"Happy Halloween!"

Halloween is almost as big as Christmas for my dress-up girls. Over the weekend, we went to Halloween parties, out to eat, and then trick-or-treating. Everywhere we went, Hannah was saying "Happy Halloween!" to every one she met and soaking in all of the different costumes.

I didn't make the costumes until the week before Halloween because the suggestions kept changing. They changed after I began the costumes, but they were locked in by then. I put a picture of each of their choices up on my laptop and they would randomly come by, look at them and remind me of little details they didn't want me to miss. Because of the costumes they chose, I got to work with fabric and techniques that I'd never worked with before. Scary and so thrilling when it actually worked!

Hannah chose to go as Raven from the Teen Titans - a relatively obscure anime cartoon that the kids love.

She looked fantastic. Like Ainsley, she was insistent about the details. I didn't get the belt figured out until the morning of the first party. I tried several different ways and finally hit gold with yellow puffy fabric paint on the red fabric circles which Matt then hot glued on a gold ribbon. The only thing we bought with her costume was the tights.

She's lived in her costume since it was finished.

Ainsley chose to go as She-Ra. I used McCalls 5727 for the dress and it included a belt, arm cuffs, and boots. It turned out *so* cute! She was very definite about what the outfit should look like and was sad - though not overly so - when I accidentally made her red boots instead of gold boots. Luckily, her cousin was going as Wonder Woman and needed a pair of red boots. Otherwise, She-Ra would have had red boots.

I hit a wall, though, when it came to She-Ra's crown and the decorations on her dress. I have no experience with applique and it has always intimidated me.

I started with the crown and appliqued the red jewel on it - much easier and cuter than I expected. Then I went through a few 'wing' cutouts trying to get those right - getting them to stay standing up straight ended up needing not just interfacing but a layer of fleece. Sewing the feather lines on the wings ended up being very fun.

I hand sewed the wings onto the crown.

Then I tackled her dress. That was scary - if I messed that up, I would mess up the dress itself. Two hours before the first party. I ended up hot gluing the pieces where I wanted them and that really helped. I was so excited when it worked!

She ended up being *almost* completely satisfied with her costume. She-Ra has bigger nursies and blonde hair. I couldn't get our blond wig detangled in time and I wasn't even going to address the other one.

Gray, unlike his sisters at the same age, really didn't care what he was dressed up as, so we dug a Spiderman outfit out of the dress-up box for him. Two minutes after he was in his outfit he completely forgot he had it on.

We went to a family party at the local college.

Lots of games, lots of candy, lots of really cute outfits to look at.

A few costumes werent' so cute - there was one college girl helping at the booth who seemed to not realize that this was a family party and was dressed as a sexy bat - you know, if bats wore booty shorts and corsets with their breasts hanging out - so that one made me laugh. Cute costume in the right situation - at a family party, she looked really out of place. There were also two - only two - guys in really scary masks. I was proud of Hannah who went up to talk to one of him even though - actually because - she was scared and asked to touch his Pinhead mask to be sure he wasn't real.

And Hannah actually got recognized once! A college girl dressed in a really pretty princess costume stopped her and said "RAVEN!!! Oh, that is the coolest costume!" Made Hannah's day (and mine, to be honest). Ainsley never got recognized, though one lady stopped me and said "He is so cute! Is he Thor?"

On Halloween night we went to Trick or Treating with my sister's family.

I was surprised that after an hour, even the promise of more candy wasn't enough to keep them going. I was fine with it, just surprised.

After all, they had been running for the whole hour.

Ooh, one more costume picture. My sister's little year-old lion.

Superhero birthday party.

Ainsley's birthday party had a superhero theme. It was the first time that we did a party for friends also and I was having a hard time thinking up good ideas. Facebook friends to the rescue. The party was so much fun that I wanted to share the games for others who need ideas.

My cousin and her daughter helped me make 12 little capes for the guests, which turned out really cute.

The first thing we did was have the kids do an obstacle course to train them as superheroes. It went around the yard and culminated in them rescuing stuffed animals. They loved it and did it four times in a row. Wish I'd gotten pictures of it, but we were too busy cheering and guiding.

Then we played Superheroes and Villains. Two of the moms were villains and the kids were the superheroes. They got to chase and capture the villains and tie them to chairs with toilet paper.

Then the villains would break free and it would all start over.

It was *such* a blast. After the first villain run, one of the villains had to give up her life of crime because it bothered her son to see her being chased. Another villain - with an infant, no less - stepped up and the game went on

and on ....

and on ....

until the toilet paper rolls were used up.

Then the superheroes got to clean up their town, eat cake, and play around as long as they wanted. We had emptied our swimming pool and filled it back with only three inches of water and a bottle of dish soap. The kids would stand in the water and we would pull a hula hoop up over them to make a bubble around them. It almost worked on the shorter kids, but only got waist high on the bigger kids. Then they used the hoops to make huge bubbles.

It really was a brilliantly fun party.

Ains only wanted a few things. A scooter. A book about Dragonology. A skirt.

I wanted to put up some pictures of the handmade goodness she got, so here is her (very) ruffly skirt. *Very* ruffly.

Seriously, I never want to see ruffles again.

Hannah made her a pillowcase.

She drew a picture of a unicorn, transferred it to a piece of muslin and embroidered it, picked out fabric to match and I sewed it into a pillowcase.

Darling.

Then there's the present my sister gave her - a knitted superheroine doll.

It looks cute in the picture, I know, but people - it is so. much. cuter. in your hands. You can't help but fly her around.

And the detail is wonderful - look at her cape.

I want one.

Windy days.

We had a massive wind storm come through here and stay for three days. Crazy 50 mph winds with 'gusts' (that lasted for forty minutes) of higher winds that tried to blow trees down, grills off of decks. Not play outside weather.

We stuck around inside except for short screaming runs outside to take care of animals who were themselves hunkered down and not going anywhere.

So we've had lots of cookie making. Hummus making. Cracker making. Brownie making. We're going to be much harder to blow away after this storm.

Lots of curling in a warm blanket and watching Rainbow Brite.

Lots of super hero play - X-men, She-ra, Black Cat, Justice League, Ladybugs ... so glad that we're in a house with a circle from the living room to the kitchen for them to run around. So glad no-one's busted their head running that circle yet.

Grayson sometimes joins in the Ladybug superhero game (one of them is a ladybug and the others are aphids) and sometimes they let him chase him just as himself and act terrified which makes him giggle as he's roaring. A lot of the time I'll find him playing in the toy kitchen or pushing his cars around, completely content to be playing on his own - so different from his sisters at the same age. Sometimes he joins me in the big kitchen stirring stuff up. He's started to really enjoy that.

This morning the wind is gone and there is frost on the ground. The cold temperatures aren't going to stop my kids from going outside today, I'm thinking. Three days stuck inside is enough.

A regular rainy day activity.

We don't get a lot of rainy days around here, but when we do, these yoga dvds are *always* pulled out.

The girls are really into it. Gray is kind of into it - especially the 'shaking your joints out' part.

But see here, how he's starting to look down, noticing something on the ground?

Yeah, we lost him.

Downward tractor.
Still not paying attention.

But we had him for all of two minutes. That's a record.

Wanting to be included.

After a summer break brought on by a cracked arm, Ains is back in gymnastics.

This means that Gray and I are back behind the fence watching. Watching for five minutes until he breaks into squealing because he wants to be in there too and I have to haul him off to a different part of the gym.

This time, though, things were unexpectedly different. This time Gray decided to try to do the movements outside the fence.

Wish I'd thought of encouraging him to do that.

It kept him busy and happy.

For all of 15 minutes.

Then they moved to the trampoline and he couldn't follow. Back to exploring the rest of the gym far away from her class, but it was a glorious 15 minutes.

Blogging away.

or Away Blogging.

I have a guest post up at The Mahogany Way! Mahogany Way is my friend Darcel's blog and well worth checking out!

Restaurant fun.

Silly girl.

Silly girl with a missing tooth.

Silly boy trying to ignore even sillier sisters.

(This is the playmat I made almost a year ago. It is well loved and used so often and shows no wear and tear yet. He still runs over the sheep, but he uses that motorcycle track much more than I thought he would.)

Blast from the Past

Searching through my old posts today for one a friend was looking for and I came across this one.

And that's the main reason why I blog. I'd forgotten about that day. It makes me smile how very similar our days still are two years later.

Oh, and this one - a freckle-less Ainsley!

Ainsley being a hero.

I found the post my friend was looking for - a comparison of the sizes of the planets, but the link isn't working. I googled for it, but all links lead back to the Techdo page which is defunct. Major bummer.

I did find the World Sunlight Map page again. Just as cool this time around.

I KNOW!

"I know, I know, I KNOW!!!"

Hannah says that so often after hearing my answer to a question she asks.

Today I was already having a hard day, so when she said that I said "You know, it makes it really hard for me to want to answer questions if you already know everything."

"I don't know everything," she said. "Like, I don't know what type of unicorn I'm going to see in the future, just that I'm going to see one. If you have any insight into that, I'd be grateful."

Today centered around chocolate.

It started with Gray talking Ains into getting the chocolate milk mix canister for him. He decided it would be better to bypass the milk entirely and put it straight in his mouth. He didn't use a spoon.

Can you tell how covered he is? His face and hair turned dark brown when I showered him off.

I got him cleaned up and went to go help Ainsley with a project. Ten minutes later I found Gray at the kitchen table doing this.

When you got needs, you got needs.

Hannah decided that her father was the best father in the whole wide world and as such he deserved a cake. Fair enough. We looked through The River Cottage Family Cookbook and found a recipe for chocolate cake.

It was an interesting recipe - you didn't have set amounts of sugar, flour, and butter. You had to weigh the eggs and then use the same weight of the other three ingredients, so I pulled down our scale and set Hannah to work expecting to have to be hovering and helping her. It turned out that all I had to do was write down the weight in grams of the eggs and she could compare the weight shown on the scale and measure the other three ingredients just fine without my help and with quite a bit of impressive self-correction.

It may not seem like much, but she's not had any formal instruction in less than/more than, bigger than/smaller than, addition/subtraction. I still have my niggling, suspicious worries sometimes about the big scary math issue with the way we homeschool. This helped put some of that to rest. Like she said, "It's so easy Mother. Seven is bigger than five, so if I want 175 grams and I have 153, I still need more. I don't need your help."

So I stepped back.

When the cake was done, they wanted to put 'a ton' of candles on it. We only had 3 1/2 Toy Story candles (please don't ask about the 1/2) and that wasn't nearly enough for the best Daddy in the world so we used matches.

The result was predictable.

(and the cake was delicious, btw - great recipe)

And as for Ainsley's chocolate contribution today?

She cooked me a chocolate cow.

Cake recipe - (very, very basic - go to the book for more in-depth instructions)

Ingredients:
4 eggs
softened butter (not melted)
sugar
flour
pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 F. Prepare cake pans.

Weigh eggs, note weight. Weigh same amount of butter and beat until very soft. Weigh out same amount of sugar and beat it with butter until very fluffy.

Weigh out the flour (if making chocolate cake, substitute 30 g of chocolate for 30 g of sugar) and add the pinch of salt to it.

Break one of the eggs into the butter mixture and beat until well blended. Add all eggs one at a time in the same manner. Add some of the flour with the last egg to prevent curdling. Stir in vanilla extract.

Add flour to mixture and fold in. Consistency of mixture should drop off the spoon - if it pours off, add a bit more flour (or chocolate, of course!), if it sticks to the spoon add a tablespoon of milk at a time until it is the right consistency.

Pour into cake pans. Bake for 25-30 minutes until knife inserted in center of cake comes out clean.

In which we meet The Phantom of the Farmyard.

A whole bunch o' summer snapshots.

The Phantom makes an appearance.

The county fair brings out the crazy.

(that's the only Hannah picture in this post - not because she's been doing nothing, but because everything she's doing I have blog posts planned for)

Gray tries to convince us he's old enough to water ski.

The youngest get their groove on at an outdoor concert.

Ains makes a wish upon a star.

Seriously. That's what she's doing - with her little clasped hands and her upturned face on a horse bareback by herself. I think I deserve an award for not eating her up before now. Better than chocolate, that cuteness.

Skippy Jane Jones tried to ride Gray's trike.

But she got distracted by the ribbons. It could happen to even the most reasonable kitten.

There was air travel.

Though she's declared that she doesn't want to be a space traveler. "I'm gonna be that wady that twains seals at the ocean." So that's that.

Play in the living room in a life jacket.

Just in case. Better safe than sorry.

This had nothing to do with the fact that I overran the bathtub last week. He's too young to connect the dots. I hope.

Boat rides.

And we've still got a month of summer!

Yee haw, Cowboy!

It's a ritual everywhere, isn't it?

The backyard campout.

My girls thought of doing it at 8:30 at night, so it was getting dark when we set it up.

Then Hannah brought out 29 books for us to read, they fell asleep, and it thundered and poured all night long. It was surprisingly relaxing. The girls slept in the next morning.

It's not like waking up in the forest, but it's not like waking up in your bed either.

Definitely more exciting than the boring old bed.

I did not teach him that.

Sometimes our kids do stuff and we don't know where they learned it. Like when Hannah was barely three and walked into the room with a pool noodle that she'd jammed two knitting needles into sitting on her shoulder, aiming it and saying "Pew! Pew! Pew pew pew!!!"

She'd made her own bazooka and we still don't know where she got the idea.

Yesterday when I was doing chores, I looked over to see Gray sitting on the grass-shooter-tube-thingy that we had taken off of the lawn mower, aiming it around at things and giggling maniacally when his sisters pretended to run away screaming. The dogs just looked bemused.

Once again, I don't know where he got the idea.

But the one thing both kids' inventions have in common is that they didn't go for little handheld stick varieties - they went straight for the big stuff. Should I be worried or proud?