Create a Uniqua Pumpkin

The tradition in our family is to carve the pumpkin the day before Halloween. The youngest members of the family help scoop out the insides, using big spoons. Mom handles the actual cutting.

The question every year, though, is what face shall we carve into that orange globe? Usually we just use our imaginations, but there are years when we want something that shows a little more artistic ability than exists in our family. That's when the templates get printed out!

This year, Nick Jr. has several templates for carving pumpkins that look like some of the current most popular characters. From the Backyardigans, they have Uniqua. Dora, Blue and Wubbzy are also represented.

Oh, and all that goopy mess you pull out of the inside of a pumpkin? We love to eat the seeds. The way we cook them is a little more complicated than most recipes, but results in absolutely perfect seeds.

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds Recipe
Separate the seeds from the strings (rinsing them in cold water is a great way to accomplish this.) Then, for every half cup of pumpkin seeds you'll need 1 cup of water and 1 tablespoon salt. Bring the water and salt to a boil and add the pumpkin seeds. Simmer for 10 minutes, then drain.

Pat the seeds dry with a paper towel. Spray a thin layer of oil over a cookie sheet and spread the seeds out on the pan in a single layer. Spray lightly with oil again. Roast in your oven at 400°F until they start to turn brown. Some recipes will tell you 20 minutes, but I've found it doesn't take that long. Keep a careful eye on them; you don't want them to burn!

Quote of the Week

"Runaway horses always stop running when they hear a tuba."

Tyrone, Polka Palace Party

Backyardigans Quiz

I ran across this the other day while surfing.

The Backyardigans Quiz

Very fun, and surprisingly tricky in a couple of spots. I only got seven right, can you believe it? If you take it, feel free to come back and gloat in the comments about much better you did than me!

Giant Backyardigans Cards

One of the new items available is a series of giant greeting cards from Cards4Kids. Now, these aren't cards you can buy in your local grocery store. These are 18"x24" cards, what Cards4Kids calls "poster-size", ordered online, throught the Cards4Kids website.

As of this writing, there are six cards you can choose from: Birthday, Get Well, Thank You, Congratulations, All Occasion, and Holiday (that would be winter holidays, judging from the picture displayed.) You type in what you want printed on the card, and they ship them out using 2 day priority mail, getting to you about five days after you order it.

Right now the cost is $14.95 plus shipping and handling.

Homemade Backyardigans Costumes

I sure hope none of you have been holding your breath in anticipation of clear and concise instructions on how to make your own Backyardigans costumes. Because I haven't been able to pull anything together.

I'm sorry!!

I tried, I really did, but I just couldn't put together anything coherent. The best I can suggest is, if you want to make your own costumes, you could trying using sweatsuits, face paint and felt. For instance, Uniqua would be in a pink sweatsuit with pink felt spots attached (maybe stitched or hot glued) and then follow the instructions on the Nick Jr. website for the Uniqua face paint. (Or you can watch the video demonstration.) You could twist some pipe cleaners around a headband for her antennae.

Do the same thing for the other characters:

Tyrone - red and blue striped shirt, orange sweat pants, orange face paint

Austin - Blue sweat pants, blue and yellow striped shirt (or blue shirt with a strip of yellow felt around it), purple shoes, purple face paint

Pablo - Beanie with a propeller, blue top coat, yellow sweatsuit, blue face paint

Tasha - Dark orange dress with light orange flowers cut out of felt and stuck on, red shoes, yellow face paint

I hope you find this helpful! Personally, I'm doing it the easy way and buying my childrens' costumes.

Playing Now

Samurai Pie is on, as I type this. If you've forgotten about it though, don't worry, it will be on again this Friday. There are four new Backyardigans episodes premiering on Nick Jr. Monday through Thursday. Friday will be a Backyardigans marathon, and each of the four will be aired again.

Backyardigans Costumes for Halloween

Soooo ....

Thinking about Halloween yet? Can you believe we have less than three weeks left? Which means, if you're planning on buying a Backyardigan costume online, you need to get your order in pretty quickly.

Right now you can buy three character costumes through Amazon - Uniqua, Pablo, and Tyrone. (Naturally. Although we are starting see Tasha and Austin represented a little more in the new merchandise, so maybe we can look forward to costumes for them next year.) They come in sizes 2T - 4T. You can see examples below:

If you're planning on making costumes, we'll be covering that this week, too, so keep checking back!