Does anyone else think Halloween should be a mandatory three-day weekend? Especially with October 31 falling on a Monday. Even though you can get your fill of Halloween parties and costume parades over the weekend, my family still intends to trick-or-treat door-to-door on Monday evening... even though I know we'll pay for it on Tuesday morning.

While Halloween was definitely our theme of the week, we're already looking ahead to winter fun (although we hope we're not as bad as Duane Reade, which has had a Christmas section since, oh, about August). Many outdoor ice-skating rinks open for the season this week, and we reviewed Mystery at the Museum, which is a cool, interactive way to tour the American Museum of Natural History. Remember that when you're entertaining out-of-town holiday guests.

And that's just a bit of what's going on. Here's what we covered this week on Mommy Poppins in NYC, New Jersey, Long Island and Connecticut, as well as selected stories from our brand-new sites in Boston and Los Angeles.

Don't be surprised if every single person you see this weekend is in costume. In addition to the numerous Halloween happenings taking place all over NYC, including lots of free festivals, the sixth annual Comic Con at the Javits Center is sure to attract lots of cosplayers (that's geek talk for adults in costume).

This week, we continued our series of posts on Chinatown with a profile of the fabulous Hester Street Playground. We also brought back our Notable News posts, in which we link to articles and items that pique our interest. This edition's got info on families who've joined the Occupy Wall Street ranks and other stories.

And that's just a bit of what's going on. Here's what we covered this week on Mommy Poppins in NYC, New Jersey, Long Island and Connecticut, as well as selected stories from our brand-new sites in Boston and Los Angeles.

Saturday is October 1... do you know what you're doing for Halloween yet? If you've got kids then you know that the holiday lasts pretty much the entire month. In fact, a handful of annual Halloween happenings like the Bronx Zoo's Boo at the Zoo and Hudson Valley's Great Jack O' Lantern Blaze kick off this weekend. (Yes, the pressure is on.)

This week we started to update all of our Halloween posts so that we can share the most up-to-date information. We're still working on it, so if you're wondering about the various annual parades and festivals don't worry: We will have the 2011 details for you soon.

Of course we wrote about lots of other cool, non-Halloween stuff, too, like the Children's Museum of the Arts' brand-new space, which opens to the public on Saturday. Here's what we covered this week on Mommy Poppins in NYC, New Jersey, Long Island and Connecticut, as well as selected stories from our brand-new sites in Boston and Los Angeles.