Here are the pumpkins....

The stars of the party are the pumpkins, of course. This was ours this year ..and here are some of the others

Pumpkin carving party

Another great date of the year-Joan & Charlie's pumpkin carving party. There have been several babies born in the past year, the number of children is definitely growing!!! The star of the show was Lucy-Joe & Alli's baby. She is so cute. She slept through the whole party and we had fun holding her-even Sam had a go!!!!Apparently, every good Hallowe'en party has a pinata. This year, we had a black cat and Maggie had to kiss it goodbye before it got beaten up....

Those kids showed that cat no mercy....

Are we having fun yet???!!!!!

DeeDee's party dress

DeeDee is going to the Friendship Dance on Saturday night. She went with her friends and bought her dress a couple of weeks ago & we went together to look at shoes. We agonized over many of them, but settled on these. They are so cool and look great on her. I told her she needs to wear them every day to break them in & get used to walking in them. She's going to look fabulous....

Trunk or treat.....

The big Hallowe'en weekend finally arrived with "Trunk or Treat" at the school. The event was organized by the boy scouts and the girl scouts came too. Here is Maggie (the Incredible Hulk) with two of her friends Ben was "The Scream" this year, but most of the time he did not wear his mask because it was too hot. I wonder when they will finally figure out that costumes with masks are better in theory than practice!!!!

Everyone decorated the trunks of their cars, this was ours. We had 100 treat bags and every one of them disappeared

Ben's IEP meeting

We went to Ben's yearly IEP meeting yesterday. The teachers are all really happy with his progress and have re-evaluated his goals because he has reached his old ones. He is now reading at a level for the end of 3rd grade/beginning of 4th, so not that far behind where he should be. His writing is not consistent yet, but on some days he is doing better than 50th percentile for 4th grade, other days he is not doing so well, but most of the time he is right on track. Honestly, I didn't think he'd ever get to this stage and he loves 4th grade. This year has been so different to the previous ones, he will come home every day and do his homework right away without any fuss. He can also do the bulk of it on his own. All his teachers says he is working really hard, a big change from previous years. The most amazing thing was that they said he did not regress at all during the Summer and actually has advanced. What a great achievement.

Sam saw Ben's car this morning....

Homework

A friend of mine has a wife who is an Elementary school teacher. Even though I have never met her, I found that we have exactly the same thoughts when it comes to homework....
http://www.fox2now.com/lifestyle/stlmoms/ktvi-help-kids-with-homework-102110,0,6051401.story

Thinly veiled excuse!!!!

I am using the excuse that I have children to get my toes painted in Halloween colours. It seemed like the decent thing to do when they love this holiday. Everyone in the salon loved it & the lady next to me even considered doing hers the same. I left before she made her decision though!!!! I like it, but secretly can't wait to get it removed at the beginning of November!!!!

Goodbye Susan, hello.......

No name for my new car yet, but I have one!!!! I was just getting used to Susan and now she is gone. I took her to get the oil changed on Thursday and the dealership called and wanted to exchange my car for a new one. Apparently, they really needed pre-owned vehicles and were willing to swap out mine for the same payments as we were making already. It seemed like a deal too good to miss, so now Susan is gone & has been replaced by a newer model. She was needing cleaned anyway.....

Ghouls in the garden

This may be a new event this year, because we hadn't heard about it before & we certainly hadn't done it. If it's new, I certainly hope that the Gardens make this a yearly event. It was easily the best Hallowe'en event that we have been to recently. It was extremely well done, the kids were entertained & the adults got to enjoy the Gardens. These were the "Mad Scientists" that were at the entrance. Since I'm a Mad Scientist myself, I was particularly interested in this....We found a bunch of pirates by the gazing pool

Arline got some help reading the map from "The Scream" and "The Hulk"....

Managed to get a picture of them together before they ran off....

DeeDee found herself a new boyfriend.....

....then got a better offer!!!!!

The Adams Family tableau was by far the best, quite a spread.....

Ben got a poisoned apple from one of the witches, but he decided to take the risk & eat it anyway!!!!

There was a lady doing face painting at the Children's Garden, she was really good. She did a great job of Ben's face. For some reason, I think it made him look way too pretty though-must have been those big blue eyes!!!!

I think Maggie looked like one of the monsters out of Where the Wild Things are, isn't she soooo cute???!!!!! It took for ever for me to get the green colour off her face, especially around her eyes

DeeDee got her face painted too. She said that she has never seen anyone doing face painting in Ukraine, so we have to take the opportunity whenever we can!!!

Here's the 3 of them together-a great photo...

DeeDee and Maggie are great friends & love to have their photo taken together

They spent ages feeding the carp in the pond at the Japanese Garden

I thought this looked really funny to see everyone lining up at the water fountain, I'm not sure why

A rare moment when Ben wanted me to take a picture of him & Maggie together

They still love me....

When I was walking this morning, the thought went through my mind that Ben does not sit and wait for me in the driveway any more. I guess I have been out walking later, or it is getting much cooler in the mornings. As I turned into our street, I heard a large cry of excitement and Ben and Maggie both got up off the driveway. Ben rode his bike up to meet meMaggie came running up to meet me in her bare feet.

It really made my day that they were waiting for me to come home and that they were so pleased to see me. They were very excited about the Fall colours and wanted to show me this really cool leaf. I had to admit, it was pretty impressive!!!

Dreams....

Ben had a bad dream about me dying and was very upset about it. He called me at work and was crying on the phone. Later on, Maggie said to Sam "I had a bad dream once. It was bad. I was sad. But I can't remember now". Then she gave one of her big cheesy grins!!!!

Morning conversation

Ben calls me almost every morning. He was supremely happy this morning, just bubbling with glee. We had a great conversation about clothes
Ben: Mum, I'm wearing your favourite pants
Me: Wow, and I am wearing your favourite stripey shirt
Ben: I'm wearing your favourite stripey shirt as well
Me: I bet you're looking really sharp
Ben: Yes, I am !!!!!

Apples!!!!

Granny Smiths this time-42 lbs of them!!!! This was the 3rd trip to Eckert's to get apples-yes, the mountain we bought just a few weeks ago are gone. This was by far the hardest searching & picking that we've had this year. It was incredibly busy there and there were hardly any apples left. Even the combination of Sam/child picking the apples at the top wasn't enough. Luckily, we found a few trees that hadn't been completely picked over.

Anne went with us. We had a lot of fun with her, we don't see her family nearly enough.....

The kids worked hard at picking apples. Maggie never eats any of them, but Ben ate quite a few!!!!

Busy weekend

One of my favourite days of the year-going to the Open House at the World Bird Sanctuary. It's the best of both worlds-we get to see the birds and the kids love to do the bingo game that they have. The first thing we did was eat and decide how we were going to organize our day (or the rest of us ate and Ben organized us!!) Ben & Maggie just had to have their pictures taken as bald eagles!!!
This year, their theme was North American animals and they had a bunch of reptiles from the rescue center. Ben was beside himself because they had an alligator there, I thought his mouth was going to split with the size of his grin.
This armadillo was interesting, they are so much cuter when they aren't squished on the side of the road!!!!
This pelican is there every year, he has the funniest way of walking
Can't remember what kind of bird this is, but he was born in the wild but was shot by someone. Unfortunately, he was shot in the eye so he can't see on one side any more & can't be released into the wild again
It shows how much trust is on both parts of the bird and handler when you see how close those birds are to their faces. Scary!!!!
This year, I finally managed to get a picture of one of the birds in flight
They were selling these as a fundraiser, unbelievably they were only $2 each. I had to give them extra because I felt guilty at not paying more.