Trick or treatise

I don't have another photo of Emmanuelle because it was getting dark and we were eager to get out on our candy run. I've lived in Montreal for nearly 10 years now, and I always believed that Hallowe'en wasn't taken seriously in the city. Now I know that there are just different rules here. In Regina, you can pretty much ring at any door, so generally we would sweep through an entire neighbourhood, only skipping houses that our brothers in arms had reconned and found to be empty (or members of the dread apple corps). In three hours it was easy to fill as many pillow cases with candy, as long as Jason Holmes wasn't on the prowl. (Other kids worried about razors in apples or poisoned candy. We worried about Jason Holmes. He was the neighbourhood meanie reputed to have hospitalized a much older kid when he was only 12 years old. True story: my brother John and I were accosted by this very hooligan one Hallowe'en on Truesdale drive. John's spidey senses had been tingling, and on his advice I had already wrapped my pillow case around my hands. Jason gave it a yank or two, but quickly moved on to lower-hanging fruit. John and I decided to call it a night.)
Back to Hallowe'en in Montreal: It turns out that lots of people do give out candy here after all. Maybe I just hadn't noticed because I've never had a ground floor apartment . The rule is simple. If there's a light on and even a hint of decoration, they're giving candy. In fact, most of the neighbours on the two streets we visited were sitting out on their porches chatting with one another. It looked like a block party. In fact, one woman even crossed from the other side of the street to give us candy because no one was coming to her side.
So this was the first year of trick or treating for Emmanuelle (and I suppose you can count Oscar, since he came along and even collected his share of candy, as people just can't resist feeding the penguins.) At first Emma didn't want to put her costume on, but she didn't put up much of a fuss. We got to the first house and she held out her little bucket, which a nice woman half filled with candy. And then everything clicked. By the end of two blocks she wouldn't let us carry her bucket, cried when we emptied the excess, and didn't want to go home. She was brazenly stepping up on porches and declaring "c'est a mon tour maintenant" (it's my turn now), or, imitating her mom, "c'est l'Hallowe'en, on veut des bonbons" (it's Halloween; we want candy). Fortunately she only picked up the last phrase as we were on our way home.
Sadly for Emma, the Hallowe'en fairy has already visited and absconded with about half of her candy. Don't feel too bad for her though: what's left is more than enough to keep a pack of dentists in Mercedeses for a good while...

C'est l'Hallowe'en!

Eh oui, les amis, c'est l'Hallowe'en. And are we ever happy we have a couple of little ones that we can dress up to score candy for us. I mean, with whom we can share the joy of trick or treating. Since we couldn't hold our collective horses, we decided to have a pre-Hallow fest for the little weeners. In addition to providing a reasonable excuse to eat gummy worms, all the guests meant that I was able to finish off that jar of pickled eyeballs I opened a couple of weeks ago.

I call it the "Unpleasant Surprise". The picture doesn't render it justice, but the top of the martini is opaque, and it's only after the first few sips that you see that your drink is staring back at you.

Hugo "enjoying" a martini.

Lotus Bleu.

Emmanimal

Raphanimal?

Victor as a fireman. Note that Victor's fireman routine is not at all like Oscar's fireman routine.

Lucas wants some Pop-Tarts

Leila's sugar buzz was wearing off, while Maeve was trying desperately to restock.

Even Mao dressed up.

Pumpkins galore!

Did I ever tell you the one about the Eskimo voyeur, Tom Tukaluk?

Jack-O'-Lantern meets Hedgehog-O'-Appetizers
It's a spider, alright? That's right. A spider.

Mmm, food colouring. Delicious, nutritious food colouring!

OK OK

Some more Emma photos. (Oscar was on Dad. Dad had camera. No Oscar photos.)

I know, I know

You're only interested in pics of the kids. But we haven't taken any lately, and I do have these two other nice photos that Annick and I took with the new camera to share. You can try to guess who took which photo...

Fall at the market.

We tried some staged photos with mixed success. We'll have to try again next weekend if it's not raining...

Turkey day in Ottawa

In what's beginning to look like an annual tradition, we answered the siren call of the Ottawa clan to chow down on turkey. The only bummer was that Emma was recovering from some sort of nasty infection from last week, so she was a little tuckered out. The rest of us were in fine form for feasting, and feast we did. Cost of entry: a mere pumpkin pie.

Me having fun. Really.

Emmanuelle looking a bit sluggish, trying to keep up with Kaya.
Time out.
Didn't Oscar's hair used to be brown?
OK, so Oscar is the only one smiling or looking at the camera, but at least no one is picking her nose...
Time for a book.
Tuckering out before our eyes.
Sometimes I feel like a prisoner in a world-sized jail.

90th post!

How to mark such an auspicious occasion? Well, I'm guessing that since Emma has a high fever and has been spreading layer after layer of germs on every surface of the house, most of us will celebrate with a rather unpleasant next 48 hours or so. In the meantime, some new photos: