Elf on our Shelf {2020}

Posted in Crafts, DIY, Holidays by mszerwo

Train (our elf) is BAAAACK!

We’ve planned and now we’re ready to execute. In fact, we set our Elf in his first pose on Thanksgiving eve.

Normally our Elf comes on December 1, but because this year is this year, Train came early!

This is our third year of elf’ing and we actually enjoy it and miss Train when he has to return to the North Pole.

We found the secret to actually enjoying your elf is to pre-plan the poses, so you don’t have to think on your feet. We do this by creating a calendar. While we deviate from the calendar on occasion, it’s so useful to have an idea ready to go. We’re four days in and have deviated twice, which is fine by us. Michael doesn’t know any different.

Check out our 2018 and 2019 calendars for additional ideas. {Printable 2020 calendar here.}

If you need even more ideas, check out my Elf on our Shelf Pinterest Board.

Follow my Instagram stories for each of the Train’s evening adventures: https://www.instagram.com/mszerwo/.

Here are some our adventures so far:

I’m off to set up tomorrow’s epic elf adventure. Happy elf’ing! I’d love to hear your best elf scenes in the comments!

27Oct2020

Halloween Cauldrons {Easy DIY}

Posted in Holidays, Homemade by mszerwo

Looking for a last minute Halloween craft? Planning on leaving candy outside for trick-or-treaters? Want a fancy way to display all the candy you’re going to eat yourself?

I have the DIY project for you: Oozing Witch Cauldrons!

Oozing witch cauldrons

This idea came from this year’s Better Homes & Garden’s Halloween magazine. We likely won’t put it outside for trick-or-treaters, but you’d better believe it’s filled with all our favorite candies already, awaiting Halloween this weekend.

This is a super easy craft. Please make your own and tag me or post your projects here!

Gather your supplies:

Cauldron ($6, Walmart)
Spray insulation ($3, Home Depot)
Acrylic paint for the ooze (had on-hand)
Stick for sign (We used a painted paint stir stick, optional)
Candy (once completed, for filling)

… And get started. This project is so easy a five year old can do it!

Prep spray insulation per package instructions (open, put on nozzle)
Set up work space (cauldron on top of working space– we used cardboard box in the garage)
Spray! (If you’re adding a sign, make sure you insert your stick/sign post when the ooze is still wet.)
And then wait per package instructions. Warning: the insulation will GROW as it hardens.
Once fully dry, paint the ooze, if you’d like. We used a “lime” matte acrylic that we had on-hand. The original instructions suggest spray painting, but that didn’t make sense to me, plus I had time to hand paint it while Michael did his virtual schooling.
Add glow-in-the-dark paint. (We did because glow-in-the-dark puffy paint is amazing. We put it on everything!)
Print and adhere sign. (We printed onto a heavy cardstock and adhered it with 1″ blue painters tape)
Fill with candy and enjoy!

Here are the PDFs for the signs: Witch way to the candy & Boo’s (which I envision filled with little alcohol bottles at a party during non-COVID times)

Gather your supplies

Apply insulation per the instructions. Make sure you drizzle some tendrils down the cauldron

Let dry. Make sure to stick your sign stick in while the insulation is still wet!

Paint, paint, paint. Green paint first. Glow in the dark paint after its dry.

We opted for spooky green ooze, painted while I supervised “at home” school

Added some glow in the dark puffy paint once the green paint was dry.

Fill it and place it and you’re done!

Ready to print signs (8.5″ x 11″) CLICK FOR THE PDF

23Sep2020

{DIY} Skeleton Flamingos

Posted in Crafts, DIY, Holidays by mszerwo

I think I’ve found the silver lining to our current COVID situation: quality time with Michael.

We are spending a lot of time together: between “Mom School,” “Zoom school,” and the shortened days of “in-person school,” it’s all Megan & Michael time. All. The. Time.

While Michael works on his school work and crafts, I’m trying to not be on my phone all of the time, so I’ve been finishing up some in-process crafting projects. (Our school room is the craft room, after all.)

I found an image of skeleton flamingos on Pinterest and I thought they were fun, decorative, and not too scary.

So, I bought some flamingos from Amazon. Do note: these are “mini” flamingos and much smaller than I had expected.

We had some leftover matte black spray paint, so I set up a spray paint area and went to town.

Fast forward a few months, and I finally had the time and tools to finish the project!

What do you need?

Matte black spray paint (We used Rustoleum’s High Heat spray paint, leftover from painting our fireplace, likely purchased from Home Depot)
Plastic flamingos
White oil-based paint pen (I think I got mine from Michaels, medium tipped)

That’s it!

