Happy Halloween!

We packed in a lot of spooky fun today! We had the playgroup Halloween party to go to this morning. The kids get all dressed up & everyone brings some treats to hand out, which are distributed to different areas around the church. We then go around "trick or treating" at different doors. It's a good way to get a quick tour of the place if you've never been! The kids decorated paper bags to collect their goodies and were quite pleased with their creations.

My lil punkin!

One of our regular blog fans' kids.

My pretty kitty!

How many kids can you fit on a rocking horse???

Here they come, get your loot ready!

Even the sanctuary was hit with trick or treaters.

Time to dig in!

After playgroup, we headed for gymnastics. The trick or treating took up so much of the time that we never got a chance to decorate the cupcakes or colour the Halloween pictures so this year's party is being extended to next week's playgroup too!

Knowing there would be a lot of candy & junk involved today, I tried to get them to eat good breakfast this morning & on the way to playgroup gave them cheese & tortillas with peanut butter. Since things ran late, they really didn't get a chance to pound too much junk into them & when we got to gymnastics we had a mini lunch in the car, yoghurt tubes & kiwi & vegetable/fruit juice. Teena & Boo didn't make it to playgroup (vehicular issues...) but met us at the gym & Boo was dressed up as a dog, complete with whiskers & a black nose. I think tonight she was being a princess though.

Gymnastics went well today. They stayed with the group and did the activities pretty much as they were explained. I think Lovey finds the agility exercises a little trickier than her sisters. I worry that she'll get discouraged so I was really excited that she tried really hard today & she was soooooo pleased when I congratulated her on doing such a good job. I forget how they really eat that stuff up. : ))) They worked on doing headstands today & Sweetie pretty much bent down & just flipped her legs right up onto the board they were leaning against for practice and was in position in no time. It probably helps that she's constantly climbing, hanging off of, jumping into, or swinging from, SOMETHING here in this house. We're almost to the point where it seems useless to warn her of impending danger when we see her scaling the kitchen chairs. I mean, she just did that 5 times at lunch with disastrous results... if that's got no meaning to her, what can I possibly add? I think we'll change her name to "Precarious".

This whole Halloween thing had them really hyped up. They came home & were all over the place, playing, singing, dancing around. There was a real buzz to the place today. I was in the kitchen trying to get supper prepped so we could get an earlier start when they tell me they've cleaned up. My first instinct is panic. Oh what in heaven's name have they gotten into now? I'm picturing wet drippy rags all over the furniture, soppy puddles on the carpet... I walk into the living room & they've literally picked up all the toys & put away their books & gotten all the clothes off the floor. The carpet is fully visible! I was ECSTATIC! I hugged & kissed them, gave high 5's all round. It was a wonderful surprise and so unexpected. I have no idea what brought it on but I'm hoping some of that positive reinforcement will encourage future repeats!

They were sooooooo antsy at supper! They did just about anything to get the show on the road. Sweetie was the only one who even attempted to eat any of her meal. The other two had to be threatened with no trick or treating in order to get them to eat 3 bites. Seriously. They ate THREE whole bites of their dinner. and pretty small bites at that but they did it & had some fruit so that's all I could ask for. They got ready with hardly a squabble and were off!



Murray took them down one end of the street as I waited for trick or treaters & cleaned up the kitchen (and made our little Halloween card). Then on the way back they picked me up & we did a few more houses. When we left the last one, Honey burst out with "I had a really GREAT time!" They hopped in & out of the stroller like pro's and loved knocking on doors or ringing the bell. They were pretty good at remembering to say "trick or treat" but weren't so hot on the "thank you" part. A little prompting was required on that! We got home they danced around, then settled in for a Halloween picnic in the kitchen. Honey was eating something and I asked her if it was good. She said "It's SUPER good Mumma!" LOL

We cut them off after a few treats & they started zipping around the house some more, singing and laughing. It was funny but almost scary, too much happiness & frivolity at bedtime can be very bad signs! We quickly got them into bed, said prayers and lights out before things went bad. They were asleep in NO time tonight, not much wonder after such a fun filled day.

Hopping out, ready to go for that candy!

Halloween picnic