Halloween 2015

I present to you:

Maira as Robin

Hudson as a robot

Connor as a volcano.

Oh no, he's going to explode!

Shae as Little Red Riding Hood.

After an encounter with the wolf. 

She did two costumes this year. For school, she made herself this costume as Harley Quinn, a comic book villain.

I was able to watch Maira and Hudson's school parade and take some pictures and videos.

This is Maira's class:

And this is Hudson's:

There were a lot of superheroes so when I saw that one of Maira's friends had dressed up as Batman, I made her pose for a picture with him even though neither of them was too excited ("Mom, you're SO embarrassing!")

This isn't a great photo but poor Hudson had to sit at his desk for about half an hour in his robot costume before the parade started and he was so uncomfortable and awkward but he loved his costume so he was very patient while he waited for the parade to begin.

You may recognize Hudson's robot costume from the past two years when Connor wore it. I just took off the stickers on the front that said "Con-nor" and changed it to "Hud-son". He was so excited to be able to shine the laser pointers at stuff. If you look at the smoke in the photo above, the red lines are his laser pointers.

Our neighbours two doors down go all out with their lawn decorations. We live on a nice cul-de-sac and their enthusiasm for Halloween will be one thing we will miss when we move. We have put our house up for sale because we are buying a house in a different neighbourhood. Still on the west end of Edmonton but just closer to the kids' schools and to the river valley. So some big changes ahead!

Update: We were so lucky to get an offer a week after we put our house up for sale and it was really close to our asking price so this is really happening - we get possession of our new house on December 11th and we have to be out of our old house by January 14th. So yes, we are moving over Christmas. CRAZY. I love so many things about our new house but I will miss our beautiful new quartz countertops and maple floors that we just put in 6 months ago but I will especially miss the memories of raising a family in this house over the past ten years. Maira and Hudson were born in this house and Connor and Shae were one and six when we moved here so they've all grown up so much here. It's really hard to say good-bye.

Back to School September 2015

Today all four of my kids headed back to school. Hudson's at his first day of Grade One, with the same teacher Maira had in Grade one. Maira is in Grade Three with a teacher who's brand new at the school. Connor is starting Grade Six, his last year of elementary teacher. He has the same teacher Shae had in Grade Six and Shae and I are both a big fan of hers so I'm really happy for him. Shae (sniff, sniff) is starting Grade Twelve. Here is an adorable picture of her when she was four years old, thrilled to be heading off to her first day of kindergarten. Look at those cheeks, I want to eat her up! Her backpack was half as tall as she was!

And here she is, heading off to her last year of high school:

She decided she wanted to dye her hair purple for the first day but she didn't want to bleach it first and her hair is so dark that it didn't show up much (darn...) 

And here are my other three cuties, all set for their first days:

Camping at Slave Lake 2015

We hadn't been to Slave Lake for a few years and it was a treat to go back. The weather wasn't as warm as we had hoped so we didn't do much swimming but the beach was still lots of fun.

I have to explain this picture. I've talked before to the kids about going to Seal Island when I was young and about how I sometimes helped harvest seaweed on the beach. I told them how we would collect it and lay it out to dry and then sell it on the mainland. So when Hudson discovered seaweed at the lake, he was so proud to show me and wondered how much money it was worth.

Hudson's "parcour" course:

Our last night, there was a thunderstorm and we discovered a leak in the seam of our tent right above my head. But that was no problem for a tarp pro like Jess: he got out and rigged up this tarp over our tent in the middle of the night and in the middle of a storm. Not bad, eh?

Hudson entertained himself for a while watching a squirrel. He just sat and watched it like he was watching a movie. Which is why I love taking the kids camping!