Her usual tricks

A nice sunny day today and Hallie up to her usual tricks!! I dread to think how she actually got up on top of the cubby house.

Trunk or Treat

After Rohan's birthday party last night we headed off to Weegeena for our ward "trunk or treat" Halloween Party. Although it drizzled for most of the night, it was a fabulous evening. Trunk or treat is becoming more and more popular with the dangers of children going around knocking on people's doors, especially strangers. Now the idea is to meet in a safe area, like a carpark and decorate the boot of your car. The children go around each boot and collect their treats and have a look at the decorations and do stuff like fish out treats from a bowl full of jelly etc.

Collette and Jessica dressed me up as Frankenstein's bride. I wore a $5 wedding dress from the op shop and Jessica did my eyes up really black so I looked a bit like a corpse. We bought a witch hat from the party and confectionery shop in Charles St for Sarra and she had a broom. Jessica put a few warts on her face. Hallie went as Spiderman (gee what a surprise) and Jayme drew a spider on her face and a web across her eye. We figured that a few superheroes were needed to get rid of all the witches and vampires. Simon, my darling sisters decided did not need to dress up as Frankenstein - he was scary enough as he was!!

So last night the ward met at the Websters and put their cars in one big circle. We got there too late after Rohan's party to participate in that part but all the kids had bags full of heaps of lollies and I heard there was a doughnut eating competition so it sounded like it was great fun. Of course I was not there to take photos of the boots but there is always next Halloween.

Some examples of the car boots (thanks to Toni's camera)

Louise with Will, Mel, me and Toni

As we pulled up they were just starting a hay ride. Kim had his tractor pulling a big flat top trailer. On top were bales of hay for everyone to sit on. The kids were all so hyper, clutching their bags of lollies and having a great time.

Levi was dressed up as Dracula and he got on his motorbike and did stunts as we were bumping along through the paddocks. it was a hit! He would get up on two wheels with his cape flying along behind and them ride off really fast and do some jumps. (I did not take my camera on the hayride - too dark and trying to supervise a heap of hyper kids was hard enough)

With darkness creeping up on us, he looked quite freaky, almost in a scene from Ghostrider. (not that I got it out specifically to watch but I saw it on the plane over to Thailand)

This is me on the hay ride - the blackness of it almost makes me look like a ghost

On the hayride (care of Toni's camera)

Our 2 superheroes

Scary Sarra (care of Toni's camera)

me and Sister Doig (I think the braces really add to the effect)

When we got back from the hay ride, they opened up the haunted house. It was such a pity that I could not take photos of it because it was awesome. It was pitch black and my non-existent camera skills would just not pick up anything.

Anyway what the Websters along with the help of the Young Men had done, was deck out their huge shed all with boxes covered in black. They made tunnels and paths that we had to crawl through and follow. It was pitch black except for some weird lights and the young men were dressed up with masks and they would jump out at us. It was really effective. Groups of four would go in at a time and Mark would make sure the young men were told if young ones were coming through as opposed to older ones who could tough out the scary stuff.

I took Charna, Hallie and Sarra through. Charna and Hallie ran on ahead but Sarra was absolutely petrified. She was behind me and when we had to crawl she trod on my dress so I could not move forward. I could not stop laughing because I could not budge and Sarra was almost on top of me because she was so scared. When we came out, she said that she was never doing that again. Hallie of course went through again with Simon.

It was such a great night and the kids had a ball. I hope we make it a tradition and continue on every Halloween. For only $9 at the party shop in they had huge spider webs with glow in the dark spiders and insects. Next time I might decorate our boot with that and make the kids put their hands through the web to get to their treats.

Levi and Louise

our little martian

Lil with the big bad wolf

Sam Ziesel

For more great pics of the night click on Toni's blog before I steal all her cool photos away.

Happy 7th birthday Rohan

Last night we went to the Wheelers to celebrate Rohan's 7th birthday. Him and Sarra are only 2mths apart so it is nice for them to have cousins about the same age. Mum, Collette and Jessica were there along with Noel and Margaret aka Nanny and Poppy Wheeler. Today Rohan is having a birthday party with his friends from school so it was nice to have a separate family birthday on his actual birthday.

Rohan likes pro-wrestling on Austar so we got him a microphone which has the same voice as some of the wrestlers and if you keep your finger on the button, your voice comes out sounding the same as the wrestlers. Hallie of course picked it for him and she thought it was such an "awesome" present to give.

Westbury athletics carnival

On Monday Sarra had her school running carnival. It was a beautiful day and as the school is only made up of 185 students, it did not take too long to get through all the races and be home just after lunch.

Sarra had a wonderful time and dressed up in green for her house, Westfield. She even had green war paint on and got right into cheering for her team mates. It brought back memories of running at primary school at St Thomas Moore's. It reminded me to of those running races we had when we were about 12 or 13 yrs old Chelsea. Do you remember that? Chelsea and I were both quite competitive (still are I'm sure) and used to have races at church to see who could beat each other.

You know I used to be a good sprinter, long jumper, independent schools champion but now - doing RPM (cycle class) at the gym, if the instructor says Lisa is beating me, I complain that her legs are just longer and it only looks like she is going faster. I show Simon my medals but he's like - that doesn't count because you were only like 10, 11 yrs old. True true! So really there is no bragging rights there.

I'm so cool!

teddy bear race

A proud second in her running race

shuttle relay race

Hallie and her best friend Alice off to the playground

Riding along on my pushbike

Yesterday after church it turned into a glorious afternoon so we thought it was a great time to teach Sarra to ride without her training wheels. We took them off ages ago and since then she has not ridden her bike.

Starting off...

Going well....

Woo hoo I'm doing it....
Riding by myself now...

I did it...

Westbury Primary school is only about a 7 minute walk so with summer approaching Sarra decided it was time she rode her bike to school. No-one else in grade 1 has their training wheels on so Sarra decided she did not need them either.

Oliver decided to get in on the action and when he saw Sarra wobble and lose her bike, he got off his three wheeler and pushed it to the ground so he looked like Sarra. He was so proud of himself.

Hallie also decided that she could do just as well as Sarra and wanted her training wheels off too. We didn't really take much notice of Hallie as she was just sitting on her bike pushing it along with both feet on the ground.

Today Hallie decided she had had enough practice pushing her feet on the ground and started riding - perfectly all be herself. Within about 15 minutes she was flying along and doing skids and stops on her bike like a little BMX rider.

Doing a skid

We should not have been surprised. Hallie has really good motor skills and loves climbing and balancing - she freaks all the other Mums out. She was riding her little tricycle at 15 mths and when she would run into something would just pedal backwards and go around it. It used to look so funny because she was so small.

The big kid as usual

Today Sarra is riding by herself too and is excited about riding to school later this week. Sarra seemed to get the hang of it quite quickly but Hallie - it was almost unbelievable - or not if you have seen her in action!!

A day at Ulverstone

While I had my candle party yesterday, Simon took the kids to visit Oma and Pop. They had a lovely day flying the kite and going to the Ulverstone park. Sarra said they had yummy jelly for lunch. And the good news is Simon thinks he fixed what was wrong with Oma's computer so now she can get going on her own blog too.

Obviously the broken arm has not stopped her

Messing up Oma's bed... very cheeky

Do you notice all Oliver's curls have been cut off. You know how you should never say to a hairdresser - it was not short enough last time... well I did that and now his curls are gone. But already I can see a few small tight ones coming back to hopefully we will find a happy medium between a big buff head of curls and a nice tidy little boy hair cut.