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7 Halloween hacks to make your holiday less stressful
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Halloween can come with high expectations for food, parties, activities and more. Here are seven hacks you can try to lower the stress level. - photo by Rachel Fabbi
Halloween may be a time to dress up in frightening costumes and go door-to-door looking for treats, but planning a party for the occassion doesn't have to be so tricky.

And one mom from Colorado knows this all too well.

In an article for the Boston Globe, Rebecca Swanson discusses her not-so-good experience taking her son to one of the biggest Halloween festivals in town, an experience she argues would have been just as good as hosting a quiet party at home.

"We drove 30 minutes to get there, then painfully shoved my stroller-bound toddler across the rutted dirt parking lot for another 10 minutes," she wrote. "We stood in line to get in. Add 20 minutes. We paid admission fees, and I tried not to calculate how many future college courses we had just sacrificed for a day of 'chunkin punkins' and 'amazing-mazes.'"

The next year, however, she and her son celebrated the holiday at her sister's home. Instead of paying high admission fees to a popular holiday festival, she only paid $6 for a pumpkin and spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying the holiday peacefully with family.

But not all Halloween stories end up so happy. Sometimes it rains on Halloween, your pumpkin decorations get smashed, or one of your kids feels left out of the celebrations, according to NY Metro Parents.

As a result, we've compiled a few Halloween party hacks from Pinterest that can turn any party into quite the treat, despite dealing with a few setbacks.

Frankenstein bowling

Forget going to the bowling alley, with this easy craft all you need are a few cans and a tennis ball. According to Party Delights, re-create this experience by painting faces on cans you find around the house, stacking them on top of each other, and knocking them down with a ball.

Halloween bingo

Bingo doesn't have to be boring. According to the Crazy Little Projects blog, use candy corn, or any treat you can find, to play the popular game with a spooky twist. All you need to do is print out the free game cards from the blog and see who can get five candies in a row the fastest. Just make sure to steer clear of any allergies your players may have beforehand.

Rice Krispie Treat monsters

Thanks to the One Little Project blog, making Rice Krispie Treats has never been easier. In this three-ingredient recipe, heat Rice Krispie Treats and cooking oil in a pan. Then cut the treats into rectangles, warm colorful candy melts and pour them over the top, and place the candy eyes.

Witch brooms

From ihorror.com, these witch broom chocolate treats will have your guests soaring towards a full moon (or at least a full belly). All you need to do is press some pretzel sticks into the bottom side of peanut butter cups.

Additional hack If one of your guests is allergic to peanuts, take some of the big pretzel sticks, dip them in chocolate and sprinkles, and make them into magical wands, AllRecipes.com suggests.

Pumpkin patch dirt cups

For those kids who don't just want to play in the dirt, here's a treat they can actually eat. To make these pumpkin patch dirt cups, smash Oreo cookies, without the icing, until they resemble dirt. Then, add candy pumpkins on top, according to icanteachmychild.com.

Hack: Replace the pumpkins with gummy worms to take the treats to the next level.

Bonus hack: Add chocolate pudding in the bottom to make "mud."

Banana ghosts and clementine pumpkins

Don't go bananas this Halloween season. Eat them instead. Make the fruit into ghosts by cutting them in half and using chocolate chips for the mouth and eyes, according to One Little Project. You can also add celery to the tops of clementines to make them into pumpkins.

Apple mummies

These apple mummies are nothing to be scared of, according to Two Healthy Kitchens, a blog featuring tasty, easy-to-make recipes. In order to re-create the healthy treat, run a vegetable peeler over apple halves a few times, add some mini chocolate chips for the eyes, and enjoy.
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How to avoid 'sharenting' and other paparazzi parenting habits
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A recent study revealed parents often spend up to two hours staging a single photo of his or her child to post online. - photo by Amy Iverson
Before having kids, some people just dont appreciate their friends baby posts. But after having a child of their own, three fourths of new parents jump right on the parental social media bandwagon. If you have become a member of this group, there are some rules to follow for posting responsibly.

Much of a parents worry is how to teach their children to use social media responsibly. We talk with our kids about privacy, oversharing, and setting restrictions on their devices to keep them safe. But parents themselves need to look in the digital mirror once in a while. Before having children, it doesnt take as much effort to think about what to post online. Its up to us to decide what we share about our own lives. But once you become a parent, there are many questions to think about regarding what is appropriate to post about your kids on social media.

In a recent survey, kids clothing subscription company Mac and Mia surveyed 2000 new parents to find out how they are documenting their kids lives on social media, and what concerns they may have.

First of all, people without children seem to feel a bit differently about the onslaught of baby pictures online than those who are parents. 18 percent of people say before they had kids, they were annoyed by their friends baby posts. But after having children of their own, 73 percent admit they post progress pictures of their little ones every single month.

Not only are new parents letting the world know each time their baby is a month older, but they are posting about their kids every few days or so. Men and women report they post 6-7 times per month about their baby.

And while 70 percent of new parents say the benefit of using social media is how easy it is to help family and friends feel involved, there are some downsides. Here are a few tips to avoid the pitfall of becoming paparazzi parents.

Dont miss the moment

In the Mac and Mia survey, some parents admitted to spending up to two hours to get the perfect shot of their baby. That seems a little extreme. New and old parents alike should be careful about spending so much time taking pictures and videos that they dont enjoy the moment. Years ago, I decided to never live an experience through my phone. A study by Linda Henkel, a psychology professor at Fairfield University in Connecticut, found that when people took pictures of objects in an art museum, they didnt remember the objects as well as if they simply observed them.

This photo-taking impairment effect can happen to parents as well. If we are so consumed by getting the perfect photo, we can miss out on the moment all together, and our memory of it will suffer.

Dont forget about privacy

60 percent of couples say they have discussed rules and boundaries for posting their babys photos, according to the Mac and Mia survey. Even so, men are 34 percent more likely to publish baby posts on public accounts. If parents are concerned about their childrens privacy, keeping photos off of public accounts is a given.

In the Washington Post, Stacey Steinberg, a legal skills professor at the University of Florida, and Bahareh Keith, a Portland pediatrician, wrote that sharing too much information about kids online puts them at risk. They write that all that sharenting can make it easier for data thieves to target out kids for identity theft. Check that your privacy settings are where they should be and never share identifying information like full names and birth dates.

Dont be paparazzi parents

36 percent of parents say they take issue when their childs photo is posted online by someone else. Responsible social media users will always ask permission before posting a photo of another child. But parents should also think about whether their own children will take issue with their own posted photos a few years down the road.

When parents are constantly snapping pictures and throwing them on social media, it can be easy to forget to pause and make sure the post is appropriate. I always use the billboard example with my kids. I ask them to picture whatever they are posting going up on a billboard in our neighborhood. If they are okay with that, then their post is probably fine. Parents should ask themselves this same question when posting about their children. But they should also ask themselves if their child would be OK with this post on a billboard in 15 years. If it would cause embarrassment or humiliation, it might be best to keep it private.

Once children reach an appropriate age, parents should include them in the process of deciding what pictures are OK to post. Researchers at the University of Michigan surveyed 10- to 17-year-olds and found children believe their parents should ask permission more than parents think they should. The kids in the survey said sharing happy family moments, or accomplishments in sports, school and hobbies is fine. But when the post is negative (like when a child is disciplined) or embarrassing (think naked baby pictures or messy hair), kids say to keep it off social media.
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