SCHOOL HALLOWEEN CELEBRATIONS

Rena started out our Halloween today with a fun costume party at her school. There were a lot of treats and a lot of excited kids!

Rena ate her entire apple before digging it to the candy or the cookies -- that's our Rena for you -- loves to eat, but loves to eat good stuff. (Of course once her apple was gone she did manage to eat a piece of candy or two!)

These are Rena's ghost feet that she made at school during the week. She was very proud of them hanging outside of her classroom.

Cameron and Maleah got to join in the fun in Rena's class. Can you tell that Maleah liked the cheese puffs?

After Rena's party it was off to Cameron's school. They had a party and a parade of costumes. The girls and I didn't stay for the party, but we got to see the whole school in the gym during the parade. This is Cameron's class on stage after they did their parade around the gym.

MALEAH'S HALLOWEEN CELEBRATIONS

Maleah had a busy week celebrating Halloween:

First, she wore her costume for gymnastics on Tuesday.....

Then she got to go on a fieldtrip with her class to a pumpkin patch on Wednesday.....

And on Thursday it was a Halloween party in her classroom.....

Atleast we are getting good use out of her costume this year!

A BUSY FUN WEEKEND

We had a lot to keep us busy this weekend............

Halloween party #1 was on Saturday at a neighbors house. Here are all of the kids in their costumes...........

Maleah decorating a cookie...........

Rena making a skeleton.........

Cameron with his friend Thomas........

On Sunday morning we headed off to the church where Rena and Maleah go to preschool so that they could sing during the service. This is how Rena dressed herself for a special morning............

(The glasses came from the dentist office -- they flip down to be worn as sunglasses.) She wore the whole outfit up on stage while singing!

Halloween party #2 was on Sunday afternoon. This one was a neighborhood party outside in one of the cul-de-sacs. They had a parade of costumes, some treats and a firetruck was there that the kids could tour. Unfortunately, it was REALLY cold and windy that no one stayed very long. The kids managed to have a great time.....for some reason they didn't seem to be half as cold as the adults!

PUMPKIN CARVING

Last night we carved up some pumpkins. The kids had fun except that they didn't like scooping the guts out of the pumpkins. All we heard about the slimy insides was whining and saw faces like this one..................

Once the insides were cleaned out everyone had fun designing and carving the faces.......

Our finished pumpkins..............

Are they scary???

We ended the night with Halloween cupcakes and the movie "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow".

RENA'S FIELDTRIP TO THE FIRE STATION

Rena's preschool class went to the fire station today and I got to go. It is the 3rd fieldtrip of the year, but the 1st one that I went on. Rena really wanted me to go on the last 2, but I wasn't able to so when I told her that I would go on this one she was sooooooo excited. We have been talking about it for a couple of weeks now and this morning she got up and got dressed in her fieldtrip shirt before she ever came downstairs. I think the only time that she let go of my hand (or stopped kissing it) during the whole trip was when I was taking pictures...........

Rena with her friend and fieldtrip buddy, MacKenzie.

Rena and her friend Caroline in the gym at the fire station.

This was one of the highlights of the trip for the kids -- watching the firefighters come down the poles. The other highlight was when an actual emergency call came in. We got to see the firefighters "in action" -- the alarm sounded, the firefighters rushed to get ready and the firetrucks pulled out with lights and sirens blaring. It ended up that the emergency was actually a false alarm so the firefighters were back in about 5 minutes, but the kids thought it was pretty exciting to see them working.

I had a fun morning spending some time just with Rena -- I hope I get to do it again soon!

CAMERON'S KINDERGARTEN PICTURE

PRESCHOOL FALL PROGRAM

Rena and Maleah's preschool had a "Fall Program" this evening. It consisted of some singing, some cookies and punch and some look-around the classroom time. Since I'm in the classroom everyday we didn't have to spend too much time on the last part! :)

Both of the girls did great singing........I was very proud of both of them. They were both put in the very back rows during their performances so it was impossible for me to get a picture of them during their singing (and they looked so cute during their singing doing all of the body motions and having fun - although Maleah did look a little bit scared also). Cameron tried his hardest for me, but he wasn't even able to sneak up close enough to get them. I, of course, did have my camera in hand for after-program shots:

Rena and her friend, MacKenzie.

Maleah and her teacher, Mrs. Rumsey.

This is the part Cameron was waiting all night for -- cookies!

PUMPKIN PICKING

The kids and I headed over to Tanner's Orchard near our house today to pick out some carving pumpkins. We were pretty disappointed when we got there at the quality of the selection that we had, but we were able to find 3 pumpkins that everyone was happy with.

Our perfect pumpkins!

After picking out our pumpkins we spent a couple of hours playing.....

"Go, Rena, Go.......you're in the lead!" -- Actually Cameron had already lapped her! :)

This slide was a BIG hit! We must have spent at least 30 minutes here just going up and down and up and down!

Maleah loves to have her picture taken!

HOWL-ZOO-WEEN

On Saturday night we went over to The Peoria Zoo for some games, rides and some early trick-or-treating. I had with me a Storm Trooper, Super Girl and a Glitter Witch.

Time to go through our snack bags!
We can't wait until Halloween!

OUR WEEK

WHEW -- Friday night already! This week was a little off-schedule and crazy. Jeff left early Monday morning for a trip and Cameron had 3 days off of school - one for Columbus Day and 2 for parent-teacher conferences. Here are just a few things that we did this week (in addition to our normal activities). :)

On Monday none of the kids had school because of Columbus day so we headed out to the zoo......

One of Cameron's friends, Thomas, went with us.......

Then, one night the park right down the road from us had a "hayrides and hot dogs" night so we headed over there with a neighbor for dinner and fun.....

Cameron on the hayride sitting next to his friend Thomas.

Cameron, Maleah and I cooking our own hot dogs over the campfire. The kids thought it was really fun for about 10 seconds.....then they thought it was too hot.....so I ended up cooking all of them.

Apparently I did ok -- they all ate their dogs.....although they really liked the chips better!

After hot dogs it was time for smores! The fire was still too hot for the kids so I cooked all of the marshmallows.....actually I ate all of the marshmallow also -- the kids didn't like them. They thought the chocolate cookie crackers that went with them were great, though! We were with our neighbors and friends.....Amelia who is 4, her mom Sam and baby Owen who is 20 months old.

We had some extra time at home playing this week also......Maleah and Rena love their dolls and animals! Here's Maleah with a group of them all lined up -- they were playing school at the time. She had just gotten done reading them a story and they were all headed out on a field trip. Maleah was the bus driver!

We also did some painting to get ready for Halloween. Here's Cameron painting his bat mask.

And as long as the mess was already made -- we did some paper painting.....


After painting everyone was filthy...........so the kids all jumped into the jacuzzi tub!

Here are the finished Halloween masks! Mommy the vampire, Rena the cat, Cameron the bat and Maleah the mummy!

And here's how we finished out the week........Pooh's Heffalump Halloween Movie with popcorn!