Halloween Weekend in Ottawa

What an exciting time for Miss Olivia. In the midst of trying to find daycare providers and going for interviews, we still managed to find ways to get into the Halloween spirit. Most people who know Martin and I, know that we "dislike" Halloween. For the last 10 years or so, we managed to turn off the lights of the house and go for a nice dinner. Risking our house getting egged because we refused to celebrate. :0P

As a primary teacher, I dreaded the Halloween week because the kids were sooo wired and excited that they couldn't focus. Their attentions were on what they were wearing and what goodies the might get. There I was dressed up as a pumpkin every year, reading Halloween stories, crafts, treats for the kids, carving pumpkins, and the riot act speech on bringing only healthy snacks to school. sigh. Sadly the last couple of years, I've managed to only decorate the classroom on Halloween day. Forget about the week leading up to it! Now here I am, with an 17 month old daughter who will be "celebrating" her first Halloween tradition. What do I do?

Well..heck...why do they make such adorable costumes for infants. They are just too cute. Olivia had 2 costumes thankfully because the chicken costume that Audrey wore when she was little...Olivia was terrified of it. I don't know what it is about the costume. It's warm, it's fuzzy, and it's sooo adorable. But everytime I come near her with it, she runs the other way. I even try singing the "La Poule" song from Annie Broccoli that she loves and she still runs away. Sooo we are left with the ladybuy costume that is size 18 months and doesn't fit her. Ugh. Although she is adorable in it...it doesn't fit her well but at least I can persuade her to put it on. :0)

"Halloween Party" - Saturday


So yes...we caved. How could we not? The big thing was we hosted a "Halloween " dinner on top of that. We invited some friends with their kids over and paraded them around the house, taking non-stop pictures of them until they melted down in their outfits because of overheating. Costumes nowadays are fantastic. Perfect for our cold nights. Warm, thick, and cozy. What ever happened to those plastic masks and plastic costumes we had back then!

The evening was lovely. Chaotic but great. No tantrums, no fighting, just laughing and eating. Yes...Ms. Ortiz (who was wearing her pumpkin shirt) even brought out some Halloween crafts for the 3 year olds to do. While the kids ate junk, the adults enjoyed a yummy fondue dinner by my husband. It was a perfect set up because we could take a few bites then get up and check on the kids, and then come back and eat so more. It wasn't a traditional sit-down meal so it worked for us busy families. Yummy. There's nothing like cheese, bread, and wine on a cold fall night. On top of that, we had Halloween cake and cupcakes for the kids and adults after. The kids were so cute in their outfits and they were happy in them. I guess that's the bottom line. Olivia enjoyed all the kids in the house. The great part was the clean up...with fondue it was pretty easy. The toys were all over the place, but at least it was contained in one room. Would we do it again next year? Sure!

Sunday

I didn't do a pumpkin this year (although we did go to the pumpkin patch). The outside of the house looked plain and ordinary...nothing Halloween about it. Plus...around dinner time we took off and we to Jack Astor's with the neighbour. :0) We were kind of hoping that we would miss the crowd. But as we were driving back from the restaurant, we still saw plenty of "kids" in the street. I say this with quotation marks because they were huge. These were the kids who would come back and egg your house or mess up your lawn because they didn't get their treat. So glad we came back for them. HAHAHHAHA.

We took Olivia out of the car and decided to let her walk to the neighbours. She didn't know what to do but she was happy just walking up and down people's driveways. I stayed back with my neighbour and opened up a bottle of wine and ate some left over cake while Martin took her around. :0)

He came back laughing and said Olivia had a great time! She loved it! Go figure. Apparently she would go up to the house and take the treats from the people. She even managed to use her manners and say "thank you!". I'm sure if it was earlier and it wasn't minus 1 degree out, Papa would made her walk more. hahahha. When they got back we relaxed while the kids watched TV. Fah thought it would be cute to put the "princess" costume on Olivia. I'm thinking Olivia is not the princess type. I don't foresee any frilly dresses and tiaras in the near future. :0) Cute...but ya..no.



All in all it was an exhausting day, but we managed to get 2 much needed naps in. Olivia didn't mind her ladybug costume. She got some treats for us to eat. I made the big "kids" happy with treats. I know the next coming years we'll have to play it bigger, but for now...this is enough. I'm sure there will be more Halloween activities in the future.