Home :)

We're home.....Chris is on his way home and the kids are packing everything up ready to go to bed :)

It was a fun, all be it exhausting, night!!!! I think Lloyd and I are delaying our horror movie night until tomorrow :)

I got to say hi to Colleen at the mall...and see her very cute little dragon and Tigger too!

Off to have some supper with Lloyd now - goodnight!

No snow :)

I forgot to say this morning - the best thing about this Halloween is that its 10c and there is NO SNOW :)

I heard they got a little on Friday, but we were in BC so we didn't see it - and if we didn't see it then it didn't happen lol! So its November tomorrow and we have not had any snow yet :) How fabby is that???? Woohoo.....so it can't possibly be as long a winter as last year :) Yay!!!

No snow for Halloween - and above freezing temps!!!! No snow suits under costumes and no snow boots needed :) just wonderful :)

Two little pumpkins, sitting on a bale.....

Circle Time and Cake Time....

Abigail and a little boy got to stand up and help perform the songs at circle time.....she loved that :) And at snack time they all enjoyed cake and juice :)

Samantha....or is it???????

Samantha always gets into the spirit of things at events like this....easy to see why kids just love her! I told myself I would only go along for an hour or so....I always say that....but yet again almost 3 hours passed before we left!!!! Samantha and I just get talking and the time just flies!! And even after all that time, Sam had a tantrum because he wanted to stay!

L'il Ladybug........

Abigail was a ladybug for this mornings event....

Paint splatter pumpkins.....

Abigail and Sam getting creative with pumpkin shapes.......

Diego rescues BUGS!!!!

This bug table was at the Halloween event this morning...Sam had great fun with all the bugs!

Chris's joint

Wicked witch coloured cakes :)

A few of the little cakes I made last night :) The kids took some to school and are having some now with milk for an after school snack :)

Happy Halloween!!!!

Happy Halloween everyone!! I hope everyone is having a good day.

This morning I took Abigail and Sam to the Parentlink Halloween festivities. It was so much fun! A big pumpkin cake to enjoy at snacktime.....a pumpkin patch to play in and for photo opportunities, in fact pumpkins EVERYWHERE!!!!! There was a whole table of Halloween themed story books to curl up on the sofas and read...we had circle time and sang songs about pumpkins....there was a neat craft where you got to wobble a tray about and get a marble to roll about in paint over a pumpkin shaped sheet of paper....

My friend Samantha rustled up some orange muffins....and wow her costume was amazing....I have pictures to add later :) The effort Samantha put in is amazing - especially considering she's in a great deal of pain with her knee right now....

Samantha has persuaded me (depending on the weather) to have a Guy Fawkes Celebration on Sunday.....so I stocked up with sparklers for it today.....

I'm a bit wary because last year I planned to do one and it ended up being crappy weather AND we were all ill so it didn't go ahead and we ended up lighting the sparklers in the kitchen on our own!

Now we are waiting for the kids to get home from school...they should be back any minute as its early-out today. Susie has a friend coming back for the evening and we will take them into town trick or treating later....to our old subdivision to say hi to the old neighbours etc

Laurie is meeting his friends and Chris isn't coming home at all today as he is off to some friends to celebrate there :)

When we get home we have our traditional 'sort the stash' and then once the kids are in bed Lloyd and I are going to watch The Ring 2 - we tried to watch it last year and after 5 minutes I made him switch it off as I was too scared....so we will try again tonight (lol)........a horror HAS to be dfone on Halloween :)

Ok, I'm going to sort the pictures :)

Happy haunting everyone :)

Marijuana

This afternoon I spent a while making up some marijuana joints for the boys to take to school tomorrow.......no, I really did!

Chris is going as a 70's hippy and Laurie is going as Bob Marley...so they both need weed lol! So Chris has a little ziploc bag of weed to take and a small joint...and Laurie has a HUGE joint!!!!!

We're not sure how well that will go down in a school but....oh well...its part of their costumes :)

I should take a picture of them...they worked really well! I crushed up the leaves from my dried roses - the ones Lloyd bought me the other week and for Chris's I used a beige coffee filter for the paper, and for Lauries I soaked a big sheet of paper in coffee and used that :) Then I set fire to the ends to make them look part used :)

Wicked Witch cakes...

