Happy Halloween!

When did you go to your first school dance? I remember having a 'sock-hop' as they called it, when I was in Grade 6 but everyone just stood around, I don't think a single one of us danced. Junior High was the first real one that I remember where there was a DJ and everyone dancing. Apparently today you attend your first dance in Kindergarten! Marissa's school is Kindergarten through Grade 4. I'm talkin' DJ, loud dance music, dark gym, kids dancing...the real deal. Not my kid. Marissa stood there, surrounded by dancing kids, totally frozen! It took a long time before she warmed up, then when they played our favourite dance song "Hello", I saw her start to bust a groove. My girl can be pretty shy sometimes. But she got into it near the end though, and when it was over, she didn't want to go. We dressed Taylor in an old costume of Marissa's, she looked pretty cute. Marissa had blue lips to match her Dorothy dress from the blue candy ring she had! Oh and there was face painting, always a favourite of Marissa's. Although I'm not quite sure what the red and gold things beside her eyes were meant to be, but she was happy!

Last night was our regular Sunday Dinner at Mom's, and she went all out with a Spooktacular event! The table was all decorated with skulls and bones and eyeballs and spiders. Marissa and Mady had orange Halloween cups with twisty straws that screamed when they drank...seriously! And the skeleton you see hanging from Mom's chandelier in the first picture, she put red Swarovski crystals in the eye sockets! Wouldn't you?!

The girls got treat baskets, and Taylor got a new soother strap...Halloween style! Thank you Mom, you are awesome!

Marissa's school has orange and black day on Halloween. She doesn't have anything orange in her closet. So I bought this fun t-shirt making kit at Michaels, took one of her plain white t-shirts and created something 'orange-and-black'. I made Taylor one too. In true Tasha form, I was up late last night getting it ready for Marissa to wear to school this morning. I'm really good at leaving things to the last minute!

And here's my two Halloween girls all dressed up for the occasion...

If you asked me, I'd say Taylor knew that today was different. The whole 'dressing up' thing. Turning the lights off, lighting candles, kids coming to the door. I got so many smiles from her today and tonight when I was taking pictures. I felt like the paparazzi, she kept smiling so I kept clicking! Check out this array of smiles caught on film today, and this is just some of them...

I made a fun supper tonight, we had Mummy Dogs! Hot dogs wrapped in Pillsbury crescent rolls, mustard eyes, served with a side of blood! I wasn't expecting much, but they were actually pretty tasty! Marissa picked all the pastry off hers and just ate the hot dog by itself. To each their own!

Here's some of my Halloween decor. Marissa and I made the haunted trees one afternoon and she made the Oreo turkey at Sparks. My milk jug ghosts were by the front door to greet the trick-or-treaters...

We had a family of four jack-o-lanterns lining the front steps...

Marissa met up with her cousin Mady to go trick-or-treating and when they got back their poor cheeks were frozen! Nothing some hot cocoa with marshmallows couldn't fix though...

Happy Halloween to you!

Fun Food Friday - Follow the Yellow Brick Road

Not entirely pleased with how this one looks, but I threw it together very last minute when I realized late in the afternoon..."OH crap, it's Friday!"

Enjoy the weekend!

Over the Rainbow

We decided to have a little birthday party for Taylor. She was cheated out of one last year when she was in the hospital for nearly a month. So this year I was determined to more than make up for it. Not in numbers. It was small, Taylor can't always handle too much commotion. Just a few of her friends. It was small but mighty. The love-to-entertain side of me came out in full force and I had a lot of fun putting this all together. Marissa had decided a while ago that she wanted to be Dorothy for Halloween. I never thought I'd find a costume, so I went to the fabric store, bought an authentic Dorothy costume pattern and lots of blue and white gingham. Then I thought, this would be a great theme for Taylor's birthday party! I thought I would do her up as the scarecrow. I decided that it didn't seem right for Marissa to be dressed in the leading lady's costume, when it's Taylor's party. Then I came across a Dorothy costume at Walmart, complete with sparkles. So it was settled, they would both be Dorothy! Here's the guest of honour...

And here is Dorothy #2, in the dress that I made myself, pretty happy with the way it turned out. She's wearing it for Halloween, then it'll be added to her dress-up clothes, big sister loves to play dress-up!

I googled, I read blogs, I searched, and all the pieces came together. I had a great time making a pair of sparkly ruby slippers. I had an old pair of heels that are way too tight and never get worn, that were perfect for the project. Add some spray adhesive and red glitter and call it done. But the pictures don't do justice to how sparkly they were!

Guests could 'Follow the Yellow Brick Road' up to our doorstep and pass by where the house landed on the Wicked Witch of the West! How fun is that?!

Next up on the 'To Do' list was loot bags. This was fun too. I made Tinman heart necklaces, Lion badges of courage, Scarecrow Doctor of Thinkology diplomas, and Dorothy ruby slipper cookies. I found little baskets at the dollar store for each loot bag and made liners out of the extra gingham I had.

I even made party hats, a birthday banner and tablecloth out of the gingham with accents cut out of red glitter cardstock! And what wasn't gingham was rainbow. The party was at lunchtime, so I did a big fruit platter in rainbow colours, a rainbow veggie platter, and homemade 'yellow brick road' Mac & Cheese. A tray of the ruby slipper cookies. And you know how in the movie, Dorothy gets water on the Wicked Witch of the East, then she melts? Well I made green punch with a black witch hat set on the side of the punch bowl with "I'm melting!" written on the side. Cute right?!

I couldn't come up with a blue or purple veggie for the rainbow theme...can you?

The melted witch punch was fun, but waaaay too sweet!

