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"#1: Make some fantastic Halloween goodies with Crawly Cakes for Halloween  There&amp;#039;s a show on the Food Network that we love called Semi-Homemade, which essentially involves taking store-bought food and adding to it/enhancing it to make it taste and look more homemade. We&amp;#039;re all so busy these days \u2014 and so are our &amp;#039;rents and the rest of our families and friends \u2014 that this seems like a great way to bring people together for yummy meals, even when you don&amp;#039;t have time to make a meal from scratch. And that&amp;#039;s what we love about notmartha.com&amp;#039;s Crawly Cakes, which take a few store-bought ingredients \u2014 Hostess and Little Debbie snack cakes, frosting, candies, and Pocky sticks (we think pretzel and licorice sticks would work, too) \u2014 and create truly special, adorable, and tasty Halloween-themed treats. Perfect for a party, a family dinner, or just a little snack on Halloween night, Crawly Cakes are both tricks and treats! Check it out now at  notmartha.com. #2: Jazz up your tunes with virtual pets with I-CY and I-Dog Amp&amp;#039;d (Hasbro) &amp;quot;What&amp;#039;s black and white and cool all over?&amp;quot; is how I-CY the musical penguin is described, and the chirpy little fella lives up to the billing big time! Plug the little guy into your MP3 player and he&amp;#039;ll flap his flappers and rock back and forth while his little belly lights up in a rainbow of colors that reflect his mood. Also, when he&amp;#039;s happy, he makes a sweet little penguin-laugh noise, but when he&amp;#039;s unhappy (like when you press his tail), he makes an angry penguin-squawk noise that \u2014 well, trust us, you don&amp;#039;t want to make I-CY angry! Also in Hasbro&amp;#039;s lineup of electronic pets: the new Amp&amp;#039;d I-Dog (we&amp;#039;re partial to the pink butterfly version), the dancin&amp;#039; pooch who taps his paw to the beat of the music, bobs his head, wags his tail, and grooves his ears, all while acting as your own personal music speaker! P.S. I-CY, Amp&amp;#039;d I-Dog, and all their electronic pet cohorts make being stuck at your desk with homework a little more fun and a lot less lonely! Check it out now at  hasbro.com. #3: Get some yummy gourmet munchies \u2014 free \u2014 courtesy of Dale and Thomas Gourmet Popcorn  Two bags of gourmet popcorn, free. Do you even need to know anything else? Oh, okay. Actually, the popcorn is free, but you&amp;#039;ll have to pony up $5.90 for shipping to get two bags of delicious Dale and Thomas popcorn. But trust us \u2014 and Oprah (it&amp;#039;s her favorite popcorn, as she&amp;#039;s shared with the world on her talk show!) \u2014 it&amp;#039;s so worth it, as you get to choose between two sets of yummy kernels: Chocolate Chunk &amp;#039;N Caramel and Cinnamon Cr\u00E8me Drizzlecorn, or Chocolate Chunk &amp;#039;N Caramel and Butter Toffee &amp;amp;amp; Walnut Crunch. Either way, you get two tasty, generous-size bags of treats (more than five cups of popcorn altogether), delivered right to your door. If only the mailman delivered goodies like this to our mailbox every day! Check it out now at  daleandthomaspopcorn.com. #4: Check out the perfect Halloween desk toy: the Potato Head Trick or Tater (Hasbro) Yes, yes, yes, we know, we&amp;#039;re all a little too old for Mr. Potato Head ... or so we thought when we saw this adorable(!!) ghost-themed Tater Head, and spent the next hour playing with him! P.H. comes with glow-in-the-dark eyes, a ghost costume, shoes, ears, arms, FANGS, nose, a hat, and, of course, a trick-or-treating pumpkin bucket. Grab one for yourself, but be prepared to buy another once your friends get their hands on your little spud friend!  Check it out now at  hasbro.com. #5: Load up some fab new pop/country tunes with Carnival Ride by Carrie Underwood (Arista) Is there anyone who hasn&amp;#039;t found themselves humming one of Carrie Underwood&amp;#039;s infectious crossover tunes? The American Idol winner has, since her 2005 win on our favorite reality show, become one of the most successful artists in AI history, and this new album, her second since winning the competition, is only going to seal her position as a true breakout star. Great songs, an incredible voice, and a smart mix of pop with country and rock have become Carrie&amp;#039;s trademark, and Carnival Ride features 13 more songs that will be loved by fans, and which will quickly make some new fans for the Oklahoma-born star. Our fave track so far: the first single, &amp;quot;So Small.