Candle making....

Sam and Abigail aren't feeling very well at the moment...this morning they watched The Wizard of Oz and relaxed. This afternoon they did a little of their Where the Wild Things Are project and then they settled to some crafts - Sam did some Halloween crafts and then they both started to work on the candle making kits I picked up at Dollarama!! They come with moldable wax and two wicks - so you can make shapes out of the wax like playdough and mold it around the wick. They've had some creative fun :)

Kitten's obsession...

Watching the birdies outside....they are at all of the feeders and even just outside the window on the porch teasing him.....he spends hours just sitting there watching...and hoping ;)

What are you reading at the moment???

I'm reading The Book Thief....

Where the Wild Things are....continued...

Abigail continues to work through her unit on Where the Wild Things Are.....we won't go to see the movie for another week or so...we are enjoying the art and craft ideas we have found online too.....they link well with the workbook we have....this includes art techniques such as 'crosshatching'....

Coyote pays a call...

This little guy was outside our house howling away this morning! I snapped some pictures but as you can see, he soon saw me and ran off ;) I wonder why he was howling and what he was calling his friends for........we have had quite large packs running through each night around 11pm or so....they run in the same direction, through the same area...howling and squealing.....you could set the clock by them almost!! Rare to see them here during the day though and they just run off if they see you - not like the city coyotes who seem so used to humans when you see them on the news....

Halloween crafts.....

We've been doing a lot of Halloween crafts this week including making some recipes. I also printed off some writing books, colouring sheets, mazes and worksheets with a Halloween theme from Enchanted Learning. They had some great pages for Sam especially.

Today Lloyd took Abigail to her art and gymnastics classes, and I stayed home with Sam. He kept busy doing some of his print outs - including cutting out this skeleton and gluing it onto card stock. His cutting skills are really good for a 4 year old I think :) He did it all by himself!!!

Bobblehead..

Chris is dressing up as a bobblehead for Halloween ;)

Witches fingers????

....Hhhmmm I think they're more like Frankensteins fat fingers ;) I made trays and trays and TRAYS of these this afternoon!!! They are a big hit with the kids thankfully and they will each take a load to school tomorrow to share with friends....leaving plenty at home for us all :) They are called witches fingers, but once they are baked they are quite 'cakey' and fatten up so they don't look very fingerish any more.

I think they would be better made from shortbread or even marzipan instead.....

Ooey Gooeey Snotcorn!!!

A friend put this recipe on Facebook and I thought it sounded great! Luckily we had the ingredients to hand, so Susannah got straight to work and made several bags of it to take to school tomorrow for her friends! It was fun to make :) A great Halloween recipe :)

Swine flu free snotcorn ;)

Sams Halloween stash....

Sams treat bag from PreK. He made a mask and a pumpkin 'thing'.....and then he got a LOT of treats from all his friends :) They had a party and played games and had a party lunch too - sadly he wasn't well enough to join in :( He was sleeping when I got there while the other children played games :( He felt so ill he really didn't care though!!!

Sams scarecrow

Sam made this all by himself on Monday - he wanted to make a scarecrow like the ones he saw on Sunday at the Pumpkin festival :)

Worms in dirt...

I made these on Monday for the kids lunch....gummy worms in chocolate pudding with chocolate chips on the top (or oreo crumbs). Just one of the Halloween treats we are having this week :)

Tuesday

Yesterday was a disastrous day.....Sam was not at preK last week, so we missed the letter saying that yesterday was his Halloween party.

We get to PreK and everyone has costumes on AND treats to share!! So the teacher offers him costumes to borrow and he isn't interested. So I offer to go home and get HIS!! Abby and I go home and hunt for three different costumes for him to pick from. WE then run to the local store and get treats. Then back to PreK. He refuses to wear ANY of the costumes (very unlike him).

Abby and I do some shopping for some things she wants (glitter pens she used at the Haunted Pumpkin Festival etc) then we relaxed in Starbucks over hot chocolates :)

I got a call from Pre K at lunch time to say Sam wasn't well and he was falling asleep!! I guess that was why he was so grumpy about his costume that morning!!! So I went and picked Sam up and he really wasn't well - hadn't eaten anything at all and wasn't interested in any of his treats or toys or anything from the Halloween party :(

Through the evening his fever got worse and was 39.4 for the evening even with Advil. The only thing he ate was two freezies. Abby started feeling unwell in the afternoon and was taking Advil too. Chris had been home for the day too.

We all curled up and watched Transformers but Sam and Susannah fell asleep through it which isn't like them at all. Sam slept with us last night so we could keep an eye on him. It was really unusual for us to have a family movie night midweek, but it was nice too - Sam was stretched out on the sofa - just flopped.

We don't get sick very often - we eat so many fruits and vegetables and home cooked meals wit lots of garlic and we are all taking our extra garlic and multi vitamins and our extra vitamin C. We all have our hand sanitizers in our pockets and I have it around the house too.

I don't think we have the flu - I don't think thats what this is....unless we only have it mild because we are fighting it off......but we all feel 'off' - aching necks, headaches.....but none of the typical flu symptoms....nothing 'cold-like'.......we don't feel 'ill' just exhausted.....like there is 'something'.........not sure if that makes sense....but anyway we continue to take all our supplements and eat really well and continue with good hygiene as always and being extra careful!!!

This morning Sams temperature is better but he still isn't himself :( a little too easy to cry. He has asked for his candy already though - so thats a good sign ;)

Dark skies...

The skies came over sooooo dark yesterday afternoon!! Then the sun was shining from in front of the house and catching the trees...I thought it looked wonderful! Couldn't resist snapping a picture with my iphone!!

Smeltzer House

Sam outside Smeltzer House a couple of weeks ago....

Best friends...

Grayson and Kitten....so sweet together...

I broke my baby!!!

On Monday I was picking up my laptop and it slid from my hands and the screen smashed into the stupidly big plug that Macs come with. I was heartbroken! As you can see - it was completely wrecked! I phoned Lloyd at work and called him out of a meeting to tell him! He of course didn't even say a thing - just told me it didn't matter - and that it was an accident - which made me burst into tears and yell that it DOES matter and him being all nice didn't help and I had just wasted all that money and my course starts next week and I BROKE MY BELOVED MAC!!!!!! :(

I was a tad pathetic :(

I wasn't feeling well and my back was still hurting from last week.....and so this was just the LAST thing I needed!!! I was so sad!

Lloyd set it up with another monitor when he got home and that worked but was really weird - and then he said we should head out for some groceries! But instead we pulled up at Best Buy!!! And he shocked me by buying me a new baby!! So now I have a teeny tiny really cute MacBook Pro which is much easier for me to carry around - the 15" was soooo heavy and bulky - but this 13" is dinky and he bought me a pink bag for it to keep it safe :) So I can still do my course without having to bring up the big table top Mac from downstairs.

Lloyd is going to try and get the screen fixed from the broken Mac as everything else on it works - so he is going to see if you can get them replaced.....

It made me so sad to see the broken screen on the Mac :(

Corn, corn, corn.....

Fun in the corn maze and then making corn dollies :)

Susannah made hers with no help and it ended up looking a little more vodoo doll-ish than corn dolly-ish hahahaha!

snapshots from Sunday...

Susannah gnawing on old corn ;) Lol she was searching for a decent cob for a corn dolly ;)

Pictures from the petting zoo

Sam in the ball pool looking in the pumpkin ball 'net'....