What are the top trends for Halloween kids costumes this year?
Licensed Halloween costumes seem to dominate again this year. Of course, the classics will never go out of style but there are a ton of characters from television and movies out there.
So what are the best Halloween costumes for kids 2011?
Take a look at the list that we’ve compiled – they are spook-tacular!
Pretty Lil Peacock
This adorable costume comes with matching tights and accessories. Gymboree.
Little Lobster
Isn’t this adorable?!? Your baby girl or boy can wear this and it’ll keep them warm. Gymboree.
Burger
How do you like your cheeseburger? Old Navy.
Cute Lil Cupcake
Your little girl will look so delicious in this cupcake costume! Old Navy.
Thing 1 or Thing 2
Dr. Seuss costumes are adorable if you have a brother/sister or twins wearing them together.
Elmo
Sesame Street Frilly Elmo Costume. Adorable! PureCostumes.com
Pebbles
The Flintstones Pebbles Child Costume
Boxing Champ
This costume is made from Everlast.
Rapunzel
Disney Tangled Rapunzel Classic Costume. Disney.
Captain America
Marvel Captain America Movie Classic Toddler/Child Costume
Queen Amidala
Star Wars Queen Amidala Child Costume. PureCostumes.com
Power Rangers Samurai
Red Ranger Samurai Classic Muscle Child
Avatar
Dress up like Neytiri from Avatar.
Harry Potter
Simple costume you could even make yourself.
Mermaid
Your daughter would love this version. CostumeChik.com
I always loved Sesame Street as a kid, to the point where my dad used to say I would be fixated on the TV when the show was on. So when I was invited by amotherworld to attend the Let’s Rock! Elmo concert at the Six Degrees Event Centre on September 24, 2011 – I had to see what all the buzz was about as I had no idea what to expect.
Naturally, I brought my four kids with me, and boy, were we surprised! It looked like a typical nightclub on the outside with a bouncer and greeter, but inside it was amazing! It was toy paradise for kids – with tables full of Sesame Street characters, PlayDoh stations, and of course the star of the show, Let’s Rock! Elmo. As we arrived Nikki Yanofsky was just finishing up on stage when Elmo showed up, to the delight of me and my kids. I have to say it was so exciting to see Elmo rock it out to the tunes the DJ was playing.
The Henry Kids posing with Abby Cadabby and Cookie Monster
My kids always are hungry even after they have eaten, so I was glad to see the snack station set up with healthy choices: mini muffins, yogurt with granola, sandwiches, cookies, juice and milk for the kids, and coffee for the grownups. But I didn’t feel like a grownup – I felt like a kid in a candy store – I had no idea that Sesame Street and Hasbro had so many toys! My kids and I didn’t know where to begin.
My baby Rebekah loved the Squeeze-A-Song plush Elmo – she never wanted to leave it alone! My three-year-old son Nathaniel loved the Let’s Rock! Elmo Guitar, Let’s Rock! Cookie Monster Keyboard and the Let’s Rock! Grover Microphone. He also loved playing with the water station that had the Silly Swimmers Elmo and Cookie Monster. My older daughters Japhia (11) and Kefira (10) loved the Count N’ Crunch Cookie Monster because the cookies looked real. When you put cookies in his mouth, it falls into his backpack. They also liked
Rebekah holding a Squeeze-A-Song Plush Elmo
the Elmo Cellphone because it flips up like a real phone. Most of all, my kids all loved Let’s Rock! Elmo, because Elmo is so cool – he sings six different songs and while playing drums and has a microphone and tambourine. I can see why this is considered one of the hottest toys this holiday season.
They danced, took pictures with Cookie Monster and AbbyCadabby, and as we were leaving we received a loot bag that contained an Elmo T-shirt, a DVD, a book, Bert and Ernie action figures, a mini plush Abby doll and best of all, a Let’s Rock! Elmo doll. Christmas came a little early this year!
Rock Out with LET’S ROCK! ELMO Hasbro welcomed Sesame Street to the iconic PLAYSKOOL family with a rockin’ kick-off concert at Six Degrees Event Centre in Toronto on Saturday, September 24, 2011.
Sharlene Henry is a busy mumof four kids: 11, 10, 3 and 9 months. Follow her on Twitter.
Does your sex life need an overhaul? A little more passion?
The Naughty Bucket List: 369 Sexy Dares to do Before You Die can help bring back the spark that’s lacking in the bedroom!
Dirty word Scrabble, lunch-hour quickies, rainfall rendezvous… Church Confessional? Sounds intriguing.
