Hallowe'en

I love Halloween. Not for the actual holiday itself, though I certainly enjoy it. No, what I love about Halloween is the next day. November 1st. The official kick off to Christmas. As soon as the last kid left my driveway tonight, I started putting up Christmas decorations. For the most part, I use snowmen until the middle of November and then start adding the actual Christmas decorations. In a place like Edmonton you could potentially have snow decorations up for 5 or 6 months. Even I get tired of them eventually and they usually come down at the beginning of March to be replaced by the St. Patrick's decorations. And on and on the cycle goes.

Anyway...back to Halloween. The two little ones were absolutely adorable, I will download the pictures tomorrow. I did their portraits in their costumes as well and will post them when they arrive next week. Sophie was a bat and Saoirse a monkey. We really lucked out with that choice, because she has become obsessed with Curious George. Tonight as William was taking her to bed she was crying for her costume "Monkey, monkey." It was very cute.

We went to Taylor's school parade. It took almost an hour, as the school has recently exploded in population. We are definitely feeling the effects of Alberta's booming economy. Need a job? Come here, just don't expect to find a place to live. At the very end, the principal invites all the younger siblings to parade around the gym. Taylor carried Sophie and her friend Ashley took Saoirse. Everyone loved the girls in their outfits.

William took Saoirse around our neighbourhood. She got a lot of stuff, but chose to eat the Halloween candy we were handing out. He then took Liam and his friends Josh and Tyler out for a few hours. Taylor went out on her own this year, for the first time. She went with her friends Connor, Theodore and Ryan (who she has had a crush on since Grade 3!) I was a bit worried about her being the only girl and being left behind, but she had a great time. Initially Ashley was also supposed to go but her mum changed her mind. She was out for over 2 hours and came home with 2 pillowcases full of candy.

Which leads me to a big problem. The candy...god, the candy. I have been going so great, I've lost more weight than what I gained with Sophie but between now and Christmas I am really going to struggle with not eating junkfood. Although I hate the fact that all my jeans are falling off me, I don't actually want them to fit properly ever again. I look forward to going out and buying new jeans, I don't want them to be too tight by January. Damn that candy tempting me. Bad candy! Bad!

Taylor's school photos

What exactly is blogger's problem, do you think? I tried to upload 5 pictures but it wouldn't let me. I tried one and it was fine. I guess I'll have to do seperate posts. Bugger.

Anyways, this is the proof for Taylor's school photos. She absolutely hates them, doesn't like to show her teeth in pictures and doesn't like how her hair looks. 'Huh?', says I, 'it looks brushed. What's wrong with that?' Her hair was cut and streaked the day before these photos, and chance is a fine thing if she thinks she's getting another $75 spent on her hair for retakes. I don't even spend that on my own hair. And, yes, I know that's pretty cheap...no need to tell me.

Visiting the sea lions

Yesterday after Taylor finished school we went over to the mall as it was customer appreciation day and all the attractions were free. Our plan was to go to Galaxyland, but we ran into Liam with his friend Josh and Josh's mum and apparently it was extremely busy, full of teenagers jumping the line and generally being teens. (In a little under a year and a half I will be the mother of one of THEM and I am sort of dreading it. Even though the majority of the ones I know are very nice.) They were going to go play miniature golf instead and I said that I would take the girls to the sea lions instead.

It's a half hour show, called Treasure of the Mall or something like that and is complete with cheesy acting, 2 sea lions and a penguin. It was cute, if not a tad boring and a little long for an antsy almost 2 year old. Taylor was picked to throw rings at one of the sea lions and she did a pretty good job. At the end you could have your picture taken and I was sure Saoirse, who loves the sea lions, would be great. I was so wrong. Taylor was holding her and when it jumped up it splashed and she immediately started crying and buried her head on Taylor. Ah well.



Note that I still can not get Taylor to brush her hais properly and I DID NOT buy her that hideous shirt. My friend did. Those Mary Kate and Ashley clothes are some ugly.