All Hallows' Eve

P7 went trick or treating with a friend and when we walked down to pick her up we saw lots of decorated neighborhood houses. I liked this one the best:

 You can't see well but behind the wheelbarrow they've dug a whacking great hole in their lawn as well as re-cladding half the house in spooky cardboard bricks. I like their commitment.

P7 has written three poems on the computer over the last two days and they are all rather appropriate for today, so I thought I'd share them.

The monster!

There’s a monster in our garden,

I’m sure of it.

Mum says “that’s not true, no of course not”

Dad says “I don’t have time for silliness now let me paint the shed.”

Little brother Henry says “Tell me some more stories.”

There’s a monster in our garden,

I’m sure of it.

There’s a monster in our garden,

Of course there is!

The wind

The wind went howling all night long, howl  , howl ,  howl.

The cat went scratching all night long, scratch , scratch , scratch.

The dog went barking all night long, bark, bark , bark.

The rain went pattering all night long, patter, patter, patter. 

 

Jack-o-lantern!

 Oh Jack-o-lantern jack-

o-lantern your light is

 really bright. Your smile

so big ,your  eyes

 like flames .I love

 walking  by you on

 Halloween night.

Two Portraits

P7 and I went out to dinner to celebrate Geeky Husband's last project day. Of course it would have been better had he been there, but his day went on too late for us hungry girls. This wasn't really supposed to be soft focus - my phone lens just had a big fingerprint on it - but I like it anyway.

So fingers crossed and all that, his study is over! Here's the fancy photo he had to get taken for work. Unfortunately he got a marine haircut the day before (it wasn't me!) and she took off his sidies, so he doesn't look a bit like himself.

Finally

Took multiple pics of the fruits of my labours today, only to discover that the camera was on manual focus AGAIN and they are all hopeless. So instead here's a really stink, out of focus pic of Geeky Husband, putting together a display stand for the final day of his project work for his study tomorrow. Squeeeee to the end being in sight!!!

(I would have a pic of my little boy heading off to camp but I was too busy scurrying away from dropping him off with tears in my rather pathetic eyes. He was fine. I was ridiculous. (Fortunately he didn't see.) Four days and three nights away from home - wah!)

More From Motat

We had technical difficulties with the camera (a child who shall remain nameless had been filming with it and left auto-focus off - doh!) but some closeup shots were okay. 

L10 - zipper zombie. I re-stuck the wonky bit before we left the house and it stayed on amazingly well:

 Cousin E - have never seen such awesome zombie moves as this girl has:

 Cousin A - was a bit miffed about being a zombie with glasses, but being able to see is pretty high priority for sensible people:

 P7 - puppet girl. I really wanted to give her a doll-white cracked face and big eyes, but she was in a ropey old mood, and this is what she wanted, so this is what she got. Surprisingly she got the most comments of all. We couldn't walk anywhere without people calling out, asking to take her pic and on a number of occasions just taking over her marionette strings! Great way to keep track of your kid in a crowd for sure.

 Sepia version of whole family pic for mood (in the style of my Invisible Friend!):

The clan on the way in:

The clan with photographer swap on the way in:

The whole clan (dammit, this time L10 got hidden):

The lovely zombie girls:

And this one taken at the end of the night, so you can see there was some slippage, but this shows my full prosthetic with safety pin gore. I should have used bigger pins so they showed more and more wax when I put it on, but since it rained and we wandered for hours, I don't think it held up too badly. Especially when you consider how quickly I chucked it on - painted all 8 of us in just over an hour. LOL, what was I saying about sensible people choosing to see? Turns out one eye doesn't work quite as well as two I discovered.

Can't wait for the next occasion some bullet holes, wounds, and general gore are required, but can't imagine quite when that might be.

Motat Halloween

Getting Ready

Practiced my wounds to make sure they stay on (verdict - spirit gum works, although the edges peel with time):

Sewed my scary fairy potions onto my hat (so handy, the things your children leave lying around):

 Dirtied up Geeky Husband's bandages:

My Boys Today

Geeky Husband needs to have a professional head and shoulders pic for work. I suggest he should go like this. 

Ah, Friday night fun. It doesn't matter how much your head knows what is going on, that is still really disturbing.  It'd be such a shame if I ever grow up.

