And the Halloween costume saga has come to its amazing completion. We have FIVE (count them FIVE!) complete costumes, 4 of which are in some way, shape or form handmade by myself or someone we deeply love and appreciate. Whew! Echo’s costume was most certainly a group effort. First is the lovely skirt/apron combo that came all the way from NOVA SCOTIA!! Then Ken was our hero and made our crook. He used much the same stuff as Gavin’s tail. And then under the skirt was a tutu of Trinity’s. Add to that the lovely Fat Sheepas her second half and I am pleased as punch. 

Sunday means Sunday School and last night we had full intentions of ALL going… that is until Emanuel spent most of the evening sniffling and waking up periodically in his room while I did my usual diningroom table work. So instead we saw Ken off with the twins and Trinity and retired to the basement to watch The Cat in the Hat Knows All About That. Echo was SUPPOSED to go to nap but has a runny nose herself and is loathe to sleep right now so all 3 of us snuggled on the couch. 

It has been an odd day, with the rush of costume making done, the cleaning of the basic household upstairs clutter also completed I am sort of… well… without pressing “to do’s”. So I snuck in a 15 min nap that turned into an hour… downloaded a game trial or two from Bigfish Games… 

We had some crafty kids today – Emanuel and Zander both sat down to do some Halloween themed painting. We have a lovely selection of colours so it is rather easy to convince the kids to do up something bright and fun. 

I found a Christian Halloween themed mini book for the kids to colour when they felt like it, of course once I put out the markers the younger two were quick to jump in and do theirs. You can find this mini book right here. I figured we should have something to do that is Sunday related but still falls in with their main interest of the weekend – HALLOWEEN! 

Trinity and I found a set of paper dolls for her to colour. I did these on regular printer paper as she is really not old enough to get the colouring neat and tidy or even more than like 3 colours, We chose the first dolls and then the clothes sheet with dresses. You can find the dolls we used here.

The day may have started out chilly but by the afternoon it was absolutely GORGEOUS! So the kids went out and ran and ran in the backyard. The weather report is actually quite favourable for tomorrow as well! 

I took advantage of the fall leaves and nice weather to finally take some pictures of my felties. Though a baguette went missing so I had to make up a new one for my wolf.

OH Trinity wore my penguin headband today. I am actually rather pleased with how it looks. I have two waiting for their alligator clips still, but I am still debating the angle of the birds on the clips. A dragon pattern is on the docket next… I am looking forward to that one!!

Gavin has made some nice progress on his new cross stitch. Another self design! Can you tell I am proud as can be? 

That leaves the baking for tonight… the prep work for taking FIVE kids out to trick or treat at two malls and a couple neighbourhoods. I have already made up the two dozen cupcakes a certain amazing cousin requested. bread is in the breadmaker (first of TWO loaves as sandwiches and the like are the theme of the day tomorrow for simplicity sake) and dough for my bannock bread awaiting Ken’s touch with the grease cooking… now to convince Ken to get started on a chocolate to die for brownie, cake thing!! 

This weekend has been full of both high points and low points. Thankfully the low points were nothing we were incapable of handling and the high points were actually shared with terrific friends.

I will start with the sad stuff – yesterday morning Ken was alerted to the fact that our friend Xinny’s grandfather had finally passed on. He had been sick for a while and hospitalized so it was no a shock (they were actually surprised he had hung on as long as he had) but still certainly a difficult thing to deal with. This has cancelled our Sunday plans with the family for a playdate for our kids. I am unsure right now what this means for Xinny and Alan’s trip to China. I know she has been looking forward to heading back there for years now.

Later in the same day my sister in law twittered that her grandmother back in Texas had also passed on. She too had been sick for quite some time. Circumstances are such that I am doubting she and our nephew will be able to head back south for the funeral. This is one of those moments where I wish we lived closer so  I could DO something, send some food over… watch the kiddo…

The loss of a beloved family member is never easy, no matter how sick they have been. I remember when my Grandma MacLean passed, we had known she was not in the best of health but still it was hard, I still miss my Grandpa Reinsch now gone 9 yrs. My Grandpa MacLean also passed that same year. In fact, both Ken and myself each have one surviving Grandmother. There are so many things one could say or not say for that matter but I guess it is all the personal journey now. You really can’t fix the loss of a loved one, just live through it. But I am sending my love and prayers to both sets of families.

The rest of my Saturday was MUCH more positive. We made our foray into Value Village on the hunt for pillowcases (and peripherally a snowsuit for Trinity – though the price was just not right for what little they had there). I managed to find two suitable pillowcases – one in pink gingham and the other a more fleece type material. 99 cents a piece.

There was one pair of jeans in Emanuel’s size for 1.99 and two little books for 99 cents that I also picked up. Otherwise the children’s clothes was really not that much of a deal. At Superstore I can get pieces for Trinity for around 12.00. So I figure I will check their prices when we head to mom’s next weekend as well as going to the nearest GoodWill. I am hoping to find a snowsuit for Trinity for under 20.00 which may have me hunting on eBay… of course with her being 18 months in the winter I may find something elsewhere for cheap but I am not going to be too too optimistic.

Last night was the ultimate pick me up! For Ken who has been working so hard to feel and BE better I made up a loaf of banana bread from the last of my bananas and then we had Chris, Chris, Nathan and Ada over for gaming!

