"Grapenstein" - A Frankenstein Healthy Halloween Non-Candy Treat Idea

If you're planning a Halloween party and looking for a non-candy treat idea, here's one to keep in mind! It's inexpensive and easy to put together - and best of all, a big hit with the kids. My kids can't have most candy because we are on a special allergen-free diet. Creating cute non-candy treat options with healthy foods is a great way to keep everyone involved in the holiday fun!

Note: the instructions DO include two small pieces of candy. If even that is too much, you could make the eyes out of paper instead and glue them to the outside of the cup!

Supplies Needed
-Clear Plastic Cups
-Electrical Tape
-Green Grapes
-Marshmallows (Elyon has a gluten-free option)
-M&M's or Other Small Candy (Little Secrets dark chocolate is a non-dairy option)
-Scissors

Instructions

1. Wrap a single piece of electrical tape around the rim of the clear plastic cup.

2. Layer a second piece of tape on the cup. Before you add the layer, cut some jagged spots and some fringe to give your "Grapenstein" some awesome crazy hair. Wrap the jagged tape around the cup, just under the first piece of tape.

3. Wash your grapes and fill each cup up halfway.

4. Cut a marshmallow in half, but be careful not to cut all the way through. On the sticky side of the marshmallow, add two small candy eyes.

5. Put the marshmallow eyes into the cup, on top of the grapes. Fill the rest of the cup with green grapes.

6. Cut some small pieces of electrical tape to make the mouth and stitches. Attach to outside of each cup.

There you have it: a mostly healthy, non-candy treat idea that's perfect for any Halloween occasion! Enjoy!

Explore, Rescue, Protect: Our Octonauts Halloween

I really struggled with what to do for our Halloween costumes this year. I like to have unique costumes - usually handmade, and I wasn't sure how to follow up our Star Wars Halloween Costumes and Super Mario Halloween Costumes (the best two family themes I've managed thus far). We threw out lots of ideas, but ultimately Andrew suggested that we go with something the kids would almost certainly enjoy: Octonauts.

Professor Inkling, Dashi, Kwazii, Captain Barnacles, Peso, Shellington, Turnip, Tweak.

If you're unaware, the Octonauts are a loveable bunch of animals who live in the "Octo-pod" in the ocean and they sail around taking care of hurt and lost sea creatures. They can be found on Disney Jr, if you need to be further enlightened. For months, Lincoln has declared himself to be "Captain Barnacles" and he dubbed Addie "Peso" (the penguin). Andrew and I have been named Shellington and Dashi, respectively. I didn't actually ask Lincoln if he wanted to be Captain Barnacles for Halloween until the day before the holiday, but I wasn't surprised when he let out a hysterical giggle and jumped up and down. I'm not sure I've ever seen him so excited.

This Halloween adventure could have been a disaster, considering that I started researching costumes at noon on October 30. I know, I know. Every single year, I declare that there will be no more procrastination, and every single year....I fail. So, off to Joann and Target I ran, and thankfully, between the two stores, managed to find everything I needed to make the costumes. I'll be sharing some tutorials and more details about making the costumes later, as I just want to show off some cute photos in this post - haha.

These hats = maybe my favorite.

After an (absolutely literal) all-night sewing marathon, we woke up on Halloween morning ready to be transformed into the Octonauts!

Dashi

My Dashi costume was entirely based upon that pink skirt, which thankfully already existed in my costume collection.

Peso. Those penguin feet. I mean, really.

Captain Barnacles. Complete with Octo-compass on his belt!

After an initial meltdown over not wanting to change into their new costumes, I bribed them each with a chocolate chip and they put the new attire on and wondered in amazement at each other and their likeness to their favorite characters.

We set off on an adventure to show off a little bit! The first stop was at Daddy's work, where all of his office mates had baskets of candy waiting for little kids to haul off in their baskets. Bonus: daddy works for the library and the children's department was also giving out books! Best Halloween treat ever? I think yes.

We didn't do much trick-or-treating last year and I don't think they remember it anyway, but they both caught onto the idea very quickly.

