An end to Halloween...

Finally!!

This seriously felt like the never ending Halloween.  We'll have to somehow remedy that next year! But tonight we started out by having "mummy dogs" for dinner.

 

The kids snarfed them down. I think they might have to make a regular appearance on our menu!!

Then we got the kids back into costume and N8 took them out trick or treating while I stayed home passing out candy and working on a few projects.

 

You can tell it was a good night when they come home sound asleep still holding onto the candy!

Preschool Halloween Fun...

Today was my day to teach our Co-op preschool and we had a Halloween Party!! The kids all had a great time and I am glad it is done :) We started out with magnetic skeletons. I had the working on cookie sheets, but they got to take them home and could do them on their refrigerator.

 

I had also made a Spider Ring Toss game. The kids loved throwing the spiders in and retrieving them. But I think our kittens loved it even more. They spent the rest of the morning finding stray ring spiders and batting them around.

For snack we had white chocolate bones, fingers and pretzels. I had edible markers for the kids to color faces on the pretzels and make ghosts.

 

Then it was onto our hunt for bats. Everyone had their own binoculars and we searched for bats inside and out. Every time we found a bat everyone got a piece of candy.

Then it was onto cupcake spiders. They each got to put on 8 licorice legs and candy eyes.

At the end everyone got their costumes on and we had a little parade and photo shoot!

Soccer Girl...

Saturday morning was Emma's last soccer game of the season. She has enjoyed playing. It helped that 2 of her friends were on the team. She learning more skills and gained more confidence playing throughout the season.



I'm sure she will be ready to play again next season. I do think her favorite part was getting snacks at the end!

Halloween-pumpkins and more...

On Saturday we decided to carve our pumpkins. I got 3 pumpkins so the Bud, Emma and Mo could each design their own.

All 3 of them did most of the work: gutting, designing and carving.



Each of the drew on the faces with dry erase markers so we could adjust and erase as needed. Here's what Mo came up with:

Emma still working on her pumpkin:

Bud got his started:

The final product:





On Saturday night our ward had a Trunk or Treat. Here are our kids and Katie with our trunk ready to go:

Halloween School Celebration:

Our elementary school did all of their Halloween festivities on Friday. They start benchmark testing tomorrow (Halloween) and thought it was not a good idea to interrupt that with Halloween partying!
Friday morning I volunteered in Emma's classroom. Her awesome teacher had centers for the kids to rotate through and I was over the Jack o' Lantern center. Other centers were: draw a picture of you in your Halloween costume, cracker & peanut butter spiders, goop and picture frames. The kids had a blast. After that they played some Jack o' Lantern Math.

I headed home for lunch and then N8, Mo, Henry and I returned to help the kids into their costumes for the annual costume parade. Here's Emma posing for a picture:

Bud and his good friend Katie:

Here's Bud's 4th grade class:

The parade:


After the parade we helped in Bud's class and Mo helped himself to one of the cupcakes:

After school was the annual carnival. It's a PTO fundraiser and is a lot of fun for the kids. Lots of games and bake sale.




Henry loved the doughnut he got!

Preschool Halloween Parade...

Mo's class celebrated Halloween on Thursday (he only meets on Tuesday and Thursday. They figure it's better to do it before than after!). They invite parents to come near the end and they have a costume parade.

He enjoyed marching around in his costume, but most of all getting some candy!
Here's the whole class:

Costume Preview...

On Wednesday evening I decided we better do a costume check. The kids had all figured out their costumes a while ago and I had put the "homemade touch" on each of them. But they hadn't really tried the whole thing out! It turned out to be a great time to get a shot of each of them in their costumes.
Here's Bud (aka Harry):

Homemade portion: robes, wand, altered tie

Here's Emma (aka Rapunzel, aka Tangled!)

Homemade portion: the wig

Here's Mo (aka Luke Skywalker, in the black outfit-Mo will correct you if you say otherwise!)

Homemade portion: robes

Here's Henry (aka Jack o' Lantern)

Homemade portion: the Jack o' Lantern! I made this for Mo's for his 1st Halloween.

Where's the kitten...

These days the kittens are in the doghouse!! Which for the moment means the bathroom. We're having litter box training issues. But we're working on it. When they're not sequestered to the bathroom I regularly find this:
Can you find the kitten?

Here he is!

That's Puma and he loves to sleep there. It's startling to hear him climb up, but once he's settled in he's good to go!

Our new little additions...

Yesterday we adopted 2 little kittens. Their names are Puma & Paqo. N8 was the instigator in choosing Quechua (it is a language spoken my some Peruvians) and we decided to stay with "P" names. Puma means puma, mountain lion. Paqo means rain. It seems to also have some religious meanings as well.
There learning the lay of the land and the kids are thoroughly enjoying them. Pichi isn't sure, but is interested! We're still working on using the litter box.
This is Paqo:

This is Puma (I think!):

Trying to get pictures of them is difficult! They're either sound asleep or chasing each other around the house.
They're practically identical. Paqo has a slightly smaller face. Hopefully as they get older they'll be more distinct!