What could be more fun than making Bread of the Dead? Not much, right? In New Jersey this weekend you can celebrate some fine American ghouls and goblins, or join in a Latino Heritage Festival and celebrate Day of the Dead with sugar skulls, Mexican hot chocolate and Pan de Muertos. Or you can party in a non-Halloween fashion and go to the huge Sugarloaf Crafts Festival. Whatever you choose, have a fun, only mildly scary weekend! (And check our Halloween Guide for more Halloween thrills.)

We had our Halloween Party yesterday and it was a ton of fun. Hot, crowded, but lots of fun. I could not have asked for better partners. I was so pleased with the excellent quality of everything from everyone who participated, including all our little guests who came in fabulous costumes.

The only thing I wish had been different is that we could have had more people come. As it was, the space was pretty tight. In order to share the fun with everyone, whether you could make it or not, we're doing a Virtual Halloween Party on facebook where you can enter to win one of two fabulous spooky gift baskets from Scholastic.

Find out how to enter to enter and see some of the party pictures below.

The sticky days of summer are over and brisk fall days are here. What better time to treat you and your little ones to apple pie, pumpkin tarts and other seasonal sweets? Below are five Brooklyn bakeries that serve cozy, cold-weather treats, and have fun places to play just a few blocks away.

I’ve been thinking about ways to celebrate my soon-to-be-2-year-old’s birthday with all the traditional fun, but minus the usual mound of presents.  Is this possible to pull off without offending friends and family or upsetting the birthday boy?  I think so.  Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting a ban on all birthday gifts!  But there are ways to strike a balance and make birthday parties more socially, environmentally and financially friendly.  Besides, who in NYC has the room for all those presents anyway?  Here are a few ideas to limit the toy intake and use the occasion to share all that birthday love and generosity with others.

I am not usually a slacker mom, but last Halloween it happened:  two days before my son’s annual school Halloween parade he had no costume to wear!  I had known what he wanted to be since August but just couldn’t find it.  As Halloween drew closer I enlisted the help of my friends, their spouses and even some of their parents, but no one could find a whale costume any where in the city or even online.  And, making a whale, well, it was beyond my limited crafting capabilities.  I took him to the Halloween stores to pick something else out but it for him it was whale or bust.  The night before the parade in a moment of exhaustion and desperation, I suggested the ultimate slacker mom Halloween costume, “how about dressing as a ghost?”  

Halloween is just a few days away.  Do you have your costume ready?  Read on for fun and spooky last minute DIY costumes, including the infamous ghost costume (it isn’t as easy as you would think.)

New York City is the place to be this weekend.  There are hundreds of cool ways to get into the Halloween spirit: lots of free events, costume parades, haunted houses and Boo at the Zoo, and they are all listed in The Mommy Poppins Halloween Guide.  Plus, the awesome Ghouls and Gourd party at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, The Harvest Festival at Brooklyn Bridge Park and the huge Halloween Benefit for families at the Queens Museum of Art are all happening this weekend. Read on to find out more about these and other events.  And be sure to visit our Events Calendar, it is packed with lots more school fairs, workshops, concerts and all the other exciting goings on that we didn’t have room for here!

Have a great weekend. 

Just one more week until Halloween and the ghosts and goblins are already on the loose!  This weekend you can head to Sesame Place in PA for the Count's Halloween Spooktacular event, ride a haunted train at the Camden Children's Garden Goblins in the Garden Festival, see Halloween themed shows at the Raritan Valley Planetarium, enjoy some pumpkin festivals like the one at Liberty Hall Museum, or go on a not too scary night hike through Stony Brook Watershed Tenafly Nature Preserve.  The brave can even take a boat ride through a haunted swamp!

There are lots of mystery books for children, and many of them do a good job of holding their attention, helping to develop critical thinking, deductive reasoning, etc. However, some are better than others. Here are a few guaranteed page-turners to share with your child.