Halloween was definitely eventful this year. Derek and I had a total of three different costumes for Halloween including a recycled costume from several years ago and two new ones. The kids all had two costumes each and we all had a serious blast.

We started the festivities on Friday with school parties. I went as the Cheshire Cat and reused an older costume from several years ago when we were Alice in Wonderland themed. Lilly also chose an Alice in Wonderland character but went for The Mad Hatter instead of Alice and we had to build her costume using random awesomeness from Goodwill. Arthur went as Beetlejuice which was comprised of a suit from Amazon, green hair paint and makeup. Alan went as a ninja and took very little extra work which I appreciated.

That evening we went to Boo at the Zoo and kept our costumes from school with the addition of Derek as a banana.

Saturday I spent the day cleaning up the house and finishing up costumes for Sunday. That evening we went to a Halloween party with friends and the kids had a sitter. I was super proud of our costumes and put considerable effort into them. Derek was the singer Sia and I was a chandelier. He went all the way wearing a skirt and heels. It was phenomenal.
For my chandelier costume I roamed through Hobby Lobby looking for anything silver that I thought would work. I purchased a black tshirt, silver leather, some felt, silver gems and silver beading and ribbon from the ribbon section. I referred to a sketch of a chandelier and started hot-gluing. I ended up making a choker out of the jeweled ribbon and hot-glued the beading to it and the shirt. I even cut slits and inserted some battery pack lights to electrify it. I found a silver wig and silver sequin pants on amazon and the outfit was complete. For Sia, I made the bow out of a headband blank, black craft foam and hot glue. Purchased the wig from amazon and then dressed him in m clothes. Yes...unfortunately we wear the same size. ​

For the actual day we spent quite a bit of time recovering from Saturday's party which involved us arriving home at 3:30am. But, once I was rehydrated with two Body Armor Drinks and filled with a breakfast burrito I was ready for the day. We carved pumpkins and watched The Addams Family to get ourselves into character. Then we donned our family costumes and totally killed it! I made it easy on myself this year and most of our costumes were just purchased items put together. I did go hunting for Derek's jacket at Goodwill because I didn't like the costume options online and I had to make Alan's Cousin It costume from scratch but, it was actually pretty quick.

To make it I took a tan baseball cap and cut off the brim. Then I measured yarn for the correct length for Alan (didn't want it dragging the ground). Then I hot-glued two layers of said yarn around the rim of the cap and then a piece of tan felt on top of the layers to keep it more sturdy. I put a bowler hat and sunglasses on top and he was ready to go! He was definitely the star of our little show.

In my previous post I discussed the planning of our first family camping trip. I tried to plan everything to perfection so the kids would have the best time ever and be excited about any and all future trips and I'm proud to say that, even with a few mishaps, it was a successful trip! So, here's the recap!

The drive there was super pretty and uneventful. We followed along the side of the Arkansas River for the majority of the drive which made for some nice scenery. When we arrived the weather was nice and we got right to work setting up camp. The first snaffoo was realizing that the air pump for our air mattress needed D batteries that I did not have. So, Derek went to a the nearest town (20 minutes) to purchase some along with some alcohol for us to enjoy later by the fire. He wasn't excited about it but I have scoliosis and was unwilling to compromise with no mattress. Mere moments after his departure Arthur was trying to rinse his hands in the river and FELL IN! Luckily it is the Arkansas River Headwaters so the river is not as huge as it gets further south but he was pretty upset and the water was very cold. Luckily, the tent was set up so we got him in some dry clothes and he was all better.

When Derek returned we finished setting up our bed and had a dinner of chili cheese fries, hotdogs and s'mores. Everyone had a blast. Then it was bedtime. I purchased a tent heater to ensure that we had a good night's sleep however, I did not purchase a winterized tent. FAIL. The tent has a roof that is made entirely of mesh with an optional cover for rain. So, all of the heat our bodies and the heater produced went straight out of the top of the tent. We were all freezing for the entire night. It was terrible.