Here's the funny thing: I don't really let them eat candy. Ever. We're still fighting tooth decay and I'm reducing the number of processed and GMO foods in our home, so most of this stuff is off limits. Thankfully, they didn't really ask to eat anything while we were there and just took great joy in collecting the goodies from everyone.

After we finished up at the library and made a stop to see the great-grandparents, we had to hit the grocery store - where we made quite an impression. Then it was time to run home and grab a snack before we headed out for evening festivities - but first, I snatched the opportunity for a few photos with the kids.

Andrew, who is an amazing sport, aka the best daddy ever, even wore his Shellington costume without too much anxiety. These kids are lucky, I tell you. AWESOME DADDY POINTS RIGHT HERE.

We decided to go to a Trunk-or-Treat at one of the churches in town. It was pretty cold outside (most people were wearing heavy winter coats - yikes), but we braved the elements anyway for a short time.

Lincoln and Addie were honestly too little for most of the activities, but they got to play some games and collect more candy from the kind people at this church!

Once we all stopped being able to feel our fingers, we piled back in the van and had a quick bite to eat at McAlister's Deli (free meals for kids in costumes and free cookies for adults - win!). Then we headed back home, visited a couple of neighbors for "real" trick-or-treating, and came inside to see all of the loot.

The kids were very proud of their candy, and being not a completely no-fun mommy, I even let them eat a couple pieces each before they went to bed (followed, of course, by a very thorough brushing of their teeth). In the days post-Halloween, they seem to have completely forgotten about their Halloween candy stash - but they do adore those pumpkin buckets!

I'm pleased to report that everyone slept well after all of the adventuring, begged to wear their costumes again the next day (okay...not daddy in this case), and have talked about how much fun they had endlessly. I think they wish every day were Halloween.

What did you do for the holiday? Did you dress up with your kids?

Nerd Alert: Star Wars Family Costume Ideas

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Search your feelings, fellow nerdy moms. You know there's no way you haven't dreamed of seeing your kid in a cute Star Wars costume. But why settle with just your children? You can easily put together a whole set of Star Wars family costumes and then lightsaber-swooshy-sound everyone you know away with all of the (adorable) Force you can muster.

Long story short: last year, we decided to dress up as Star Wars characters for Halloween. I thought the costumes turned out rad enough that they necessitated a trip to the planet of Endor a wooded nature trail for some realistic action shots. This shoot happened a week after the holiday, by which point I deemed it too late to post the photos online.

Andrew was supposed to be Han Solo, but I ran out of time. So there were just three of us in awesome costume. This post is not a tutorial, but will at least explain where we found/made the costumes, so you can use them as a starting point if you're thinking about using the same theme.

Princess Leia (me).
The dress was constructed using Simplicity Pattern #4443. I don't believe it is currently available for purchase (I bought it back when I had a Han Solo crush as a teenager). Thankfully, it had just been sitting around in a box waiting to be put to use. My mom sewed the dress for me, because she's awesome like that.

I would like to pretend that I actually have that much hair, but I DO NOT. I purchased a Leia headband (there's one here), but disliked the fake hair band across my head - so I cut the band off and used approximately 50 bobby pins to attach each bun to the side of my head. It was not easy and may or may not have given me a headache, but clearly the result was worth the pain.

Wicket the Ewok (Lincoln).
Originally, we thought Lincoln should be Chewbacca, but I fell in love with the idea of him as a little furry bear-like creature and he was more open to being a bear than other ideas, so we just went with it. I can't find the pattern, but Simplicity #2855 is similar. I made this costume at the absolute last minute, thus why I did not have time to finish anything for Andrew. The basic bear was the hard part - for the drape/scarf/headpiece, I just took a piece of rust fabric, cut some holes for the ears and hacked at it until it was approximately the right shape and size. I tacked it on with some messy stitching and it looked appropriate.

Yoda (Addie). 
One day, she might have an opinion on whether or not her Halloween character is a boy or girl, so I took advantage of her last year. This costume was already in our collection, so it made sense to NOT waste any time making her something else. I just paired it with brown leggings and she was good to go. You can find a similar one here.

