Halloween

This year we had lots of chances to celebrate Halloween.

First, I was feeling in a crafty mood and wanted to do something fun with the kids and we made Halloween T-shirts using fabric paint and freezer paper. I had the kids draw their own spooky picture and then I helped them draw it BIG on the freezer paper and then they painted them! We even found glow in the dark paint to make the shirts super awesome. The sad thing about this whole experience is that we forgot to wear them before Halloween! We were saving them, and then we forgot about them.

 

Charlie and Gwen had a nice little Halloween party at their playgroup last Friday. They had Halloween games, enjoyed a super cute shadow puppet show / poem that we tried to copy at home later, wore their costumes and ate huge cookies.

 

 They got these silly glasses and Gwen looked so funny wearing them while we waited inside the schools boot room to pick up Alec from Kindergarten.

 Friday night we were given tickets to a Spooktacular at the big West Edmonton Mall's indoor amusement park: Galaxy land, costumes encouraged.  We debated getting a sitter and just Chris and I going by ourselves but ended up taking the boys and leaving Gwen to get a good nights sleep since the party didn't even start until 7:30pm.  Good decision. It was fun to go on rides and the boys were so good despite it being so late (it wasn't until the next day that their distress showed....)

 We found some friends to take pictures with!

 The perfect Alec-and-Charlie-sized roller coaster.   I wish I would've gotten a picture of their faces after the first lap! They both looked SOOOO concerned and shocked, but by the end they were smiling and laughing.

 I love their faces in this next one:

 Chris and I were some random Scottish couple. I think we put these ensembles together for our first Halloween as a married couple since Chris had an awesome authentic kilt to work with (a gift from his sister, Jess from her semester in London) and my dress is a hastily cut up dress we found at DI all those 8 years ago.

SHEESH I don't really like these monster posts, but its what I've got to work with at the moment so lets keep plugging on! Next up is Pumpkin Carving.

 I made the mistake of getting pumpkins early (for decoration) and left them outside where they froze in our past weeks of constantly below freezing.  So we had to carve them at a delicate balance between not thawed enough to be mushy but thawed just enough to stick a knife into.  With pot holders to keep our non carving hand from freezing it was actually quite easy to scrape them clean since frozen pumpkin innards aren't actually slimy. 

 

 

 

 

Charlie's turned out pretty cool I thought (below). Gwen's is the smiley face in the middle above. She keeps saying, "My pumpkin is happy!"

 

Alec got to wear his costume to school on Wednesday and I was able to go help with his party. It was fun to stay for an entire day of kindergarten and parade through the school with him, serve treats and work at some of the special Halloween centers with him and his friends.

 

 

Wednesday night we had our little family party and had my friend Anna and her son who is Alec's age and in his Kindergarten class over too. We played the donuts on a string game then went trick or treating before it got TOO dark and cold THEN we came in for a warm dinner of chili and cornbread. I actually really liked doing it in this order. It was fun to be done trick or treating by 7:00 and have some calming down time while we ate a warm dinner and then the kids were almost too full  and tired to eat buckets of candy and didn't complain when we stopped after 2 pieces.  (We've since eaten our fill and Alec is currently laying next to me on the bean bag since we both have tummy aches from too much sugar!)

  Me helping Gwen cheat...

 Gwen cheating on her own...

 

 Chris, just about to win...

 

 

 Waiting for Gwen...

It was SOOOOO cold. The kids wore 2 layers of fleece pajamas under their warm costumes and I wore my biggest winter-est coat and was quite warm until the cold reached my toes and fingers after an hour.  The wind was biting and Chris took Gwen home a few houses early.

Alec was a cheetah, Charlie was Batman and Gwen was a ladybug.  Chris and I put the kids down by 8:00 and watched a few episodes of Mentalist while we answered the door and I eventually fell asleep.  All in all, it was a very fun Halloween.

4 year old Charlie

We had such a fun time celebrating Charlie's birthday. The boys anticipated it for so long. One overheard conversation between them the week before ended like this:  Alec - "Aren't birthdays the best days ever?" Charlie - "Yeah! I know that."  We got to hand out gingerbread cookies to his playschool class on Friday and so many people were surprised at at old he was. I think most 4 year olds go to a 'real'  3+days-a-week/no parents preschool here in Canada.

On his actual day he woke up and Chris made him breakfast in bed while I was running since the kids woke up at 5:30!! He had requested mush and toast, so we lucked out there.  Also Chris and I had decorated the house with balloons, streamers and my old paper flag banners (I had NO idea how long those would last when I made them for babyshowers years ago) Both of these tradittions have come from the kids. Alec wanted Breakfast in Bed ever since making it for Chris and I on Fathers and Mothers day. When he asked when Kid Day was we told him we could do it for his birthday...and he remembered and requests it every time now.

Then I hosted a Munchin / Mom-and-me music class and we shared chocolate muffins with all our little friends and played with balloons.  Then it was time to pick up Alec from school and we had another friend in between Alec and Charlie's age come to play for the afternoon.