So, the next morning I have the ingenious idea to duct tape emergency blankets to the entire ceiling of the tent. I was quite proud of myself. I looked like we were inside of a a UFO and was a bit noisy but I'll take a little noise over freezing to death any day. The rest of the day was nice and relaxing. I made fire cooked blueberry french toast for breakfast which was bomb. We hung out, went for a hike, read books, the kids took advantage of all of the crafting supplies that I brough and I worked on some cross-stitching. For dinner I made us chicken teriyaki vegetables with rice which was also amaze-balls and we had some more s'mores. Then the wind came. It was so very, very windy. We had to extinguish the fire for fear of catching our tent on fire and we sent the kids into the tent to watch t.v. on my phone to distract them from the fact that Derek was outside literally holding the tent down. Oh, and the emergency blanket ceiling was soooooo loud with that wind ripping through it you could barely hear inside the tent. But, it did hold up and only had to be re-taped in a few places. And, once the wind calmed down we all slept great because the emergency blankets worked! I actually got sweaty even though it was colder the second night than it was the first.

The next morning the wind was still insane so we couldn't have a fire for breakfast but we did have a camp stove so we managed to eat some eggs and sausage. After packing up we headed to the nearby town of Buena Vista which is super picturesque. We enjoyed some well-deserved doughnuts and bougie coffee and even found an adorable bookstore to peruse for a bit. Then it was back home! 

So, was it the picture perfect trip I had planned? No. But, it was very memorable and included a lot of family time. Plus, the kids had a blast despite the sleeping woes and are ready to go back. However, I don't think I will plan another fall camping trip. We'll go for a summer trip next time and hopefully avoid all of the trouble we experienced on this trip. If you're interested in any of the fun activities, planners and recipes that I used on my trip you can find them all for free in the my Mommy Camp: Camping download found on the post linked below.

Since moving to Colorado we have been loving the ability to be outdoors! No mosquitos?! Count me in! So, after acclimating our kids to hiking and general outdoorsiness, we've decided it's time to take them on a legit camping trip! But, I want it to be perfect so they love it and we can do it all the time without whining. (Hiking took a bit before they stopped whining about going.) So, I'm planning everything down to the last detail. I don't know if you've picked up on this yet but I have never been a chill person. I'm very extra in just about everything.

After spending hours researching tents, sleeping bags and everything else I could possible need, spending way too much on Amazon. Justifying the amount spent by rationalizing that if the world ends we'll be prepared and scouring the internet for suggestions that I may not have thought of (like cracking eggs before hand and storing them in a container...genius). I think we're ready to go. And, what kind of insane, OCD, extra mom would I be if I didn't make a special binder full of the plans, recipes, lists and kid activities to go along with us?! So, enjoy my Mommy Camp: Camping Guide which you can download by clicking the photo below and be sure to check back to see if all of my planning paid off or if we ended up in a hotel.

I know...being basic is not generally one's goal. However, my friends and I made it just that when we began planning a day of fall fun for ourselves. We decided to cram as many fall activities and alcohol into one day as possible and I think we succeeded. Did I mention that my friends are the bomb?!

First, we must have an agenda. I, of course, took care of that. Everyone needs to know how this day is going down right?

After it was planned we also made basic babe tshirts (we teach elementary school and everyone wanted to be able to wear them to work), booked sitters and hit the store for food and drink. Take a look at all of our fun and know that we 100% recommend all girlfriends do this. It was so fun!

Brunch, Lattés and a Pumpkin Patch

Shopping & Candle Smelling

Dinner & Drinks in a Teepee

Crafting - We did a bleach t-shirt craft for Halloween. It was easy, cheap and had the smallest margin of error for completing while drinking.

Charcuterie, Sweets and Fall Cocktails 

Finished up with PJ's and a movie. We chose "The Craft".

