Halloween Day and Night!

On the actual Halloween day Anna was able to take a day off and was able to chaperone at Madison's school as the children walked two blocks over to the Katella Manor Nursing Home to spread some Halloween cheers as they sang songs they've been practicing at school and home...

The teachers were really surprised to see how many parents showed up to chaperone...  I heard that last year only about ten parents showed up so the teachers were happy to see so many parents wanted to be part of this Halloween event...

First teachers checked to see who is at school... I think Madison is helping out Ms. Michelle by pointing at the girl that she called before she called Madison so she is a bit distracted in the video...

 

Then all the children got paired up and we are ready to walk to the manor! Madison was paired up with Shi-ann... I think I mentioned before but Montessori classes don't believe in separating children by ages so that's why Shi-ann looks a lot older... Madison wanted to bring Mickey with her since she is a Minnie Mouse:-) just that day...

When they got to the Manor all the kids lined up for singing...it seems Madison was called to the front of the group...we think this is because she is the best singer and not because she is one of the shorter ones...she really does a great job as you can see she is one of the only ones to be doing the hand motions that accompany the songs and really gets into them...so yeah, it is because she is the star :-)

 

 

As the songs continued Buzz apparently gets jealous of Minnie Mouse's abilities and tries to squeeze her out...grrr...Buzz stay on your side...and those are not the authorized hand movements!!!

 

 

 

 

After the singing they got to enjoy cupcakes with the residents...

Since Halloween night fell on a Wednesday, we invited some of Madison's buddies from Bible to go trick or treating in our neighborhood from 5:30 to 6:45 before heading to Bible Class for 7:00...it worked out really well. Chris, Grace and John (our old neighbor from 1900 Ocean who Dave has a Bible Study with each Wednesday before Bible Class) were kind enough to come over and pass out candy for us.

We started with a group photo...so hard to get six 3-5 year olds to all stand still and look the same way at the same time, but these are close...


 

The first stop was our diagonal neighbor's house...she was outside placing her paper lantern decorations and was surprised to see us so early...there were a couple other groups out when we started, but we pretty much did open up the neighborhood...but the kids were really cute, at one house when the owner said, "aren't you guys a little early", the kids said, "we have to go to Bible Class..." way to evangelize!

 

Our second house was quite into the Holiday Spirit as well...she dressed as a pirate and her yard was well decorated. She sat on her porch strumming on a eukalale type instrument...unfortunately she was unaware it was Halloween...just kidding :-)
 


 Madison was a little timid at first...she was constantly the last one to get the candy at the doors and then out of the blue got all upset because she was always being beat to the door by the Karate Kid and wasn't getting to knock and say trick-or-treat...in hindsight I guess it is understandable as last year she and the Fireman she went with always went to the door together...but in the moment I was not pleased with the mini-tantrum...it almost caused an early end to our Halloween Night...

But Jasmine came to the rescue, and the other parents attempted to slow down the Karate Kid and for a few houses the kids took turns being the one who could knock on the door...

 And when that failed, we just tried to outrun the Karate Kid...but he was speedy :-)

 Getting candy is such tough work!

 In the end, it couldn't have worked out much better for a Wednesday Night Halloween...the kids got a pretty good haul for their hour and a half of candy grabbing and we had a really good time going trick-or treating as a group...

As we left for Bible the streets were alive with ghouls and goblins...we left a bucket out with the sign to "Please Take One," but even if the sign was followed (fat chance) the bucket was still empty upon our return and Madison sprang into action passing out candy until about 8:45 when the last high school age students called it a night...

 It was nice to see how into the Halloween Spirit our street got...it makes us anxious to see what kind of decorations the next Holidays bring!!

Halloween Party

It began with an invitation...Each year the families at Studebaker Road with young kids take turns hosting a Halloween party, so this year we gladly volunteered our place....:-)

 As usual we left so many things to do until the day of... Something we need to get better but hasn't happened yet. It would have been this one since I had to do a jury duty for three days this week and kind of had a lot more time then usual but I waited to do a lot of things until last minute still...

Anyways, we somehow fit in family pumpkin carving in the morning... We bought a battery operated carving machine last year on sale and what we found out was that it actually was an etcher and not a saw...that worked out well as that was the look I was going for.

Madison learned parts of a pumpkin at school and she was telling us that what we are taking out is the "meat" of the pumpkin...

Minnie Mouse was excited to be hosting...