We decided not to have a friend party, but instead let him invite 1 friend and their family over for dinner. It was easier than hosting a bunch of 3-5 year olds and planning games and party favors etc... AND it was fun for us to have dinner with our friends too.  Charlie chose to eat rainbow pasta with cheese sauce, watermelon, oranges, and ceasar salad.  So thats what we served.  He also wanted a Lightening And McQueen cake and pinata. Chris and I had fun designing and decorating the cake the night before. It turned out really good and I think it FINALLY tasted like Amanda's chocolate cake!! Even though I've used the same recipe as her for years, I think I finally got it to taste the same.

The pinata was lots of fun. Each kid got to hit it 3 times, then they all grabbed a string and pulled at the same time (one string opens the trap door and lets the candy out).

 

 

 Charlie was  SO focused on getting all the candy he could when the pinata dumped out all its contents. Chris really wanted the pinata to be FULL for a nice "wow" factor, but I also wanted to use some of that candy to give away for trick-or-treating so we gave the kids small bags and I sent Chris in there to collect some too! The kids still managed to stuff their ziplock FULL. :) Especially the birthday boy.
 

 

The main present for Charlie this year was a big boy carseat! He was thrilled.  

 Alec was so nice to Charlie all day...letting him play with Alec's new bow and arrow first, not taking or grabbing ANY of Charlie's new toys, giving him the cookie with the most frosting on it at lunch. I really think Charlie felt special and loved and its appropriate because he is special and loved. The days following his birthday he tried to keep the special treatment coming by saying, "but I'm the birthday boy!" when he wasn't given what he wanted. :) Fun, exuberant, tender, loving Charlie. We love you!

Corn maze and Conference

I love General Conference. There are always at least a couple of talks that inspire and excite me. This year I felt a bit more humbled than in years past with how much further I can grow as a child of God.  Not depressingly humble, just plain humbled.  Here is our "before" picture. When the house was in decent shape, our tummies were full of pancakes and we're all smiling and ready for the Sunday Sessions to begin:

And here is the "after." After all the smarties were gone, after all the colored pencils and books galore got strewn about the room, after the lego's got dumped and the castle half-way built.

Also yesterday we went to a Corn Maze for FHE (a day late since it was closed on Monday.) We zipped through this year since we were in a bit of a hurry to get Alec to swimming lessons and it was VERY windy. Did you know that old and almost dried up corn stalks are REALLY loud in the wind? Who knew? It was still really fun.

burnt fingertips

Today we experienced one of the worst hurts to befall our family. Ok, now that I write that I realize that Chris' cancer last year totally beats out Alec's fingertips, but strictly speaking of the children, we had a doozy today.  Alec was at piano lessons and thought the fireplace on the wall was a pretend one, since he found out it could be turned on with a switch. So of course, he turned it on.  His good friend quickly turned it off but then they both went up to the glass to study such an awesome thing and burned their fingertips. All five fingers on his left hand immediately blistered up and he ran to the bathroom (for some privacy?) while his friend grabbed his mom.  She tenderly helped him, called me and took care of him for me until Alec was dropped off at our house 20 minutes later.  My friend told me Alec was brave and quietly crying while at their house and as I saw the car pull up in front I could see Alec anxiously looking for me through the window. I was waiting for him, ran out to meet him and he could finally let it all out. He proceeded to scream and thrash and kick for the rest of the evening. Poor kid, burns hurt.  Chris came home a bit later and helped attend to Alec so I could get dinner on the table, but Alec was hurting too much to focus on anything else and we had to just send him up to his room.  Chris, of course, never seemed frustrated with him and patiently stayed next to him until he had to go to Young Mens and had to leave with Gwen screaming (no nap) at the table because she felt abandoned at the otherwise empty table.

But the cupcakes another friend (the one who was driving him home) dropped off for Alec helped distract everyone at the right moments so we all were making it OK when I got a call and then a knock....my Visiting Teachers were supposed to be coming over. I had forgotten. Turns out they stayed to clean up my kitchen, clear the table, sweep the floor and wipe the counters so I could comfort Alec some more. He didn't want to be left alone in his room. I put Aloe Vera on his fingers, turned a fan on to blow at them, and read a Young Picture Book Reader version of Gulliver's Travels to him and Charlie while they fell asleep.  WHEW....

What a night. And its awesome how well it all was handled and how nice people were to us. I can definitely see God's tender mercies tonight.  I hope Alec can sleep well and that he's feeling up to go to his super cool, "best-field-trip-of-the-year" tomorrow to Safety City. Luckily, I'm supposed to chaperone so I can be there with him.

first snowfall

We woke up to snow this morning! I didn't think it would last or stick at all so I didn't send Alec to school with snow pants or gloves or a tuque (Canadian word for beanie). Turns out it did stick, a little bit, and it practically snowed all day. When I picked Alec up from school in the middle of the day the kids wanted to stay outside and make snowballs.  You'd think with not even an inch of snow on the ground they wouldn't be very successful but Alec somehow managed to make a snow ball as big as a large cantaloupe!

I'm too lazy right now to upload the pictures I took with the real camera, so I'll just throw in a stand-in picture I took with my cell phone as I picked up Alec from Piano Lessons.

Ok, so its a week or so later, but here are the pictures I took.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm still impressed with how big they got their snowballs considering how little snow was on the ground.

Hiccup

Charlie, just now: "Mommy!! I'm always hiccuping so give me hiccup medicine."

If only there was hiccup medicine, I can get pretty violent hiccups sometimes. Although drinking water upside down eventually gets rid of them for me everytime, eventually.