Happy Halloween!

Monday, October 31, 2016

... from my little mail man to you!



Mason's love of the post office runs deep (as I'm sure you know by now -- #postofficeadventuresofmasonb // Picture Perfect Project). It was months ago and I wasn't even thinking of Halloween costumes yet when someone (I'm sorry, I forgot who, if it was you, then THANK YOU!) said "I sure hope he's going to be a mail man for Halloween!" and the idea was born. A couple months ago, I searched Amazon and found the most perfect little mail man costume, complete with a mail sack and a hat. I knew I wanted to have a fun little photo shoot AT the post office, so a couple Sundays ago, off we went. I'm always super embarrassed to take pictures at the post office when people are around (I don't know why, people take pictures of EVERYTHING these days so really it shouldn't be that weird) and hoped that a Sunday afternoon would be dead at the post office and... it wasn't. Luckily Seth was a good sport and let me embarrass him by taking an insane amount of photos inside the post office. Various people came in and mentioned how cute he was and a sweet old lady sat in her car while her husband ran in to mail something while I changed Mason outside our car with the biggest smile on her face.

he was in a mood so we had to bribe him with the "baby iPad" and that we 
would buy him two hot wheels at the grocery store to get him to put on his outfit

checking out his outfit




getting the mail out of his mail sack











The end of the day didn't go as according to plan when a postal worker walked up to me and said "excuse me, what are you taking pictures of?" (I said it was just for fun, that my son loves the post office) and I'm sure I've officially been banned from there... though she didn't say that it was illegal to take pictures of mail trucks, so maybe there's still hope!


the loading dock


Happy Halloween!



Rewind [Five] on Friday // Fall Y'all

Friday, October 28, 2016

Happy Friday! I'm linking up with my friends for today's Rewind [Five] on Friday -- Fall Edition. For today's post, I thought I'd share some of my favorite Fall posts from the past few years.

So in no particular order [except maybe chronological]...

ONE. Mason's First Trip to Disneyland [November 2012].
[please ignore the terrible quality photos - cell phone photos have come a long way in the past four years!]



TWO. Pumpkin Carving [2013].



THREE. Overnight Caramel Apple Rolls [2014].




FOUR. Santa Barbara -- Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 [2014].



FIVE. Blogger Date -- when I met Desiree and Stephanie for the first time! [2014].




Bonus:

SIX. Candy Corn Craft for Kids [2015].



SEVEN. Partying with Mickey! [2015]. Our Disney Cruise.



Happy Friday!





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Linking up with Beth from Our Pretty Little Girls, Meghan from The Adventure Starts Here, Stephanie from Wife Mommy Me, and Whitney from Work it Mommy.

The Guys Behind the Blog // October 2016.

Thursday, October 27, 2016

Welcome to October's Guys Behind the Blog link up!

As most of you might know, Betsy from Heavens to Betsy and Laura from According to Laura Jean hosted a series on their blogs called The Guys Behind the Blog. I used to link up as often as possible ever since I found out about the series - I think I only missed one month in the past year and a half since I found out about it. I recently went back to Betsy and Laura's blogs to find out what the questions were for August only to find out that they weren't hosting anymore - July was their last month. I was SO bummed! I truly loved interviewing Seth each month and seeing what questions they came up with. So, I decided to email Betsy and Laura and see if they would mind if I continued on their series. Thankfully they said they wouldn't mind and would be happy to see the series continue on. Crystal from Hall Around TexasEvelina from Fortunate HouseJamie from Cocktails and CarseatsJessica from Secrets of a Stay at Home Mom, and I are excited to continue the series on! 


For October, we decided to focus our questions on the theme of Halloween. Here are this month's questions:


1 // What was your most favorite Halloween costume and why?

The one Halloween costume that I have vivid memories of was when I was in fifth grade and I was Indiana Jones. I thought it was THE COOLEST thing that I got to take a whip - a REAL whip - to school! I later hurt myself with it, but that's besides the point. It was still an awesome costume.

2 // Haunted Houses – love them or hate them?

Not a big fan of getting scared. If done right, they can be pretty cool, but I'm still not a huge fan.

3 // What is your favorite scary movie of all time?

Long pause....

Me : Do you even like scary movies?

Seth : Yes and no.

Long pause again...

Seth : I don't know if it was necessarily considered a 'scary movie' but it definitely was a 'creepy movie'... The Sixth Sense. But I also do like all the 'Halloween' movies too.


4 // If you had to attend a mandatory dress up Halloween party this year, what would you go as?

Since Mason's going as a mail man (spoiler alert!) and you want to go as a post card, I'd want to be the big mail truck!

5 // Do you believe in ghosts? Why or why not?


Seth : No.

Me : Do you have a why? Or just no?

Seth : Just no.



November's link up will be a little earlier than normal due to Thanksgiving being the last Thursday of the month. November's link up will be on November 17th and the questions will be:

1 // What is your favorite Thanksgiving dish? What is your least favorite?

2 // What is a Thanksgiving tradition you liked growing up that you want to continue with your family?

For example: Do you eat super early around 3pm or regular dinner time around 6pm? Do you watch football? Do you all go to a particular family member's house? Do you nap after the big meal?

3 // What are your thoughts on Black Friday shopping? Yay or nay?

4 // If you had it your way, would you set up your holiday decorations (Christmas tree, Hanukkah menorah, etc.) before or after Thanksgiving?

5 // What are you most thankful for this year?



We hope to see you back here on November 17th to link up with us and share what your significant others have to say about Thanksgiving! (Also, feel free to grab that first graphic to add to your posts if you'd like!)




***

A HUGE thank you to Betsy and Laura for letting Crystal, Evelina, Jamie, Jessica, and I continue on their series. It's an honor to be able to continue on what they created.

You can find the original series on Betsy's blog here and Laura's blog here.

Thanks for playing along again, Seth!







[Countdown to Halloween] Carving Pumpkins!

Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Every year since Mason was born (and even before that), we've carved pumpkins. I was actually just looking through past posts the other day for a different post and found all of our past pumpkin carvings. This year I had the delusional idea that Mason would be able to help. I figured, he's four now, he should be able to help, right? Wrong. It's not that things went terribly crazy or wrong, but let's just say, he's definitely not ready.

I took him to the store to pick out what "utensil" pack we would get. It was down to Paw Patrol or Finding Dory and he chose Dory. Solid decision. So we bought the pack of carving utensils and the stencils to make Finding Dory-like pumpkins and we were on our way home. I happened to be home with Mason on this particular day because he had an appointment in the morning and then ABA in the afternoon, so I just took the whole day off. I thought it would be a fun adventure for us to carve pumpkins together.


I thought I would carve the top off Mason's pumpkin and he would scoop out the seeds and I would paint mine with the kit that I got in the dollar section at Target. Easy peasy and fun. Well, for starters, Mason HATED sticking his hand in the pumpkin to get out the seeds. I mean, I guess I can't blame him because I don't love it either. I mean it's sticky and gooey. So he refused to do that. He just kept picking up the poker and poking holes in the pumpkin. Over and over and over. I eventually had to ask him to go play with his cars or watch his iPad while I finished so the pumpkin didn't have 100 little holes in it before I was done.

I finished his pumpkin and gave it a simple little smiling face. I was going to attempt one of the Dory designs but the pumpkin was pretty thick and I didn't think the little knives would work well and I didn't think the big knife would cut small enough for the design. I clearly didn't think things fully through when buying our pumpkins.




After I finished Mason's pumpkin, I started on mine. I figured, for $3, how hard could this kit be? Wrong again. The kit came with this stencil that you were suppose to trace with marker on to the pumpkin. First of all, the stencil didn't sit flat, so I had to cut it apart and tape it to the pumpkin in pieces. Second of all, the marker bled.

After I was done with the tracing, there was paint that I was supposed to go over the letters with and then sprinkle some glitter. The paint brush was too thick for the letters so I used an old make up brush that was more the correct size. After I painted the letters, I dumped some glitter and called it good.






After I was all done with both pumpkins, I wiped off the excess glitter and brought the pumpkins outside for a little photo op. Mason was so proud of the pumpkins and had no problem cheesin' for me...




...and then I let him take a couple pictures too. He insisted.



Overall, it was a fun afternoon even though it was a little frustrating and I said no probably 100 too many times. We both had a good time spending the day together and we now have a festive looking front porch. Next time I think I will stick to the stickered pumpkin for Mason (seen above - we did a couple weeks ago) and do the carving after he's already in bed :)




What kind of Fall/Halloween fun have you been up to?
Link up with us below and let us know!





Northern California Trip // Days 4 and 5

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

I'm back today to continue sharing some more of our trip to Northern California. 
If you missed Days 1 and 2, you can find them here and Day 3 here.

On Day 4 we headed out of the city and into the hills - the Berkeley Hills to be exact - to my dad and step mom's house. We had planned on spending the second half of our trip with them so we left the city after our breakfast of Starbucks and Noah's Bagels (SO GOOD) and headed more inland to their house.... BUT not before we snapped a couple pictures in front of this gorgeous mural wall that was in the hotel parking lot.




The Bay Bridge

We arrived late morning and Mason made himself right at home from minute number one. His first stop was to show Grandma and Grandpa all his new Hot Wheels cars and to build a track down the stairs in the backyard. He was in heaven!



After we explored the backyard for a while (and made a huge mess of their house *cough Mason cough*), we decided to take their dog, Leo (whom Mason referred as Lee-low and I thought it was the cutest thing EVER) for a walk down by the beach and have some lunch.



After we got back, Mason had a popsicle and looked way too big sitting in the big boy chair and we hung out outside, I admired all the green (we don't have much of that in Southern California these days), and we had dinner.







The next day my step mom had big plans for us -- we were going to see trains! The place was about an hour and a half away and I'd never been so I was pretty excited to go - probably almost as much so as Mason. We arrived around 10am and were easily there until at least 3pm. We rode the train (an electric street car) and explored the trains on display. You could walk in some of the train cars that were there and it was so cool to explore such old train cars and see what they used to look like so many years ago. They even had train cars from all over - one was even from Australia!













I was so happy that my step mom found this place. Though I grew up in Northern California, I had never been here or even heard of it so it was fun to explore with Mason.

After we were done at the train museum, we drove the hour and a half home, played with more Hot Wheels on the steps and with "Lee-low", and went to bed so we could have more fun the next day!

And that's a wrap on Days 4 and 5!






DESIGNED BY ECLAIR DESIGNS