Halloween Fun

This year's Jack O' Lantern, carved by yours truly whilst waiting for the fairy cakes to bake. 

Halloween normally falls during term time, but this year it fell on half term week. This meant that rather than a few hours in the evening, we were able to have a whole day of family fun. After they raided their treat baskets and indulged in the rare treat of chocolate before breakfast, I made Halloween themed pancakes for our actual breakfast. We watched a couple of new Looney Toons Halloween specials on DVD (Tom is in to Looney Toons in a big way at the moment) and read lots of books from our Halloween-themed book basket. Lily and Emma were already dressed in their costumes by this point and were soon engaged in lots of imaginative play. Mark's parents arrived after lunch and the Podlings were thrilled to have their grandparents here to share the day with them.

The Podlings braved the freezing cold to have a good bounce on the trampoline (poor Nanna had to wrap up in three blankets to stay warm!) and then they came inside to decorate fairy cakes. After a Halloween themed tea we played The Doughnut Game. This involves hanging ring doughnuts from sticks and dangling them at head height in front of the Podlings. The winner is the first person to take a bite out of their doughnut, but they are not allowed to touch the doughnut with their hands. Tom won this year, but much fun was had as they tried to consume sticky doughnuts dangling from string in front of their noses! They then had a few rounds of the Ghost Hunt game that Tom got for his birthday before I had the fun of trying to calm them all down for bedtime! We finished the evening off by reading Julia Donaldson's 'Room on the Broom' at storytime. I think it's fair to say that the Podlings had a great day!

Chocolate before breakfast = A Good Day

My attempt to make Scotch pancakes look like skulls and ghosts! Raisins for eyes and white chocolate chips for teeth. If you squint you might be able to see the resemblance! 

Grandad helping Tom to decorate fairy cakes

Nanna helping Emma with her cakes. Emma, you might notice, has a great deal of melted chocolate around her mouth!

I iced faces on orange chocolate buttons in an attempt to make them look like Jack O' Lanterns.

Lily takes cake decorating very seriously and made some very pretty little cakes.

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