Halloween 2013!

I apologize for the delay in this post. I had a lot of ground to cover here!

Our Halloween festivities started the week before Halloween, when we baked cookies in the shapes of cats, pumpkins, bats and ghosts.

It was rather difficult to get the kids to stop constantly taste-testing EVERYTHING, but we eventually got the job done!

The next day we decorated them, which seems to be even more fun than making them. Thomas preferred to eat his toppings, rather than to decorate his cookie with them (he doesn't mess around).

Sugar high?

Or just plain happy to eat a Halloween cookie?

Maybe a little of both. Here are their lovely creations. (Leila and Amadea both enjoyed a plain Halloween cookie while watching the big kids decorate theirs.)

Another day, we scooped the goop out of a huge pumpkin. No one worked harder than B. on this! The kids were all really great though.

We separated the seeds for later roasting....

And then the kids went wild and had a grand old time shredding the newspaper (which was intended to keep the mess off the floor). These kids are always so creative, always thinking outside the box!

So, because Riley was not going to be attending the daycare on Halloween, we decided to have a Halloween party a few days early. AND one on Halloween. You can never have too many parties!

The following are pictures from Halloween Party: Part 1. (You'll notice the kids aren't wearing their costumes for this one, since we had it 2 days prior to Halloween).

The place already had numerous Halloween decorations from the kids, so I just added some streamers. We had a Halloween table cloth and Halloween cups, plates and napkins.

When the kids came for lunch, they got loot bags filled with little Halloween treats I purchased: Halloween bubbles, Halloween stickers, Halloween spinning tops, springy toys (witches and pumpkins), pumpkin kaleidoscopes, Halloween stampers and a couple of chocolates. 

After lunch, they all got to play with orange and black Halloween punching balloons. They all loved them, even little Amadea!

And here are a few random pictures. The one of Leila above is just too precious not to post! Perhaps she's trying to help me clean up?

And the photo above just shows the busyness and insanity that is our daycare. Sometimes everyone, and everything is literally all over the place! (Sometimes parents come to pick up their kids and remark that it sounds like an insane asylum from the hallway, before they enter the apartment. Okay, it's still an insane asylum once they enter, but I guess it just feels different when one becomes a part of it.)

B. took a short break from all the partying to check out a book, and Amadea joined him in his little reading nook. Such a sweet moment! :)

We laid some foam pumpkins out on the floor and played a freeze dance game. When the music played, the kids had to dance over and around the pumpkins. When the music stopped, they had to stand still with both feet on one of the pumpkins. There were plenty of pumpkins, in order to keep competition low. ;)

Next, we played the Ghost Toss game. I covered a (clean) garbage bin in a white garbage bag, and taped a ghost face made of construction paper onto the front. The kids had made lollipop ghosts days before: lollipops covered with tissue, tied with yarn, with faces markered on by dabbing two dots on for the eyes, and one for the mouth.

They were to stand a short distance from the garbage bin, and throw the "baby" lollipop ghosts into the "mommy" garbage bin ghost. Each child got 3 tries. Amadea decided it was her job to empty the garbage pail after each child's turn.

And for no particular reason, here are some cute pictures of my babies.

We also played "Hide the Pumpkin", and this was everyone's favourite. We had 3 real little pumpkins which I hid while the kids waited in Leila's room. When they came back to look, I gave them clues like "You're getting colder", or "You're very hot!" to help them find the pumpkins. When I was unable to run the game (due to tending to babies, or food prep), the older kids took over the game, and took turns hiding the pumpkins.

For dinner we had jack-o-lantern pitas. They had cucumber eyes, carrot noses, and mouths made of peas. I kept teasing Noah that he was cruel to gobble up a whole face!

Here are some of the kids posing with our real jack-o-lantern. We had a little light in it too, but it never really got dark enough outside while the kids were at daycare for them to really enjoy this aspect of it.

And here are 3 of the kids donning the hottest fashion of the season: pumpkin bibs. You know you want one now.

Here's a game the big boys played while the 4 babes slept. Okay. One babe awoke a little early. She must have known we were having fun without her! Anyway, this is a game that the boys set up themselves. It is like a virtual game board. The foam pumpkins, ghosts and spiders represent the spaces on the game board, the boys are the "men". They role a large die to see how many spaces they are to move. The winner is the first one to reach the finish: the haunted house.

We wrote things on the pumpkins like "Miss a turn", or "Move ahead 3 spaces". A line of ghosts signaled a "slide" to an earlier space in the game, while a line of spiders was a ladder to get ahead in the game. Noah especially enjoyed making his own creative (yet incomprehensible) features to the game. It's a great quiet game to play while the babies are sleeping. Except when there are tears. And there were tears. Oh....right....that's how Amadea woke early.

Okay, now fast-forward to Halloween day. Meet Transformer: Optimus Prime, the Toronto Fire Chief, Wolverine, Oscar the Grouch, and Tigger.

As usual, Tigger just can't sit still!

We organized a mini daytime trick or treat within our building. First, we knocked on our good friend Salim's door. The kids not only got candy treats, they also got home-made cookies, and the chance to play at Salim's place for a little while.

I don't know about you, but I just can't take Optimus Prime seriously in this photo of him in the rocking chair. It makes me laugh every time!

Salim was dressed up as Dora's best friend, Diego. Completely homemade and original. What a great idea!

Salim then joined the group while we trick-or-treated at one more apartment, and then he came over to our place to play for a while. The rest of the afternoon was filled with the same sorts of games as the first Halloween party, but we added spiders and ghosts Tic-Tac-Toe. (I made the simple game board by sticking masking tape to the ground.)

We had meatball spiders (with carrot legs) on a bed of worms, for dinner. Okay, it's not very well done, but I wasn't invested in working too hard on that one!

I leave you with a Halloween photo of one of our alumni: Oscar. This photo was graciously emailed to me by his mother. He is the cutest little pirate ever! I hope everyone had a fantastic Halloween!