Again, I cannot stress how much fun this was. Also, I got a huge number of compliments on my outfit which made me think I should go for the basic girl aesthetic more often. I literally worked so hard putting the outfit together. I bought some very interesting plaid leggings from Walmart and borrowed a hat from my daughter but I guess it worked!

We've decided that next year we'll make an extra shirt and award it to the person we see out that we deem an honorary member of our basic crew if their vibe is what we were striving for. Now that I'm typing it it sounds mean-hearted but honestly, I'm too lazy to make this look work for me everyday. I spent forever putting the outfit together and, that hat may have looked good but it drove me crazy all day long. I don't know how other people do it.

This year my daughter decided a sleepover with just a few friends was her idea of a good time for her birthday so I got to work planning the best sleepover I could imagine. Note, she is very anti girlie things like pink and sparkles so that ups the difficulty level here.

I started with a vision board as always (click the image below to get the plan and shopping list). She originally mentioned sleeping on the trampoline and making it a big tent but I successfully talked her out of that so we decided to set up a huge tent thing over the basement sofa pull-out.

No party of mine would be complete without ample craft activities so we really embodied a classic sleepover and did face masks, nail painting and made our own lipgloss. We also decorated picture frames for an instant photo we took for each girl and made our own flip flop slippers that they named "trash flops". For food we started by making our own mini pizzas. Then we had a popcorn bar stocked with all the sweets for movie time. We also had fizzy juice in fancy cups. For party favors, each girl got a custom sleepover tshirt, sleepover bag and a bunch of beauty goodies like a nail kit, mirror, nail polish, the homemade lip balm, sleep mask, the diy flip flops and the picture frames with photos that we decorated.

Making lip balm is super easy. All you need is vaseline and kool aid. You mix them together an put them in cute little containers from the travel section at Walmart.

For the flip flops I purchased dollar store flip flops and pre-cut fabric from the quilting section at Walmart. Then you just knot the strips onto the flip flop. Done! We got the frames from the dollar store too and used glitter glue and a ton of decorative items to make them our own. We used my daughters polaroid instamax to take photos of the girls for each of them to put in the frames.

To set up the tent I just used white curtains I had in storage (we didn't need them in our new house when we moved) and used push pins to pin them to the ceiling over the sofa. I also added some curtain string lights that I purchased on amazon to light it.

Between all of the crafts I planned, a basement full of sweets and a trampoline in the backyard, the girls had a fabulous sleepover. Now I just need to plan one of these for myself and my girlfriends! The pictures of the tent really don't do it justice. It was magical!

Last year I made a huge career switch and began teaching elementary Spanish in January, in the middle of a pandemic, in an entirely different part of the country. It was a big deal. My classroom was super tiny and definitely not what I needed and I made sure to let my administration know that I desperately needed bigger digs. They totally came through like the boss bitches they are and gave me a full sized classroom for the new school year. But, it was in desperate need of a facelift. I immediately got to work painting every surface of the room and planning for the overall vibe. After spending countless days of my summer vacation working on it with the help of my daughter I'm happy to say that it is perfect. I love it. I'm never leaving.

I chose to go super basic with my paint colors so I have the ability to change the room look with decorations and NEVER PAINT AGAIN. Seriously, I painted all of the walls white. Then painted both built in bookcases black (originally a dirty cream) and all of the cabinets, countertops and heater black. The counters were ORANGE. And not a cute orange. A 1970's orange. I also painted the metal shelves black and the chalkboard went from blue to gray. I chose bright colors for my accents and even made an entire wall a focus wall with sombreros I found while going through stuff the old Spanish teacher left. There were like 30 sombreros. 

I had plans to paint the stools black and cover the seats with fun paper and mod podge but I ran out of time. Maybe that's a project for next summer.

