Costumes & Parties & Pinterest...Oh My!

Costumes & Parties & Pinterest...Oh My!!

The final week of October is here, and those of us with children in school know what that means.....SCHOOL PARTIES!! Kids L-O-V-E this time of year! There's candy, there's treats, there's costumes, and there is that snack sign up sheet.   Gone are the days of sending in a bag of suckers or baking some cookies and calling it a day.  These days most schools want a mixture of mostly healthy prepackaged snacks then add to that the dreaded Pinterest pictures!

Are all kindergartner's Halloween juice boxes bedazzled with perfect shapes from a Circut machine??

Do I have to make a spider shaped gluten free cake pop??

Will I be the only one sending in snacks that I picked up at Costco on my way to school??

No, No, and No!!

Now a quick PSA: If you love being super crafty with your snacks, go for it! If this is something that brings you great joy, go for it! Be you!! However, if it doesn't, you find yourself stressing over it the night before, and only do it because Facebook and Pinterest make it seem like everyone else is, for the love of all things...STOP.  As a mom of 3 and someone who has been to my fair share of school parties (for all holidays) I can tell you first hand, most people do not send in fancy treats.  It's unnecessary.

There are people who love Pinterest, there are people who hate it, and there are the rest of us who are undecided. This blog, right here, is for you undecided and overwhelmed folks. I have mastered the craft of cute, easy and fast!  Here are 6 super easy (and mostly healthy) Halloween snacks. The only crafty tools you need are a sharpie and a pair of scissors.

1) Orange-O-Lanterns Time to make 25: under 5 minutes
Honestly, this is probably my favorite.  If you have kids who can be sort of trusted with a sharpie, they can pretty much do this one on their own.  Kids love clementines, they are healthy, sweet and you don't need utensils...need I say more?!? All you do (or your child does) is draw different pumpkin faces onto a clementine.  Let the sharpie dry for a minute, and toss them all into a Ziploc bag and you're done!

2) Boo String Cheese Time to make 25: under 5 minutes 
This one is another one that kids can do (actually they all are).  Simply take string cheese and draw a ghost face on it.  This is great if you have a big class.  You can buy a fairly inexpensive jumbo pack of string cheese from most supermarkets.  Also, I've heard you can freeze it the night before and it will thaw by lunch.  So, if keeping it cold is an issue, do that!

3)Monster Sauce Time to make 25: under 5 minutes 
Buy a pack (or several) of pear sauce or granny smith apple sauce and simply draw a monster face on it. It really is that easy.

4)Peach-o-Lantern or Manderine-O-Lantern Time to make 25: under 5 minutes
By now you probably see a theme :) I think there's probably some study out there that says that kids are more likely to eat something with a smiley face on it .  If not, there should be! 

5)Bag Of......
Seriously, buy a thing of goodie bags 98 cents for 20 and shove whatever store bought treat into it! 

6)Monster Fruit Cup  Time to make 25: around 10 minutes 
Of the 6, these are by far the most time consuming and they aren't prepackaged, so not all schools will allow them, but they are so cute!
-line up desired number of cups
-drop handful of green grapes in each
-place 2 marshmallows pressed up against side of cup
-fill the remaining space with grapes
-cut Glad Press and Seal into squares and press and seal the top of the cups
-draw a monster face, using the white marshmallows as eyes

When all else fails....just send rice crispy treats.

Sometimes we need to know when we are expected to do something, and when we are just making this parenting thing harder than it needs to be.  Remember the art projects that our kids send home. The ones that we smile and compliment, but have no idea what they actually are.  We aren't being judged by Martha Stewart or Picasso, we are being watched by our children.  I guarantee kids will be happier with plain snacks and a happy parent, than a stressed out parent and a tray of snacks straight out of a magazine.

Courtney Carson is one of the co-owners of Just Add Kids.  She is also a mother of two boys (10 &6) and one girl (almost 4).