Happy Halloween

Halloween is today and every kid's favorite part is dressing up for trick-or-treating to get candy. 

There are costumes for all ages and sizes, but here are some of my favorites. Most of these costumes could be adapted to adults, but kid's just look cuter than adults in Halloween costumes, but as an adult it can be fun to dress up too. 

Little girls look adorable in fairy costumes.

Baby boys make cute monsters, especially popular since Monster's Inc./University.

Little toddlers always look so adorable in animal costumes, plus they are usually warm.

Here's an 'easy' homemade pumpkin costume that just looks cute and fun.

I really like this knight costume on this girl- she looks ready to slay some stuffed animal dragons.

This is an easy cute costume for Alice in Wonderland- a blue dress with a white apron.

For the last minute art lovers, Frida Kahlo. Wrap a shawl, put in flowers, and add facial hair, so funny.

You can always dress up your pet to match you or your child.

Or for an easy DIY Superman costume, put formal wear over pajamas.

This costume is really fun, and could probably be done fairly easily with a cardboard box and ski goggles.

Even before Pirates of the Carribean, being a pirate has always been a great choice.

(Click on each picture to be linked to their website.)

Originally published by myself on another blog: http://www.becominglovely.com/2013/10/halloween-costumes.html

Good Book Day

"One day I was 12 years old and broke. Then Grandma gave me Grandpa's old riding lawnmower. I set out to mow some lawns. More people wanted me to mow their lawns. And more and more…

One client was Arnold the stockbroker, who offered to teach me about "the beauty of capitalism. Supply and Demand. Diversify labor. Distribute the wealth." "Wealth?" I said. "It's groovy, man," said Arnold.

If I'd known what was coming, I might have climbed on my mower and putted all the way home to hide in my room. But the lawn business grew and grew. So did my profits, which Arnold invested in many things. And one of them was Joey Pow the prizefighter. That's when my 12th summer got really interesting.

Gary Paulsen's comic story about a summer job becomes a slapstick lesson in business as one boy turns a mountain of grass into a mountain of cash." (Scholastic)

I worked in a junior high with the resource classes. The kids just needed a little more attention and help to do their work, but they were smart. The teacher read this book to the class, and one boy got very caught up in the idea that a twelve year old could make money and have a business. He wanted to learn more about investing and buy some stock in Disney. This book inspired him to dream big, even though he was only twelve. He may never make big amounts of money while he's a teenager, but I think the lessons he learned from this book will influence him down the road. 

Lawn Boy is a fiction business book for teens that can inspire big dreams. Learning about business and investing at a young age is a good way to set kids on a financial path that can better their lives. 

It inspired me to dream big and not give up. I've had some lucky chances, like this boy, to do some work that turned into more work. Some people may see this story as just a pure luck story, and it is to some degree, but at the same time, he put work into it first, learned, and stuck with it. There's a lot of luck that comes into success but it has to be accompanied by hard work.

Check it out and have a good book day!

Saturday Laughs

 T-Rex

Who You Are

Quote

It's so nice and refreshing to meet someone who just likes you automatically and accepts everything about you. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, hold on to those people!

Good Book Day

Empire by Orson Scott Card feels eerily like it could happen tomorrow, like it says on the cover "A disturbing look at a possible future". It has an equally intriguing sequel- Hidden Empire.

"The American Empire has grown too fast, and the fault lines at home are stressed to the breaking point. The war of words between Right and Left has collapsed into a shooting war, though most people just want to be left alone.


The battle rages between the high-technology weapons on one side and militia foot soldiers on the other, devastating the cities and overrunning the countryside. But the vast majority, who only want the killing to stop and the nation to return to more peaceful days, have technology, weapons, and strategic geniuses of their own." (Hatrack)

Empire is about the United States entering another Civil War. With the recent government shutdown, the scenarios in this book seem a very real possibility.

I listened to this book on cd and the reader did a wonderful job. I would get home from work and sit in the car for a couple extra minutes to hear more of the story.

This is a huge surprise in the middle of the book. I had to listen to it three times before I could actually believe what happened. It's a fascinating book that rings true in our times.

Check it out and have a good book day!