Happy Halloween!!!

Well, I figure that this is going to be a two part post - the first part as the night has begun and the second when the night is over - so here it goes . . . 

Emma and Kaleb got to take their costumes to school today for their Halloween parties in each of their classes - Emma even got to put her makeup on herself at school (if you're a girl you know what that's all about!)  Emma also had a first today - her first Haunted House, as Mrs. Theo's class invited the older classes in to their "haunted" room.  Emma said it was so much fun and scary all at the same time - hands were grabbing her at the end and she said she was laughing and screaming all at the same time! (let's hope this doesn't bring back the nightmares again - I can't handle any more sleepless nights!!!)

Our little princess (she got to keep the costume from the photo shoot - yay!)

Lola Luftanagle (Hannah Montana's best friend)

The twins are going as Miley Cyrus & Hannah Montana, so Emma is going as their best friend - 

they'll look cute all together so I hope Cynthia takes a picture!!!

Kaleb is an "arrrr"-ing Skelton Pirate (got to keep another costume from the photo shoot!!!)
All he will say for pictures is "arrr", no smile whatsoever!

When the kids got home from school they were counting down the minutes until they could go out.  We told Victoria and Katrina that we'd meet them at 6:00pm so time moved very, very slow!!!  We got the kids all dressed up, again - but this time with extra clothes underneath and took off with Daddy for 10 minutes to their friends' houses on our street and then went to meet Burns' while I get to stay at home and hand out candy here - the tradition thing we do.  But, usually it's Daddy freezing his butt off while I'm nice and toasty, but tonight it's actually pretty nice out and the snow has mostly gone so the kids aren't even wearing mitts.  Therefore I'm thinking that I got the short end of the straw tonight.

Kaleb and Navia will come back with Daddy pretty soon, while Emma stays at the girls' house for her first Halloween party - and it's going to be a spooky one - at least all the decorations are incredibly life-like! (please, no nightmares!!!!)

So, I sit and wait as the trick'or'treaters come and soon part two will come.  Tomorrow it's our turn (grown-up Halloween party - but the costumes still aren't done - yikes!!!)

Empathy Award!

Today we were invited to Emma's school as she was going to be receiving the class "Empathy" award. This is the second year in a row! It was in the afternoon so Kaleb and Navia came with me, but it was hilarious when Kaleb heard what empathy meant. The principal was saying that Empathy was putting yourself in someone else's shoes and Kaleb leaned over and whispered, "Ew, gross!" I had to laugh! So I guess we have a girl who likes gross things now - at least according to Kaleb!

Oh, and this is what we woke up to on Wednesday morning - my poor, poor apple tree!!! I had to get out there and shake off all the snow - it was so short!!! Thankfully it jumped back up once the snow was gone. Now I'm just hoping that it won't be too cold tomorrow night as the kids go out trick-or-treating!

Ewww!

Okay, so, why do Mom's do everything that they end up doing??? You notice your child is at the bus with food on their face and you "wash it clean" with yourself (you mom's know what i'm talking about!!!), or your child goes to throw up in a public place and you try and catch it!!! or what about all the mouth kisses we receive with the most disgusting food/boogers mixed in with it!!! You probably have so many more things to add to this list . . . and another one just happened to me. My lovely little 2 year old just wants to be like her big brother, who can blow up his own balloons. So . . .

she tries . . .

and tries . . .

and tries some more until she finally gives up and comes to Mom . . .

AND I BLOW UP THAT VERY SAME ICKY BALLOON!!!!

WHY!!!

Handmade Christmas . . .

Okay, so I've gotten myself in a crazy dilemma - I want to do a handmade Christmas this year - not homemade, but handmade (okay, it just sounds nicer - hehehe!) I've been lurking on some pretty incredible blogs and came across this idea over and over - and soooo many ideas are out there. It's hard to find something for the person who has everything, and well, that's pretty much all of us now a days. So, what better than to create something personal that might be appreciated by the one that we love a bit more than socks (sorry moms!).

I'm turning into someone that I've never been before - yikes!!! The other day, just on a whim, I created a cute little sign for the laundry room. I just used left over black bedroom paint (Kaleb's) and painted a scrap of wood black. I then painted, in cream acrylic paint (which as a mom there is a lot in the house), in big letters "Laundry" and underneath in small letters "gathers here". Navia and I then went down into the basement and had a blast as we found anything and everything we could to beat it up - so fun to do with a 2 year old! Then I took it back upstairs and did a bit of quick sanding and then stained it (and wiped it off quickly) with some dark walnut stain. I love it! Now I just need to hang it up - the part that just might take forever! For a first I think it is pretty good. I'm thinking of doing one saying in big letters "Bailey" and underneath "Est. 1998" for the house.


Anyways, I'm now just rambling. All this is to say that I'm finding way too many ideas for Christmas gifts and I want to do them all!!! So for the next couple months the kids and I (I might even blackmail Braden too) will hopefully be creating some handmade gifts that I'm pretty sure I'm going to want to keep here because these ideas . . . I'm telling you . . . they are soooo great! Now to only try and pull it off like we see it being done in cyberworld! (although I'm starting to already think that purchasing gifts might, okay, would be easier - oh well - where's the fun in that!)

Oh, and I challenge you too - what could you do for a handmade Christmas gift? It's always nice to get a gift that someone hasn't just ran out to the store to find quickly before the gift was due. If you can't think of anything to make you should check out this website of handmade items - www.etsy.com . There are some great things there and some great ideas too!



So, here's to a Handmade Christmas 2009 - and that reminds me - we need to pick names if we're going to do this otherwise we're just going to get you socks!

The promised desk . . .

When we moved here we saw that Emma's room had the perfect little alcove for a desk and instead of a desk it had a cheap countertop going across it, held up by the little pieces of wood nailed in the wall.  It worked, but it sure didn't look good!  So, when we decided to paint her room we took out the counter and told Emma that Daddy would build her a new, better desk right away.  Oops!  Don't ever say that to kids!!! (I`d have more pics, but they are all on my computer which isn`t working right now - yuck!)

So, it isn't right away, but last weekend Braden built Emma her desk and this weekend built the drawers.  Yesterday I painted it all and now we're just waiting for the dark baskets that will go on each side and the antique glass drawer pulls that I need to find - yep - I'm picky!  Daddy also made 2 little holes in the back of each corner so that she can plug in her desk lamp, etc and not have extra cords hanging around - smart Daddy!!!

The chair - well, that Ikea will will HAVE to go - ug!  Instead I'm looking for an old farm kitchen type chair that I will paint white.  I haven't had too much luck on kijiji.ca, but I'm looking every day!  I'm pretty sure that I can pick up one for about 10 dollars, so we'll see.

The window treatments will be, well, I'm not that great at describing, but I'm looking for a see-though material that will come almost half way down the window in the middle and almost to the desk on the sides - very free-flowing.  I found this amazing wreath made out of beads, wire and shiny things that I fell in love with - and it's the perfect shade of lilac for Emma's room.  I'm wanting this to have a bit more of a substancial ribbon holding it and then it will hang kinda where it is now - in the middle of her window.  

Needless to say I love what Brade built.  It is almost exactly like the magazine picture that I showed him and I love that it looks like a built-in with the baseboards following the form.  Amazing job Daddy!!!

Oh, and this morning, after getting Kaleb from the bus, we both decided to make the front look a bit more like Fall, so this is our 5 minute version of Fall, with all the gourds that Kaleb brought home from the Pumpkin Farm . . .  he's got a good eye!

Psst - don't you LOVE the sparkly, black cat!?!?!?  

It is the only animal that really works in the Bailey household!

Changing my chairs

The other day Cynthia and I went to Fabricland and purchased some material to recover our chairs. I got a nice velvety type material that should clean really well - much better than the micro-suede that is on the chairs right now. She has a staple gun so I figured I'd just borrow it when she was done - which I thought would be a long time - I was sooo mistaken! Within the week she sent over the gun with Amanda (who babysits every Tuesday while I teach). So my project this Thanksgiving Long Wknd was to change out the material on our kitchen chairs - which you can see are very 'yucky'! The kids food, marker, pen and paint was all over them and I couldn't seem to get the material clean!

"Dirty Old Chairs!"

So, I started . . . first taking the seats off of the chairs (way too easy) and then trying to get the staples out of the old material. Too hard . . . decided to just staple over-top of the old material - easy again!!!

The finished product!

In a bit over an hour I had recovered 4 chairs - and they look good! Brade was happy with it too because the material ties in the couch in the living room (adjacent to the kitchen) and now it all looks like there actually is some thought put into it all. And - I have extra material so that I can do this all over again to another 2 chairs (which I hope that will not be anytime soon!)

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

This weekend was Thanksgiving and so far it's been a really good weekend. We did our big Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday night over at Mike and Cynthia's. Cynthia had her dad, sister, mom and Mike's parents over and then us. It was really nice to be a part of a "family". I just brought over some sweet potato casserole (the tradition in this family), strawberry spinach salad (on special request) and those pies that I showed you the other day. The meal was absolutely delicious and it was hard even finishing off the dessert (which of course I did anyways!!!).

This morning we did the church thing and the breakfast at Broadways thing (a tradition here - but it is hard getting table for all of us. it used to be when 4 couples went out you only needed 8 chairs, but this morning we needed 16 - and this was a low count morning . . . usually Cynthia's brother and family come out too and then we add another 6 to the count. they must LOVE us there!!!). After breakfast we went to the Bird Sanctuary, which is another tradition out here. The last time we went was when Emma was sooo little, and now she's 7 and keeping up with everyone! The kids loved it (and so did the adults) as the birds would actually land on your hands and eat the bird seed. Everyone had at least one landing except Navia (who is too young) and Jeff (who was a bit too scared on the birds - oh - and he's Mike and Braden's age!!!). Don't believe us - check out the pictures!!!

Emma's first feed!

Sandra (Cynthia's sister) and Navia

One little one landed on my hand!

Kaleb's first bird of the day - boy was he happy after this one!!!

Daddy went from birds to catching snakes - the boys loved it!

Kaleb found a place all by himself and was able to feed lots of birds there without the girls chatting beside him! Smart boy!

A game of statues - or bird feeding (you choose)

Emma found that if you put the seed on your head the birds will still come - watch out!!!

Oh yes - there were chipmunks to feed too! Doris (Cynthia's mom) fed this little greedy one for a while - his cheeks were HUGE!

Daddy trying to carry 2 kids home from a 3 - 4 km walk - poor daddy!

Navia was on my back and fell asleep. Cynthia went to take her off and when Navia saw her she looked up at me and back at Cynthia and said in the most tired little voice "I want Cyncia". Awww!

So, Happy Thanksgiving to all of you! It was a great one! And Jesse, I was thinking about how last Thanksgiving you came up to Airdrie and I did a turkey and a ham!!! Yikes - I will never do that again - but for family - I'll do anything!

Navia's Commercial!!!

Well - the photo shoot that Navia did a little bit ago is now going to be seen by the nation! Yep - out of the 3 shots that the company decided to use of the shoot, 2 of them are with Navia!!! So, just click here and you'll see the commercial. It will start airing on October 13th. If you miss the little princess, just turn on your TV and you might just see her smiling up at you!!!

"BOO!!!"

Is it a cat or is it a pumpkin??? Hmmmm....

This year we have decided to start a new Halloween tradition - Booing! I was looking online and came across this idea and decided that it would be a fun thing for the kids. What you do is make up a small treat bag and then make sure to attach to it a note and a little "boo" poster inside. You then get your family together at around dusk and have one child sneek up to an unsuspecting neighbors door, leave the treat bag on the front step, ring the doorbell and then RUN like crazy so they don't see you!

The note attached says:

Then we make sure that there is a "BOO" sign in the bag so that they can put it up on their door so that people will know that they've been "Boo'd" and will find another neighbor to "Boo".

Last night we did our first "Boo" and Kaleb was the runner. He had such a blast doing it and Emma can't wait until tonight as we find 3 more unsuspecting "victims" . . . it will be fun! We just put the makings of caramel apples in each bag, along with some glow-in-the-dark bracelets and Halloween candy.


---

It's 2 days later and Emma has had her turn to "Boo" and loved it and Kaleb just finished the last 2 tonight. It is such a blast!!! I would highly recommend this to others with young families out there. The kids love leaving treats and hiding while they hear the kids open the door and try and figure out where the treats came from. So cool!

Kaleb just before his last "Boo".

I can't believe I filled up for this much!?!?!?

I just thought that I'd let you all know that as I was coming back from the pumpkin farm (without a pumpkin because I couldn't find the fat and short one that I was looking for) I filled up with gas for . . . $0.97.5!!! Yep - I could hardly believe it, but it felt nice to fill up for under a dollar . . . it's been a while - a long while!!!

(the kids just had to take a picture with the guy who got stuck in the pumpkins. we figured that it would be a better picture than the guy that was stuck underneath a crate full of pumpkins!!!)

Oh - and I just had to show you a picture of two of the apple pies that I have made. If you know me at all you'll know that cooking isn't something that I jump up and down for - not even smile all that much about! Coralie, you would be proud of me!!! But, I'm going to save them for Thanksgiving Dinner with our friends out here and try to not sample them earlier - yikes - that's going to be hard! And, the apples in the background are all that's left of the 30lbs from 6 days ago. 3 apple pies, 1 apple crisp, a double batch of "sunshine" muffins and they're almost gone!!!

And the winner for P.D. activity was . . .

Mountain Orchard!!!

I had originally decided to do the pumpkin thing, but there was a small problem with my plan . . . I left the directions in the house and the GPS didn't have the pumpkin farm in it's files so I ended up driving in the direction that I thought it was supposed to be for, oh, about 1/2 hour. I then gave up. I found myself in Kempville and so I had to go to a cute little antique shop for a few minutes (the kids really didn't like this unnecessary stop) and then I remembered that there was an orchard in Mountain, ON so I typed in Mountain, ON in my GPS and went in that direction. On the way there we ran into a couple of signs for Mountain Orchard and we just followed them - ta-da - the kids didn't even know that this wasn't my original destination!!! YAY!!!

When we got there the place was busy as anything because there were 3 school buses of Field Trip kids and it was also PD day for other schools, so to start out I thought I had made a bad decision. The nice thing about the place, though, was that there could have been 5x as many people and you really wouldn't have noticed because the orchard was so large.

First the kids went in the "Straw Jump" while I figured out what we were supposed to do.

The we decided that instead of waiting for the wagon to pick us up and take us to the orchard we'd walk to the corn maze. The kids were really excited about this - and so was I - until we got in there. Yikes!!! You really could get lost in it!!! At one point Navia was lagging behind us and suddenly I looked and she wasn't there anymore. We started calling and heard a little "here I am" from her. She had stopped to check out the corn cobs on the stalks. Yep, my heart stopped for a second or two there. We finally decided to find the "Enter" side again, because the "Exit" was impossible to find! Maybe if Daddy was there he could have helped us out a bit - the kids want to take him out and show him the place - and if we do he'll show them how to get to the end, because Mommy just couldn't figure it out!

Once in the orchard the kids had a blast. I gave them each a 10 lb. bag and off they went picking. It did take Navia a few minutes to quit picking up the ones already on the ground, but soon she started only picking ones that didn't have "woom holes" in them - cute!

It didn't take long to fill up our bags and we made sure that we got Lobo's, MacIntoshes and the green ones for Kaleb. We thought that instead of walking back to the farm with our heavy bags we'd just catch a ride on the wagon - which was one of Kaleb's highlights of the afternoon!

(note: Emma is eatting another apple - I thing she did 2 or 3 while we were picking!!!)

We came home with 30 lbs, although you can't really tell from this picture

Then it was back home, but not without another apple treat - this time a real candied apple! The kids figured that it was just like a huge lollipop because it was so hard that all we could do was lick it. Maybe in a few days we'll actually get to the apple part!!!

When we got home we decided that we're going to have a Family Date Night so off to the grocery store we went to pick up a few ingredients and then Emma peeled all the apples for an apple pie and an apple crisp (when 2 kids can't agree on what we should have for dessert and there are 30 lbs of apples waiting to be used - well - 2 desserts work!). Daddy came home to a surprise candle-light rib dinner with an amazing apple dessert and then cuddle time as we watched a movie together. The only thing that could have made today better would have been to share it with Daddy in person, not just show him our pictures . . . next time!