Saturday

We spent Saturday here...

But I have a confession...I didn't take any pictures (camera was left in the car). These photos are of the same spot taken not too long ago. What I did do was a lot of snorkeling. Rylan and I swam, hand-in-hand (it is the easiest way to keep track of him underwater), and watched the beautiful fish swim around us. It was a very peaceful, lovely time with him that I will always treasure.

After the beach we went home to get dressed and whip up a plate of food for our neighbourhood Halloween party. Super Damian riding a bike (Rylan was so busy with all the other kids I didn't get a single shot of him during the party!).

After the sun set the whole party took to the streets and went trick-or-treating together.

This was Damian's first real Halloween (last year he was too little to understand it), and this was his first house, but by the end he was getting pretty good at saying "tick-o-teat" and then "tank oo".

We arrived home with two heavy bags filled with candy, pencils, tattoos, and various other treats, and two very excited boys. We had fun travelling our neighbourhood, meeting new neighbours, and enjoying the beautiful full moon evening bedecked with glowing pumpkins and neon spiderwebs. How was your Halloween?

Very cute Halloween dress-up dolls

Today we had fun with these adorable Halloween dress-up dolls which I downloaded from babalisme. We used the boy printable, but you can also download the girl printable here.
I think this was a good fine motor activity, folding those little tabs over to hold the clothes on.

We have been giving this printable out as a gift to the boy's friends as a little Halloween craft to do leading up to Saturday...passing the fun along!

Introducing

Super Rylan and Super Damian – two new superheroes coming your way to save the day! Or at least to make mine, because they look super cute (no mama bias here, of course ;) ).
This is also the unveiling of that little sewing project I mentioned a few days ago.

I haven’t sewed in about ten years, and I have never made my own patterns from scratch, but this was a super easy project, so I decided to give it a try – initialed capes complete with masks and wristbands (Rylan chose the fabric - orange is his favourite colour - and he loved the flame print for the letters. I added the black ribbon for the neck ties. It was never intended for outfits to be Halloween colours, but it kind of worked out that way!).

They may not be perfect, but all that matters is that my boys LOVE their new costumes, and I love that they are their own superheroes.

Halloween time

So, despite the hot weather we are having here (October has been unpleasant, unlike the beautiful summer we had), and the fact that we are surrounded by brilliant green instead of fall colours, we decided it was time to get ready for Halloween! We started by taking down the remainder of the birthday stuff from last week’s celebration.
Today we made some bats to hang from our windows and Rylan wanted some across the door of his bedroom too. Rylan tracing the shape:

Adding the eyes.

He also drew some bats of his own.

We hung them with some orange thread, here is one window.

Afterwards I got a little crafty myself and started my first sewing project (something for Halloween…watch this spot to see the results!) in oh, maybe, ten years! Made possible by my fantastic parents who bought me a lovely new sewing machine for my birthday a few weeks ago. I am so excited to get my hands back into crafting, with all our moving and upheavals I have had a long break from it, and I MISS it! So, hopefully these little surprises for my boys will turn out! Let’s see….

In the meantime, I leave you with our little friend who is practicing for next weekend’s trick or treat-ers.