I searched a few images on Pinterest and just started drawing. The paint I used dulled my white pen a bit throughout, so I wiped off the tip and kept going.

It took just a few worksheets, crafts, and PlayDoh sessions and I was done! These actually took less time than I expected.

DIY Skeleton flamingos, Halloween decor, lawn art

Our flock!

If you decide to follow our lead on these non-spooky skeleton flamingos, please tag me in your photos or post pictures here!

Happy haunting!

18Aug2020

Fall bucket list {2020}

Posted in Holidays by mszerwo

It’s almost finally fall: sweatshirts, sun, and a chill in the air!

It’s half-way through August, but the sun is going down earlier and earlier each night and the other day there was a chill in the air. And I already saw Christmas cards at the store, so it’s time to switch seasons.

Because of COVID, no one has any idea what Kindergarten will look like this year, I’m running out of TV shows to watch with no hope of new shows on the horizon, Michael’s birthday plans have been re-tooled over and over again, and our weekends will now be football-free, much to Brandon’s chagrin.

So I’m going to focus on something near and dear to me: the changing of the season and our fall bucket list.

Make our scarecrow. I’ve had the stuff since 2018 and this year we’re finally going to make it!

Decorate for Halloween. Michael is taking after me and loves Halloween too! With COVID what it is now, I don’t think trick-or-treating will happen, but we’ll still buy some candy and indulge. I think Michael is going to be Martin Kratt of the Wild Kratts for Halloween, since he will already have a costume. (He’s having a Wild Kratts-themed birthday in mid-Sept. and will receive a Creature Power Suit)

SPOOKY!

Boo! These cheesecloth ghosts were a new addition last year.

Apple picking! Maybe we’ll have weekdays free. Maybe we’ll visit on a weekend. Who knows. It will be a fun time, regardless. So far this year we’ve picked strawberries and blueberries.

Visit a pumpkin patch. There are so many farms here. We’ve visited Greg’s U-Pick Farm for the past three Falls, so we will be there again to take a photo of Michael in this pumpkin house. Maybe we’ll even go on a socially-distant hayride! I usually go for the imperfect, warty pumpkins. I don’t see that changing this year. After a visit to a really cool corn maze in Ohio last October, Michael is really excited to find more mazes here too.

Three years at the pumpkin house!

I prefer the unique, warty pumpkins.

Carve our pumpkins. Maybe Michael will even help de-gut them this year? We can roast the pumpkin seeds, eat pot pie, all of the things.

PUMPKINS!!

Bonfires! We just bought a Solo Stove and I can’t wait to use it for a toasty fire and s’mores!

My birthday! I don’t have plans yet, but it’ll likely involve some corned beef (my favorite!), one of these big cookie cakes, a great bottle of wine, and some quality time at home.

I’m planning on one of these for my birthday… plus a few years!

It’s only right that I memorialize (mourn?) some of our favorite Fall traditions that aren’t COVID-friendly:

School? Who knows. Our school district is such a hot mess.
A really big birthday party for Michael and a visit from Grandma & Boppa.
College (& NFL?) football.
Trick or treating
Hockey lessons
A night on the town to celebrate our anniversary (#9 this year!!)

Pumpkin picking at the pumpkin patch

Read our 2018 list here… WARNING: it’s pretty similar.

28Jul2020

Construction FOURman

Posted in Holidays, Homemade, Parties! by mszerwo

Michael turned four this past September and we celebrated with friends, family, a bounce house, pinata, and an epic cake.

Of course, I spent a considerable amount of time planning the party. (Thanks, Pinterest!)

Our invites were amazing — Michael’s construction hat came from Home Depot and I taped on a few layers of foam I cut out. His shirt was from Old Navy. We were lucky to find a torn up parking lot at our swim school: the perfect photo backdrop.

DUMP EVERYTHING! Michael is turning FOUR!

And I designed some great signage. (Download the set here!)

Construction Party signage

To feed our guests, we went with really large “party pizzas” from our neighborhood pizzeria and made our own cake out of FOUR boxes of cake mix and FIVE cans of frosting. (And it was delicious!)

Dig in: Party pizzas

Construction site birthday party dessert table

The dessert table

The delicious birthday cake

The pinata was great fun. I made a “4” out of card board, tape, and crepe paper. Tutorial coming!

Party pinata

Michael helped me fill it with construction-themed bracelets, temporary tattoos, suckers, tootsie rolls, and construction trucks. We passed out mini bags from Amazon for the kids to collect their pinata droppings and had the kids decorate plastic construction hats. (Hats & bags sold together here.)

My pinata filling helper

Construction site birthday party decorations

So many hats and letters!

The kids whacked and whacked the pinata and it finally broke. I might have built it a little too well. Oops.

Pinata time!

Pinata recovery

We had such a great time celebrating our little FOURman!

We rented the perfect bouncy house– and they let us keep it all weekend!

Hanging the pinata

Inside the bounce house. Michael means business!

Happy Fourth!! {Larger than life number sculpture at Buffalo’s Outer Harbor}

So much delicious cake!

Construction everything! Additional party decor

Such a happy Birthday Boy!

24Apr2020

Happy Earth Day {2020}

Posted in Holidays, Nature by mszerwo

Every day is earth day in our house, but on Wednesday we went a little more intense than normal.

Michael took an Earth Day Pledge and has since failed on his “shorter showers” promise. Otherwise, he’s doing great.

We made some amazing cookies that were SO EASY. We picked a sugar cookie recipe on Pinterest (this one!), separated the dough into two bowls (go a little heavier for one of the bowls), and added food coloring (one bowl green, the bowl with more, blue, since Earth’s surface is 71% water). And mix, mix, mix.

Once you’ve got your colored dough bowls, pinch pieces of each dough color, combine them, (see below) and roll them lightly. If you roll them too much they’ll get marbled. Just a quick roll to combine should suffice.

Bake per the recipe’s instructions…

And, voila! Delicious and festive.

Some of our other fun resources for learning about Mother Nature: (no affiliate links, since I can’t figure out how to do that…)

What did the tree wear to the pool party? — Swimming trunks. This and may more Earth Day jokes.

Nature Activity Book

My Encyclopedia of Very Important Animals (My Very Important Encyclopedias)

My Encyclopedia of Very Important Dinosaurs: Discover more than 80 Prehistoric Creatures

Nature Anatomy: The Curious Parts and Pieces of the Natural World

Gross as a Snot Otter (The World of Weird Animals)

What else should we be reading? How did you celebrate Earth Day/Week? Tell me below!

11Apr2020

Halloween recap {2018}

Posted in Crafts, DIY, Holidays, Homemade, Parties! by mszerwo

What a Halloween!

We dressed up, paraded, trick-or-treated, and ate and ate and ate.

Most of my creative juices went to Michael’s Mater costume, which was a work of art.

From the front:

And from the back… a working tow hook!

And let’s not forget the working headlamps once dusk hit! (Don’t you just love the pie tin radiator/candy dish!?)

Mater was WAY too big to wear to school for Michael’s class parade, so we pulled this Captain America costume out of the closet. Look at these little super heroes!

Apparently Michael grew a bit… Look at his shoes and fake shoes.

Brandon and I phoned in our outfits, thanks to Target. They were fun and easy– fine by me!

Of course we had some festive eats too… Our many-layer dip was so easy and paired perfectly with orange and black chips from Wegmans:

And some sweet treats, “blood” courtesy of food coloring and corn syrup, applied with an infant medicine dropper, edible axes made by Wilton, bought by me:

We carved pumpkins too. All around, the perfect holiday!

19Nov2019

Love your Elf on the Shelf!

Posted in DIY, Holidays by mszerwo

It’s already mid-November, which means in a few short weeks our Elf on the Shelf Train will be returning from the North Pole, to make sure our sweet boy actually stays on Santa’s “nice” list.

We met Train last year, shortly after my son’s third birthday. It was the perfect age to begin.

24 days of new Elf activity is a lot of work.

To prepare, I did my homework and created a calendar for our Elf. The hour or so I spent on Pinterest and creating the calendar was totally worth it.

I have a tendency to doze during my son’s bedtime, so the calendar was a guide to help my husband and I both to place Train, even if we didn’t want to.

I bought a couple of items to ensure our Elf’s success: a package of cotton balls, a dry-erase marker, a couple of cheap gifts (stocking stuffer type things) found at the Target One-Spot or Dollar Store.

Read our 2018 calendar here. (This includes a weekend trip to NYC, so some hotel Elf action)

Read our 2019 calendar here. (This includes another quick trip, this time to Seattle)

Here are some of my favorite Elf poses from last year. This year I’m most excited to use the leftover spider web from Halloween to have Spider-man suspend Train.

Elf on the Shelf with North Pole breakfast

Train with his North Pole breakfast

Elf on the Shelf visits the Sprinkle Spa

Train visited the Sprinkle Spa. So relaxing!

An easy one: your Elf can be coloring or practicing their letters!

Just “chilling” out in the snow (cotton balls)

Elf on the Shelf reading to his dino friends

Reading a new train book to his dinosaur friends

Another easy one: suspended in the tree!

Are they racing or is the T. Rex going to eat the deer!? Elf attached with unscented floss.

Uh oh… Santa wants to talk. Another easy one!

Mr. Bedhead found his Elf, just ‘hanging out’

For more ideas, visit my “Elf on our Shelf” Pinterest board.

Happy Elf-ing!

There’s always the Elf Surveillance Camera if you’re not interested in the Elf.

10Feb2019

Last minute {children’s} Valentine ideas

Posted in Holidays by mszerwo

In case you missed it, Valentine’s day is THIS Thursday. (On Feb. 14)

If you’re a little behind and still figuring out what to do, allow me to give you some great ideas.

Assuming you have an Amazon Prime account, you’ll be able to start and finish these with time to spare!

For space lovers…

You’re out of this world!

Space ducks: unite!

For dinosaur lovers…

You’re dino-mite! Thank you for being my friend-o-saurus!

These valentines are DINO-riffic!

For construction lovers…

We bought these cars (Michael loves them so much he’s keeping some to play with!) and I made these simple tags with four fitting phrases:

You are TONS of fun! You MOVE me! I totally DIG you! LOADS of love!

Here’s the construction tag PDF for you. Print it, cut it, tie it, and you’re set!

I totally dig you!

Finished product: construction valentines

Need even more ideas? Head over to Pinterest. Happy Valentine’s day!

19Jan2019

2018 {Year In Review}

Posted in Adventures, Buffalo!, Holidays by mszerwo

While 2018 wasn’t the best year for the blog, we had a blast in real life.

It was our first full year in Buffalo, including our first winter and full summer. (Apparently Buffalo doesn’t have a spring or fall with climate change the way it is. I’m pretty sure it went from snow to sweltering this spring and same for the fall.)

2018 started off with travel. We celebrated a late Christmas in Seattle and loved catching up with everyone.

Brandon taught his first class during the spring semester. He taught a mere 550 inquiring minds. Overall it was a positive experience and he’s getting ready to teach the class again in early 2019.

Over the summer, we took advantage of our flexible work schedules to celebrate some of our good friends’ love, traveling to Arizona and the Hudson River Valley. Both trips were so much fun and will be their own blog posts in the coming year.

Szerwos take the Grand Canyon

Our introduction to the Finger Lakes, en route to the Hudson River Valley

For Father’s Day, we went camping at Letchworth State Park, a first for Michael. We went with our best Buffalo friends and enjoyed it. We hope to camp again next spring/summer.

Father’s Day camping at Letchworth 2018

We continue to explore Buffalo and have really perfected our tour for guests who visit. That’s a blog post for another day, too.

Niagara Falls: One stop on our Buffalo tour

Professionally, I launched Delaware Park Living in September. It’s a monthly neighborhood newsletter magazine for the residents of one of the most established communities in Buffalo. I’m the publisher of the publication, which means I get to work with the residents, business sponsors, and our central design team to make a beautiful 30-40 page magazine each month.

Presenting: Delaware Park Living

Halloween 2018 was pretty epic. I went all out and created an award-winning (seriously! I won $100 for it!) Mater costume for Michael. He continues to love playing in it. I’m working on a “how to” tutorial for the costume as there isn’t a complete one currently online. Brandon and I phoned it in and were both Waldo. We’ve already started thinking about Halloween 2019 costumes though.

Where’s Waldo? Hanging out in Buffalo!

Mater with his two besties

Michael’s day-time costume: Captain America.

Captain America with his super squad

We finished up the year with a pre-Christmas holiday trip to NYC. We’ve been there before and seeing it in all of its holiday splendor was magical. We caught up with friends, shopped the holiday pop-up markets, rode through Central Park in a horse-drawn carriage while sipping hot chocolate, and walked more than 13 miles one day, among lots of other fun things. I think we should make it an annual tradition!

Rockefeller Plaza all done up for the holidays

The only thing missing was snow! {Central Park Carriage Ride}

Merry Christmas from NYC!

We’re actually looking forward to our Buffalo winter and the snow, and all of the adventures we have planned for 2019. We can’t wait to share them with you. More posts in 2019, I promise.

What’s Michael doing these days?

Our 3.25 year old is SO active. He loves running and jumping and can move for hours… unless you want him to walk beside you on a neighborhood walk. Then his “shoes are hard” and he requires holding.

Michael knows the alphabet (both the song and capital and lower case letter identification) and can count to 20.

He’s back in swim lessons and getting more and more comfortable bobbing underwater. He loves school and has several best friends.

He’s sweet and sassy and still even likes to snuggle sometimes. Michael learned Christmas carols this year and his favorite song is Jingle Bells which he’s recently re-titled to “Jingle Smells.” He’s been using the potty since his third birthday and loves using potty words any chance he can (toot, tooty, poop, poopy, etc).

Megan's Island

Welcome to my island!

Category Archives: Holidays