I had a chance to speak to the author, Kourtney Jason, about the importance of taking sex out of the box (aka the bedroom), putting your sexual needs first and various ways of keeping the passion alive.
Why do couples get stuck in a sexual rut?
Book by Kourtney Jason
The short answer is that couples stop putting in the effort they used to. At the beginning of any relationship, sex is a new and exciting experience and exploration for both partners to learn about each other and themselves. That’s when you discover what your partner likes, doesn’t like, needs, etc. Once the honeymoon phase is over, we hear that you have to work at your relationship, especially if you want to keep that spark alive.
All of your partner’s likes and needs become commonplace. When you’re intimate with each other, you will eventually know what you’re doing and when to do it with the end result of pleasing your partner. However, when you just go through the motions to get to the destination rather than enjoy the journey, that’s when you’ll find yourself in a sex rut.
Why is it important to spice things up in the bedroom?
Well first, I don’t want people to think sex has to be limited to the bedroom. You can take it anywhere in your house (and that’s where a lot of the 369 dares come from), and even some places in public – just know the risk involved prior to getting frisky there.
Back to the question though, a healthy sex life is key to maintaining a healthy relationship. So if sex gets boring and mundane, you’ll likely start to have less of it and then that’s when the relationship could be nearing its end. Spicing things up, whether it is trying new places, positions, props, whatever, will add a new level of excitement and passion.
How can your book help?
My book can help in 369 different ways! But really, this book is an encouraging guide, offering suggestions on sexy dares worth trying with your partner. Each dare has a blurb explaining why it’s in the book, tips on how to do it and/or what makes it fun. Flip to any page and you will likely see something you’d want to try.
Having it in a book makes it so much easier to share with your partner. You can take two different colored highlighters and each pick what dares you want to try. Where the two colors overlap, you’ve got your starting point.
And I really just hope this book can open a dialogue for couples to discuss what they want and need sexually. You need communication in order to have a healthy sex life. If you’re looking to try something more adventurous sexually, you need to be able to talk about it. And really, there’s just no excuse for bad or boring sex anymore.
What do you suggest for those who are on the less wild side to get the spark back?
The book covers everything. Mild to wild. Nice to naughty. Sweet to ultra-steamy. There truly is something for everyone in The Naughty Bucket List. There’s a really great one about stroking your partner with a feather. You’d be surprised by how intense the stroke of a light, soft feather can be when it’s the only thing you’re focusing on in that moment. So that’s a great place to start.
Of course, some of these dares are certainly intimidating and some are more for laughs (because who can really check off “The White House” dare other than the President?!), but mainly I hope my book gets couples talking. For those who are a little more shy and working on communicating his/her needs, flip through the book and highlight the dares you’d want to try and then simply leave the book out on a counter or bed-side table for your partner to discover.
I don’t think you can look at the book and not have an urge to look through it. Start simple, and then as you feel more comfortable with yourself and with your partner, you’ll be more willing to try the more adventurous dares.
Enter to win 1 of 5 copies of the book! US & Canada. Open until March 31, 2012.
Be warned, this is a little rant. Thank goodness it’s anonymous because I wouldn’t want anyone in my family to know how I really feel.
I resent my husband sometimes. Okay all the time. I bite my tongue sometimes in order to keep a happy household but there are many times when I can be a complete, mean bitch.
While I work a full-time job, I also end up doing many of the household chores too. Because I get home earlier from my job than he does, I end up being the one to make dinner, clean up and do homework with my older kids and get my toddler ready for bed.
I often am the one to get the kids ready for bed too, bathing them, reading to them. So realistically by the time I’m finished everything that I have to do in order to keep my house running normally, I am too damn exhausted to do anything else.
When he gets home from work, he eats a hot, home-cooked meal, takes a long hot shower, plays with the kids for a little while and then falls asleep. Out like a fucking light. Okay maybe he’ll make his own lunch but do you see where I’m getting at?
On the weekends, I’m too busy catching up with housework to relax and unwind. In case you’re wondering “well why can’t he help on the weekends?” he does but he helps as much as I ask him to. You see he’s good with taking instructions but I get tired of delegating. Can’t he just figure it out all on his own? Do I have to show him what to do step by step? It’d just be easier to do it myself.
He’s also busy taking care of the outside of the house too, I should be fair to say that. And when I do ask him to do something, he will do it. Whether or not he takes care of it right away or waits until later in the day, he doesn’t have an issue helping out when I ask.
