Halloween finale

Ok, so this is the last you will hear about Halloween for at least 11 months!

Maelie had a blast at school today with her friends. I joined them this afternoon, they took a walk outside around the block, then went back in and distributed candy... and ate more and more and more candy!

Maelie's classmates are just so adorable! I was able to chit chat with a few of them that were not too shy. I tried to get a picture of Maelie with Theodore, but someone pushed him just as I was taking the picture, so he looks a bit upset on the picture. He is so adorable! It surprises me that Maelie is so interested in someone so shy.



This is how my throw up pumpkin ended up:



I liked it!

We went trick or treating with our dear friends & neighbors, Raphael and Koryne.



We visited our little street and one other street and Maelie was done. We came home and handed out candy. It started early this year... 5:30 and we had our first guests! Last ones were at about 7:30. The weather was nice so we just stayed outside to hand out candy.

Some kids, I would say about age 9 or 10 or so... came by, and one of them even said "you wouldnt happen to be giving out pop or water or anything to drink?" It just SO happened that i had leftover bottles of water in the car (unopened) so i just offered him and his friend a bottle each. He was SO thankful and ecstatic! he was yelling out to his other friends at the next house that he got water... awesome... I have to say, i never saw someone so excited for a bottle of water!! ehhehe

By tomorrow, this house will be void of any evidence that it was Halloween.... away will got the pumpkin curtains and out will come the snowmen ones... !!I have a feeling November and December will be pretty exciting!!

Happy Halloween!!

Happy Halloween to all! Today is probably the only day of the week (not weekend) where I didn't have to wake Maelie up to get ready for school. She was so excited she got up on her own.

We prepared a few treats for her class. I just realized I didn't take pics of the mini muffin tray. So just try to imagine it. A halloween tray with a bunch of mini muffins with icing and a little sugar Halloween decoration. There. So much simpler than taking a pic. (It is wrapped up in foil so I don't want to risk damaging it.)

I did however take a picture of the tray filled with grape brochettes and cheese witch broomsticks. That idea came from Kelly at the Halloween party last Saturday. They are so adorable and kids love them.



Also, here is a picture of Jacinthe's Halloween tree. She found the idea in a craft magazine. Man does she have talent! Yes, we do go to neighbors houses and take pictures of things on their porches... we DO get permission first LOL



Also, mentioned in another post, here is a picture of the cookies we made this weekend. I brought some to work and they disappeared VERY quickly.




Here is the chef, hard at work, in her spiderman pyjamas:



Happy Halloween!!

to the point

Sometimes I feel very sorry for Maelie's future husband, whoever that may be. She is very straightforward and to the point, sometimes to a fault. LOL

Maelie asked for a little sibling. She has been asking for quite a while, but I explained to her that daddy thought that 3 children was enough and we had to respect that. When she keeps on begging, I tell her that I am not the one she should be talking to since I would probably not mind having 10 (if I didn't have to work that is). So anyway, I laughed because Bill called at that point, and suggested lasagna for supper as he was craving it. So when I hung up, still on the subject, I said "Maelie, I may not be supposed to tell you this, but the way to a man's heart is through is stomach". I know, I know, I should not be teaching her these things... i even already told her that she could get anything with some people, such as Gilles by sweet talking them. These things may be horrible to teach, yet they are practical. Oh and note that before you think it will get ME in trouble, i did specify that sweet talking doesn't work with me!)

So anyway, being the good wife that I am, I made a lasagana while I was at Costco. I am talented like that. haha. So as Bill was eating his Costco lasagna, Maelie ran to me and whispered "Mom, daddy will want to have a baby now! Sweet talk him" (since the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, and he was eating pure love lasagna)

Well all this sweetness didn't get Bill to say yes to have another child. So Maelie, the gentle, loving kid says in a stern, bossy, to the point voice... "Daddy GIVE us your seed. We want another baby."
At that point, I think he almost choked.

ahhahahahahahah
Maelie... the romantic.

countdown to Halloween

Wow... Halloween is in 2 days! amazing how the cliche about time flying is true!
honestly, I have not see time go so fast as it has this year so far. Work is always busy and home life is always trying to keep up.

