Creepy House

First bit of news for today is that last week both boys were presented with a Creepy House certificate in their school assembly. This was presented to all the children who managed to complete the Creepy House reading challenge at the local library which was run during the summer holidays. I think they had to read a minimum 6 books each which was no problem for Josh and Brandon as they love getting library books for bedtime stories.

 

Joshua and Brandon with their Creepy House reading certificate.

Halloween is kicking into full swing now. The boys have already had heir school Halloween party and then tonight Joshua had his Beaver Scouts Halloween party. For the first hour of today's session he got to do indoor archery and seemed to really enjoy it. The archery was proper recurve bows and from what Joshua tells us he hit the target quite a few times. After the archery they had their Halloween party where he also managed to get his face painted like a green zombie type of character.

 

Brandon posing by a giant pumpkin at Barleylands farm.

On Saturday night we were tipped off by my little Bro regarding the free firework display which Southend sea front run every Saturday night throughout October. Despite the lousy weather we managed to catch a break in the rain and decided to go and see the fireworks. We had a little trouble parking up and I ended up dropping Tina and the boys off whilst I parked up a bit further away, then legged it back to them just in time for the start of the fireworks. Joshua really enjoyed the fireworks but Brandon didn't like the noisy ones much (surprising given that he is by far the noisiest person in the house!).

 

We managed to miss the rain storms and stayed completely dry - well at least me and Tina did!!!! Joshua and Brandon had other ideas as they found the Southend fountains for the first time. At first they were happy running in between the gaps of the water fountains just getting a little splash. But within about 5 minutes they were literally standing in the fountains and running right through them. Both boys were drenched to the bones to the point where we had to strip them almost naked to put them in the car and bring them home. Joshua tipped half of Southend sea out of his welly boots.

At first the boys stayed between the fountain gaps and didn't get too wet.

But the pair of trouble makers soon changed that and got completely soaked.

Oddly enough Brandon was confused as to why he got so cold when walking back to the car!!!!

Anyway with Halloween fastly approaching we decided to crack on with our pumpkin carving today. So my first job was to gut 4 pumpkins ready for carving. Whilst I was doing this the boys seemed to enjoy being given the rather messy job of separating the pumpkin seeds from the pulp.

Joshua getting his hands dirty separating pulp and seeds.

Brandon using an ice cream scoop to pick out his seeds.

Both boys loved the messy play with the pumpkin pulp.

Joshua doing an outstanding job separating all his seeds.

For the first time ever I let the boys loose with a blunt pumpkin knife to make their own ghoulish creations. I helped them initially by carving a conventional pumpkin face, but then I let them have a free reign and do what they liked on the back of their pumpkins. Joshua seemed to enjoy cutting a big hole to put his hand through, for some reason Brandon was cutting star shapes. 

Joshua cutting his hand hole in the back of his pumpkin.

Brandon very happy that he is trusted with a pumpkin knife.

Its nice to see both boys enjoying some pumpkin craft.

 

You will have to wait until Halloween to see the final creations.