Happy Halloween!

Carving pumpkins is one of my favorite fall traditions. I remember looking forward to pulling out the mush each year and then eating the seeds after my mother roasted them. We carved our first pumpkin with Drew last year, but he definitely was more involved this year. The plan was to do a Mickey face, but I couldn't find a template that was easy (and/or wouldn't take 2 hours). A simple face it was!

Drew loved scraping the insides out and then showing us each chunk he got.

I love our happy round pumpkin head.
....and the one we carved too. 

Double the Fun

So on Sunday our friends had a birthday party to celebrate their daughter turning 3 and their son turning 1. They were born just a few weeks apart, and both around Halloween, so it was only logical to have a costume party, right? It's not even Halloween yet and I've already had to bribe our kid three times to get his costume on. I, on the other hand, never have to be bribed to attend parties. As long as there is cake.

My son is the same. If there are cake and balloons, the kid is happy. It's the simple things.

Anyway, their mother found adorable costumes of characters from Where the Wild Things Are and even had a cake to match. Will had more fun just enjoying putting cake on his head, while Charlotte, enjoyed picking apart her cake. Drew, on the other hand, didn't take his eyeballs off the cake and whined until he had a piece. Like mother, like son.

Drew loves himself some Charlotte. Examples A-D below.

And he loves goodies that you can take from a party. I love how little it takes to make the kid happy sometimes.

Happy Birthday again to Charlotte and Will!

Boo at the Zoo

Every year I cross my fingers that they'll dress up the animals and it never happens. I would just love to see a picture of the koala dressed up like an elephant. Or the giraffe wearing a big bear outfit. Why don't they get to have any fun? Would it really hurt the animal to put on a fuzzy costume? Lord knows it would make my year. I digress.

So this year our friends invited us to go with them and we jumped right on board. At 5 on the dot yesterday we jumped in the car and raced to the event so that we could do a little trick or treating A) before it got dark and B) before the older kids scared my child came.

It was quite windy and frigid, but we survived. Unfortunately, after eating all the candy, our teeth may not.

As always, the train ride was a hit, and Drew loved the animals... or at least those that were out in the cold. But my intuition knew it would be short lived when he refused to be carried anywhere and wanted to walk the entire zoo. Little did I know that it would be 7:37 on the dot when my angel would turn into a screaming terror. With fears of people thinking I was kidnapping a kid, we scooped him up and hastily made our way to the car. If I'd only known the magical powers a flashlight can have on calming a kid, I would have used that tool more than the last 39 seconds of our walk back.

In the end, it was a fun night with friends, but next year we'll plan accordingly. Extra layers of clothing will be worn, but more importantly, we'll be armed with 13 flashlights.

Boo-licious Cupcakes

Now that we are settled into the house, I can start cooking and baking again. First up? Some cute cupcakes for the fall party on Sunday. This is Derek's aunt's recipe and is definitely worth making!

CUPCAKE INGREDIENTS:

½ c. vegetable oil

2 eggs

1 c. sugar

1 c. canned pumpkin

1 c. flour

½ tsp. baking powder

½ tsp soda

¼ tsp. salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

½ tsp. pumpkin pie spice powder

½ tsp. vanilla

DIRECTIONS:

1. In a Kitchenaid mixer, beat oil, eggs , sugar & pumpkin together.

2. In small bowl, sift flour, baking powder, soda, salt, cinnamon & pumpkin spice together.

3. Add sifted ingredients & vanilla to mixer bowl and blend well.

4. Fill cupcake liners about 2/3rds full and bake at 350 degrees for around 25 minutes.

FROSTING INGREDIENTS:

2.5 c. powdered sugar
4 oz. cream cheese (room temperature)
½ stick margarine
½ tsp. vanilla

DIRECTIONS:
1. Sift powdered sugar into small bowl
2. In mixer with wire whisk beater, cream together cream cheese and margarine until smooth.
3. Add vanilla and beat until mixed well.
4. Slowly add powdered sugar to mixer bowl and blend until smooth

Then, once the cupcakes are cooled, you can add the frosting. I would suggest doing one 'face' at a time adding the two small and one normal size chocolate chips right after the frosting is on so that they press in nicely.

ENJOY!

Neighborhood Fall Festival

I know I've mentioned how awesome our new neighborhood is, but really, it's the bomb dot com. We had a chili cook off a few houses down on Saturday night and enjoyed numerous beers while Drew soundly slept at home with a babysitter. It was a fun time meeting so many new people in our neighborhood! On Sunday I helped set up our kids fall festival and it was a blast. The kids were so adorable and loved the pumpkin bowling, pumpkin golf, face painting, pumpkin decorating and mummy wrapping.

But the best event? By FAR it was the "donut bobbing". It's a new, more sanitary, twist on the old fashioned apple bobbing in water. Who doesn't love a sugar covered face?

Can't wait to see everyone's fall activities and all the wonderful costumes out there!

