Happy Halloween 2013

This year we are having a really low key half-term holiday. We have literally been out twice, once to the park and once to the hairdressers each followed by a trip to Tesco (lucky girls...) but they have been playing really nicely together for the most part. The light on the horizon had always been the Halloween party we were planning. The girls were allowed to invite 2 friends each (some siblings stayed too).  We played the wrap the mummy game, zombie musical bumps, pin the wart on the witches nose and decorated cupcakes. 

Eliza and Lily wrapping Emily

 They all wanted in on the mummy action (apart from Lydia)

 Cecily chilling (that's how she usually sits in her highchair, feet up!) whilst everyone decorates their cakes.

 Alice and her best friend Levi

 Alice in her new witches outfit

After the party I took the 3 older girls to a few friends house to deliver (and receive) sweets. Nobody comes trick or treating to our house we are too far away! We took some doughnuts to the church farm service missionary couples too so all in all a busy but great Halloween.

My friend, Jo, took some great pictures at the ward trunk or treat and was happy for me to share so here is Esther at the trunk or treat last weekend as Hermione Granger

Princess Alice and wicked witch Eliza behind her in the costume parade

Esther's birthday

On Esther's birthday morning she came down to find balloons and bunting up and some treat cereal for breakfast - we had presents first of course. She got a new dress, 2nd Harry Potter book, a dvd of The Secret Garden and Black Beauty, a set of scriptures with her name engraved on the front

 and a little lego friends pack with a turtle in - she loves turtles

After school we had 6 of her friends back for a party. They were going to watch Wreck-it Ralph but ended up playing some games and fighting with Ben from halfway through the party! Poor Cecily also got more than her fair share of attention - I think she was glad when the party was over! 

Here are the crazy girls ...these are their normal faces....so pretty. 

She had a great birthday and went to bed a happy 8 year old.

Esther is 8!

I can't believe 8 years has passed since our first baby girl came along and changed our lives. We are so proud of her. She tries to be good, says sorry when she's not, works hard, plays hard, is creative, sensible yet adventurous, is a great sister, a loyal friend, loves to wrestle, is currently into Harry Potter and Star Wars, plays piano and still has her 'piggy' to snuggle with in bed. Oh how glad we are that she is ours.

A friend of ours from church offered to take some pictures of her prior to her baptism. They turned out lovely - here are a few:

 

Russian baby

There is a Russian children's cartoon that my girls discovered on youtube a couple of years ago and the absolutely love it! Of course they have no idea what is being said but you can easily follow the storyline, heck maybe I'm even being a fantastic parent offering my children immersion in the Russian language... Anyway they enjoy it... It's about a little girl called Masha and a bear called Medved (I think).


Cecily loves to accessorise, if she finds a hairband on the floor she wants to wear it, scarves too and she also loves socks and shoes. She is the only daughter of mine who seems to enjoy wearing a hairclip. So this one morning she finds an old table runner and wants to put it on , I obliged. She looked so cute and we all agreed she looked like our little Russian girl from the cartoon.

I am biased but I do think she may be a bit cuter than Masha...

Broken promise

Ok so I promised a blog post and I have finally done it!!! I know it's silly but you can't really get very much internet at all in our living room and there is only so much time I feel like I want spend in the kitchen each day what with making breakfast, lunch and dinner, cleaning and tiding I really do spend to much time in there already!! When the girls are in bed I want to actually be able to sit on a comfy couch for a while and not move since sitting down is not something that happens a lot during the day any more. Ben is looking into getting something to boost our internet so here's hoping it works! In the meanwhile I am hoping to keep posting regardless...

Getting ready for trunk or treat

It was our annual 'Trunk or Treat' at church today (people decorate their car boots aka trunk in halloween style and dish out sweets to the kids) and as we hadn't planned any decorations for our car we thought we'd decorate our pumpkins. Ben wasn't around so there was no way I wanted to start carving 2 huge pumpkins with 4 kids by myself so we went for the no carve approach which worked out fine.

Here is Alice with our Mummy pumpkin

 Esther the zombie

Eliza in her witches costume with our spider pumpkin - that's the mummy spider on the top with her babies

Oh dear, the daddy spider landed on Esther's head!

Cecily not quite so sure of that spider....

I didn't take any picture of the kids in their costumes yet as I had to be there early as I was organising it. All the assignments for activities etc were delegated out so I really didn't do much for it until the actual event and then it got a bit stressful getting everything to happen. We had the 4th annual chilli cook-off competition, costume parades, activities for the kids then the trunk or treat. It seemed to go quite well. Thankfully lots of people stayed behind to help clear up so we were done in an hour. Now it's just the primary presentation to get through tomorrow (I'm the primary pianist...)...