So no D&D but we did play Chez Geek! So much fun! Ken is now hooked and has read through all the instructions (Chris and Chris have expansions). It looks like we will be pricing out buying either Chez Dork or Chez Goth. Definitely a game we enjoy and could probably hook MORE of our friends on! We are always on the look out for more games.

So for our evening I baked a dozen of my applesauce muffins (Nathan alone ate 6 muffins! ), brought out the last of my oatmeal applesauce cookies (I really have to make another batch of those today or tomorrow as the kids and I love them for breakfast! They really are not too high in sugar), some sugar cookies (sent a dozen home with Nathan and Ada) and of course the fresh from the oven banana bread! This is one of the recipes my mom gave me. The kids LOVE it with chocolate chips added in (of course we do not have those in the house) and Ken just loves it without. The loaf was gone by the end of the night except for the two pieces I saved for the kids in the morning. YUM!

Banana Bread

1/2 cup butter

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 cup bananas mashed

1 3/4 cup flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (we left these out)

Cream butter and sugar. Beat in eggs 1 at a time, beating until smoother. Add mashed bananas and blend.

In a second bowl, stir flour with baking soda, baking powder, salt (and nuts if you like). Add to banana mixture stirring only to moisten. Transfer to a greased 9x5x3 (23x12x7 cm) inch loaf pan.

Bake in 350 F (180 C) oven for about 1 hr. until inserted toothpick comes out clean. Let stand 10 min. Remove from pan and place on cake rack to cool. Wrap to store.

I have started participating in something new on BigFish games. With having my own little subpage of reviews and such and listing my favourite games if someone else does any shopping off of my site then I get a reward! I figure I love their games anyway and I don’t mind writing up a quick blurb for the ones I play why not! So feel free to click on my page link and see if you like any of them too! I have been a part of the club for a year (as I mentioned previously) and have found they have GREAT variety! Who knows maybe I can reward myself up a few extra games to give away or something?

http://www.mygamespace.com/Ayjah

This morning had us off to H&W on our weekly produce adventure. Taber corn this time, as well as Granny Smith apples at 1.50 for a 3lb bag (I got two bags – one to eat and one to see how much sauce 3lbs of apples will make!). Bought a cantaloupe and am debating freezing half of it for winter smoothies. We decided not to go to church this week – Ken has work to do to catch up on his last week’s appointments and next weekend is Sunday School registration. The boys HATE going to church and then NOT going to Sunday School – you would think we lied to them or something! So I am taking advantage of this time to get stuff sorted for next week for school – more printing out of letters for the lapbooks and hunting for crafts through the library books. As well Ken has gotten me my newest cross stitch pattern – Dr. Who themed! A bit more complicated than the previous ones we are definitely going to have to tweak the pattern before I can consider posting it here. I have decided to stitch it on a yellow beige aida instead of my usual white – give it a more parchment look. Hopefully it will suit the stitch in the end!

The stocking is also coming along nicely! I am hoping to get started on the lettering this week as I have finally done stitching all the way to the top of the image. I figure if I can get the lettering done I will get a new burst of interest and just bang it out. I have to start on Trinity’s Halloween costume this week as well (still need to find some sort of green top or sleeper…) so my time is REALLY going to be divided!

I finished the stitch for my nephew in all its shiny Star Trek glory! This will be the first pattern we post on site too hopefully as I know of at least one other stitcher who wants to give it a go! I need to figure out how I can finish it off in a relatively affordable way but I am VERY happy with how it turned out. Definitely one of my more costly projects materials wise! But the actual project looks so nice and shiny!!! (I will post a picture when I post the pattern!)

When we got home from the store there was a dragonfly in the middle of our sidewalk – a BIG one… it sat there forever, Ken even pushed it slightly and it didn’t move though when I looked back later it was gone! What a neat thing for the boys to see and we managed to get some terrific pictures of it!

We tried a new recipe for dinner tonight – one my sister in law had twittered she was making! I took this recipe and altered it to not use frozen meatballs as we find it cheaper to make our own. I am going to try and make extra meatballs the next time we do up a nice large batch and freeze them and then try the recipe that way as well! So I will include both recipes – the one for the cheesy meatball subs with my changes as well as the meatball recipe we like to use.

Meatballs

4 lb lean ground beef, 2 cup crushed crackers, 1 large onion (diced small), 2 eggs, italian seasoning, salt, pepper, garlic powder. Mix together all ingredients. Mixture should be able to be formed easily into balls about 2 inches wide with hands. Preheat oven to 400 degree and cook for 20-25 minutes.

Cheesy Meatball Subs

COMBINE first 4 ingredients in large skillet. Bring to boil on medium-high heat, stirring occasionally. (we combined everything but the meatballs and brought them up to a nice simmer and then added in our already warm fresh meatballs and cooked for a bit to get the flavour)

SIMMER on medium heat 8 min. or until meatballs are heated through, stirring occasionally.

SPOON into rolls; top with mozzarella.

We also put our buns in the oven for a few minutes first – cut open to brown. This recipe makes 4 we of course made more than that.

Next time we will season our spaghetti sauce more but mmm so good! I think the parmesan Ragu would be better than the original but all 4 boys gobbled theirs down. Trinity had a lovely finger food meal with her very own meatball!

So it was not an overly exciting weekend but I would say a good one and we still have one more day! Thank goodness for long weekends, though Ken IS going to have to do some work downstairs. I figure we will take advantage of his doctor’s advice and get started on an evening walk for the whole family, I figure nightly is a bit too much but maybe twice a week or more? Here’s hoping tonight’s windstorm blows past us by morning!