Summer was busy! With the kids getting older, our social lives in a really good place and living in a new city with many fun things to do we didn't even come close to finishing all of my Mommy Camp plans this summer. Oh! And Arthur broke his arm at the playground during our first day of mommy camp! So he spent all summer with a cast! Other than the amazing mc plans we visited with tons of family, went to Pike's Peak to see the new visitor center, peeped bugs at the May Natural History Museum, examined plants at the Denver Botanic Gardens, ate turkey legs at a rennaisance fair, visited the ferris wheel in the new Scheel's, panned for gold and gems, hiked at Red Rocks again and spent plenty of time at the pool.

It started off with an owl delivering their initiations to attend the school of Witchcraft & Wizardry for Whippersnappers. You can find the letter template in the Mommy Camp document. They were given tickets for the MC Express and then "boarded/rode the train" down our diy stair slide that led to the basement where "Diagon Alley" was set-up for them to do their shopping.

The days leading up to our start of camp I made familiar animals out of socks and fabric, quills out of electrical tape and feathers, wand boxes from a printable I found (we used chopsticks as the base for our wands which we painted and electrified later), small brooms I bought from Amazon and robes from big black t-shirts. I made signs for the "shops" and they got to collect all of their supplies before heading into the "school".

For the "school" I purchased castle decorations and hung them in our table area. I also used fishing wire to hang battery operated candles from the ceiling to add to the fun and to embody a Hogwarts vibe.

The first thing they did was to get sorted into their house. I created my own houses and then we picked which house fit their personalities best. I made a note sheet with their houses on it for my husband who was upstairs (he works from home). Then, we called him on my phone and put it on speaker phone. We taped my phone into the top of a sorting hat I bought online and then announced each time we placed the hat on one of the kids heads so he knew who he was sorting. They thought it was magical and my husband did a great job with the voice!

For the rest of our first day we electrified our wands using led's, electrical tape, a ton of hot glue, paint and a small battery. They turned out so cool! (find the tutorial in MC Harry Potter)

We ended our day with some  broom flying photos! To get these we had the kids stand with their broom and jump as high as they could with it between their legs and their knees bent. I had to literally pancake myself to the ground to get the shot but they turned out great. 

After our first day we had a break for travel and other fun but met back up for more activities. We focused on wand magic by making feathers float with our wands using magnets. Then we practiced a balancing spell by making bridges out of straws to balance some gems. We also threw some broom fun in and made brooms out of pipe cleaners and pony beads. Then we did another broom focused activity and played pong quidditch. We ended our day by making pretzel wands.

We only managed one other day of Mommy Camp this summer and that was a day focused on potions! It was definitely one of my favorite MC days ever and everyone had a blast. To start, we created portable potion kitchen kits for them to store their concoctions from the day and make more in the future. I spent weeks collecting various bottles and filled them with all of our ingredients and added labels that matched a recipe book for potions that I made (find it at the original post). Then we made each potion together. Some had a color reaction, some fizzed, others changed consistency but they are all awesome.  After we finished each potion they put a sample of it inside of a tiny potion bottle I purchased from Hobby Lobby/Dollar Tree. Honestly, the ability to store their tiny potions in the portable kit was the highlight. Mine carried theirs around for weeks after and showed everyone they could. We ended the day by making bath bombs. They were supposed to be golden snitch's but that didn't really work out. They did smell good and still worked as a bath bomb they just didn't look like snitches.

While we didn't even get halfway through all of my plans we most definitely had a good time so I'll call it a win. As a bonus, we can pick up where we left off next summer and I can save myself hours upon hours of planning a new MC! If you are interested in doing any of the activities mentioned be sure to visit the original post containing the FREE Harry Potter Themed Mommy Camp that includes detailed directions, supply lists and daily plans!

This year the theme for Mommy Camp is Harry Potter! I am so excited to get this adventure started! You can follow along and do all of the fun things that we do by printing out the plan below complete with links to all of the printables and diy directions for FREE! So, be sure to stop back by and see all of our fun! 

