Okay, extravaganza might be too strong a word for a ‘cosmic bowling’ party with a bunch of 6 year old kids, but whatever.  The carpet, at least, was worthy of exclamation:

Sophie was in her bowling finery

The whole affair was a little like this

except with the high-pitched squealing that only children can emit.

There were hotdogs for the kids, and of course cake.  The Hannah Montana cake was horrifyingly purple, a colour which would not come off the children’s faces afterward with any amount of soapy scrubbing.  It did, however, come with a matching headset, which Sophie wore around for most of the rest of the day.

Sophie wasn’t sure why we laughed so hard when she showed us her bandaged finger:

Pottery Night, starring Sophie, Kristien, Dad and Jef!

Dad shows off a shockingly good caricature of his brother:

I finished Xmas presents for my sister and mom:

Jef made some hilarious critters which I think he called skrogs:

Sophie directed:

…and also made a rather impressive little mouse in a house:

Afterward we ate too much Chinese food and Sophie taught Jef to play Pattycake:

The rest of the night went a lot like this:

I have a motley assortment of photos, mostly from my camera phone unfortunately, but all at least passingly amusing.

My father still hasn’t sent me the promised photos from Hallowe’en, so I guess you’re not going to see them, but I do have a shot of the Happy Hybrid Demon Pet I made for the occasion, and some gruesome photos of The Leavings.  Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you:

The Frogigercorn!

These mutilated remains were left over from the hybridization process:

Over the days following Hallowe’en, a resourceful fellow mad scientist formed this demon spawn from the …remains.

Finally, my partners in crime for Hallowe’en:

I suppose I should also show you this italian-american squirrel

And we’ll wrap up with a picture of Sophie drawing dinosaurs.

Dragged the Reluctant Husband to a family BBQ this weekend.  Over-ate, made small talk, harassed the family doctor, watched the kids be kids, and discussed parthenogenesis in phasmids.  You know, the usual.

Highlight of the day was the noisy and prolonged destruction of the pinata:

There was also some excitement over the discovery of two spiders on neighbouring leaves of a bush.  I wasn’t able to get a good look at their backs without disturbing them, but they look to be the exceedingly common Araneus diadematus (cross spider, if you prefer) found in gardens throughout Europe and North America.