Misc Ramblings – Page 43 – a hippie with a minivan

halloween candy…

So I have been asked by a few people what we do for halloween and the candy…

well.. what we did this year… and will most likely do every year is that we went Trick or Treating quite early after supper and went around the neighbourhood to the little places that we like to see…

Then, when the boys were getting a bit tired we got home and quickly went through it…

All of the candy that they can’t eat went into a big bowl… In exchange I got some treats that they could have…and then we opened our lights and gave away all of the candy (along with some glow sticks/bracelets that I bought) to the ToT’ers that came to our home…

The boys had a blast opening the door and giving the candy and the glow sticks away…

They still get treats and sugar rushes that they don’t get often without eating anything that I don’t want them to eat, or that they are allergic to…

Halloween pics…

I love halloween…

The crisp air, the kids all dressed up, the sound of the leaves and actually seeing the people that live in your neighborhood… Some of the homes have amazing decorations and some are quite simple but inviting…

Simon took the day off and after I ran a few errands we sat down to carve the pumpkin… Xavier couldn’t handle the texture but he did try…

Simon finished the rest while Xavier drew the face he wanted us to carve….

I carved it out and he was really happy with the result…it looked quite like the pic he drew…

So… Xavier was young Indiana Jones

Colin was Spiderman

and Khéna was supposed to be Buzz Lightyear but did not appreciate having a costume on…

So Simon found an alternative… a ‘Hulk” PJ shirt that the boys have…

and once he saw his brothers go up to the doors… he wanted to go too and had a blast!!!

Here are two of my favourite houses to visit…

Some mistakes turn out for the best…

I have issues when it comes to sewing…

I can’t do patterns… I have no patience for them… they always look much more complicated than they should be… maybe they aren’t… I don’t know… but I just I can’t use them….

So I wanted to make some pants for Khéna…

I had a semi pattern that I cut out a few months ago when I made a pair of cords for him… the problem was that back then no pattern would fit him… the waist had to be a size 3-4, the crotch had to be wider than the pattern for that size because of the cloth diaper and the legs had to be WAY shorter…

So I adjusted the pattern to the way I thought would work… and it worked… in a way…

By mistake I adjusted the pattern upside down… I figured out my mistake after I had cut and “tried” to assemble them… and finally after a lot of frustration and puzzle making…. I ended up with a pair of pants that fit him… but was nothing like the pattern I had made…

This summer, I made the same mistake… again…

So yesterday I decided to try again… I got the pattern out and got some Jean material that I had bought for this…

I looked at it and thought “omg I am not going to make that mistake again” so I erased the words “top” at one end of the patterns and wrote them at the other end… then cut the material making sure that I added more length…. sewed the outside seams and then realized that I had already corrected the pattern the last time I had made the mistake.. so again… I cut them upside down… arghh!!!

I did the puzzle thing again… I didn’t want to waste the material so I decided to cut what was too much at the top and then add a bit of corduroy to fill the space that was missing and add that to the bottom… of course then the brown cord looked a bit out of place so I thought about some pockets on the side with appliqué’s to compliment the colours… and it worked…

I am SO happy with the way that they turned out!!!! I think that I am going to make more of the same… (well… this time on purpose!!)

I wanted to make them a little longer so that they fit for longer… So at the moment they fit Colin perfectly… so I now need to decided to hem them for Khéna or have Colin wear them and make another pair for Khéna (I would make them a bit less baggy for Khéna also)

I need to get out more…

With the price of Gas in the last year being so high I have not been going out as much…

Montreal is the place to be for homeschooling in Quebec. But Montreal is about 90 km away… about an hour driving or more depending on the location… Which means that as the price of gas went up I went out less and I am feeling more and more like we are missing out on stuff… There are groups that get together on a regular basis, that do things and go places together… that just hang out and talk at least once a week etc..there are also English home schoolers/kids there… which is something I think that the kids need…

Of course, the price of gas is not the only reason I don’t get out much… I am a homebody… I like to be at home… and sometimes going out with the three kids was a lot of work and it was not something that I looked forward to all of the time… but as the kids get older that is changing. Xavier is getting to be less intense and the other two follow more…. It is actually getting fun to go out again…

So I have decided that we are going to change this… I need to change it… so I am going to be joining the Montreal Homelearners group every week…. They meet on Thursdays at 11am-3pm which means that we don’t have to leave the house too early to get there and we don’t have to come back in the dark and we can pick up Simon who works about 10 min away from there and see him a bit earlier also…

New Gallery…

I took some time this weekend to got through some of my favourite pics from my trip to BC… I still have a few that I would like to put up also but it is a start…

I also wanted a place to add the pics so that my favourites are all together…

So here they are if you want to check them out…

http://gallery.paxye.com/