 We planned a kids edition amazing race/trick or treat game which has a series of clues that lead to various games around the house...not pictured were the first two stations where kids threw spiders at a target and picked a pine cone out of the sandbox and then after an adult sprayed some adhesive on it, the kids sprinkled it until their heart's content...then it was onto the garage for some pumpkin bowling...

 

  

After pumpkin bowling the next clue led you to the pool for some pumpkin fishing...the clue informed the parents that their team had to create their own fishing pole from the materials supplied and hook a pumpkin...they would lose major points if there was any child fishing necessary :-)

 The pumpkins went magnet down which made the catching all that more difficult.

 Thankfully everyone stayed dry...and it was back to the front yard for some good old fashioned mad science...with the help of some salon strength hydrogen peroxide we made elephant toothpaste...

 As you can see the kiddos were amazed :-)

After the experiment the clue led you inside and of course told you to remove your shoes to receive your next clue :-) Which led you to make some Monster Pops...

 

Yummy :-)

After all of the stations we headed back outside for a group picture...which is not an easy task...

 This was how it looked most of the time :-)

 Then back inside for a yummy potluck dinner and playtime...Madison does such a great job letting all her buddies use her toys...it is very fun!

 Lastly we wanted to make sure and get a picture of the spider web Anna hung inside...unbeknownst to her until she was done, she ended up making a pretty cool bat.

 

Bonus Videos:

First - Madison showing off the songs she was learning in preparation for her class Field Trip to sing to some Senior Citizens at a local center...(covered in the next post)

Madison's interpretive dance skills...

Lazy Fall Saturday/のんびりな秋の土曜日

Fall decided to finally arrive in Southern California this weekend, which means temperatures were in the mid-70s instead of the mid-90s, so we took advantage by spending a relaxing morning putting up our Halloween decorations.
カリフォルニアのクライン家の所にやっと、秋の気候がやってきました。とっても快適な土曜日を使ってハロウィーン用の飾り付けをしたりとのんびりした土曜日を過ごす事に...

After that we kept with the theme and visited a local pumpkin patch. We didn't stay long, nor did we get any pumpkins as they didn't even have the prices posted for their regular sized pumpkins so we knew we could do better at Trader Joes...but we did use them for a couple of photos, so that was nice :)
飾り付けの後午後向かったのは季節限定のカボチャ畑。いろんな大きさのカボチャがあったんだけど、金額が書いてなかったので結局トレーダージョーズで買う事にして、写真だけちゃっかり撮らせてもらいました：）

  

 Continuing the fall theme, after Madison's nap we went for a jog through the park and picked up pine cones for a possible game option for when we host the little kids from church Halloween party in a couple weeks...
マディソンのお昼寝の後、近くの公園までジョギングしながら松ぼっくりを拾いに行きました。今年は私達がマディソンの教会からのお友達を招待してハロウィーンパーティーを計画しているので、その時のゲーム用に使う計画...

When we got back from our run we came home and decided it was time to give one of the watermelons in Madison's Square Garden a try. So after Madison posed with it, we cut the chord!
家に着いた後とうとう待ちに待ったこの時が...　マディソンの野菜園で一番最初のすいかを収穫です！ドキドキしながら茎を切って！

 And our 14.2 pound little bundle of joy was headed into the kitchen...
見事な６.５キロのすいかは台所へ直行...

Our baby cut open on the table...she wasn't as red as she even looks in this picture, but she was very sweet...I am quite spoiled by seedless watermelons however, but she was worth the effort :-)
真っ二つに切ると、中は写真よりももっとピンク...でもビックリするぐらい甘くておいしかったよ〜。種が面倒だったけど：）

Bonus Pics and Video:　ボーナス写真とビデオ：
Madison modeling Anna's Feather Shirt Design before heading off to school.
私のデザインした羽のグラフィックを着てモデルしてくれたマディソン。

Madison demonstrating her new dance moves she learned during her Monday dance class...
毎週月曜日は学校で特別に習っているダンス、そこで習った”パセ、パセ”を私達にお披露目してくれました...

And finally...what we did last Saturday...visit Disneyland...for Halloween time they have a little carnival area with crafts, games and music and Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Goofy wander around and come right up to you, which sure beats standing in a long line!
そして最後に先週ディズニーランドで撮った写真...ハロウィーンの期間だけ特別にある広場で特別衣装を着ているミッキー達に会える事が出来ました：）

P.S. Daddy helped color the mask...but Madison chose the color scheme :-)
P.S.パパが色塗りを手伝ったけど、色を決めたのはマディソンだよ：）