Happy Halloween 2012

Happy Halloween everyone!
Halloween is such a fun holiday. I really like the dressing up and pumpkin part of Halloween, but I'm not nearly as thrilled about the blood, gore and scary violent part. Mr. Q and I delivered a bunch of flyers for a bottle drive we did earlier this month for the food bank, and passed some decorations that were really terrifying for him. There are so many freaky decorations out there. Maybe not freaky for me, but what 2 year old isn't going to be terrified of some scary werewolf creature with bloody fangs and claws reaching out for him. I'm sure people just don't think about little munchkins having bad dreams.
Anyway...
We had a fantastic time getting ready for Halloween this year. The kids always get so excited about carving pumpkins for Family Night, but then they are so chicken to touch the guts.

Fun times.

 Miss A actually touched a couple of seeds, so she is getting braver than in past years.

 Miss C was happy to scoop out the seeds, but she really wasn't interested in grabbing them at all. After her big sister touched a seed, she also tried touching the icky insides.

 The kids wanted out pumpkin to have scary teeth. I'm not sure if we were successful on that one, but we sure had a blast attempting it.

I made this pumpkin & brought it to my Zumba class last night. I think I'll take it again tomorrow to get one extra night out of it. Matt's fancy wood carving tools get pulled out every year at Halloween. So glad they get some use at least once a year.

Miss C dressed up as Little Red Riding Hood this year.

 What a cutie!

 Mr. Q was a beggar/homeless man. I needed a quick and easy costume for a party we went to on Friday at Galaxyland, and that's what we came up with. There is definitely something to be said for costumes that don't require a lot of work.

 Miss A was a ladybug. She kept telling me that she dressed up as a coccinelle. That's French for ladybug. She loved her painted-on eyelashes best.

I'm sure she's going to love playing with real makeup when she's older.

We took the kids trick-or-treating down our block and one small cul-de-sac. We left at 7 and got back at 7:30 or so. We passed 26 houses and of those, only 10 or 11 had their lights on. They got enough candy. I was glad they didn't come home with pillowcases full like my siblings and I used to when we were kids.

They were in their glory. I can remember, as a kid, laying all of my candy out and seeing how much of each type I got. I showed them my methods. I'm such a weird-o.

I love how Mr. Q's beard is being washed away by candy drool here. lol

Hope you all had a fantastic Halloween!

Viking Obsessed

I feel like I've been viking obsessed for the past couple of weeks getting ready for Halloween. Last year Miss A said she wanted to be Astrid from How to Train your Dragon for Halloween. I thought it would be a really cute, not quite so typical costume & then thought it would be fun for us all to dress up as vikings. Miss C wants to be the same as her sister, as usual. I thought about dressing up Mr. Q as a dragon, but decided to just stick with the viking theme.
Twice a year I go to this garage sale type of thing in St. Albert called the Share & Wear at the Alliance church. For the last couple of years, I have also volunteered at the event as well. It has been a great opportunity to help out the community and I get a lot of great clothes for my family there as well. There are areas for children, baby, ladies, & mens clothes, coats, toys, books, etc. set up and all the donations have to be sorted as they come in the door. This year, I wasn't able to help on the day of the event, so I went the night before to help with sorting. We sorted from 5:30-8 and then the organizers let us go through and "shop" for a few minutes before they closed the doors. I wasn't able to find much for clothes this year. I found lots of cute things, but they were in all the wrong sizes. Oh well, that's the way things go. On my way out, I looked at the coats and found a few coats that I thought would really make our viking costumes fantastic. I wish I took some before pictures, but I didn't think of it until too late.
Here's a picture of Astrid from How to Train Your Dragon, beside my little cuties.

Their shirts came from an XL size womens shirt that I refashioned into 2 smaller shirts. My sewing skills are not the greatest, but you can't really tell from a distance. Hahaha.
I cut the skirts out of a couple of the coats from the Share & Wear. I just put velcro on the ends and it wraps around & sticks together. The boot covers are from one of the same coats. I just cut off some of the fake fur, and sewed it in a cylinder. They just slide them on their legs before they put their boots on and then tug them down. The shoulder armour was made with craft foam & hot glue. Man, hot glue is amazing!
We made the skulls and spikes out of Crayola Air Dry Clay. We molded them and then let them dry and the girls painted them. Getting them to stick on the skirt was a challenge. We first tried hot glue. They fell off so quickly. I decided to try sealing the spikes with Mod Podge first. I tried hot glue again. Still didn't work. We tried Gorilla Glue next and that seems to work the best, though the glue bubbled out and you can see it around most of the spikes. Whatever. I still think it looked great!

Here's Mr. Q. in his costume. My brother's girlfriend Sarah crocheted the "helmet". Amazing!! She is really talented.
Matt and I also had costumes, but they were not nearly as extravagant. Of course, I don't have any pictures. Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween!

Miss Dress-Up

It rained today. Since we were hanging out indoors, the girls played dress-up. There's hardly a day that goes by that they don't play princess or ballerina or supergirl. A rainy day was a good a reason as any. Today A was a cowgirl and C was a princess. Usually A is all decked out with the frilly princess dresses, so I had to snap a pic with her in cowgirl mode. My mother-in-law (the kids call her Nana) kept these play clothes from Matt's childhood. The vest and chaps are the same ones that her daddy wore when he was a little guy! I dug out a pic from his memory book. What a cutie!

Here's one of C riding off into the sunset this afternoon on her trusty sidekick, Steady. In the movie, Beauty and the Beast, there is a scene where Belle is trying to calm her horse, Philippe. She says, over and over, "Woah! Steady boy." Since that day, A has named all horses Steady. This horse swing is no exception. My mom bought the kids this fun swing and we hung it in the basement. Summers here are short and we figured it would get a lot more use if it was indoors. The kids love it.



This weekend was really busy. Matt tilled the garden with a rototiller we borrowed from some friends. Thanks Halls! I spent most of Saturday preparing my planting beds. The last couple of years I have made a Mittleider garden. If you want to learn more, you can check it out here. Matt was out helping build a garage and then helping some friends move, so I had the "help" of all 3 kids in the yard. I was in the garden with a level & a rake trying to get the planting beds level until 11:44pm. It was pitch black outside, but I felt like I accomplished a lot. Now, as soon as it stops raining I'll be able to get it planted.

Here's a pic of my handsome little helper.
After church on Sunday, my mom called to say that she, my dad and my brother were on the way to come visit. What a fantastic surprise! It is always great to spend time with mom and dad (Grandma and Papa.) I often wish we lived closer so that we could spend more time together. It was a fantastic weekend! I am still wiped out.