutes to make.

If you have a few extra minutes, you can test this website out for free.  It's fun to play with the Easter Bunny, Cupid, the Tooth Fairy, and Santa.  If you end up wanting a copy of the photo you've created, you can purchase a high resolution copy that you can download and save to your computer for $9.99.  I think that price is worth the looks on our children's faces when they see these photos.  It's a combination of awe and delight.


Thank you to CatchACharacter.com for providing a gift code for us to create our photo.  All opinions expressed are my own.

Photos From Easter Morning & Brunch

On Easter Sunday, our family was invited to my cousin's house to have brunch and  take part in an Easter egg hunt with her family.  Before that, the children were able to take a look at what the Easter Bunny left for them in the baskets we put out the night before.

We really lucked out with the weather.  We were expecting rain and it turned out to be sunny with temperatures in the 70s.  The nice weather lasted through early afternoon and the rain waited to start until we were ready to go home.

Here are some photos from Easter day.  You can find more on Facebook and I saved a few to share for the Weekly Winners photo meme next Sunday.

I made this photo on ICaughtTheEasterBunny.com . . . 

Posing for a photo by my cousin's son . . . 

My cousin did a craft with the kids to make bags for the children to use for the Easter egg hunt . . .

The children had a blast playing outside on the play structure, blowing bubbles, and of course taking part in the Easter egg hunt . . . 

Thanks for taking the time to view my photos.  I hope everyone had an enjoyable Easter weekend!

For Better or For Worse: The Easter Bunny Sighs and Shakes His Head

Since Easter is only a couple of weeks away, I asked my husband to get the box containing our Easter stash for the children's Easter baskets down from the closet shelf.  I had to check to see if the loot was even between the three.  I've learned my lessons from past years of uneven Easter baskets and holiday stockings.

After I took inventory of what I had and made a mental note of what I still needed to get, I noticed that the three packages of Jelly Belly jelly beans I had picked up a few weeks ago were missing from the stash.  I told my husband this and he started to look around the closet for the missing items.  Then he realized that any further search was futile.

It seems when I asked my husband to put the bag containing the candy into the box in the closet, he heard, "Take this candy to work and eat it."  Seriously, he did.  He didn't question it, even though he thought it was extremely strange.

I wonder how he explained eating Hello Kitty jelly beans at his desk to his co-workers?

My Photos (W/E 3-5-11)

"Busy" is the only word I can think of to describe this past week.  Feeling so rushed and overwhelmed all the time makes me envy the lives of our cats even more.  Aside from occasionally being startled by one of the children or a loud noise, they really have not a care in the world.

(Click any image to enlarge)

"Who Me Lazy?"

"Ready For Easter"

Thank you for taking the time to view my photos this week! If you'd like to play along or see more great photos, stop by to see Lotus a.k.a. Sarcastic Mom.

Easter Egg Hunt & Sunday Brunch (2010)

By mid-morning on Easter, we were headed to my cousin's house to take part in an Easter egg hunt and to enjoy brunch with her and her family. It turned out to be a beautiful day weather-wise . . . like summertime.

When we arrived, the eggs were already hidden. The twins seemed to remember what to do from last year's egg hunt and Jake didn't need any instructions at all either. I've never seen my children move so quickly. I wish they were this speedy when it came time for cleaning up their toys at home. There were enough eggs for each child to collect fourteen and the hunt was over in about ten minutes.

Ready for the hunt . . .

On the move . . .

Enjoying the beautiful weather . . .

Dessert time . . .

Spending time with their cousin . . .

It was really a fun and relaxing day for the most part. We were all tuckered out even though we were only there for about three hours or so. I think we successfully created some very happy memories that Sunday.

Easter Morning 2010

Although the Easter Bunny will never be Santa Claus, the children still get a little giddy with anticipation over his visit to our home. This year was no exception.

Every year I say that I am going to reuse the containers for the Easter baskets on the following year, but I end up using them for storing toys or something else. This year, I kept my promise. These folding storage bins will be reused next year along with the Easter grass. The kids left these baskets out the night before Easter for the Easter bunny to fill with goodies.

This year we were in a bit of a rush to make it to my cousin's house in time for an Easter egg hunt and brunch, so they were only allowed to open one or two things right away.

It's always fun to see what each will pull out of their basket first. They always compare to see if they all received the same things, which they don't always. I try to select items that fit each child's interests.

Thanks for taking the time to view these photos. There are actually more photos to come of brunch with my cousin's family.