Friday, November 4, 2011

Merry Halloween!

Things Madeline has said lately:

She calls toy catalogues "menus" and has been circling all the things she wants in the latest Toys R Us circular.  Her Christmas list is going to be extensive.

When I make her clean her room she says:  "You make me feel like I'm your peasant."

While stalling at bedtime:  "Mom, where is Truthland?"  "Truthland?"  "Yeah."  "Where did you hear about Truthland?"  "I made it up."


Aside from all the Halloween festivities....

Jacky has been busy with many committees, organizing and participating in fundraisers and meetings galore.

(Shameless plug:  If anyone would like to buy Oil Kings tickets for $25 or $10 tickets to a fun dinner/dance/silent auction on November 26 that would both support the rebuilding of a park in the Leeridge neighbourhood, please let me know!)

Ryan is busy juggling home life, school life and Apple life.  He's doing a great job everywhere.  :) He was even acting principal at his school the past couple of days.

Claire is getting used to staying awake ALL day at school and is having lots of fun.  She's been trying out a new tilting wheelchair that gives more options for positioning throughout the day and soon she'll get one of her very own.  

Madeline has been busy, busy, busy creating art galore, learning lots at preschool and having visits with  people she loves, like Janet and aunties.


We had fun doing our pumpkins this year, even though both Ryan and I dislike scraping out pumpkin guts.

Claire was very happy that evening.

Me and cheery Madeline.  Doesn't that look send shivers down your spine?  I see it all the time.  Ha ha.

Admiring their handiwork.

The finished product.

Our cute little front step.

Natalie took some great photos of Madeline at a Gymboree birthday party.

We enjoyed some lovely fall weather at Claire's horseback riding lesson, complete with leaf fights.


She's been doing so well and has great helpers. :)


Madeline saw a pristine canvas of sand and had a craving for creation.  
She really loves art.


This is typically the result at the end of school days.  :)


 During the Halloween week, Madeline even got to dress up for gymnastics class!


Claire was so tired one night that she fell asleep in the tub...she can fall asleep ANYWHERE.


The girls have been enjoying dance lessons at Ballerina Dreams.  There's another great group of volunteers helping some of the kids out this year.

It's very physically taxing, as you can see.

Ryan got us the new Dance Central game and of course, Madeline was eager to participate, but not before donning the proper footwear.


Our next Halloween activity was the CNIB party.  Here's our little Ariel playing with her favourite thing:  cords/strings/tubes, etc.  That often makes it difficult while she's hooked up to her feeding tube and wants to play with it...ha ha.

Here's our southern belle doing some colouring sheets.

Claire enjoyed this game of "Pin the nose on the pumpkin" because they had outlined the facial features with pipecleaners and she liked to run her hands over them.

The girls and I won the mummy contest.  Claire really enjoyed being our model!

When we went to pick out costumes, Madeline gravitated instantly to this dress because it was so fancy.  I think it suits her very well.

 This side by side, compilation of photos is as close as we got to a family Halloween picture, but you get the general idea.  :)  Ryan's students had some really great costumes but the best one, in my opinion, was a girl who dressed up as him!  She wore cargo pants, a green hoodie, a dark wig and glasses and made a cardboard iPad with a sign on the back telling everyone to "Parle Francais."  Oh, it was excellent.  Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right?



I was lucky enough to be a parent helper at Madeline's Halloween party at preschool.  Those kids were SO excited for the events. 


Here she is, showing her outfit to everyone.

Here's Claire with one of her best friends at school.  They had a fun afternoon of activities.

This was the resulting effect.

We went trick or treating at Southgate and had lots of fun.  

We got to spend Ryan's break with him.  

 Good times were had by all and copious amounts of candy flowed.