I promise I’m going to start sharing great Thanksgiving activities to do with kids! It’s just that today I made the annual Christmas gift my parents, in-laws and hubby look forward to every year. (Hi Family! Yes, you’ll be getting another one of those photo calendars you cherish so much! Surprise!) Actually, the surprise would be if I didn’t make them a photo calendar. Frankly, they love these calendars so much I no longer have a choice! That said, these photo calendars are great keepsakes and easy to make.

All you need to do is choose twelve adorable photos of your kids and click here to upload them to Shutterfly.com (I did mine today because they’re having a sale. And since I order six calendars every year, I could use the savings!)

My kids not only love seeing themselves displayed each month, but like to help me choose which photos I put in the calendar. We have a lot of fun looking at the photos and remembering the great times we had throughout the past year. It’s just one way I capture their childhood and preserve it forever.

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Okay, I’m a hypocrite. I admit it. I just jabbed at retailers for neglecting the fact that the holiday after Halloween revolves around turkey, not gifts, and here I am jumping on the gift bandwagon for a joy ride. It’s just that I have this wonderful handmade jewelry to give away and I don’t want to wait! Wendy Piersall has graciously given me this beautiful necklace and earrings to give away to one of my lucky readers!

All you need to do is leave me a comment by 9:00 p.m. EST, Wednesday November 21 to be entered into the contest.

Prize valued at approximately $30. Open to legal residents of the United States 18 years of age and older. No purchase required. One entry per person. Void where prohibited by law. Contest rules and details.

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Now that Halloween is over (finally!) I get to move on to the next season. Being the traditionalist I am, that means Thanksgiving. However, I can’t escape the fact that to retailers everywhere, the next season isn’t about turkeys, but about gift giving. So before I delve into fun Thanksgiving activities to do with your kids, I want to do a little thing on gifts. Or should I say, do a little thing to put on gifts.

As one of the authors here at eMomsatHome.com, I was given a free set of Moo cards. No they weren’t a pack of cards with cows on them. But those are good too! These are MiniCards you can have printed with your favorite photographs and six lines of text on the back. For many (okay, including me!) they are the latest trend in business cards. But they can be so much more.

Since this is a seasonal kids activities blog, I wanted to share how these MiniCards are, you know, seasonal! Drum roll please. (Of course my title has already given away the perfect seasonal use for MiniCards, but just humor me and play along.)

Moo MiniCards are great for gift tags!

You can have one image or a hundred images (or some number in between!) printed on these cards with your signature greeting on the back. Frankly, I love the idea of not having to sign the five names in my family every time I wrap a gift! Being the organizational freak that I am, I also like the idea of getting MiniCards with photos of each member of my family on them, and then attaching their respective MiniCards to their gifts. Being the elf who hands out presents on Christmas morning would be so much easier!

So if you too are an organizational freak, or just like the idea of these personalized gift cards, use this discount code H7V7BK by November 30, 2007 to get one set of Moo MiniCards free when you buy two sets. No pressure though! I gain absolutely nothing if you order these MiniCards! (Unless you organize your gifts by photo tag, then I get immense comfort knowing I’m not the only organizational freak out there!)

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Happy Halloween! It’s finally here! The pumpkins are painted, the decorations are up, the treats are made for the class parties, the candy is bought, and the costumes are ready to go. That means there’s just one thing left to do. Remind your kids how to be safe while trick or treating. Unless of course you opt to stay in and watch one of these Halloween movies, then you’re all set! But if your kids are going trick or treating like mine, I have a fun interactive way to go over the safety tips.

Have your kids click here to take an online Halloween safety quiz. It’s fun, interactive and gets the message across.

Have fun tonight and be safe!

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One of our favorite family time activities is “movie night.” We curl up under blankets, dim the lights, and eat popcorn. On chilly evenings, we light a fire. To me, it doesn’t get any better than this. I love the movies and my girls have inherited my passion for them as well!

I don’t love scary movies though. They scare me too much! Instead I prefer to watch kid Halloween movies. Of course, even Monster House was a little scary for me!

So here are some Halloween movies for kids that are not scary, you know, the ones I can watch.

It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

Pooh’s Heffalump Halloween Movie

Monsters, Inc.

Casper

Bedknobs and Broomsticks

Barney’s Halloween Party

Arthur’s Scary Stories

Wallace & Gromit - The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

Pumpkin Season

So after trick or treating, or instead, curl up with your kids and watch one of these cute Halloween movies. I promise your kids won’t have any nightmares after watching these!

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Is it Halloween yet? Nope! That means I’m still writing about different ways to have fun this Halloween season. They don’t call this the Seasonal Kids Activities blog for nothin’! So where were we? You can’t remember either? Then let’s recap what Halloween treats, contests and crafts I’ve covered so far! I don’t want to repeat myself.

So here are my top ten Halloween kid activties!

1. Pumpkin Picking and Painting

2. Rice Krispie Pumpkins

3. Tissue Paper Ghosts

4. Caramel Apples

5. Handprint Spiders

6. Ritz Cracker Spiders

7. Paper Plate Pumpkins

8. Pipe Cleaner Spiders

9. Halloween Costume Photo Contest

10. Bat Cookies

There are still two days left until Halloween, so check back tomorrow and Wednesday for my last two Halloween kid activities. I promise those will be my last activities about Halloween . . . at least until next year!

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