I do become a little resentful that I am a working woman and yet I’m still do most of the work at home too.
I’m resentful that becoming a mother changed everything in my life – my body, my career, my mom guilt – and yet did not change his lifestyle very much at all.
Maybe I’m being unreasonable but I can’t help but feel this way. Nobody talks about this kind of stuff – I usually hear “oh my marriage is great” or “my husband is so helpful”. Is it like this for everybody?
Why do some women get it so difficult while some men get off easily? Is this a fair judgement? Maybe not. Will I get over it? I don’t know. I know I have to in order to move on. Right now I’m feeling overwhelmed by being a mother, a wife and a working woman.
Q. Why are children so well-behaved at school but when they come home, they become little terrors?
A. What it means when kids are well-behaved at school and not at home is usually this – they are strongly bonded to their family and know they are completely safe at home. This is not to say that kids at school feel in danger. However, it is human nature that we save our worst selves for the situations in which we feel most comfortable. If you have raised your kids in such a way that they trust you to love them no matter what, they feel able to show you the no-matter-what behavior.
So the trick, as parents, is how to give our kids a completely safe environment with unconditional love (because that builds healthy people) and still help them to behave better at home. Here are a few suggestions:
1. Teach this hard truth – what you do and say is usually MORE IMPORTANT than how you feel.
Even if you are frustrated, cranky, sad, tired, hungry, or not feeling well, my sweet child, you still must ask for things nicely and say thank you if you get them. A bad day at school does not entitle you to slam our front door, throw your backpack in the corner and stomp upstairs without saying hello.
However, you are welcome to come in and say “Hi Mom. I’ve had a hard day and I would like to be alone for a while.” Not only is this better for keeping some peace in your home, it will keep your children happy later in life. Your kids will not be surprised that a bad day is no excuse for poor behavior at work or for treating a spouse badly. They will keep the good things in life more easily than children who do not grow up with this lesson.
2. Develop an after-school (or after-preschool) routine.
Kids thrive on routine, because they understand better what to expect and what you expect of them. This is actually another reason that teachers often get better behavior from our kids than we do. Kids know what will happen and what they will need to do at any given time at school.
Be consistent about how long you stay to play on the playground, what snacks are available and when, where to put lunch bags and backpacks, how long they have to relax before homework time, etc. Work out what works for you and then stick to it as much as possible. If something comes up, explain it to your child and be clear about the specifics.
3. This one is for us parents.
Remember that we have taught our children, all the years of their life, to behave better in front of other kids and grown ups. Try to accept that, when our kids let down their guard at home, this is just one of the many ways our children show us their love. And remember, no child is perfect.
Dr. Deborah Gilboa is a Board Certified family physician, mother of four, and a professional parenting writer and speaker (for parents, community & business). Her signature individualized workshop, “How to Get the Behavior You Want, Without Being the Parent You Hate” captivates parents through her humorous straight talk, which lifts the guilt out of parenting. Her mission is to help parents raise children they can respect and admire. Visit her website.
Last evening during dinner with a group of mates, I found myself proclaiming, “If you aren’t polite to waiters, I will not be your friend.” They laughed at this but little did they realize that I was dead serious.
In my personal blog, I once wrote in all uppercase letters: “MY FUTURE CHILDREN WILL BE POLITE AS SOON AS THEY ARE ABLE TO SPEAK.” I think if you vow something about your future offspring in all caps for all the blogosphere to see you need to be taken seriously…or to an insane asylum.
My friends were gossiping about a mutual acquaintance of ours who made a young waitress burst into tears the last time they went out to lunch. She made a complaint about every little thing and sent her food back twice.
When it came out the final time, she sniffed it and said, “It smells like kitchen floor.” Guess what, honey? It probably was a mixture of kitchen floor, spit and who knows what else. Not that I ever did that…
One of my greatest grievances is seeing a customer being rude to a waiter at a restaurant. I have felt this way long before I even became a waitress during my college years and it is even further instilled in me today. I am a huge believer in having good manners and I consider this to be applicable to absolutely every single person I encounter in my life.
Some people have the horrible misconception that a person who serves them is also beneath them. A waiter’s job may be to take your order and bring you your meal but they are just trying to make a living, just like you.
I am very particular about the phrasing of words when placing an order with your server. I think the proper way to order something is to use the words: “May I please have the (insert food item here)? Thank you!” I don’t know what it is about the phrase: “I’ll have the (insert food item here)” that makes me cringe.
