Sunday Surf - Money, Chores, and a Green Halloween

I've been slacking on Sunday Surf posts lately because--well, because I've been slacking. My week starts on Monday and it starts off strong. I peter out and sit around and eat chocolate chip cookies and drink beer on Sundays.

But this week, the Carnival of Natural Parenting posts went up, and they dealt with money matters. I learned a lot, and I still am not done reading them all. I've also been doing some research about Halloween crafts and decorations. I've never been into holidays or decorating, but now that I have kids, it's so fun to do projects with them.

Here's a little shout out to the what I read this week.

Grow Oak Trees from Acorns - From Lowe's Creative Ideas magazine. Baby T loves to collect acorns, so now I want to show him how they actually grow trees!
New Lessons from an Allowance - Lauren at Hobo Mama talks about the skills that her 4-year-old son is learning from having an allowance. Because of her, I've started giving my 2.5-year-old Baby T an allowance. We decided this week, after our trip to the dollar store, where I promised he could pick out anything if he put away the 2 giant crayons, whiffle ball bat, badminton racquet, dinosaur hat, and football that he was carrying. From now on, he can decide if he wants to use his money to buy something. I know he's a little young, but he understands what money is and he's excited to have his own. I never would have considered this if it wasn't for Lauren's awesome idea.
5 Ways this Stay At Home Mom Saves Money - Charisse at I Thought I Knew Mama explains how she saves her family money in exchange for being a stay at home mom. She talks about prioritizing and finding deal websites so you can spend as little as possible but still not want for anything.
Kids Need Chores - Lisa at Granola Catholic tells why chores are good for kids. I wholeheartedly agree. Kids love helping out and being more like their moms and dads. Giving them responsibility and asking them to help whenever you can helps you involve them in your life and gives you a chance to do things together.
How to Make Halloween Greener - Mrs. Green at Little Green Blog laments the Hallmarkization (or Mars Barization) of Halloween and gives great ideas for making it a more meaningful, greener holiday.
Book Page Pumpkin Tutorial - This Halloween decoration is so adorable that I immediately cut up my copy of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five (one of my favorite books, but also one I will never read again, I'm sure. At least not my paper copy.) I had trouble figuring out how to handle it though. The gluing part was confusing. So now I have two lovely packets of cut up book on my kitchen counter. I'm going to work more on it and make a video tutorial next week.
Green Halloween Crafts - Ok, I wrote this one, but I compiled a few cute Halloween crafts for you.