This one, on the other hand, is desperate to grow up. I walked in on him reading in bed tonight, to find the four New Scientist mags we got today and his library book all spread out in front of him. He despaired "If only I could have five thought streams going on at once!!"

If You Can Guess. . .

what we've been doing today you win three gold stars and a you are awesome.

P.S. I'll tell you on Sunday :)

I worked on L10's quilt. Excuse the terrible pic - when I finish it properly I'll take a better one. Until then I'm torn between getting the thing done, and hiding it so that I can make it his Christmas prezzie.

Revelations on Icecream

I learnt the most amazing thing today from the lovely Meg. You know that delicious chocolate stuff that goes instantly hard and cracks when you pour it on your ice cream, but you wonder what the heck is in it and you know it's not good to feed your kids and besides which it's overpriced anyway? You can make it yourself without all the mysterious goop! Just chocolate and coconut oil! Coconut oil, of course! Which, as far as I'm concerned, is practically a health food for skinny kids. 

Made it. Ate it. Loved it. 

Movies

P7 decided to make a movie today, and L10 ended up helping her film it while she acted out the parts with dolls. It was so lovely listening to them work together and play, and I'm sorely tempted to pop up some of the result, but since it is destined as a Christmas present, I'd better not.

Instead I found this, from about three years ago. The chortling was similar to today.



I'm such an old sap I can barely watch films of my kids when they were younger without the wet eye monster appearing. Gah.

Second To Last

. . . weekend of Geeky Husband working every hour there is on his project.

C'mon light at the end of this bloody long tunnel!!!!

From Grumpy. . .

to having a ball. It's amazing what getting out of the house on a lovely spring evening can do.

Even though it was sometimes sandy:

 and apparently extremely hard work:

 the worked together like a charm.

Bit o' sand, bit o' sun, bit o' pesky other kids to ignore. Ah sibling harmony.

Friday Avo

 Cuteness from L10:

 And shades of things to come from P7goingon17:

I've been sick with a silly cough which I really don't want to pass on to L10 (who is very susceptible to chesty things) before he heads of to camp, so I'm trying to take it very easy so I can shake it before I spread it around my family. This is actually my excuse for extreme laziness this week.

I did, however, spend today making a goodbye prezzie for a bookclub friend who is leaving the country to sail off on a boat for a year or so. Excitement envy. 

While I worked I needed something to listen to, and I stumbled across the wonderful Julia Sweeney. Now I know no-one has two hours to spend listening to something - how very indulgent - but next time you are doing housework, or some other tedious yet silent task, pop her on. She's hilarious.

Dioramas

 . . . are apparently all the rage today. P7 came and told me she needed something like a tray. I suggested a baking tray, but she said it should have sides on, kind of like the cat cage. . . with wires on top to hang things from. Did I have anything like that? I thought the cat cage sounded most like her description, lol, and she raced off to fill it with bark, wire up some trees, and strategically place a pond and a whole lot of dinosaurs.

Meanwhile L10 was working on his permanent Star Wars lego diorama. I tried to take a pic but was distracted by his cute face, and did a rubbish job.

 He put things right though, and filled the camera card with much better pics of the raging battle.

 In great detail.

Art Book

P7 came in the other morning and showed us an art book she had made.

I think she's awesome. :)

Family Pic

It's not often we get a pic of the four of us together, so I'm going to blog this from last Friday. You know you are getting old when your bestie's daughter turns 21 - eep! (To our right are the birthday girl's aunt and uncle.)  

How funny being the oldies at a coming of age.

More Face Painting Practice

It's good to get some practice on people other than my own kids, so our visitors today did not escape lightly. First up was my lovely niece E:

Then I got some adults to play on, in the form of my very game sister-in-law and brother-in-law. It was great to do adults who actually like to sit still. 

Well, she did anyway. He was a bit wimpy about the eyes and was keen to be dirnking his cuppa rather than being painted, so we went tried and true and quick as poss ;-)

Bought myself a smaller brush this avo too, and can't wait to try it out!

Boat Building

Still excited after their muddy creek adventure, the kids and their friends got down to some serious boat building today.

 There might be half a lifetime difference in ages between these two, but C5 and L10 formed a great wee friendship working together on this project.

P7 was in charge of sail making, then threw this toy boat together in the last minute, keen to be part of the boat project just as it ended.

Yes there was even testing, and boys braving the cold water too. Brrrrr.