We got lots of appreciative nods and smiles from fellow nerds when we took our little Star Wars children out in public on Halloween night! Now I just need to think of another reason to use that Leia dress!

The rest of this post contains serious photo overload, but please believe me when I say I deleted over 200 photos from this shoot. I could not narrow it down anymore. And hopefully, someone will find some inspiration from these ideas!

Such joy!

A leaf, I found.

Star Wars siblings.

This is my favorite.

Eat crackers, we will.

Drop crackers, we also will.

Yoda smirk.

Adventuring.

He loved being a "bear."

I told you it was a ton of photos.

What's your favorite Halloween costume memory? What will you be this year?

Imagination: Never Say Die

Disclosure: This post is sponsored by BuyCostumes, but all opinions (and my love of playing dress-up) are my own.

The world of imagination is unbelievably beautiful. My kids are started to reveal their love for pretend play to me, little by little, and I am so excited about all the adventures they are going to have as they grow up together. A lot of people scoff at the idea of letting a kid out of the house in a princess dress or Mario overalls, but I say this: they are not going to have this amazing sense of adventure forever. When a person grows up, they tend to never reclaim the magic of putting on a costume and becoming someone else - even if it's just for a short time.

My background in extensive imagination, followed by acting and directing has helped to retain my personal fearlessness at appearing in public dressed as Princess Leia or Princess Peach. When I was a teenager, I was usually the ringleader of costumed excursions around the Midwest.

It's possible this friend will never forgive me for leaking this photo online publicly,
so I will leave her nameless here. Hehe.

There was that time I convinced my dear friend that the only way to see Wicked was in full replica costume, including green makeup. The people in the row behind us were a little bit concerned when I sat down with that hat (I took it off for the show). We were actually told in the lobby after the performance that we "did a great job." That was an unexpected ego boost for a couple of kids who had been sitting in an expensive seat for three hours.

My Phantom of the Opera dress has seen a lot of action, as I wore it to multiple events: a performance of the show in Indianapolis, the movie release here in Kansas City, and a tea party I threw for some 8-year-olds when I worked for the library. The best, though, was when I was joined in this endeavor at the movie release by my friend Holly as The Phantom. This was a couple of years after we had put on our own full-scale (for poor teenagers) production of Phantom in the barn in my parents' backyard, so it was kind of like reprising our roles. Totally worth all the strange glances and comments. Totally.

Fun fact: my husband definitely worked at this movie theatre at this time
and was probably there this day, and it's probably good this was not the day we met.

Maybe you hesitate to make a costumed appearance because you don't have any costumes! Don't let that stop you. Costumes are available year round, but right now you'll likely find a much larger selection since Halloween is coming up soon. You can save 20% on orders over $50 at BuyCostumes right now (use the code afchalloewen2050 for the deal). Plus, now is a great time to order because of the I Want To Be Guarantee - which allows you to exchange for a different size (with no additional shipping costs) for costumes and accessories purchased through October 31, 2014. You can read more details here.

It's really not necessary to have a specific event to wear a costume, although that is what inspires a lot of people (think: Halloween, when more people than normal are willing to look like a crazy person an imaginative soul in public). Sometimes, you can just round up some friends, dress everyone as pirates, convince your brother to be "security detail" and just wander the aisles of your local supermarket at 10pm for no other reason that it will be fun.

Am I scaring you off yet? It may have been awhile since I have appeared in public in costume, but that doesn't mean I'm not always scheming about an excuse to make it happen. Maybe we'll have a costume day for preschool soon and make it a point to go do something normal while we are all super dressed up. That would for sure be a good memory for the kids, right? 

Pirates can bake, too!

Okay, I admit it. Sometimes, people are embarrassed to be seen in public with me. I don't really mind. The memories are so fun!

Disclosure: This post is sponsored by BuyCostumes, but all opinions are my own. For more information, you can read my Disclosure Policy.