This evening, once Lloyd brought home the cakes, I set to work baking endless wicked witch cakes...they are green cupcakes - the colour of the Wicked Witch from The Wizard of Oz....they taste yummy but look nasty.

Now to ice them and decorate them with the little sugar pumpkins and candy corn I bought in Whistler...then the children can take some to school tomorrow to share with their friends :)

Tomorrow we are heading to a pumpkin patch party in the morning....then in the afternoon Susannah is bringing a friend back from school and we are taking them trick or treating in town.....then we will drop her friend home.....she lives in Tofield I think.

Chris is going back to a friends home after school and is trick or treating with them.....

Laurie is coming with us but meeting his friends in town......

ok off to ice the cakes....

New tights....

Abigail went straight upstairs to put on her new tights...they went well with the skirt but I'm not sure about the top.....quite the ensemble.......lol!

Then she and Sam took turns trying to make scary faces!

Soccer star....

Laurence in his soccer shirt :) And he has a mouthful of fruit pastilles - hence the weird face lol!

Parcel from Grandma and Grandad.....

My Mom phoned today and asked that if a parcel arrives from her, could Laurence phone her and be on the phone when he opens it.

Well, the parcel DID arrive today, so we phoned them and had the phone on speaker phone while he opened the parcel. Inside was two Beano's, some fruit pastilles and a birthday gift - a Manchester United shirt with Ronaldo and 7 on the back! He was very happy!

in the parcel was also a pair of tights for Abigail - lovely stripey ones....by accident Mom ended up buying 5 pairs of tights for Abby this year, so there will be more on the way soon :)

Thank you Mom and dad!!!

Oh and by the way - where is your new blog Dad???????

A letter from Margori's Mom.....

Today we received a letter from the Mom of the little girl we 'foser' through World Vision :) Abigail was thrilled to get this and is so pleased that her hand is exactly the same size as Margori's!!!!

Attacked with a lawnmower......

I attacked my kids with a lawnmower this morning......Sam needed a haircut and Abby begged for one.....ah well, its just hair, it will grow back :)

God

My Mom thought it would be interesting if I got Abigail to draw a picture of what she thought God would look like. Well, this is what she thinks he is like - on his hat is a halo which she believes all dead people have (?????) and he has a moustache...she's not sure why.

So, thats God :)

He kind of resembles Santa to me :)

This all came about because the other night the girls were tidying the kitchen after supper and Susie was telling Abigail how to pray....Abigail was fascinated....

It must be so confusing growing up with an athiest Mother, an Agnostic Father and a Christian Sister :)

Is it Friday 13th?

Around 1am or so (I think!!) I woke up to go to the bathroom (just to pee!!!) but the toilet must have been blocked because when I flushed it, it filled with water that went all over the bathroom floor! So I had to mop all that up and Lloyd gets up to check that its just our toilet and NOT the septic system backing up!!!!!

This morning I was due to meet Tanya at the Science Centre. Tanya was going to call me at 8am....Lloyd always calls me at 8:10am to wake me up.

I woke up sometime after 9am!!!!! I check mail and Tanya and Lloyd have emailed me to say they have been trying to call me.

I can't find the phone! Abby says someone called but she didn't know who it was so she hung up - but I guess not properly! By this time Tanya has missed the bus she needs to get to the science centre.

A little while later I am in the bathroom and I slip on a wet patch behind the door, turn my foot over on itself and hurt my wrist and arm.......

After giving up on the science centre I decided we would go into town to the library and get some Halloweeny type books.....but after my fall I decided I wasn't safe to be out in public!

So we decided to make cupcakes to decorate with the candy corn and little sugary pumpkins we bought in Whistler......we get everything ready and the children are excited and then we go to get the eggs.....NO EGGS!!!! And no chickens to go and get the eggs from!!!

So now I've given up on the day and am sitting here eating cookies.....I think its best if I don't try to do anything or go anywhere today!

Tomorrow is another day!

Samsam

Sammy seems happy enough but he looks terrible tonight...very very pale and drawn...his eyes are sunken with dark circles :( I'm hoping its just tiredness catching up from last week and not this bug I have :( Lloyd is still feeling rough too :(

we were ill for Halloween last year :( This sucks!

Great website!

www.growingoaks.com

This is a great little website for homeschoolers....it is somewhere to chat, share resources and get support. Today I read about a fabulous free printable Halloween lapbook!