This Sunday we managed to
- make ghost and cat sugar cookies
- make mini muffins for class snack
- pick up a bargain of a snowsuit at Balue Village. (for those of you who know Souris Mini, you know their snowsuits can go for big bucks. I found a gently used one for 25$ in size 7!)
- stop at Costco to pick up a few necessities including string cheese for a Halloween snack project that Kelly made at the party Saturday night

I had told Maelie we would carve our pumpkins but we didn't end up with enough time to do that. We'll try and do it tonight. running out of time....

Moments in time

Well, Friday we headed off to the school Halloween party. Boy did this remind me of my younger years. Dark with loud music and a bunch of people yelling conversations with each other. All that was missing was the alcohol and it would have reminded me of typical Friday nights when i was say, uh... 18! I feel really old!

I had the honor of meeting Theodore, Maelie's boyfriend. Unfortunately, his mom said he had a fever and he did look quite exhausted. He was with his little sister and cousin. Poor kid... maybe it was the pressure of meeting his future mother in law for the first time? hehehehe I introduced myself, but poor little guy was not impressed. I did manage to sneak a picture though! (His little sister is to the left, on Maelie's right is another of Maelie's classmate) You might notice... he is not completely himself. He is a Ninja Turtle. SO adorable! I apologize for the blur. The one pic that turned out clear was when someone was hiding half of Theo's head.



Saturday, Maelie had a friend over from school in the afternoon. Then in the evening we attended another Halloween party. What a weekend!! I need the whole day to rest today! :) (I was trying to post a picture of the 2nd party, but the site is not letting me upload another picture right now... I'll add it later)

life has a way of telling us things....

Please pray for my cousin who has cancer.

She is young, has 2 young girls, and has her whole life ahead of her. She will beat it and be a role model to all....

Updates in general

Our week started out very hectic as you can tell from the last post. Thank goodness it did not go from bad to worse. It just got better.



Maelie received some Halloween cards from Grandma and Auntie Cindy. She was ecstatic. She loves mail and appreciates it a lot. Thanks Grandma and Cindy!! :)



Today our tree is finally looking pretty bare and our lawn overflowing with wet leaves! We piled them up a bit and filled a couple of pumpkin garbage bags. I definitely must get more. It didn't put a dent in our leaf pile. We also have ghosts to fill and hang on the tree.

I bought a bigger pumpkin today so we can carve it out this weekend. Maelie is convinced we need to make the "throwing up" pumpkin from Martha Stewart. I will definitely take a pic when it's done!



There's Maelie with her missing tooth and with her new post-lice haircut! :)

I had a lot of chocolate orders from wor, which I completed mostly yesterday evening. I worked on that until almost 10 pm. Since Maelie goes to bed at 7:15 - 7:30 now, I stay up a bit later. But by staying up, I mean doing some more stuff! I don't sit down to rest at all. I tried watching Deal or no Deal one day, but my adrenaline rush was so high by the end that I couldn't sleep!



I am donating a haunted house made of chocolate to Maelie's School for the Halloween party on Friday. I am not sure what they will do with it, perhaps raffle it off and raise money for activities... I try my best to do my part. On this picture is the completed project before I wrap it up in cellophane. I love these projects. They just warm hearts!

I have a few other projects that I want to get started on but cannot go into detail on here because of who reads it. Some surprises are best when kept as surprises. I will definitely show all my projects one day! I wish I had more time in a day. I need to get time off work just to craft!


Oh the purple fabric with glittery bats under the plate with the chocolate is actually what I am hoping to turn into a witched cape this week. It would put a nice accent to Maelie's witch costume. I picked it up at Fabricland last Sunday.



Happy Fall!

lice lice baby

you know when you wake up one day and realized you are overwhelmed and really have a hard day at work, know you have a million things you have to do at home, this is JUST what you want to hear:

"oh check your daughter for lice because my daughter had some eggs" , from the mom of the kids your daughter played with the day before.