Six years ago I built a PVC playhouse. It was super cute, easy to take apart and I spent a lot of time creating it so, when we moved from our first home to our second and there wasn't a place to put it, I kept it in the attic. I'm not throwing away all that work! So, it sat in the attic for four years until our recent move across the country. When we found it hidden in the far corner of the attic my reaction was the same. We are not throwing that away! So it made the trip with us. Our new home has a HUGE basement which has a dedicated play area for the kids and is a perfect place to bring the playhouse back to life. I was able to rebuild it by referring to my old blog post without any issues and the kids were pumped. But, the cover had seen better days so I spent a few days making a new, more aesthetically pleasing one. I bought a king sized white sheet and scrounged around my fabric scraps where I found a black and white polka dot material for curtains I used black felt for the flower boxes and instead of making felt flowers like before I thought an added element of being able to switch the flowers for the seasons would be fun so I bought cheap fake flowers and trimmed the stems so they would fit. To finish it off I used another king sized sheet but in black for the roof and painted white shingles on it. I also put some Christmas lights in the top of the house. 

I was not about to sew anything this time and just hot glued the cover to the frame this time. I figure I can always pull it off pretty easily when it's time to retire the playhouse again. But, rest assured, I plan on keeping it until I have grandkids who will find it just as magical as my kids do right now and I will be MiMi of the year!

It's been one year since the world was turned upside down. During that year everyone has suffered in one form or another and most people have experienced serious life-changes. As you read in my previous post, we had a major life change and moved across the country during this pandemic which was definitely an interesting and stressful experience. 

So, we decided to recognize the anniversary of the start of the pandemic by doing some activities.

We did a few crafts, created a family time capsule, played some games and took our frustrations on a DIY covid piñata. ​It was a nice way to reflect on this insane year and to have a little bit of fun while still respecting the importance of the day and how it has affected people. We stayed in our pajamas all day and ended our activities by going to the movies covid style and bought the new Disney movie "Raya and the Last Dragon" to watch at home with popcorn and candy.

I also created a collage of photos from our year in quarantine to memorialize it and plan on hanging it somewhere in the house. Even though it was scary and difficult, we had many wonderful times all together.

We made soap jellies kind of like the lush jellies you can buy. They were super easy and the kids thought the result was amazing. We even put little trinkets inside to find. You can find the recipe I used here.

We wrote letters to our future selves and colored "stay at home" coloring pages to put in our time capsule. We also included a trinket that reminded us of this time to look back on later. The plan is not to open the box until at least 10 years from now and I shoved it in the far reaches of our basement storage room. So no one is tempted to peek sooner.

We talked about germs and did several germ activities including making germ cookies, germ removal playdough, designing our own germ and a "find the germs" water activity using velcro balls, soap and a sponge. We also did the glitter + milk + soap experiment.

We played a few minute to win it style games revolving around toilet paper including a toilet paper toss and balancing tp races. Then they attacked the piñata I made. To make it I found a baseball pi​ñata and just hot glued red paper cups around the edges. It looked pretty good!

Hey! So...the title of this post pretty much says it all right? Can you imagine? I know if you had asked me at the beginning of 2020 what the new year had in store for me my answer most definitely would not have included a worldwide pandemic, quarantine, face masks or uprooting our entire family to move multiple states away during the Christmas holidays. But, here we are.

After spending months trapped in our home, avoiding people and crowded places I had Marie Kondo'd my house and finished all of my home renovoation projects. My home was finally in a place of contentedness and I revelled in the fact that I didn't have any projects to be tackled. We spent our quarantine in a somewhat weirdly magical state filled with family time, gardening, trips to a secluded creek and a little too much television and food. 

Things at my husband's job changed and we found ourselves in need of a fix. The good news? The world was our oyster! Well...the parts of it that would allow Americans to enter. In October of 2020, the majority of developed nations would not allow Americans to enter and the job market for the US wasn't in the best shape. Luckily, my husband is a software developer and I am a Spanish teacher so, we did have options. We settled on Colorado Springs because of the weather, tech jobs and we had friends and family living there. Then the real work began. We listed our finally finished house and began the job searches. It was a miracle that we were both able to find new jobs, sell our home for asking, find a suitable rental and move across the country all in less than two months and right before Christmas during a pandemic. 

 We chose Colorado Springs but I had never actually been there before. We needed to find a place to live temporarily and I needed to sign my contract so we made a trip over Thanksgiving break to get a feel for the city and do some business. We had a really nice time hiking and visiting with our friends who had moved to the springs a few years ago. I also managed to find us a suitable apartment for temporary living until we bought a house. We went back to Arkansas to finish packing feeling pretty good about the move. That feeling didn't last long though.

We chose a storage trailer system for our move and after a phone consultation they said we would need one large trailer for our entire house. They were wrong. We packed the trailer as full as possible as though we were playing real life Tetris and still had tons of stuff left. We ended up renting a small trailer the day of our move and had to be selective about the items that we took. We made 4 huge donations to our local donation center full of all sorts of furniture and other items that we couldn't take. Moving day was a shit show even though we had been packing for weeks. Our neighbors came over to say bye and saw our disastrous state. They offered their help and worked late into the night to get us out of the house. We had planned on leaving around 2pm but instead we stayed at a hotel and took shifts with the kids to wrap it all up.

After two days of driving, countless energy drinks and road food. We made it to the apartment and celebrated with Chinese food. We began house hunting the next day with a realtor we had already been in contact with and had lined up houses for us. After a week of looking we found two houses we liked but got spooked about the housing market and thought we wouldn't get our favorite house due to two other offers. So, we made a mistake and bought a brand new house that we thought was great until buyers remorse set in that night. I literally had a melt down because I realized it was totally wrong and didn't have a bathtub in the master! I take baths multiple times per week and was seriously hyperventilating about this monumentally bad decision we had just made.

Luckily, our realter was able to get our earnest money back and we suffered no penalties! We then made an offer on our dream home and hoped for the best. Out of three offers, they accepted ours! We were elated and relieved!

Even though it's been a whirlwind of a time, we genuinely think it will all be for the better for many reasons. including improved health for my allergy ridden four year old. Did you know that Colorado is one of the top places to live for allergy sufferers in the U.S? His eczema has cleared up almost entirely and he no longer has to take daily allergy medications. We are also excited about how stinkin' pretty it is here and all of the future family hikes we will be going on. We are also looking forward to the educational opportunities provided here and are already really happy with our new school.

So, I'm now an elementary Spanish teacher and tech coach which is a huge change but is definitely an exciting one. They literally created this job for me and it is as close to my dream job as I could hope for. I get to teach Spanish to little people who are still excited to learn and haven't developed a jaded mindset towards learning like many teenagers. They're also really fun. I use a puppet to teach content with who lives in a magic box and is named CocoLoco. The kids love it. The other half of my week I am a dedicated teacher tech coach and I get to help with technology issues as well as inspiration for projects and other cool stuff. It's an exciting change and I couldn't be happier. My new co-workers are also super nice and have welcomed me and my kids with open arms. Did I mention it's a Spanish immersion school? It is so refreshing not to be the only language teacher and for my kids to have the opportunity to learn and use the language regularly.

Not to sound to mushy and overly positive but, after this insanely upsetting year it just goes to show that out of darkness can come light. My life has completely changed. It was an extremely unsettling and worry-filled time but, now that we have had the opportunity to get comfortable with our new life, I am glad for the changes.

​Going forward I think we will be happier and we will be able to live our best lives. I am also aware at how lucky we have actually been. Even though we had to make changes, those changes happened quickly and financially we did not suffer unlike many during these difficult times and I will be forever grateful for our good fortune.

PWith covid still a very real thing we did not have a big party for Arthur's 7th birthday. However, just because we can't have people over doesn't mean we can't have a party! With three kids we basically have a party anyway. So, I planned a day full of activities revolving around pirates, his chosen theme. We had a great day doing all the things and, the best part for my son was that he never had to change out of his pajamas. He's a real home body and if allowed, he would choose to almost never leave the house.