The masterpiece however was the cake. I took my inspiration from an outstanding rainbow cake that my friend Janella made for her daughter's birthday earlier this year. It took me nearly the entire day before the party to create but I was giddy every step of the way. And in case you're wondering, I didn't use copious amounts of liquid food colouring to get the rainbow colours, just small amounts of Wilton gel icing colours. You can get them at Michaels in loads of different colours. They're awesome. So here is a collage of the creation of the rainbow cake...

I used gumballs to decorate it, the colours were so vibrant! Here's the masterpiece all by itself...

But the best part was taking the first piece out and seeing the rainbow inside. It was impressive! But it sure is tricky getting a 6-layer piece of cake out. The cake was close to 8" tall.

Taylor was fascinated and totally fixated on the cake and all the candles as everyone sang Happy Birthday to her...

And here I think she's just saying, "Okay you know I can't eat this, do you really need to rub it in my face?"...

And here's a few shots of us with the birthday girl after the party was over. I love the one of her with Daddy, she gave a quick little smile right as I clicked the camera!

I may have gone a little crazy with this party, but the past few months for Taylor have been groundbreaking, and the little girl emerging from the fog of seizures that she's been under is more aware, perhaps even more than we realize. And I wanted to do something really special. She deserves special.

Call her crazy!

Marissa's loving gymnastics. The girl has so much energy in her, if I had just a quarter of it I'd be doing well! I think it's suiting her far better than the ballet thing. This week they got to go to class with crazy hair. I did 6 ponytails framing her face with rainbow coloured elastics. She thought it was awesome...or, should I say, crazy! And she played the 'crazy' role in every way A.L.L. day :-)

Fun Food Friday - Spiderific!

Getting into the Halloween spirit around here, so I decided to try spiders for this week's Fun Food Friday. Happy to report that Marissa ate it all up!

Happy Friday to you!

Fall Family Day

It was a perfect fall day today: blue sky, warm sunshine, fallen leaves. So off we went to the Calgary Corn Maze for their Autumn Pumpkin Festival. We could tell as soon as we pulled into the parking area that half the city also thought it was a great idea! But we braved the crowd and soaked up the fun anyways!

We managed to prop Taylor up all by herself on some pumpkins and against a barrel. Then, we put a pumpkin on her lap while she was in her wheelchair and she just fixated on it!

This hay bail made the perfect backdrop!

What would a pumpkin festival be without some scarecrows?!

The girls both enjoyed the festivities, in their own different ways. Marissa enjoyed all the fun stuff there is to do there. Like the steep tunnel slide, the petting zoo, the playground, the jumping pillows, the cow train. And Taylor...well, she loves being out-and-about in her wheelchair, and she just took it all in. Such a different backdrop from her typical day, you could watch her eyes locking in on all the interesting things to see. Francis took her on the cow train in his arms and she lit right up with some sweet smiles. The corn maze was pretty much dried up. Marissa found a cob lying on the ground, shucked it and pretended to take a bite!

We had a great afternoon of family time. I'll end this post with a sweet shot of my favourite two little people. I braved a shot of Marissa holding her sister all by herself. She's holding onto Taylor for dear life!

T.H.R.E.E.

Yes, it's true! Taylor is THREE years old today!!!! I can hardly believe it. She's not a baby anymore! We had Thanksgiving Dinner last night with Francis' family. His parents spent the night, so they got to have special cuddles with their granddaughter on her very birthday. We had a nice quiet day at home. I enjoyed a nice visit with my friend Carol who dropped in to see the birthday girl, what a lovely surprise.

I made a special cake to celebrate Taylor's birthday, even though she can't actually eat any of it. I found the Supergirl/Superman logo on the internet, enlarged it the right amount and printed it. Then I cut around the edges and cut out the bits on the inside around the S, placed it on top of the iced cake and traced it with a toothpick. Then I piped over the lines with icing and filled it all in. I had so much fun making this and was thrilled with how well it turned out!

We went to Mom's tonight for turkey/birthday celebration dinner. I made a special party hat for Taylor that looked really cute but it left hot pink fluff all over the place! Mom had a birthday banner, balloons and even a birthday badge for Taylor to wear.

Taylor had a great day today! She got cuddles with Oma & Papi in the morning, enjoyed her most favourite floortime freedom in the playroom, had a great nap, followed by a celebration at Granny's. What's not to love about all that! While Taylor was napping Marissa made her a very special birthday present. We picked out a pretty crystal frame and I cut out a piece of paper to fit in the opening. Then Marissa drew a picture of her and Taylor, complete with a sun, blue sky and green grass. We put it in the frame, and Marissa wrapped it up and made a card too. I just love it, so very special.

Little Spark

Marissa started Sparks this fall, and we got to go together as a family on her official Enrollment Night. It was really cute. One by one, the littles walked on butterfly stepping stones and through a rainbow of balloons to receive their pin, official handshake, and enrollment certificate. They held up their right hands with two fingers up and promised to share and be a friend.

Her group of girls meets on Monday nights for an hour. They sing, do crafts and learn about safety, community, sharing and being a friend. And of course, twice a year they sell Girl Guide Cookies! The chocolate mint wafers in the fall, and the traditional chocolate and vanilla ones in the spring.

They sang this cute Polar Bear song after the ceremony and had to choose a hugging partner for it. She chose Taylor and wheeled her wheelchair into the circle for the song, and gave her a hug on every hugging part. My heart was full.

When I pick her up every week, part of their closing ritual is singing this song to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star...

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Spark

Time to go. It's getting dark.

Hurry! Hurry! Off to bed.

Time to rest your sleepy head.

Tomorrow is a brand new day.

What fun we'll have in every way!

Fun Food Friday - Gobble Gobble

In the spirit of Thanksgiving weekend, this week's Fun Food Friday was a turkey! Along with a side of blueberries and vanilla yogurt with fall sprinkles. Marissa 'gobbled' this one down :-)

Happy Friday!