A Magical Sprinkle

You know those friends who are like a mini Martha Stewart? That's my friend Lauren. I knew the sprinkle I co-hosted with her for our friend Lana would be beautiful if Lauren was in charge of the decor. And it sure was. The theme was white and gold and she even crafted these adorable gold crowns.

I helped with food, flowers and some of the decor, but really, it was mostly Lauren. Doesn't it look like this should be featured in a magazine?

Anyway, somehow we pulled off the surprise and our friend Lana was blown off her feet. She is a sweet, sweet friend who never stops smiling and I was so excited to co-host this sprinkle for her. The original plan was to do it before she had her son, but Olek decided to come a few weeks early and therefore we postponed until a few weeks after his birth. Even better as I got to meet the little man!

My fav picture of the evening. Just gorgeous......

Outside Play & A Giveaway Winner!

I've mentioned several times on this blog that I'm not a fan of technology for children. Drew didn't watch TV until he was 2, and to this day still doesn't have a lot of interest in it. He probably gets about 20 minutes of ipad time each week with 100% of that being educational apps. Occasionally we let him watch a movie on there or on the TV, but we even limit that. (Except when we're on 13 hour drives to Kansas City and just can't sing one.more.song.) Both Derek and I were raised much like the rest of our generation; outside. Sure we had atari's and gameboys growing up, but the majority of our time was spent participating in activities or playing with our friends.

Have you ever gone to a restaurant and seen a family walk in, sit down and plop an ipad in front of each child? That's just not for us. To each his own, but to me, meals are a great time to socialize as a family unit. We sat down for dinner every.single.night growing up as did Derek and we plan to continue that tradition with our own children. Cell phones won't be allowed at the dinner table, nor will electronics. I'm sure we'll have to battle with teenagers on this, but as for now, that's the plan.

Lately we've been having some great evening weather and have been trying to enjoy our new backyard after dinner before the winter chill sets in. Watching Drew and Derek jump right into their baseball shenanigans makes me warm and fuzzy and so proud to be in their family. Derek enjoys every second of setting him up to bat and Drew patiently watches his example and listens to every little tweak of his stance. Although my battery died one evening, I was able to capture this adorable short video of Derek setting Drew up to hit. Future little league coach right there.

Drew hits for a long time, but sometimes it then becomes more fun to have daddy hit the ball and him to chase after it. See that smile? Pure joy right there.

Can't wait to get this little guy into toddler baseball. Just check out these skillz...

And the boys aren't the only ones having fun playing with balls out there. Us girls have our own side-game of fetch. Mine just involves more slobber than theirs.

And congrats to Jenny for winning the $25 credit towards decals from Twistmo Home Decor!

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Fritters, Corn & Cows

Like that title? I could have gone with 'Pumpkin Patch Visit' but then you probably would have skipped viewing seeing as how the rest of America already went last week. AmIRight?

Mapleside Farms is pretty much our favorite fall spot on earth. (Other than the Starbucks drive through perhaps). The colorful rolling hills adorned with beautiful fall colors and the delicious apple fritters will keep us coming back year after year as long as we live in Cleveland. I wish we had chosen to enjoy the fun on a sunny day this fall, but at least it wasn't rainy and/or muddy this time!

Drew went down the slide, went through the corn maze, jumped on the yellow bubble and even rode the cow train with mom. But his favorite part was probably the apple cider slushies. They are DELISH.

And then I was hoping to get a good family picture on the hayride, but someone was done smiling for the day...

Cheers to fall and all that it brings! ...except for the cold weather. I'm NOT toasting to that. No way.

Drew's Big Boy Room & A Giveaway

I've literally been dying to get this post up. I'm in love with Drew's room and couldn't wait to show it off! So what if the rest of the house isn't anywhere near being set up or decorated as long as my kids room is done, right?

Ok, so here we go. Much like Drew's nursery, I am not a big theme person, rather a color palette lover. This time I went with blues and reds with a few airplanes, trains and sports items thrown in. I piecemealed it together over the past few weeks finding treasures that I knew Drew would love and it's my favorite room in our house. I slaved over those stripes on the wall, but am obsessed with how they turned out.

Andrew & Train wall decals: Twistmo Home Decor

Paint: Sherwin Williams bewitching blue and white

Hanging airplane: Pottery Barn Kids

Baseball pulls: Amazon
Height ruler decal: Little Acorns by Ro

Bed/Dresser: Derek's from 30 years ago

Lamp: Pottery Barn Kids

Blue toy tub: Target

Red & white striped bin: Scout
Plane/cloud decals: Define your space vinyl

Just a few more detail pics....

Drew's first sonogram and the booties his aunt knitted him are on his shelf.

If you can't tell, I love me some decals....

They came off so easy for when we put our house on the market and they are so easy, yet look SO great. Like decals as much as I do? Then I've just made our day! The Andrew and train decals were from Twistmo Home Decor. The shop is owned by Lori and she is the BEST to work with! She can customize any ideas you have for decals on top of her listed options and has tons of other home decor as well! Check out her adorable picture frames, numbers decals and cute chalkboards...

