Our Halloween has come and gone and with it a day to remember. It started bright and early with the appearance of Cousin Veronika with chocolate scones in tow. The kids were VERY excited… there was art to give her and stories that just HAD TO be read. Echo has grown quite accustomed to her now as well so it was a welcome break for me off and on all day. Have I mentioned how spoiled I am getting being so close to such amazing family?

We made a run to the convenience store with the kids’ allowance. I do believe we thoroughly entertain the convenience store employees when I come (even with a helping hand) with all 5 kids in tow. What amazes me is how different each kid is with their money. Trinity doesn’t understand how much she has and just wants a slurpee (mommy DID foot the extra 9 cents), Zander took his time thinking and spent it ALL on a bag of chips, Gavin wanted a slurpee and had enough from the left overs from last time and Emanuel.. bought 5 nickel candies and still hasn’t TOUCHED this week’s allowance!! 

I was VERY appreciative to have an extra set of hands helping me get all 5 kids ready (and myself for that matter). Ken had to work right until quarter to 4 and then hop into the shower so I would have been on my own otherwise. Since we had our resident make-up artist here there was some additions done to two of the costumes and yours truly got her pretty face on. I was amazed that Trinity not only let us put the make up on but was able to NOT rub at it until the very end of the night. Veronika used a water based make-up that was easy to clean off. 

All 3 of the adults dressed up. Veronika was a zombie complete with fake blood. Ken did his impression of a rather hairy pirate and yours truly was told she was a princess this year by the kids. Gotta get as much use out of the dress as possible right? I forgot how heavy that thing is, but warm!! 

We actually managed to stay on track time wise and were out the door before 4:30 to find… HAIL! Just temporary and not overly cold but right when I took the pictures of the kids out front of course. 

Then it was off to the first of the two malls in town. One started at 4pm and was closer to us anyway so we bundled everyone up into the van and Veronika’s vehicle (girls in one boys in the other) and off we went. Thankfully the stroller fits easily in the back of hers so we were good to go. Echo even did some trick or treating, but could only take Petite Sheepette. Fat Sheep was too… well you see where I am going with this! 

The mall was rather packed and lots of places were handing out candy, there was even some games! And some highly inappropriate employee (female) costumes, but nothing too extreme…

After doing the rounds at that mall it was time to pack back up and head to the next. This one is newer and further south but along our way to Fydo and Kristen’s. There we met up with Karyn, Lauralee and Victoria halfway through. Apparently though the mall had advertised their hours of trick or treating at 5-7 here people showed up at 3 which meant a lot of the places were already out of candy but the kids did not do too badly!

After we finished our second mall we had been out for around 2 hours already and it was time to head further south to Kristen and Fydo’s neighbourhood. So we said good-bye to the ladies and continued on, took a wrong turn but made our destination. Kristen had already left for her work out but we were able to have our pee break and a brief visit with Fydo before doing one of their closes and half of another street. I think it was another hour later of what the kids term “real trick or treating” before we called it quits. Trinity was tired but once she realized she got to RING DOORBELLS! Well she was off! When we got home she wanted to do one more house so we went next door with 3 of the 4 (Gavin said his feet hurt and he was DONE) and then undressed and relaxed for the night. 

There was a mountain of candy to go through and 4 VERY worn out and happy kids… so after some defrosted fruit in bowls and a candy each and a  thorough tooth brushing it was BEDTIME. What a great day! And they did relatively well listening to directions. YAY. 

This morning we woke up to excited and slightly out of sorts kids but with careful maintaining of NOT gorging on sweets and not pushing too much organized learning we made it through somewhat unscathed… well until Echo got into the chocolates bag where I forgot there was a couple chocolates you could TWIST OPEN… which she DID and popped in her mouth. So Echo has had her first chocolate… well most of it as we took it away and gave her some bits… now to wait until tomorrow to see if it upset her any. I know what SHE thought about it… she is her mother’s daughter! 

We did finish up our Halloween worksheets. I had some from last year that were stationary paper with a Halloween theme. So the twins each wrote out a sentence stating what their favourite part of Halloween this year was. The other was a printout from education.com. The Creative Writing page. They had to read each partial sentence themselves and then we talked about an answer which I wrote out for them on scrap paper to write out themselves. For the younger two I wrote their answers for them, but it was a great way to end our interest in Halloween (that and packing up all the decorations). 

In the afternoon it was relatively warm so 3 of the kids went out to enjoy the sunshine. We are definitely going to have to start working on mittens and hats, pack up the sandals and either get Trinity into pants or buy her some tights. 

We had a visitor in our yard as well – a rather pretty grey cat that the kids thought was the most amazing thing around. 

Being as today was Tuesday and Karyn was able to get here before 6:30 we took Trinity and Emanuel to their weekly pj storytime at the library. It was all about feet and they danced the hokey pokey… sort of. Trinity thought it was the funniest thing ever. The craft was colouring bodies and feet of animals and gluing the right ones together.

We had one casualty of Halloween, apparently when the ladies got to our house to start handing out candy they found our jack’o’lantern, in pieces! Someone smashed it! Poor poor pumpkin. 

So our Halloween did not go according to the original plan BUT we made the best of the back up plan. Family, friends, trick or treating, costumes… we had it all! And while I still want to get our family to my mom’s very soon we do have to wait until the van really is reliable! In the meantime… anyone interested in visiting? Well come on over!