Getting Our Spook On

It's that time of year again. Halloween.

Message boards on pinterest have been full of Halloween ideas/crafts/foods since July. I tried very hard not to look at them. Although this is my most favourite thing to decorate for, I don't want to wish time away. Especially after the awesome summer/fall we've had. I'm in no hurry at all for this delightful weather to end. Every day we get closer to November with a nice day, means one less day of cold in my book.

The last couple of years, I've kind of had to drag my butt to get the decorating done. This year however, I was quite keen. We've made the leap from cute Halloween, to more of a dark Halloween. At the request of the kids who thought I had way too much cutesy stuff. [Seriously, their words, not mine]

Madelyn is still convinced it's not scary enough... I think she would seriously like jars with body parts floating around in them. I know she'd LOVE jars with critters of some sort in them... She is especially enamored right now with the hissing cockroach, thanks to research she's doing at school. She'd thinks 'dried ice' is AWESOME, would love to have a machine [we've seen them at the stores, and she can't understand why on earth I won't pick one up] She even asked me, "Mummy, can you actually buy fake blood?" I had to swiftly dodge that one, and change the topic on the fly. My idea of Halloween decor has NEVER gone hand in hand with fake blood...  

I had kind of a crow thing going on this year. I absolutely despise crows, my motto being the only good crow is a dead crow. But somehow, they just seem sinister and very Halloween-ish. 

A couple of years ago, I'd seen a photoshop tutorial here. On how to create 'fangs' on your pictures. It was right smack dab in the middle of the Twilight stuff. I got on board and altered my pictures. Quite pleased with the results. The pictures weren't updated this year, they're both missing teeth now.  It wouldn't seem quite as effective or scary with a bunch of teeth missing.

Every day for the month of October, I've tried to include something fun and Halloween-y in their lunches. I have found all sorts of lunch box jokes on the Internet, so every day they get a joke. This morning I upped the ante, and cut cheese into bat shapes [i didn't actually cut the cheese, i have little cookie cutters] The sugar cookie is compliments of Ama. Thanks Ama!

This is my screen saver on my phone. Isn't it awesome? Oh, how I love Halloween...

The girl has decided this year, that she's going to be a butterfly... Be still my beating heart. Last year she was Little Red Riding Hood, and before that I think she was Jessie from Toy Story. This is a great streak we're on. In the past, she has been a pumpkin, a spider and a chicken. Very adamant about all those choices, so pretty pleased that we've picked something very girlie a few years in a row.

Mason is still undecided about what he wants to be. He's had some terrific costumes over the years. It's sad that this dress up time is so darn fleeting.... Last year he was a pirate and he even let me put a bit of makeup on his face, a big step for him I'll tell you. 

I looked through the costumes of Halloween past just now... And got a little misty. I will do a separate blog post on that. Perhaps even include this years Halloween Costumes. I can't believe we've been dressing kids up for Halloween for over 10 years. [Yes, Mason just turned 10 in June, but we dressed him up for the first time when he was only 4 months old...]

Project Life: Weeks 37, 38 and 39

I can't believe it. This week I'm working on Week 40 of Project Life... Like, as we're 40 weeks in. You know, out of a 52 week year. That means only 12 weeks to go. [Now saying that, is depressing...] It it makes me realize how unprepared I am for Christmas so far. But then I remember I don't need to be prepared for Christmas at the moment, because it's only the first week of October... Week 40.

I can not tell you how much pleasure I have gotten out of doing this. Of keeping it up. There have been a couple of times, that I've somehow gotten a week or two behind, and it's a bit daunting... But then I sit down and catch up. Just like that. One thing, that has been a saving grace, is keeping a notebook to jot down the dates, and a thing or two that happened. You think you'll remember everything that  happens on a daily basis, but when you're 2 or 3 weeks behind, all the instagram pictures just look the same. And one thing you may want to know about instagram... As awesome as it is, it's not date specific... So if you want to remember something, trust me. Write. It. Down.

 

Well hello there you... She has wanted to be a number of things since the very idea of Halloween has come about. First a dead bride... Yeah, you read right. But that was met with a chilly reception. Then she thought she'd be an angry bird. Now, she wants to be a butterfly... Much better. Much. That really has nothing to do with Project Life, other than I see the angry bird costume in this photo... And that is what Project Life is all about... Capturing the Every Day. The same old, same old. Because there will be a day, when she will indeed want to be a dead bride, and met with a chilly reception or not, she will be. But for now... For now, she'll be a butterfly.

Up the Hill

I took the kids up to Nose Hill a few nights ago. The three of us were going for completely different reasons. I wanted to take some pictures and fiddle with my camera. Madelyn wanted to fill her bug catcher full of grasshoppers, and Mason wanted to walk up to Turtle Rock. [I don't know if that's what it's actually called, but I've been going up there since I was a kid, and that's what we called it. Plus, it actually looks like a turtle...]

We all got what we wanted out of our adventure. I snapped away like a crazy lady, Madelyn chased and caught bugs, and Mason got up to Turtle Rock.


I don't know if I've mentioned it or not, but this has been the Best. Summer. Ever. Now, in my mind, fall has be slotted into that category too. It's been the best Summer and Fall EVER.  Since school started, they have worn shorts [or in Miss Madelyn's case, capri pants and dresses/skirts] nearly every day. I can't believe how nice it's been. The leaves are now in full changing mode. In a few weeks, [or days, depending on the wind] all the leaves will be gone, and we will officially know that winter is on it's way... Each day that we can enjoy this nice weather is a blessing. I got up to the hill too late to take nice leaf changing colour pictures. As you can see, the sun was just about to disappear over the hill.

I seem to have an obsession with sun flares... You might guess that yourself after looking at these photos. 
 

Of course, once we got up to the rock, Madelyn scurried up it, while mason seemed content to hang out below.

 

 Or, maybe lean against it a bit.

Kind of love these silhouette type pictures of the kids. Not totally black, but dark enough to see the outline of them.

 

 

 He eventually climbed up and found the perfect resting spot.

 

We had fun, we usually do. Even when Madelyn fell and skinned her knees on the way down, she was in good spirits. She had a bug catcher full of grasshoppers after all. [Though today at school she fell and re-skinned them. Only a little bit worse. It warranted a trip to the office to have bandages put on] She was feeling pretty sorry for herself when she got off the bus, but then remembered those darn grasshoppers that she had to feed, and all was okay...

Project Life Weeks 32 - 36

Don't mind me, but I feel a wee bit giddy. I'm caught up with my project life stuff. And by caught up, I mean, to yesterday... Teeheehee... Makes me feel good.

What doesn't make me feel good, the cold air blowing out of my furnace... That's right, I thought we'd got to the bottom of that problem last week, but it would seem that no. We didn't. We have a call in to the furnace company, so hopefully the weather will be decent enough for the next few days, so the trip doesn't have to be an emergency and cost us extra...

I hate it when you can't fix something yourself, you need to rely on someone else...

Back to my pages.  Here are weeks 32 to 36. Can you believe that there are only 16 weeks left in 2012? I hate to say that out loud, but it's true. Thought I'd share.

Still loving this project. Love it even more when I'm completely caught up.

First Day of School

Believe it or not, the first day of school came and went this week. It's so crazy, how at the end of June, the summer stretches out before you and seems absolutely endless... I still felt a bit saucy at the beginning of August,with another entire month before me...

And then... The days begin to get shorter as the sun disappears earlier and earlier... The mornings start to get darker too. The air begins to take a bit of a cooler edge to it. The furnace starts to come on in the morning... I said, your furnace starts to come on... Well, if you're lucky your furnace comes on. [If you're not so lucky you have to pay $200 to have someone come in, un-scheduled, to inform you that the electric ignitor on your furnace no longer works... But it immediately explains the cold air blowing in, so it's a relief all the same]

Within 4 days, you're back into the routine of making  lunches, washing all the re-usable containers that the lunches fit into, picking up kids at the bus stop, signing agenda books, nagging at kids to empty back packs when they come in the door, getting supper on the table before all our extracurricular activities began [this week we were back out the door 3 nights with Brownies, Hockey and Cub Registration] attempting to get kids snacked, bathed,  tooth-brushed and into bed at a reasonable hour..

Within 4 days summer is a distant memory... How sad is that? No wonder I love spring so much, there's just so much to look forward to!

I wanted to include a few first day of school pictures, but thought that rather than add pictures, I would just include the layout I did. I got the template for the layout here.

I can hardly get my head around the fact that these two kids are 7 and 10 years old. It seems like just yesterday they were wee. I'm hopeful this will be a terrific year for both of them!

Crammed it all in...

Our last week of summer, was a busy one. We managed to head out into the mountains on 3 separate occasions. I blogged about our trip to Kananaskis, sans kids already.

We decided to head out for a picnic to Elbow Falls on Sunday [the day after we'd returned from our little get away for two] The day could not have been nicer, nor could it have been any busier... Yowser, I was completely speechless as to the sheer volume of people trying to park their cars... I'm glad we'd gotten out there earlier in the day. Mental note to self, try to avoid a breath-taking Sunday next time.

This past week Mason was in a power skate camp. It was only an hour long, but it was 5 days long. I can't believe this guy is going to play hockey this year. Eeks.. He never complained about going once, and they worked these little 9 and 10 years olds really hard. Hockey Rule #1, you have to be able to cart your own equipment in and out of the arenas.

 

 

  On Monday we made a trip to the zoo, specifically to check out the Penguin Plunge. We got there first thing, and only had to wait about 20 minutes to check out the action. It was worth the wait... They are really neat to see.  We went to the Zoo with Ama [used our AMA card and saved 20% on admission] We were there for about 6 hours... We almost did it all. We didn't get to the Dinosaur park, which is the highlight for my kids. These kids have always loved the zoo. We spent so much time there when they were little, but now with them in school, it's hard to justify buying a seasons pass when we can only get there on weekends or the occasional day off.

 

Wednesday morning I got a phone call from the library, and Miss Madelyn's name had been drawn to win a book. She was so excited,  we went over that afternoon to pick up her prize. Out of all the books she got to skim through, she picked a book about spiders. She can now ramble off the most interesting spider facts, that might tend to make some people feel a little bit uncomfortable. [She's still mad she wasn't 19 when we visited the Bug Zoo in Victoria...]  She wanted to get her hands on that tarantula SO BADLY... She has informed us numerous times that she is going back, as soon as she turns 19... A part of me really wonders whether that's something she'll still be really interested in when she's 19... I guess we wait and see...

We took a trip on the C-Train and went up the Calgary Tower. That glass floor is freaky... I don't love it.

 

We decided to take the kids back out to Kananaskis, for one night. We couldn't believe that there was availability on the long weekend.  We hauled our bikes out once again, and did the paved biking trails. We went about 12 kms round trip, the kids were tired after that, for sure. But they both did great. It took us about an hour and a half one direction, and when we turned around to head back, it took us less than half an hour. We hardly had to peddle at all on the way back. It was awesome, and the scenery is absolutely spectacular.

  

Monday we headed to Cochrane for the annual Labour Day Parade. The kids are always so excited for this parade, because they throw out candy...

 

Which brings us current.... 

Today was the first day of school. The kids started to back in grades 5 and 2. I have to get the pictures off my camera. We had pancakes and bacon for breakfast, we got ready with time to spare. The morning went smoothly.

End of the Month

Last week my parents took the kids camping. And then something unexpected happened... Barry surprised me with a few days in the woods. He booked us the same two nights in Kananaskis. What a treat. What would I have done, had he not? If we'd stayed home?  Laundry [which is mounded up nearly as high as I am] Wash the floors [which are currently in a most embarrassing state] Dust [ick] Sort through toys [easiest to do when the littles are away, because then they don't try to rescue everything I'm trying to get rid of] We would most likely have gone out for dinner at least one of those nights... And we may or may not have used a movie gift certificate we've had for AN ENTIRE YEAR NOW, and still not used...

Instead though, we got to get away for a few days. It was fab.u.lous.

Off they go...

We headed towards the mountains on a beautiful afternoon... Hardly a cloud in the sky.  We took our mountain bikes with us. And truth be told, I could have SO EASILY been talked out of taking our bikes... In fact, I might have tried to resist by saying something along the lines of "how on earth will we store them once we get there? We can't leave them on the truck. I'm sure they don't want us wheeling them through the hotel" And for some reason, Barry not to be discouraged, actually called out and found that we could store them in a secured spot within the building.  Good on you Honey, cause I would totally have talked you into just sitting in the pub... And let's face it, it wouldn't even have been that hard to do. Sad, but true.

Until we got there, that is.. It was so nice. The weather was AMAZING. It was so quiet. Going for a mountain bike seemed like exactly the thing to do. Now here's a little background info, before we were married, and long before kids, we used to mountain bike, in the mountains. A fair bit. When we got on that trail, and started out, and after my heart lurched into my throat from the first sign [because I have the most ridiculous, nearly debilitating phobia, about running into a bear] I was okay. I rang my bell A LOT... I, under NO circumstance, wanted to come across a bear enjoying berries somewhere along our path. But we did the trail, which only ended up being about 5 km [off-road] and my heart was racing, and I was breathing heavy, and I thought.... "Oh yeah.... I love this...."  And I do love it. Everything about it. It was exactly the same realization that came upon me when we got back on ski's last February. Oh yeah... I remember this now.... This was something I loved to do...

 

 

  How lucky we are, to have this an hour from our doorstep.

 

 We made it to Ribbon Creek, [below the village] and stopped to rest and of course, take pictures. When we finally made it back UP the mountain [which we did... huffing and puffing, but without walking] we ditched our bikes, and headed to happy hour at the pub.  

Because it was Thursdays, there were plenty of specials and hardly any other customers.

Believe it or not, Thursday night we sat on the rooftop patio, marveling a the weather. Finally around 8 pm when the sun went behind the mountain it began to cool off. In the middle of the night, and were woken by thunder and lightening, which didn't last long, but was pretty spectacular sounding as it rumbled down the mountains. It began to rain, and didn't stop all night long. In the morning, we woke to snow on the higher elevations. I have lived here my entire life, and I still can't believe how our temperature can fluctuate 20° in a matter of hours. Needless to say, I was not well equipped for the cold/drizzly/rain temperatures, but my plan ahead golfer husband had all the gear we could possibly need in the back of his truck.

 

Chilly, but the views are still spectacular. 

 

Later that day, I was treated to some Spa time. Lucky me...

 The next morning, we again woke to perfection. Hardly a cloud in the sky. We drove to the golf course before heading home, to check out the pro shop... This place is absolutely breath-taking. I even took a few pictures of my sweet heart, as he longingly looked out towards the course. [He played the day before, in what felt like sub-zero temps, hence my spa time] He hasn't golfed as much this year... I haven't golfed at all this year, which is comical considering last year I joined a weekly league... My heart just wasn't in it this year I guess.

How could you ever tire of this view?

 

 Us.

 Getting away for a couple of days was so nice. Just what we needed. So important to re-connect with one another. We don't do it often enough. Our date nights, once a month, were successful for Jan/Feb, then seemed to peter off completely... It sounds so easy, but it's hard to fit it in somehow. [That and a $10 an hour sitter...]

We've got to try harder to get here more often. [away from the city, into the mountains] I keep saying it. I mean it. I'm passionate about it, and then I can so quickly be talked out of it, or not push for it hard enough...  This cycle has to change.