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!! 

Time to go and spend 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. 

Becoming Hello Kitty

Gotta have that black ring-tailed lemur nose

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!! 

Here you can see our completed Kitty AND our zombie cousin

In costume and at the mall

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. 

In the hail... so not the most organized photo

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! 

Little Bo Peep and her smaller sheep... and itty bitty candy bag

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…

Playing one of the games

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!

With the ladies

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. 

Fydo and crowd... didn't have time to make the camera like it being night as everyone was done. But notice, our Little Bo Peep started the night as a girl and turned into a pumpkin!

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. 

CANDY

Last one to fall asleep... fell asleep book in hand

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! 

Chocy face

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). 

Worksheet

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. 

Note the hail/frost stuff still there even in the late afternoon with the shade

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

KITTY

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.

Library Hokey Pokey

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! 

Two teeth and a little bread in the side of her mouth

Best Zander and Echo picture yet! And he got her up there and down again safely all by himself!

So we are getting  closer to Halloween and to the upset of all, crossed off the  day with the giant G on it. With the van no closer to the service station it was up to me AGAIN to explain why we weren’t going (after all who wants to potentially be stranded on the highway with small children in the middle of fall in Alberta? Not me!) and that we WOULD go later in November for an extended visit. I think they finally understand somewhat and the whole – we are having a bunch of people come on Monday to celebrate Halloween with us idea did help. 

Mail came relatively early Friday and with it TWO packages! The first one opened came from Nova Scotia and was the long awaited and highly anticipated skirt and apron portion of Echo’s little bo peep costume, all I had to do was put in the elastic (easy) and find a sweet little top to go along with it out of Echo’s massive stash of clothing. To add fluff to the costume we are using one of Trinity’s baby tutus and topping it all with her pretty white hat. 

With Trinity's old tutu under it... like a bell!

The other came from the UK, but as it is being set aside for Christmas is all hush hush… Parcel #2… And so sweet of her to send! I always fill the kids’ stockings with little bits and bobs and something no one else could get around here is always super special! 

We did do some workbook  time…. math for Zander and sight words for Gavin.

Sight Word work

And played tic-tac-toe bingo… Halloween style. The kids were much more excited about the pieces of candy we used instead of daubers. Although in the end they each got to eat just one. 

Tic-Tac-Toe Halloween Bingo

The afternoon found the boys outside enjoying themselves with whatever they could find in the backyard and shed (and not putting it all back as Ken realized past sunset). It is chilly out now but they are persistent and choose to keep running and moving as much as possible rather than returning inside. I figure winter will come soon enough and with it much more time indoors so this outside time is time well spent. Zander calls it his time to burn energy. 

We were very excited to have a BIG completion – Gavin’s Ring-Tailed Lemur costume is officially DONE. He is quite happy with it, and can you believe it took a belt AND suspenders to get that tail to stay where we want it. 

Tail frame

Completed with duct tape

Completed costume

Since we stayed home so Ken could work he took all 5 kids on a walk to the convenience store to pick up some treats and sauce for the spaghetti I started while they were gone. It is definitely getting chilly in the late afternoons. 

As the kids run ahead

I am trying something different with my penguin felties… these are NOT stuffed but put on a headband or clip. So far I have put one on a purple headband for Trinity to try out. Still 2 1/2 inches long so I am debating the angle for the clip. I do love creating things, so don’t be surprised if you are on my Christmas list and get either an owlor a penguin! 

Ready for Trinity to wear

I am debating my best route to selling these little creations… Facebook has not yielded a lot of interest (I don’t have the networking to really get that) and Etsy likes to verify you with a credit card (seriously? Paypal believes I exist!)… so for now I plan on mentioning them here from time to time (I also do cross stitching commissions and sell patterns on my pattern page!), on my deviantArt accountwith the pictures I add there AND of course on Facebook. Suggestions are always welcome! 

I am definitely feeling the need to organized, to get set up in a way where I am NOT digging through the house to find what I need… to feel in place. We are close. There is one closet that is holding out on me due to the fact that I can’t get INTO it and ONE (rather large) box of toys in the other closet in the basement I need to dig out and go through… that is a next week plan since I have to go into the BACK of the closet at the BOTTOM (of course) to get to it and have NO idea what is in said box. 

With her Halloween themed barrette!

One day further into the week and the van is STILL not in for repairs. With our Friday departure to Grandma’s looming I have already made a back up plan for as much as the van IS drive-able here in town… well I do not fancy risking being broken down in the middle of no where with all these kids in SUMMER weather let along fall. Thankfully I have friends ready to jump in and join in the fun if we are grounded to town limits. 

We finally got our covers done for our Stuart Little books… the interest in actually learning about REAL mice was simply not there today, but everyone was more than ready to draw their final picture. That leaves me an evening of punching holes for our plastic rings to get the whole thing done and put away. Our facilitator is coming middle of November for our first of two visits for this school year so it is great to have something to add to the show to collection. 

Stuart Little cover pages

We found another printables site for Halloween things. You can get some free or buy the entire series. We opted to print out a few out of interest, including a word search. You can find them here. 

Wordsearch time

All four of the big kids spent some much needed burn your energy time outside… Trinity just ran and ran and ran!

You can just see the soccer goal they made out of some wood pieces we got off of Freecycle

Run run run

And thanks to the skillful hands of Victoria and Karyn being our lovely courier I spent much of tonight finishing Gavin’s Lemur ears!! Aren’t they great??

Ears!!

And them time got away from me while I was crafting and finishing up cleaning… so back to work with me, gotta  get the table cleared for the morning… Ken and the kids have their yearly foam kit craft to do!!

Our own little cookie monster - note the trail of crumbs behind her!