Lego Fly Trap and a Big Puzzle App

We started the week with a quiet morning, Squidge and Moppet watching Skylander Boy and Girl videos and Sprout watching some cBeebies and telling me lots of things about various games he was playing and ones that he was thinking of getting such as the old Sim City. He also started to build a prison out of Lego, and showed me some of the features of the cells. Squidge made some pain au chocolat, and we had friends over to play in the afternoon and had a really lovely time.

Later on, Sprout had a fly in his bedroom that was annoying him, so he built this contraption from Lego and used it to trap the fly and then release it unharmed outside :)

Squidge played a new hidden object puzzle game, and spent a couple of hours working out the missing pieces and the connections. 

Squidge had a friend round to play the next day, and they spent lots of time on the trampoline, and came inside to do some dancing too :) Sprout watched some old Nerd Cubed videos, and showed me the new Pewdiepie video of Sunset Overdrive. Later on as I was starting to make dinner, Moppet came in and told me she'd eaten a coin! After much questioning she was still insisting that she had, so it was a trip to A&E to be sure. A nurse checked her with a metal detector, then after a bit of a wit a doctor did the same, with no sign of a coin at all. They gave her the all clear and then the doctor let her have a go of the metal detector, so we had a very late night but a happy (and currency-free!) girl :)

The next morning was all about the guinea pigs, with them each having some quality snuggle time with Sprout :) He's so very lovely with them, chats to them all the time, and here he was explaining to Sandy (one of the two surprise babies from earlier in the year) that "Mac [our cat] is a hunting cat, but don't worry because I'll always look after you".

Casper (the big man of the guinea pig clan)  was the happiest this morning, doing his little vibrating purr :)

Moppet was looking at the anatomy puzzle block and asking me what all the things were on it.

Later we made ghost pizzas...

...and Percy Pig cakes :)

We did an early trick or treat at a friend's house, this is just before we went in and the boys are doing their best scary ninja look and Moppet is just excited :)

Sprout had had a tough afternoon for various reasons, so he and I went out after trick or treat :) We had a really nice time, lots of chatting, briefly addressing a problem he was having, then loads of laughing, chair dancing, jokes, puns, and talking about road trips, his favourite hotel type, giant burgers, the Minecraft sandwich mod, where Gruff and I met, Sprout's favourite cafés and types of food, various apps, cars without drivers, and cars with such good suspension that toy dinosaurs don't fall off the back seat.

He also told me about some videos from these guys that we were watching the other day.

The next morning we carved the pumpkins we'd picked at the farm last week. Sprout started off planning a magic chest design, changed it to an Oni, then asked me to modify it at the end to be a slenderman :)

We made this little guy with some vampire teeth and a couple of dice...

...and these are the finished lanterns. Squidge wanted to direct me making his, he wanted a spiderman one. Moppet drew her own scary face on for me to cut out.

Afterwards Squidge was really excited as he completed his huge Deathly Artisan puzzle adventure game, and then immediately downloaded another and made a start on it :)

Thursday was our annual tradition of the Funsters Hallowe'en party, which is busy and chaotic and LOUD but the three of them totally love it :)

Moppet started off with a play in the kitchen...

...while we found a little ninja in the oven :)

They had some party food...

...played some games (with some epic dancing on all their parts!)...

Then their favourite bit, all the hallowe'en sideshow games :) Get the ball in the pot at the haunted castle...

...retrieve the eyeball from the witch's brew...

...human pop-up-pirate...

...the mad scientist's electric wire challenge...

...and meeting Minnie and Mickey all dressed up for hallowe'en! While we were queuing Sprout told me about a Nerd Cubed video where he can't remember the compass positions so he remembers them with the mnemonic Never Eat Shredded Wheat, and he showed me where that starts and goes round to :)

We finished with a game of Lion King tic tac toe :)

Back at home Moppet was asleep within minutes, while Squidge watched some Chop Socky Chooks and Sprout watched the Mythbusters episode about the exploding toilet myth, and told us all about it.

Sprout made a start on exploring his new Minecraft server the next morning, with Squidge watching, while Moppet watched some Dora and Diego. They all did some pour painting on a pumpkin too...

Sprout watched some Pewdiepie videos about Facerig (which Sprout has had since prerelease but doesn't get the full effect of until we manage to upgrade his PC a bit!), then played on Hack n Slash for a while, changing the parameters of the bad guys to make them beatable :)

Squidge and Moppet wanted their faces painting to go trick or treating, Squidge as a sparkly batman...

...and Moppet as a dragon :)

Some lovely friends took us trick or treating with them as it was the first time we'd been, and the kids had a totally fab time :)

When we got home Gruff had set up their pumpkins outside, along with spooky eyes peering out of the bushes (eye shapes cut into toilet roll tubes, with a glow stick inside)...

...and glowing pumpkin balloons in the lounge! We treated ourselves to fish and chips, then Squidge and Moppet both fell asleep pretty early, while Sprout stayed up for a while and played Saints Row while I got some work done.