If you think your dish would benefit from a little more salt, you shouldn’t say, “I need salt” when the waiter comes by to check on you. Instead, ask for more salt and ask politely. Then, don’t forget to reply with a thank you.
You have to be incredibly thick skinned to work in the food industry, which is why I only lasted a miserable year as a waitress. I have learned that servers are blamed for many things that are beyond their control. If your dish is not as delicious as the description on the menu made it seem, that is the kitchen’s fault, not your server’s.
If your water isn’t refilled as often as you would like, your server may be handling more tables than they should because of a short staff. Don’t assume that they are just chit chatting in the back with others. If the restaurant is out of salmon, blame the person who keeps inventory.
I strongly believe that a person who is not nice to a waiter is probably not a nice person in general. Can we please teach this to our children and maybe a few adults out there who feel entitled to absolutely everything?
Did you just realize that you are someone who I would refuse to be friends with? Here are a few things you can do to make your server’s day:
Stack up your dirty plates and utensils at the end of your meal.
Write “thank you” on your credit card receipt.
Remember your server’s name and use it in your conversations with him/her.
Smile.
This is a guest post from Min Schmidt who shares her shopping advice and life experience at Savoo, the U.K.-based version of the popular deal site, Savings.com.
Thanksgiving in Canada comes a whole month earlier than it does south of the border, and for that I am especially thankful. Mostly because it lands before Halloween, and then allows me to have a full two months to take off the candy and turkey poundage prior to indulging in both once again at Christmas time, just when those jeans finally zip up.
So, in honour of Canadian Thanksgiving, this month’s Funny Mummy column offers up a serving from my latest book, Shut Up and Eat: Tales of Chicken, Children and Chardonnay. Put the turkey in the oven, pour some wine in your glass, pick out your best eating pants, sit back and enjoy this excerpt.
Gobble, Gobble
There are many things to be thankful for when you have children. Here are some that might occur to you, as they do to me, while you’re sitting around the Thanksgiving dinner table with your extended family:
Your son didn’t wear his FCUK t-shirt to the dinner table. Grandparents still consider it offensive. And so do I, on a certain level at least.
You decided against serving the peas. (You’ve eyeballed at least two slingshots peeking out of shorts pockets.)
Your kids use so many slang/rap expressions when dissing each other that your parents don’t really know what they’re saying. Including “dissing.”
Your mom decided to serve dinner buffet style, so the kids can choose what they like—one piece of broccoli and four pieces of bread? Fine. Don’t care. Sit down and shut up—instead of complaining about their plates full of things they won’t eat. Otherwise, you’d get blamed for both wasting food and not raising your children properly for. Or is that just me?
Candied yams are considered a vegetable and not dessert. How (literally) sweet is that?
It’s a special occasion, so the calories don’t count.
Turkey contains tryptophan, which is known for inducing sleep. You will have a lovely hour-long car ride home if you have an extra coffee and load up hubby’s and children’s plates.
One of the best things about Thanksgiving is that it is a really short holiday. Basically, it lasts for one meal (at least here in Canada, where we do it on a Monday in October, with no real football games or pre-Christmas shopping frenzies to attend to). Other festive occasions which are mercifully only a day long are children’s birthdays and Halloween. The birthdays seem longer because you have to spend so much time planning them, but the actual event is mercifully short.
Likewise Halloween. And the really good news about Halloween is that you don’t have to bother making dinner that night, or breakfast the next morning. It’s all about the candy. And even if you are the type of parent to force your kids to eat something healthy before they go out trick or treating, rest assured that they’ll shove any nasty dinner down their throat just to get out there. Score.
Yet another thing to feel thankful for.
Excerpted from “Shut Up and Eat: Tales of Chicken, Children and Chardonnay”, by Kathy Buckworth. Published by Key Porter Books, 2010.
Celebrities dropped the (bleeped out) F-bomb, declaring, “Famine is the real obscenity” in this commercial encouraging people to help stop the famine in Somalia.
Bono, who serves on ONE’s Board of Directors, and George Clooney are featured along with a bunch of other celebrities.
Anyone who stands up and speaks up for people who are suffering and starving should be applauded. They are donating their time, effort and money to help others in need.
The problem is, these celebrities are making far more money than they actually need. When actors get a $20-million pay cheque for ONE film, I can’t help but shake my head. When Tiger Woods made $75 million in ONE YEAR – I am disturbed. When I see that Bethenny Frankel made $55 million last year alone – I can’t help but be shocked.
The obscenity is that celebrities and athletes paid so much!
