Boo!

Alan and the boys have gone all out this year. Our house is on its way to being the spookiest on the block this Halloween night! We've got skeletons and ghosts {which resemble dementors, don't you think?} hanging in the trees, pumpkins on the doorstep, orange twinkle lights around the window, and a fog machine set up in the play house!

Stay tuned for more festive fun chez Pugh as the big day approaches...

One last Halloween post

Halloween 2012 was a huge success. The rain stopped for a few hours and we were able to trick-or-treat with wild abandon and not get soaked. Everyone loved the boys' costumes {I heard so many people say, "It's Harry Potter!" when they saw Dylan. And then "Ooh, look! It's Ron Weasley, too!"} And I ate about a hundred peanut butter cups. It was super fun. And now... it's November! A month from now it will be December 1st! Yes! Christmas is my favourite. But more on that tomorrow. Right now, I'm off to bed {still recovering from the fun of a Halloween day in Grade 1 followed by an evening of celebrating with the Pugh boys}. Enjoy these festive photos...

Good-night!

 With our friend Kristina, the Snow Queen

 On the front steps

 Eeeek!

Harry and Ron at the most festive house on the block {even fancier than ours}

 When we got home, one pumpkin was still lit. Isn't he cute?

 Dylan surveys his haul!

So good to come in from the cold

How was your Halloween? I'd love to hear all about it.

A Hogwarts' Halloween

Harry and Ron are ready for the big day! They've got their wands and broomsticks and pet rats {and great big trick-or-treat bags} all ready to go.

 photos from the Scouts Canada Halloween party Monday night... a dress rehearsal of sorts {costumes will be more detailed today}

Happy Halloween!!!

Scenes from the weekend before Halloween

Friday evening and all day Saturday were dark and rainy. The boys had coughs and mild fevers, so we ended up staying home from Beavers and keeping cozy. We consumed a lot of soup and juice, and read a lot of Harry Potter. We also played board games {at one point we were playing Operation and Monopoly at the same time!}, roasted marshmallows in the fireplace and made a bunch of cute Halloween crafts. By Sunday afternoon, everyone was feeling better. Our friend Kristina came over for several hours of baking, pumpkin carving, raking leaves and decorating the yard to be "super spooky..." It was all a lot of fun. And now I'm exhausted.

 Love the bats. And isn't my toilet roll mummy hilarious?

 These guts are gooey!

 Not just any hat cookie. A sorting hat cookie!

 Jack o'lanterns, festive sugar cookies, and a cute green pumpkin from our garden

 Fun in the leaves of the chestnut tree

Decorating for the big night {only three more sleeps, I'm told!}

Front steps are much more fun with pumpkins

 Little boy in spooky tree

It's spookier at night. And how about the giant bat on the side of the house?!

How was your weekend? Did you find yourself getting into the Halloween spirit? I think I'm ready to watch "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" while I quietly sneak all the peanut butter cups out of my kids' treat bags. You?

Grade One is going to be wild this week! Wish me luck... Wishing you a very happy end of October!

E & me {jack o'lanterns}

October is only just behind us, so I hope you don't mind if I carry on the Halloween theme for just a little bit longer. Because this week's E & me is all about the jack o'lanterns. 

We ended up carving 4 of the 8 pumpkins at our house, one "really scary" one and the rest with big smiles, like you see on the left hand jack o'lantern below. It's Sawyer's favourite.

Way across the ocean in France, Em and her niece Juliette carved a pretty spectacular one themselves. Check out that fancy, star-shaped lid! And those fun, imported-from-Canada, Halloween umbrellas on top... Très festive, non?

Em says France is "not very Halloween" but now that she's in residence, I think all that's about to change :)

Scenes from Halloween

I wasn't feeling so great yesterday {and I'm still not, for that matter!}, but we managed to make the most of a beautiful autumn day and night. I think it's safe to say that the boys absolutely loved their Halloween, and really... that's what matters most. 

 Scooping out pumpkin guts before carving our jack o'lanterns

 Gorgeous chestnut tree in our front yard

 My little paleontologist {he had a magnifying glass, paintbrush and dinosaur notebook in his pocket}

 Taking a chocolate break in the mall parking lot

 Wicked witch of the West {coast}

 Trick or treat!

 At the "Halloween House" up the road, very excited

 Awesome pumpkins at the last house we went to...

 Surveying the results of our efforts {check out all that loot!}

Boys are in bed, and I am straight into the peanut butter cups... {it's a Halloween night tradition, what can I say?}

And now it's November. November! How on earth did that happen?

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween! 

Hope it's as spooky, and candy-filled, as you like it. I'm looking forward to raiding the kids' treat bags tonight for the peanut butter cups. All the peanut butter cups. They're my favourite.

image via here

Yield to broomsticks in roundabout

Look what we discovered on Goldstream Avenue yesterday... The street signs have been changed to reflect a certain upcoming holiday! 

Yep. It's official. I live in the coolest town ever.

Scenes from Halloween

Several snapshots taken since Friday:

"Our house is so Halloweeny, Mum!"

My gingerbread skeletons turned out great, don't you think?

Before you can begin to carve seven pumpkins, you need to scoop out their guts!

Oooh, look what's in there... yuck!

Dylan bears an uncanny resemblance to his jack o'lantern

And so does Sawyer!

"Pumpkin moonshine..."

Trick or treating at the mall

"Is that really you, Dad?"

The boys with their favourite princess, Kristina, at Starbucks

On the front steps, ready to hit the streets! Sooo excited...

Little Red Riding Hood, a dinosaur, and a pirate, at the most festive house in the neighbourhood

Sawyer did some dancing with his glowsticks at the local firehall, which held a bonfire and costume contest, and gave out free hot dogs and hot chocolate to everyone! {this sooo reminded me of my childhood, as we used to go every year on Halloween night...}

Home again, relaxing by the fire and looking through our loot!

One very happy little boy. "I am sitting in a field of candy!" he told us.

Hope your Halloween was just as exciting as ours was, but perhaps a little less exhausting ;) I'm beat!

Happy Halloween!

I'm a big fan of vintage postcards, and of Halloween, so I couldn't resist sharing these... Aren't they darling? {Alan thinks they're creepy, but I say they're cute}

via tumblr

We're having a fun Halloween weekend so far, with pumpkin carving, chocolate-making {skulls and pumpkins}, costume-wearing and an awesome preschool party. Tomorrow we're planning to show off our costumes to the Irish cousins {hurrah for Skype!}, hang out with some friends, and then trick-or-treat the night away. How about you? Enjoying some festive Halloween fun in your part of the world?

Feeling festive

With Halloween just 4 days away, the boys have begun mass production of "spooky" artwork to decorate every surface of our house.

And of their bodies. Sawyer was loving his face-painted spider at preschool today.

We have two amazingly detailed skeletons on the kitchen wall.

One super-cute witch in the hallway.

And our traditional Halloween tree, featuring ghosts and pumpkins, on the end table in the living room.

Still to come... a big batch of gingerbread skeletons {they're baked, now we just need to decorate them!}, seven glowing jack o'lanterns {only one carved so far~ I really have to get on that!} and a few festive spiders, ghosts, ghouls, bats, etc. to hang in the doorways and fancy up the place. We've got a preschool Halloween open house to look forward to, a pumpkin carving contest at school, and of course there's the trick-or-treating, too.

It's no wonder they're bouncing off the walls then, is it?