Aunt Helen

My great-aunt Helen turned 100! on Sunday, October 12th. She had a surprise party. James was contagious and so couldn't go, but Amelie and Nana Jana and I went. Amelie was very excited, as you can see from her face.

Several of us wore flapper-type dresses and costumes, and two of Helen's great-grand children wore bonnets. Mom and I posed for a picture.

I didn't take any photos at the party, but Amelie had a good time running around with her second (?) cousins. My Aunt Tara sent me these:

Happy birthday, Aunt Helen! 

Park + Purple Dinosaur

We go to the park a lot. This time, James wanted to wear the purple dinosaur costume.

Halloween Candy Pancakes

Sam had the brilliant idea to chop up the chocolate Halloween candy without nuts and stick it in pancakes. It was a hit, although someone ate the chocolate bits and left most of the pancake part.

Spiderweb Craft

I contributed the craft for the two-year-old class at the kids' preschool for their Halloween party. I shamelessly stole the idea from an activity they did at the French school before we left.

First, you get some tupperware containers or re-purposed food containers with lids. Trace around the bottom onto construction paper, cut out the shape, and fix the construction paper to the bottom of the container with tape. (Amelie & James helped me with this, but I just did it in advance for the party.)

Next, have the kids make a spiderweb shape onto the paper (just squirt glue out all over it). Dump in some glitter, put the lids back on, and have them shake it up.

Voila! Spiderwebs. I had Amelie and James do it just to see how it would turn out. They stuck their webs onto more construction paper and then drew spiders around them. (Well, Amelie drew spiders and wrote her name on hers; James said "Draw name!" so I wrote his name. He scribbled for a while, then he wanted me to draw some spiders on his, too.)

Happy Halloween!

This year, Amelie wanted to be a bat for Halloween. Then she amended it to being Martin Kratt from the PBS show Wild Kratts wearing a bat creature powers suit. That really wasn't any extra work for me, so with pressure from Sam I decided to roll with it. 

I'm most proud of the creature power disk that she can take off and put back on with velcro.

On the way to the school party. Thanks to our friend Sally D for figuring out how to get the ears on. I tried with two kinds of headband, but they looked more like bunny ears than bat ears (and flopped over). She suggested using a knit cap and that worked out great (plus we can take the ears off and reuse it).

We didn't ask James what he wanted to be (next year, folks!) because I didn't want to risk a last-minute change of mind so he went as Super James. There was a mask to go with the costume, but he said, "Don't like it," and took it off, even when I just tied it around his forehead like a headband. 

Super James

You knew this was coming. 

It was remarkably difficult to get a picture of them together. They were just too darn excited to get started.

Trick-or-treating! All four of us went to three houses, but then James got scared by a goblin decoration. "Too scary!" so he and I came home and passed out candy to the rest of the trick-or-treaters. Amelie and Sam kept going and went all the way around the neighborhood.

Waiting at our neighbor Ann's house. James thought we should go inside.

James eating candy. The Halloween Amelie was 2.5, we gave her two pieces of candy and then ate the rest ourselves. With an older sibling, that sort of deception is harder to pull off.

Amelie contemplates the goodness of a Milk Dud.

Pumpkin Carving

I searched the blog for photos from past years' pumpkin carvings, but I only found this one. I'm pretty sure we've carved a pumpkin every year. Anyway, the kids are all set and ready to go!

Amelie's goofy face.

James and his goofy face.

Take two. 

Now we're getting down to business. They look so serious!

James liked putting the lid on and taking it back off (though he seemed slightly confused by it). It's kind of like a puzzle.

We carved on Tuesday (and we've already eaten all of the seeds). You can see who did most of the work sorting out seeds from "guts" as Amelie called them. I was busy taking pictures.

The finished product.

You can tell I don't know much about photography because this was so interesting to me. The picture above is with the flash off and the picture below was with the flash on. They were taken just a few seconds apart.

Happy Halloween, all!

P.S. The squirrels have started chewing on the one in front already, but I think it just makes it look slightly creepier.

Coloring

James really likes to color. Amelie does, too, sometimes.

I think she had some kind of over-arching plan, but James just kept on making his marks.

Down to work (and it looks like they finally got the paper turned around, too).

Fall Leaves

Just look at this tree! It's a sugar maple at Stephens Lake Park (I know this because there is a plaque). Amelie and I walked by it this morning on the way to the Equine Open House at Stephen's College and then we stopped and played under it on the way back.

It actually got hot today, so it was nice to play under the shade of the tree.

Jumping! Leaf piles!

She didn't mind me taking pictures (no shouts of "no more photos!" anyway) but she didn't want to look right at the camera, either.