Don't wait until next October to stock up on Halloween decorations and costumes. You can score some great items at scary bargain prices if you shop this week at your favorite retail store!

You may need to take a guess as to how big your child will be next year, but many costumes secure with simple buttons or Velcro making it easy to fit into regardless of their growth spurt. The early bird gets the worm, so don't wait until the end of the week to find items that will add some tricks to the trick-or-treating event.

Motion sensor ghosts, tombstones, pumpkin lights and other accessories to spunk up the holiday season may be hard to store for a year, but the wait will be worth it when you check your receipt and have everything ready to go for the 2011 Halloween season!

Did you know that MOM Magazine has a Flickr Group? We'd love for you to share your photos with us, and also use it as a place for inspiration.

Let's start out by sharing pictures of your carved pumpkins. New to Flickr?

Here is what you need to do:

• If you have a Yahoo account, you can sign in with that. If you do not, you'll need to create an account by following the prompts.
• Once you have an account, you can upload pictures.
• Click 'Upload' from the menu items in blue at the top.
• Click 'Choose photos and videos'. A box will pop up where you can browse for your pictures on your computer to upload.

***Photo sharing tip*** I use Picasa (not the web version, the one you download) on my computer to organize my photos. From Picasa, I go through my photos and "star" the ones I'm going to share/upload to the web (for Facebook, blog, Flickr, etc.). I then select only my "starred" photos and export them in a smaller, web-friendly size to a separate folder I have just for the purpose of web-sharing. So when I go to upload photos to Flickr, I just need to search for my folder I just exported to, select all the photos, and click upload. It's easier for me because I can get just the photos I want, and they are already resized to the size they need to be.

• Once you've selected your photos, click the pink "Upload photos and videos" button.
• Next, click on "add a description" and you'll have the chance to write a caption and tags. Tags are really important, especially if you are going to submit your photos to the MOM Magazine group. If you are sharing pumpkin carving photos, tag them with: MOM Magazine, Halloween, pumpkin, and pumpkin carving.
• After you've filled out title, description, and tags for your photos, click "Save"
• Next, Click on "Groups" at the top. Search for MOM Magazine. Once you click into MOM Magazine, there should be a place where you can 'join this group.' I've already joined so I am not seeing exactly what that looks like. Once you've joined, you can add something to the group.
• Click on "Add something?" and it will bring up your photos you just uploaded. You can select which ones you want to add to the MOM Magazine stream. Select your photos and Voila!

We grabbed a bunch of gords and squashes when we went to the pumpkin patch yesterday. I love using them as fall decorations that can double as a sidedish between Halloween and Thanksgiving. These cute butternut squashes looked like a little family of ghosts, so I gave them fun google eyes with a black sharpie pen.

I've actually become quite attached to the little guys as they look down on us from the fireplace mantle. I just don't know that I'll be able to throw them in the oven.

Ok, so not to toot my own horn or anything, but I'm Room Mom for Colby's second grade class. Now, I take my duties very serious and plan to make this a super fun year for his class. I love to throw a good party!

The class' Halloween party is this Friday and I've already got all nearly everything done. I've organized a donation list of items we need for the party. Had the cupcakes ordered. Decorations are waiting on the dining room table. I must say that the parents of the students in this class are awesome...they donated many of the items for the goodie bags and also the food/drinks.

One of my big contributions as Room Mom this year is that I am going to make up holiday-themed activity packets for the kids to use during the week leading up to their respective parties. This is no small feat! The first packet for the Halloween holiday is jam packed with Halloween games, puzzles, mazes and even a page of kid friendly Halloween jokes. It's sure to be a hit!

My son holding one of the super fun Halloween activities booklet that I made for his entire class. Here are some of the activities in the booklet:

A really fun spider maze! There's also a page of Halloween Jokes:

This Halloween activity book (and the ones to follow this school year!) are sure to make me Queen of the Classroom.

This

This past weekend, my boys and I went to one of our favorite local Pumpkin Patch's to search out the one, the only, PERFECT pumpkin for each of us this Halloween.

The day was beautiful! Not a rain cloud in sight. The boys eyed a big red wheelbarrow for us to use on the hunt for our perfect pumpkins. The boys took turns pushing the empy wheelbarrow and we went in search of the perfect pumpkins for each of us. Mommy's only rule? The boys had to be able to lift their pumpkin into the wheelbarrow.

Riley found his perfect pumpkin right off the bat:

Colby must have anguished over a half dozen "perfect" ones before he found his:

I was searching for a perfectly round pumpkin to make the Pumpkin Casserole (from the Oct/Nov MOM issue). Guess what?! I found it! It's going to be dinner on Tuesday night.

Another successful trip to the Pumpkin Patch to find the perfect pumpkin! Still need to find your perfect pumpkin? Here are some great local Pumpkin Patchs' in Lane County:

Detering Orchards
30946 Wyatt Drive in Harrisburg
www.deteringorchards.com

Lone Pine Farms
91909 River Road in Junction City
www.lonepinefarms.com

Colonial Harvest Days at Northern Lights Farm
3677 Wheeler Road in Pleasant Hill
www.northernlightschristmastreefarm.com

You've got their costumes ready, but what about their treat bags? Don't be so quick to rush out and purchase a trendy Halloween bucket. With a little help from Crayola and your youngsters, you can create a Halloween bag that carries the theme of their costume while being kind to Mother Nature.

