HALLOWEEN!

I suppose the official celebrations were yesterday and today, Thursday if you count Fiona at preschool, but the planning... yeesh, that's been in the works for a while!

We've been doing inside - school day costumes, and outside - night time costumes the last few years and we continued that this year.  Originally the day time costumes were all going to be their superhero capes, but then last minute Alice had to have the Rainbow dash costume we saw at Walmart, and Fiona had to be a butterfly at Preschool (a costume we already owned).  But the outside costumes... I bought Piglet when Alice was two.  Sometime in the last year I acquired Pooh Bear for Alice off of the Tottenham Buy/Swap/Sell, and a week ago today we drove out to Whitby to pick up a Tigger costume for Kate from our friends Kay and Adrian.  YAY!

So Thursday... Fiona was a butterfly at preschool.

Thursday night the girls all wore their Halloween costumes to dance class.  Kate's class isn't one we get to observe so no pictures.

Kate got a drive to school Friday because she missed the bus - first time so far.  Go Dad GO, awesome job getting Kate on the bus on time every day for two months!  She was Lightning Storm, no pictures.  Fiona and Ken watched Alice in the parade at school.  So fun.

 

I was bacon at school all day.  The kids loved it.  I loved it.  My friend Jodi wore the eggs shirt and we were going to take a picture but we didn't... oops.

After school Alice brought home our weekend guest - Hunter the Hamster.  He's SO cute and has such a lovely disposition.  We've had so much fun taking care of him this weekend.

Friday night we went to a PLUMB Halloween Party! YAY!  Seriously, so much fun was had by all.  I was so sad when the party didn't happen last year, and super duper excited that it was happening this year.  We took a bunch of pictures with my camera and at the end of the night Ruth took some really cute pictures of the girls with her camera, hopefully she'll send me some soon.

Today.  After a late night last night and a long week, it was nice to be able to sleep in this morning, and not worry about going anywhere.  The town trick or treating didn't start until noon so there was no rush.  This morning the girls played and Ken and I cleaned.  It was lovely.  Then after lunch the girls and I went out. Most of the store owners in Tottenham hand out candy at their business during the day the Saturday closest to Halloween.  It's a fun daytime activity, and of course it means - EXTRA CANDY!  I was so happy with their matching costumes.  They looked so, so cute!

I loved listening to Fiona call herself "Piggit".  It made me giggle every time.  "Wait for Piggot", she would call to her sisters as they walked down the street.

 

At 3pm we were walking south on Queen street, almost at Mill planning our next move - I had just looked at the time and realizing it was 3 said to the girls, I think we need to go straight home because Grandma and Grandpa are coming over right now.  And who should pull up to the curb right where we were?  Grandma and Grandpa - perfect timing.  We all hopped into the van and they took us home.  The girls immediately started going through their candies, and Grandma and Grandpa were able to share in some of the spoils, oh and me too of course!

Next on the agenda, pumpkin carving!  Ken bought three pumpkins, one for each of the girls.  Grandma and I cut the lids and then Fiona and Alice helped scoop pumpkin guts.  Kate was not interested at all, I think she might have even suggested she would barf if she had to do it.  

We had subway for dinner with Grandma and Grandpa and they left to go home shortly after.  Then it was the waiting game.  Kate wanted to hand out candy to a few trick or treaters before we went out.  She saw kids across the street and couldn't understand why no one was coming to our house.  She was about to lose her mind when kids finally came to our door.  After handing out a few candies the girls suited up for the second time, and off we went!  It was raining again this year, but thankfully not too hard, and it wasn't windy.  We did about half of the houses on our street and then the girls were done. 

Here are the pumpkins.  The girls did the design - or suggestion and Ken cut them out.  Alice helped cut hers out, but the other two were too preoccupied with other things.  Fiona wanted one tooth, Kate wanted Dracula, and Alice drew hers.  The last picture is the house, pumpkin lights, spider lights, and inflatable headless skeleton, the newest decoration! 

I should have taken a picture of the girls feasting afterwards.  It's too funny.  Kate is really picky so she's given half of hers away, and Alice and Fiona wanted to try everything all at once, so they would basically take one bite and then threw it in the garbage.  Halloween is such a fun holiday.  I'm so grateful to be a Mom and share such fun things with my girls.

TT

Alice was so excited for her turn to be the TT - tiny teacher. She brought home this case on the 14th and her special day was the 15th. She took in some pictures and a toy. These things were to help her introduce herself to the class. She came home with this poster today, and I thought we should make a blog post to remember. Junior Kindergarten is pretty special - having an awesome teacher helps too of course!

The Steam Train

It really was time for another ride.  Fiona hadn't been, and Alice was too young to remember, and really I'm not sure what Kate remembered, so, yes, it was time.  My friend Emily suggested it in the summer and we marked October 17th on the calendar.  This time of year it's the fall colour tour.  The fall colours were really beautiful, and the steam train is magnificent.  What we weren't counting on, was snow!  Nothing was sticking, but it was cold and windy.

After the train ride Emily, John Inca, Holden, Lauren, and Hazel came over to hang out and have dinner.  I can't remember - I think it was around 3?  Ken had started to make some food, and the power went off.  It was most unexpected and unappreciated!  (We found out later on it was because of a plane crash just north of town - a small plane took out a power line when it came down.)  We continued to chat, and play with the kids - Miss Fiona was quite taken with Emily, and just as we were despairing, the power came back on and Ken whipped up a feast!  Pancakes, pumpkin waffles, bacon, sausage and fruit - YUM!