I also have a penpal from there - yes we write REAL letters!!! Pen and paper letters!!! Shocking huh? :)

Many of the members at GO are Canadian too :)

Monday stuff....

All the laundry from our week away is now done folded and put away (yay!) and I have dusted the main floor and washed down the walls and baseboards...cleaned the kitchen and one of the bathrooms.....

I chatted with Tanya (mommaspaz) on the phone and hope to meet her tomorrow.

I've responded to some emails I had to get caught up with, and I've prepped some things for a Halloween lapbook for Abigail...

It wasn't a bad day really because I drugged myself up and it helped a lot. But now the tablets have worn off and my throat is agony again and I feel crappy again :( So I guess drugs are the answer!!! ;)

We had some good news about the renovations today - we had the appraisal of the finished work back - I can't remember what it was - will check with Lloyd later, but it means that the house will be worth a lot once the kitchen and sunroom are done :) and it means that if they are right, we can almost instantly do the new master suite above the garage when the kitchen is finished :)

We still have no start date though and everything is tied up with paperwork and permit applications and everything else which is tedious and I am so impatient......another two weeks and they will for sure not go ahead until Spring :(

Unless of course this warm weather stays...so please hope for these good temperatures to hang around for a few weeks extra so there is a chance they can get digging NOW :)

I have to go into town in a little while for a few last minute Halloween things......

Wednesday is going to be a busy day but I'm so looking forward to it. we have the party in the morning for Sam and Abigail and then trick or treating in the evening - we always go to the mall for the first part - get there nice and early! Then we have supper there before heading to a few subdivisions so the older ones can do a little more trick or treating...then home for a Horror movie (once the kids are in bed). Another tradition we have is to watch Charlie Browns Halloween special! It's on today! Oh and yet another tradition I have is to watch the Marth Stewart Halloween episode which is always fabulous and this time has Rosie O'Donell (sp??) appearing!

Tomorrow I am hoping to meet Tanya at the Science Centre.....if she doesn't mind risking all my germs!!

I think I am meeting Jennifer one day this week - Friday I think - so that will be nice and Abigail will be thrilled to see Nuala again!

So lost planned this week and I need to be HEALTHY!!!! So please send healthy vibes to me so this achey joint, sore throat, headachey thing I have goes away!!!!

I ahve to admit I am soooo happy it didn't turn into a cold - I can deal with this but could NOT cope with a cold! I am a hopeless baby when I have a cold!

Chilliwack BC

We drove out to Chilliwack which is about 30 minutes East of Langley and is where Norm and Joldie live. Its very beautiful out there. Joldie works for Tourist Information there and does a great job of selling the area as they rave about it! It was the only place that I actually liked near Vancouver - there is a little less traffic there....but I have to say that I don't think even that could win me over......I think that part of BC is just too busy for me - I like how quiet our area is - how few cars there are on Hwy 14.....how straight our roads are :)

The Honey Bee Centre....

I think this was my favourite part of the week - we went to a local bee centre to learn all about bee keeping and honey.....it was fascinating and the girl in there spent soooo much time with us. We got to sample honey made from all kinds of pollen and we watched the hive and searched for the Queen......I bought some fireweed honey which is just AMAZING!! The children were given free bookmarks and free honey sticks and so much information about bees and honey! Such a great place!

Alberta has a LOT of bee keepers.....we may look into getting a hive next year.

The Limo Bus....

This is inside of the Limo bus that the children rode in for the journey back to the airport. So last week they rode in a limo three different times. Sooooo NOT FAIR as I have STILL never ridden in a limo lol!

We went bananas!

On Wednesday morning we went to Go Bananas in Langley...it's a smaller version of Lets Play. We met one of the other Moms there, Bev, and her two little girls. Lets just say that I don't think Bev and I are destined to be best friends ;) I think we got along because we had to ;)

Bowling with BCAL...

Friday night we went out for a team building evening - bowling :) I am crappy at bowling but it was fun and the kids had a blast :) Lloyd was great at it grrrr - is there nothing that guy is useless at?????? lol! The pictures aren't very good but give you an idea of how many of us were playing etc....

Me - in the sea :)

YES! After more than 5 years we finally saw the sea again and I HAD to paddle in the Pacific Ocean :)

I have now paddled in The North Sea, The Irish Sea, The Atlantic Ocean (and English Channel), The Gulf of Mexico AND the Pacific Ocean :)