Simply use a white, recyclable paper bag with or without handles (they're easy to add with strips of paper and a dab of glue) and let your child tap into his or her inner Picasso. You can also use kid-made, earth friendly bags for birthday parties for a personal touch.

Have your little ones draw a picture of a birthday cake or write the age of the child on the bag for the party you're attending. Add stickers, glitter glue, feathers or any other art supplies you can think of and you'll have a unique bag that has you going green without spending a lot of green. Want to go ever greener? Reuse the brown paper bags from your local grocer. For more craft projects and creative Halloween ideas check us out as Mom Magazine was recently featured on KEPR TV at http://www.keprtv.com/news/adventures/105553638.html.

My boys and I live in a wonderful subdivision with great nature trails. Each fall, we go on walks and hikes on the trails to find great fall leaves and other nature objects to make fall arts and crafts. This year, we made...a leaf journal!

Leaf journals are fun to collect and educational for children at the same time. When planning your leaf hunt, think about what you can teach your children about fall, leaves, nature and how the seasons work.

Ask questions that foster interest about nature and seasons like:

• Why do leaves fall?
• Why do seasons change?
• How do leaves help trees? How do they help animals?
• Don't forget to find out what your children's favorite season is, too.

Pick a great place to go on a walk or hike to collect leaves. Bring a bag or an old book or magazine that you can store the leaves you find and protect them from damage. Encourage your kids to find a wide array of leaf types, from small to large, from green to red. Find as many types of leaves as possible. Make sure to get leaves that have turned brown, are multi colored, or are still green. Collect extra leaves for art and craft projects or a few extras to replace a sample if lost or damaged.

Once your children have collected a wide variety you can begin making the leaf journal.

Leaf Journal Materials:

• construction paper
• string or yarn
• a hole punch
• glue
• books
• markers

Glue a leaf on each page of construction paper. Make sure to write the name of the tree the leaf came from at the bottom. Let pages dry. While the leaf pages are drying, have children use a few sheets of paper to create a decorative cover page and a back page.

Once all the pages are dry stack the leaf and journal pages together. Lay the pages flat and punch the first hole and use the string to bind the pages of construction paper together. Lay flat and then punch the second hole and then bind. Then punch the third hole and bind. Following this process will help the alignment of the holes. Continue binding, depending upon how large your leaf journal is. (A full 8-1/2 by 11 sheet leaf journal will have about 6-8 binds. Smaller journals will have fewer bindry spots).

Now that the journal is complete you can read it with your children and remember the fun day you spent together collecting the leaves and learning about fall and nature.

My son is a very organized little 2nd grader. And while I'm very proud of him for that, it sometimes doesn't match with my more care-free nature. In short, I stress him out.

Yesterday he and I had an hour to spend together before school, so I excitedly announced that I was taking him out for hot chocolate. "Um, maybe we should just go to school mom."

"No sweetheart, we'll be fine. No one is at school yet. Now just relax and let's enjoy a treat together." We sat at a table playing hangman and laughed like crazy people. It was fun. As I guessed his letters to a rather long puzzle and he began hanging my man - I started to figure it out... So I finished my hot chocolate and we left for school - 30 minutes early.

Here is a great recipe to use a pumpkin, even after poor Jack has been squashed in the street. Joan Beneke, my amazing mother-in-law brought all the ingredients to the house and we enjoyed making it together. The entire family had a blast eating dinner right out of a giant pumpkin!

Ingredients

• 2 onions, chopped
• 1 pound hamburger
• 1 pound sausage
• 2 Tbsp. soy sauce
• 2 Tbsp. brown sugar
• ½-cup mushroom, drained and sliced
• 1 can cream if chicken soup
• 1 can water chestnuts (8 0z.), drained and chopped
• 1 bell pepper, chopped
• 1 jalapeno, chopped
• 2 Tbsp. pimientos, drained and chopped
• 2 cups rice, cooked
• ½ tsp. black pepper
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1½ tsp. Creole seasoning
• 10-12 pound pumpkin
• shortening

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Brown and drain beef along with onions and sausage. Cook until no longer pink and drain well. Cut top off of pumpkin and reserve. Clean seeds and strings from pumpkin. Clean well. Coat pumpkin skin with shortening. Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl.

Spoon ingredients into pumpkin. Place top back on pumpkin. Wrap foil over the stem.

Bake on a cookie sheet for 2 to 3 hours depending on the size. Do not over bake. The pumpkin should not begin to brown. It will shrink down as it bakes.

Place stuffed baked pumpkin on a platter and serve directly out of the pumpkin. Be sure to scrape the cooked pumpkin meat out with the casserole. It has soaked up the amazing flavor and tastes delicious. Enjoy!

The MOM team had so much fun at the Roloff family farm interviewing Amy and touring their amazing property. We are thrilled to be featuring Amy on our October/November - she is an incredible woman. So down to earth - she talked with and opened up to us like she's known us for years!

Although we are sad to see the "Little People, Big World" series come to a close, I have a feeling we'll be seeing a lot more from Amy as part of the Amy Roloff Charity Foundation: