Family Fun: Halloween Week

For all the grandparents - this is the My Little Pony Equestria Girls character that A wanted to be for Halloween:

Here we are preparing for the Co-op School Halloween Party.  I colored some cousins hair while I was doing hers.  We used this great hair chalk which was very easy to rub on and wash out. 

I ordered the shirt, made the legwarmers from a thrift store sweater, and upcycled the skirt from a ladies size thrift store find. I printed the "cutie mark" on fabric and ironed it on.

Here are the boys getting ready for the co-op party:

Brother S did not want to try on his costume before the party, but once I got him into it he wouldn't take it off!  They had all the usual games at the party.

Face painting:

 Rice Crispy walk:

 Pumpkin decorating:

Balloon Animals:

"Fish pond" but with an elephant instead:

We did do a little actual school work this week. Some games and activities from the Games for Reading book by Peggy Kaye:

The idea is to practice memory and hand eye coordination. I drew a design, showed it to them, covered it up, and then had them draw it on their papers.

Big Sister A also finished reading her first chapter book:

Cousin L had baby L laughing like crazy. She is so good with the babies.

This is the only good picture from my 2 hour pottery class on Wednesday. It was super nice to go off alone and do something new and creative. I have one more lesson next week.  This was "slab construction" and next week we are learning "coil construction".  I spent so much time learning the slab construction that I did not get to do the wheel.  I hope to be quicker next week.

 Baby L is having a lot of fun interacting with this toy doggy lately.  Her first tooth is completely through and the other 3 are almost there. She also had some shots this week, plus daylight savings... her sleep is all off kilter. She has been crawling upstairs for awhile now, but she is finally getting better at backing down the stairs.

For trunk-or-treat at the church the kiddos wanted to make our car a "bat cave".   It was super windy and the idea of using tissue paper to make the walls turned out to be a bust. At least they had fun making it.

Everyone told me that I needed to take a picture to show how the train costumes work inside.  The candy goes in the funnel and collects in the boiler.

 We were hanging out with our neighbors, handing out candy, and waiting for daddy to finish working.

I went all out on A's hair for the actual Halloween night costume.

After it got too cold and dark to hang out on the porch, Baby L and I hung out near the door. Our neighborhood is BUSY on Halloween. We handed out about 200-250 pieces of candy  that night.

Between the 2 nights of trick-or-treating our kiddos had far too much loot. Everyone was all grumpy and sugared up. Big Sister A counted 161 pieces from her bag after a day of eating.  I decided to implement "The Candy Trade-in" policy and offered them each a nice new toy from Amazon in exchange for only 150 pieces of candy (ie. all but 10 pieces of their remaining stash).  They all accepted. Much healthier for the kiddos, their teeth, and my sanity.