Just what I felt like doing tonight.
- picking up Maelie, checking her hair with the daycare lady, we THINK we found one egg
- rush to shoppers to buy a lice treatment
- come home, give Maelie a shower and wash her hair first with regular soap
- strip every piece of bedding, towel, clothes
- let chin 1 & 2 out
- put away all 352 stuffed animals in a black garbage bag
- put away all 74 blankies in a black garbage bag
- put away 2 garbage bag sized pillows in a garbage bag
- dry her hair
- make supper
- start load 1 of laundry
- switch the chins. let chin # 3 & 4 out
- sit down and go through her hair with a comb
- CUT the hair (yes i admit, the complaining was just too horrendous - Mama = no patience)
- find something i think was one egg
- give Maelie the treatment
- hear whining and more whining
- give snack
- take another shower to get rid of treatment
- make beds
- find replacement blankies
- read story
- put Maelie to bed
- post on blog
- go downstairs and do laundry load #2
- switch chins , take out #5
- hopefully do the dishes
- hopefully do load of laundry #3

All this has happened since 4:30, and it is only 8:00.
Life has a way of showing you who's in control......

Out it came!

I was woken up in the wee hours of the morning today to hear " i lost my tooth mom! I lost it! look!"

So much excitement....

I think the Tooth Fairy is going to visit tonight!

Fall Fun

Newsflash

We interrupt this wonderful,. quiet evening to announce that.....



Maelie has a loose tooth. This event has caused a lot of trauma. There will be no need to ever cook anything solid again. Pureed everything! Maelie can no longer chew. She needs to have ice cream for supper until this tooth is out...which at this rate, could be a month or two. (It's her bottom left one for those who are wondering...) It has been an evening or tears and fear of the unknown. I, myself, almost started crying. I am not ready for this. A tooth leaving your mouth is a true sign of growing up. I never thought it would happen to my baby!

at least i get to go home

Today marked a pretty sad day. This was taking place right outside of my workplace. The funeral ended shortly before I finished work. By the time I got out, the streets were packed with traffic trying to leave the downtown area. I thought to myself "Man, I'll never get out of here!"
As I walked to my car, more and more cars piled in the few intersections leaving the area. My thoughts then wandered to this RCMP officer's family and friends. As impatient as I usually am in traffic, today was different. Today I thought to myself "At least I get to go home"... whereas this man will never go home to his family again.

My prayers go out to Constable Christopher Worden's family. May he rest in peace.

Ghosts in our house

We now have a ghost in our house... and soon to be a few more.
This is how my first cheesecloth ghost turned out



Never as nice as in the book! sheesh!
but i find it cute anyway. We will make a few more for sure. It hardly took any of the fabric softener in the bottle.

New creation

On Friday I couldn't help myself and got the chocolate mould for the haunted house! it was just was too adorable to pass up.



I also worked on a cheesecloth ghost which is not completely finished with accessories and all. I will take a pic as soon as i am done with it. This was a first test basically to learn how to use fabric stiffener.

I think I am just too excited about Halloween and Christmas this year. Mainly because I guess I am finding the time to do extra little things that I enjoy. I also have a few chocolate items up for our internal auction at work for charity. I donated 25 Halloween chocolate suckers, a hollow Halloween pumpkin and a Halloween chocolate making workshop at lunch hour at work. On Friday, all together the items were up to about 47$ for our government workplace charity campaign. I like to participate any way I can.

My mom and Gilles cam for a visit this weekend. They arrived on Thursday evening at bedtime. Maelie had no idea! She was so excited she was jumping up and down.

We love having company! We just don't get enough! Note to anyone reading: you are invited to visit! Please don't think you can't invite yourself, it would be a pleasure if you did! :)

and I thought today was a lazy day

I was doing a few things today taking it easy. I thought to myself, "wow what a lazy day.. I am still in my jammies and haven't accomplished anything!"

Then I went through the projects we did in the house today. and i realize I haven't stopped yet.

Maelie painted three pumpkins, she played a racing game around the house dressed up as a chef in a princess dress (?)