I made a party planning sheet and Pinterest board to make sure I didn't forget anything, hit Hobby Lobby hard for supplies and headed home to get it all prepped! 

He woke up to find a pirate themed basement with a cardboard ship, pirate costumes, treasure, a shark infested "ocean", pin the teeth on the shark and a piñata.

After a riddle filled treasure hunt we did a lot of crafts including making a shoulder parrot, coloring pirate accessories for our stuffed animals so they could join in on the fun, decorating swords and making maps.

Mixed into all of the fun we had jell-o ocean cups with orange ships, his fav breakfast (apple fritters), gold oreos and birthday cake in his chosen flavor, strawberries and cream. I even made the cake twice because the first time the altitude killed it and I had to start over. But, I made chocolate covered cake balls out of the failed attempt that turned out delicious.

We all had a great day of togetherness and celebration and I don't think he missed having a huge group of people over in the least.

You can find links to all of my inspiration ideas on my pinterest board here. 

Thanks for visiting!

With Valentine's Day on a Sunday this year and our weather forecasting incredibly frigid temperatures as low as -14 degrees I planned for some fun, indoor activities to keep my kids from going nuts. Enjoy this variety of easy, low prep and minimal supplies needed activities!

Our new year's eve plans vary each year. Sometimes we go out with friends, other years we stay in. This year going out was clearly off the table so I planned some fun kid activities for the day. 

We started the day off by making dream catchers. I used embroidery hoops for the base and a mix of yarn, ribbon, feathers and sequins to decorate.

Then we made some champagne cupcakes, chocolate truffles and midnight kisses. We also made a happiness jar so we can keep track of all of the good things that happen during the upcoming year.

We ended our evening by getting glammed up, taking some photos, watching fireworks from Pike's Peak, having a dance party and playing minute to win it games. You can check out my pinterest board with all of the inspiration I used for the activities here.

In my previous post I shared all of the activities I planned for this very different Halloween. As I stated in that post, I planned way more activities than I imagined would be possible to complete so, I'm sharing with you in this post about how the day went and the activities we did together from that list.

We started with monster pancakes that I managed to make healthy using spinach for their green color. The kids devoured them and I was able to begin my day feeling like I'd already won by tricking my tiny gremlins into eating a vegetable. 

The plan after breakfast was a scavenger hunt to find their boo baskets but when I went to my stack of printed things the scavenger hunt was MIA. So, they just got to open them instead. Afterwards we headed to the park to eat our drive-thru Chikfila lunch and then enjoyed a walk.

After the park, I set up a witches potion station with glitter, soapy, colored water, metal pot, plastic eyeballs and spiders for the kids to get creative. Then they did the pumpkin punch board for fun prizes.

After the punch board we all carved pumpkins for the first time as a family. We've always painted them and I have avoided carving but I think it went really well and we will definitely do it every year from now on!

Once we set the pumpkins outside they made monster pizzas. While their pizzas cooked, they made their own soda concoctions at a mad scientist soda bar. I provided a ton of different flavors and they mixed up some delicious drinks to eat with their monster pizzas. I made them some candy corn fruit parfaits with pineapple, oranges and whipped cream to eat with their pizzas.

After dinner, we all put on our costumes and headed to our neighbor to show them off and say hi and then went back inside. Arthur wanted to go as "Business Cat", Alan was The Hulk, Derek was The Tiger King, I was Carole Baskin and Lilly was a leopard. Then, instead of the usual door to door trick or treating, they searched the yard for bags filled with candy and glow bracelets. Each one was given a specific color to find to make it fair and fight free. 

We wrapped up the day with too much candy, popcorn and "The Nightmare Before Christmas" on the couch as a family. Arthur ate too much candy and regretted his life choices for a bit but didn't throw up. So...winning. Even though it was very different it was a lot of fun and honestly, a little less stressful than a regular year. 

Thanks for visiting and celebrating with us! I hope you had a safe and fun Halloween!