Turkey Day 2009

We had a lovely visit at aunt Kelly's again! Complete with our annual pilgrimage to the pumpkin farm. This year was a short visit. We froze our butts off and got away as quickly as we could after finding 2 lovely specimens and taking the obligatory pics.

Halloween fun!

The kids had quite an exciting week. They had their last art class for the year. Alex had a big Halloween bash with his Beavers group. We had some home school friends over for a Halloween party, followed by some good old-fashioned trick or treating and socializing with neighbourhood kids. Late last night we had to drag them in the house away from all the fun they were having, all sugared up and running on the last little bits of adrenaline. It was a fun night. Most of the houses were decorated with spooky mazes and elaborate displays. Funny pranks were played. Everyone really got into the spirit of Halloween. Where I live, the adults take this Halloween business just as seriously as the kids do.

As Rob and I crashed on the couch afterward, I told him that I remembered a segment I once saw on the news a few years back. Something about the sudden onset of colds and flu the week after Halloween. Presumably something to do with people being more confined due to cold temperatures outside, suppressed immune systems dealing with copious amounts of sugar from all those candy treats and fatigue caused by overexcited (and over sugared) children. We talked about bracing ourselves for runny noses and scratchy throats.

I suppose it was my fault for even mentioning it. Sure enough, little Miss Iz woke up this morning with a raspy voice and wet cough. It begins! She still made it to ballet class this morning. Alex and I cuddled up on the sofa and began the first Harry Potter book together. A nice, relaxing start to the day. Hopefully everyone stays healthy enough to enjoy the rest of the weekend.

5 More Sleeps!

...until Halloween. Just pulled out the costumes and started decorating today. Rob and I were in for quite a shock when we finally found Izzy's chicken costume. It is the one Alex wore when he was younger, the Halloween right before (4 days, in fact) his sister was born. Anyway, we pulled it out and it looked kind of big. We checked the label and it was a 5T!!! The boy was only 2 years and 8 months old, and he wore size 5T. Izzy just got to a size 3. Mind you, we should have known. She is barely 25lbs and Alex weighed that before his first birthday. He is gonna be huge! I just measured him for his passport application and he is 4'2" already. His Darth Vader costume is a size 7/8. Luckily we can make the top part of the chicken work because we have hyped it up so much, we would have been completely done in if she couldn't wear it. The pants come up past her neck, lol, so we will just substitute with some orange track pants which, amazingly, we already had in her size (thanks to more of Alex's hand-me-downs). Crisis averted.

We did the pumpkins tonight too. Here are the kids:

Before...



...and after!