Halloween and School Performance

I seem to find it harder to write when something significant or important has happened - I can blog about our everyday days quite easily, then if something exciting happens the pressure to get it on the blog sometimes means I don't ever get to it. Which is fine really. It may make us seem really boring... although I like the variedness of our everyday days and it also helps me remember the little things we did, I guess the big things stick in my head so there's not so much personal reason to blog about them.

Anyway, today I feel like I could catch up on some of the more exciting stuff.

Last Friday was Halloween. The kids had been looking forward to Halloween for a long time - Amelie always includes it in her list of things when she's saying 'How long until.... (Easter, Christmas, birthdays etc)'. Costume planning has been going on for several weeks. All three kids greeting me with 'Happy Halloween' when they got out of bed on Friday morning. Millie was most disappointed to learn that trick-or-treating wasn't going to happen until late afternoon/evening and she needed to wait ALL day...

We spent the day at home and A&J came over to play. Caitlin didn't go to school as the rest of the Year 3-6s were away on camp, and she'd decided to go the following Monday instead to be there for the last rehearsal for the school production. It was a very relaxing day, lots of outside play on the trampoline and with our hose that we can finally use now that we have an outside tap! Some minecraft and Terraria and role playing and lego and kinetic sand as well.

Finally it was time to get into costumes and head into Yarra Glen.

We started in the estate at the top of town this year, and there were lots more trick-or-treaters than we saw last year. 6 or 7 other groups I'd say, maybe more. Some of the houses were decorated, and the kids had nothing but positive responses, even from the couple of houses where people said 'No, sorry, we don't celebrate Halloween'. We zigzagged up and down a few streets, trying to stay away from other groups so that each house wasn't hit with too many kids at once, and the kids had a wonderful time. After an hour or so we headed to S&V's house, and watched them cracking open their halloween pumpkins. Our kids went out and knocked at a few more houses in that area, then we went back to S&V's for creaming soda spiders and a bit of lolly eating and a bit of play. Home about 9pm and everyone was exhausted!

On Wednesday this week Caitlin performed in her school production. I still didn't have a car so T dropped her at S&V's place in the morning and they took her to school. I think the kids had one more practice at the hall in the morning and then the matinee at 1.30pm. Mum and Dad went to that performance and really enjoyed it. Caitlin went home with S&V and had dinner at their place (and she and S sold eggs door to door in the neighbourhood during the afternoon) then back to the hall for the night performance, we arrived in time to watch it. Caitlin was a scout and didn't have any solo speaking parts, and really got in to the singing and dancing and group lines that she had. She looked gorgeous and really comfortable on stage. The play was fun to watch (After a very slow start) and it was great to see some of the kids really loving performing. Some of them looked quite scared the whole way through and that bothered me a little, that it was a compulsory experience... I much prefer the experiences my kids are getting, which are of their own choice, and still pushing their own comfort zones, when they are ready. We all had a fun evening, Tony and I enjoyed chatting with the other parents at intermission and after the show, the kids enjoyed the show and playing in the playground afterwards.