&amp;quot; Check it out now at  bn.com. #6: Watch a great movie with your entire family, like the Evan Almighty DVD (Universal Home Entertainment ) The Office funny guy Steve Carell was perfectly cast in this modern-day retelling of Noah&amp;#039;s Ark, and the resulting comedy flick is one that, with the holidays so close, is perfect to keep handy for a great night of family movie-watching! Carell is Evan Baxter, who was a dorky news guy in the Jim Carrey flick Bruce Almighty, but he leaves that all behind here. Evan becomes a politician who yearns to do some good in the world. His wife \u2014 played by Gilmore Girls mom Lauren Graham \u2014 supports him all the way, which becomes increasingly difficult as Evan begins to get visits from God (Morgan Freeman), who tells him of an impending flood for which Evan needs to build an ark. And then there are the animals \u2014 in pairs, of course \u2014 who arrive at Evan&amp;#039;s backyard building project. The big-budget movie spent much of the cash on the animals \u2014 both real and computer-generated \u2014 but the flick&amp;#039;s real selling point is its heart: a sweet story about figuring out what&amp;#039;s really important in life. Check it out now at  bn.com. #7: Play the all-new Pink Monopoly (Hasbro) Even if we didn&amp;#039;t love Monopoly \u2014 but we most definitely do \u2014 we&amp;#039;d still want this all-new Pink Boutique Edition of the game, which is one of the coolest-designed toys we&amp;#039;ve ever seen. Seriously, we squealed when we opened the funky pink box \u2014 it doubles as a jewelry chest! \u2014 to find a pink Monopoly board, pink title deed cards, pink and purple translucent boutiques (subbing for houses and hotels), pastel-colored money, Instant Message and Text Message cards (subbing for Chance and Community Chest cards), pink dice, and the cutest game tokens of all time (our fave&amp;#039;s the cell phone!). Oh, and lest you think this is the only way to think pink when playing a great board game, Hasbro has also designed all-pink versions of Jenga, Twister, and Mystery Date, in limited editions, available exclusively at Toys &amp;quot;R&amp;quot; Us! Check it out now at  toysrus.com.  #8: Get the real story behind Snoopy and Charlie Brown, read Schulz and Peanuts by David Michaelis (PUBLISHER) Can it really be that the man who gave us Snoopy, Charlie Brown, Peppermint Patty and Woodstock was actually wasn&amp;#039;t as happy-go-lucky as he seemed? &amp;#039;Fraid so, which makes for a fascinating read in Michaelis&amp;#039; new biography of Peanuts creator Charles Schulz. The late Schulz never really thought he was good enough, despite how many children and adults have loved his Peanuts characters, and he often found it difficult throughout his life to let go of what he perceived as failures on his part, again, despite the fact that Peanuts comics and spin-off merchandise earned him millions of dollars. Michaelis also weaves in examples of Peanuts strips that show how Schulz often represented his darker thoughts into the comics, which helps give the Peanuts devoted a deeper look into exactly how Charlie Brown and his cohorts have survived for more than 50 years. Check it out now at  BN.com.  #9: Get spooky with the Degrassi gang watch Degrassi: The Next Generation Halloween Special (The N, Oct. 26, 8 p.m. ET) They&amp;#039;re zombies! Zombies!!!! The Degrassi gang gets ghoulishly monster-ous on us in this Halloween special episode, which finds the gang, led by do-gooder Emma, turning into zombies after eating genetically-modified food in the cafeteria. Remember, Emma warned that the food the caf\u00E9 was serving was not up to the healthiest of standards, and now it looks like the school officials should have heeded her warning in this cheeky, fun romp with the Degrassi crew. There&amp;#039;s a sneak peek of the ep at the official Degrassi Website, but we&amp;#039;re waiting to see the whole special unfold Friday night!   Check it out now at  TheN.com. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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