How did your Halloween go? Did the kids enjoy trick or treating on Tuesday evening? In Ireland we had a longer weekend as on Monday it was a bank holiday. This gave us the change to do more together as a family. The Monday we had planned to go to the Pumpkin Patch in Co. Meath.
I actually had a longer weekend because I took Friday off to get some jobs done and me and hubby went shopping for some suits. In the new office he needs to wear a suit pretty much every day. Friday was also the day I bought most of the Christmas presents. I still have to move them from the boot of my car into the spare bedroom. I want to wrap them all as well so it’s done and dusted and I don’t have to think about it anymore.
Saturday morning hubby took Matthew to his swimming lesson while Chloe and me headed off to Wicklow town to meet hubby’s sister for some lunch and a bit of shopping. Chloe picked up another Christmas present for herself and I also found another diecast Transformers car for Matthew. Have you ever been to Toymaster before? It is such a different experience to Smyths. There are so many unique toys. As we were on the way out, we discovered several different rolls of oil table cloths. I didn’t have one yet for Christmas. I picked up the most gorgeous design for the kitchen which will go so nice. And that was only for 18 EURO. It would have costed me more to order it on Amazon with the postage on top of it.
We then went to the same cafe again where we had lunch and enjoyed some tea and cake until Chloe and me headed back home.
Saturday evening hubby and me were supposed to head out for a meal. We even had his brother organised to come over to stay with us and mind the kids. Chloe had other plans though. She actually didn’t go to sleep until 10pm. I can’t recall this even happening in her 2 years and 9 months of existence. She really didn’t want mummy to go. Instead hubby’s brother went out for a few drinks. Chloe twisted the whole plan around.
Sunday morning hubby was volunteering in the tennis club as he is unable to play at the moment with his shoulder and back. After a bit of TV and breakfast, we decided to head down to Kildare Village and find Chloe a new pair of shoes. It didn’t go quite to plan as she didn’t want to get her feet measured. Matthew was more than happy to and grabbed himself a new pair of shoes which were half price. He is a size 10 1/2 F at the moment.
Afterwards we went for a bite to eat. The cafe we went to, had some Halloween treats such as sweets, chocolate and chocolate apples. You can probably imagine that the kids were overdosed with these over the long weekend.
The kids were excited for Monday morning as we were heading to the Pumpkin Patch. It’s an hours drive which is not too bad. There are probably closer ones but me and Matthew attended this one last year so I wanted to take the whole family this time. Plus, you are not really a blogger if you have not been to the Pumpkin Patch. We also met hubby’s sisters family there. We spent about two hours there roughly. The kids enjoyed some apples topped with chocolate sauce and smarties, as well as chocolate marshmallow cake pops. We listened to the story teller Barry James and Matthew got his face painted. We then headed onto the field and the kids ran wild before we picked up three pumpkins and took our monthly family photo.
As a treat we stopped on the way home at McDonald’s and had lunch there. They were definitely hungry because they demolished the whole meal. Normally we have lunch around 12.30pm and they only eat half of their lunch. At the weekend we had lunch a bit late which was around 1.30pm and they ate everything every time. This makes me think we should push lunch out more if they actually eat then. The evening was spent carving pumpkins. You can probably make out what they are supposed to be.
Trick or Treating on Tuesday was complete madness. We live in a quite big estate. For next year I will definitely have to have a bigger or second bowl for all the trick or treaters. We had to turn off the lights eventually as we ran out of sweets. Chloe went home with daddy half way through while Matthew and me continued on to all the other lovely decorated houses for some sweets and chocolate. They did get an enormous amount. But there are a lot of hard sweets in it which I would never give a five year old. Matthew calls them “grown up sweets”.