Lori also wanted to give away a $25 store credit for a purchase of $25 or more of wall decals to one lucky Our Journey reader! 

Simply enter below for your chance to win!

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Terms and Conditions: Winner will be determined at random using Rafflecopter. The giveaway begins Friday, October 11th and ends Thursday, October 17th at midnight. Subject to all federal, state and local laws/regulations. Neither Our Journey, Giveaway Sponsor, nor any giveaway affiliates will have any liability whatsoever for any injuries, losses or damages of any kind caused by any giveaway prize or resulting from acceptance, possession, use and/or misuse of any prize or participation in these promotions. The winner must be located in the United States. All opinions are 100% that of Our Journey. 

What I Love Most

I figure since I did this post on what I was going to miss most from our old house, it was only logical to do a post about what I love in our new house. So without further adieu, here they are. (ohhh... momma used a fancy phrase)

The neighborhood - It's exactly what we were looking for. In our search for houses, we found so many that didn't check every box. It would be a young neighborhood but would be missing a pool. Or it would have a pool, but there would be no mature trees. Or it would be older homes, therefore probably not full of young families. We were actually thinking of building in this exact neighborhood when a house came on the market. The amenities met every need and the house followed suit. We scooped it up and have since been invited to the private online page where I've found out just how much goes on. From monthly drunk bunco, to neighborhood shot wagons, to block parties, it's an extremely social neighborhood.

Attached garage - So trivial, yet so exciting after 3.5 years of walking outside to get to the garage.

Extra high shower head - I'm 5'10" (ok really only 5' 9 and 5/6ths") and had to bend my knees a bit to get under the old one. Someone who is near 7 feet tall could enjoy this shower head, not to mention the shower in general that is double the size of our last one.

Under-mount lights - Amazeballs. They really did some awesome upgrades in this house and one of them is the lighting. We have 6 under-mount lights under our kitchen cabinets, all of which have both a low and hi setting. It really makes the house look great in the evening.

It's REALLY hard to get a good picture of the lighting.

Separate bathroom - Most 3 and 4 bedroom houses from the 30's were built with only one bathroom upstairs. It's such a normal thing with new construction to have multiple bathrooms upstairs, but you don't realize how much it was missed until you have to share your bathroom with your kids any longer. Trying to soak in some warm water while your son drops a load 2 feet from you wasn't exactly my dream for a house. Thank goodness for on suites.

Granite - Although I feel shallow saying it, I wish it wasn't so dark, but we do have granite already in the bathrooms and kitchen and it's so nice to have that clean feel again!

Walk in closet - We had a GYNORM closet when we lived in Kansas and then went to a tiny 4'x6' walk in closet in our last house. It was quite sad, but we learned to deal and just used our guest room closets for overflow. Our new closet is once again nice and roomy with extra space we don't even currently need! I'll spare you the pictures of boring clothes strewn all over. 

Wildlife - So far we've seen prairie dogs and turkeys around our neighborhood, but I'm most excited for the deer. If you're driving anywhere around our area at dusk, you can see batches upon batches of those things. These two were in our cul-de-sac the other evening.

Peace & Quiet - We lived on a fairly busy street before that was a through-way for ambulances and firetrucks as well as walkers going home from bars at 3am. I'm not a sound sleeper anymore so waking up a few times a night became a constant. Now, I have woken up a couple times just out of sheer terror due to the quiet. I'm slowly getting used to hearing crickets and birds chirping again and it's so nice to be away from all that traffic.

I'm sure I'll fall in love more after we've lived here for a while, but I thought I would leave you with just a few more shots. There's still not a lot on the walls, but at least it's a start! 

Love our morning room. 

Don't mind the playroom with nothing on the walls yet.

 Drew's room and a giveaway coming Sunday evening!

Sky Zone

Like I mentioned on Monday, we were planning to go to the pumpkin patch this weekend, but mother nature had a different idea of 'fun', aka: rain. So, instead, we decided to try out Sky Zone. Our friends told us about the toddler time on Sunday mornings and I was excited to finally get there with Drew. We had worked all Saturday around the house and he deserved some fun time.

As usual, my clumsy bug fell a lot at the beginning, but once he got the hang of it, he was in heaven.

They give you these orange socks with grippers on the bottom and it was just a $10 charge for toddler time, but the best part was that we didn't have crazy kids jump around him. Once the clock hit noon, however, the older kids rushed onto the court meaning we quickly scurried off.

They even had a foam pit and two basketball lanes.

In fact, they even have an adult deal on Friday nights with pizza and unlimited jumping. Derek and I are definitely considering dorking out and doing that for a date sometime. #nerds #yesiusehashtagsonmyblog #dealwithit

Since our visit, I've now heard 3 stories of kids breaking their legs there. The plans to have Drew's birthday party at Sky Zone might not happen now as it would kill me if he, or someone we know, broke their leg there! But I really don't want to scare you as it was really fun for Drew. If you go during toddler time, just find your own personal square, elbow other kids away and have fun!