I made a bunch of candy brochettes (candy on a stick) for the goodie bags that someone asked me for



I made a hollow pumpkin and wrapped it all up.


I made lots of smaller Halloween chocolates (don't have a picture right now), and made Happy Bday suckers, and of course some Halloween suckers..



Fall... the most beautiful & most busy time of all....!

Creative minds

Yesterday was a very awesome rainy shopping day. I am not one to wander in the malls weeping at the price of things looking for the latest fashion. Obviously, I don't fit in most of those fashions! I guess it makes it easier to shop for clothes when you shop in one store. No mall runs.

We started off our day at Michael's. Now people who don't love crafts don't understand how you can spend over an hour going through every single aisle at Michael's. I finally got some fabric stiffener for a Halloween project I have wanted to do for 2 years now but so far have not done anything about it. I didn't spend much that's for sure! (no gigantic sales yet, thats AFTER Halloween and AFTER Christmas).

Next, since the kids were probably tired of roaming in one store for that long... we went to Starbucks/Chapters. I ordered them a kit hot chocolate. Their eyes were wide when they saw the hot chocolate before them... a pile of whipped cream and a nice topping of chocolate. They savoured their drinks and then we headed to the books. There were a lot of people there , I am used to going on Sundays, so I guess Saturdays are busier.

Once we were done there, we walked over to bulk barn. Aisles and aisles of candy. The kids loved that idea! Each child chose a treat and boy did they deserve it. They were incredibly well behaved and patient all day. Maelie was drop dead exhausted having gotten up much before 6. Jacinthe's kids are such tough cookies! They walk and walk and walk and don't whine. I am truly stunned every time we do something with them.

We did one last stop at Loblaws at it was on the way to the car (big strip mall). We went in the house section & clothes section. There were neat Halloween things. We didn't buy anything but enjoyed seeing so many ideas.

By the time we got out of there, it was 5:30 pm. We had been at that strip mall since 1:30! Who knew you could cover so few stores in that amount of time! It was lots of fun though. I am truly pooped today! But have a gazillion ideas in my head for fall and winter.

Oh Kath posted a question in my comments asking who the chocolate lady was. When I refer to the chocolate lady, I mean the store where I buy most of my chocolates for crafting. I also get ribbons, accessories, moulds, anything to suite my fancy. She also makes her own truffles which are delicious. Maelie is always open to the idea of going there because she usually gets one. She loves the coffee one, but when there aren't any, she likes the caramel maple one. This is where you can find her.

Pics to come soon... I am working on a few projects these days including goody boxes for a 9 year old bday/Halloween themed party, Halloween centrepieces, and donations to the silent auction at work for charity, and donations for the school family party and also their Silent auction in November.

I need a bunch of extra hours in a day.

sometimes things aren't as planned! but still fun :)

Friday I had the day off and we had planned to go apple picking with our friends Jacinthe, Koryne and Raphael. Well, wouldn't you know that we got to the orchard, and waited for the opening time (we were early) only to find out they were closed for the season! After many calls to Bill at home to check the internet for more orchards ... we ended up going to Orleans. They have a fruit farm, and this is their last apple picking weekend... however.. Friday was not considered the weekend. So we ended up at their kiosk where they had a ton of pumpkins and pre-picked apples.



We looked at the bright side though.... we got to cross on the ferry (a whole 5 minutes ordeal) but always a hit with kids. Then we got to go to a new dollar store and each kid got to choose a treat.

By suppertime, we stopped at the bakery and at the chocolate lady's store.

It ended up being a wonderful day.

Saturday is looking up too... it is a not so nice day, and our plans include doing the Michael's, Bulk Barn, Chapters & Starbucks run... that's ALWAYS enjoyable. Maelie especially likes her Starbucks kids hot chocolate. That can buy you hours of patience!

reindeer

Not to discourage anyone who hasn't even gotten used to the idea of fall yet, but here is a simple reindeer idea made with a rice crispie square.

My mom wanted me to come up with something for hunters... who hunt deer. That is way too morbid for me, so I went with the idea of creating a little rudolph instead! without the red nose as i didn't have any red candy.