Friday Favorites

Happy Friday! So excited it's almost the weekend!

Here I was recapping Halloween just a few days ago and while I promise I'm in no way skipping Thanksgiving (can hardly wait for the yummy food and family time actually!), it's just not nearly as fun to decorate for as Christmas so I thought I'd share some of my favorite Christmas finds for Friday favorites!

It's no secret that I love Anthropologie and they are having a 20% off home sale this weekend so for the first time ever, I bought our family a set of beautiful stockings and I can't wait for them to come! These are the ones I picked for the girls and this one for the boys.

I got this tree skirt last year and they have a matching set of ornaments to add to the collection this year!

The perfect doormat for the season! 

The prettiest color of bottle brush trees ... they have great ones at the Target dollar spot and Hobby Lobby too!

Love these old fashioned Santa mugs to go with my favorite drinking glasses ... both are the perfect Christmas colors and have the added benefit of being the perfect festive pieces for kitchen shelves this time of year!

Cutest holiday gift wrap! Love this vintage Santa paper I found at Target too for stocking gifts.

I haven't done a whole lot of Christmas gift shopping yet (I usually wait for Black Friday online deals) but I have already ordered our Christmas cards this year after getting our family pictures back and decided to try out Chatbooks this year! I love their photo book subscription that is linked to my Instagram account ... it basically doubles as my family scrapbooks/printed memories to have in our home and they just launched a holiday card collection this year! It has so many cute designs and are really affordable so I'm excited to send those out to friends and family on December 1st. 

Man, now I'm over here holding myself back from turning on Christmas music and decorating right this minute! I might have to start sprinkling a few things around my house this weekend just because this is the most wonderful time of the year!! Hope you have the BEST weekend! XO

Halloween 2018

Happy Monday! It's a little crazy to me that not only is Halloween already over but the whole month of October has come and gone with it! Halloween was our first holiday in our new house and it was the best one yet! Liam was at the perfect age this year to completely understand and be so excited for trick-or-treating and Lyla entertained us all with her candy obsession. haha Between getting everyone fed and out the door, it was such a whirlwind that Nic and I didn't end up having the time to get dressed up with them but my mom joined us for the fun and came straight from work where she dressed up as R2D2 from her department theme. Liam LOVED it! We had leftover chili and cornbread (my best idea ever because #nocooking!) and got the kids ready as fast as we could.

Our favorite super hero, Iron Man and our favorite farm animal, piggy ... 

Liam wanted to be Iron Man from the moment he saw this costume in Costco clear back at the beginning of September. I was worried he'd get sick of it by the time Halloween actually came but he has worn his "suit" as he likes to call it every single day since the day he got it and has still asked to wear it every day, even after Halloween. I don't think Iron Man is going anywhere any time soon. ;) Thanks to his papa who sent it in the mail to him after the Costco here was out of his size. And I just could not resist this pig costume for Lyla! It fits her food loving spirit so much right now and she looks pretty cute in head to toe pink!

The very first house Liam went up to he yelled, "TRICK-OR-TREAT", without ringing the door bell yet or anything and we were all dying laughing!! It was so funny! 

How cute is she?! So proud of herself carrying her own bucket ...

Pure entertainment all night long, this one. The very first house she wouldn't even let Nic put her piece of candy in the bucket ... it had to be eaten immediately! Her hand never left a piece of candy or the inside of her bucket the rest of the night. haha Luckily she got a package of m&m's near the beginning and it took her most of the time to eat them all. 

They hold hands a lot lately and it melts my heart. Liam is an incredible big brother! He'll hold her hand in the back seat of the car if she is crying or when he is taking her to try something new ... like her first time trick-or-treating.

I'd say about 50% of our neighbors weren't home but most left a bowl of candy on their porch. We set Lyla down and let her choose her own candy from this bowl and you should have seen her face!!! Lit up like a Christmas tree, it was the most adorable thing ever! So cute that she had to have one for each hand ...

We went to every single house in our little neighborhood (introducing ourselves to most of them for the first time. The perfect opportunity to meet some new neighbors!) before finally heading inside just as it was getting pretty dark. We said goodbye to my mom and the kids couldn't WAIT to dump out their buckets and see what was inside ... (that piggy tail kills me!)

We gave Liam his to dump out first and Lyla immediately went sprinting to his pile before we could dump out hers. haha He spent the rest of the night super concerned Lyla was going to take his candy!

We also left our bowl of candy that we bought for the neighbor kids out on our porch while we were gone and we came back to it filled to the brim and no more trick-or-treaters after coming inside so now we have candy that will last us the next century! Ask me how I feel about it when I got woken up the next morning at 6 am by a certain boy demanding his first piece of candy for the day ... 

My little candy queen ... even if we wouldn't let her eat anymore she still refused to let go of one candy bar in each hand ...

And that belly button sticking out!!

Love them so much! They make holidays absolutely magical!

And we can't forget Rue the witch! ;) Super thrilled with her costume! 

I took these pictures earlier on in the month before our pumpkins were carved but never had the opportunity to share them. Shows Liam's personality perfectly, silly as can be!

Hope you had a Happy Halloween! XO

a Halloween party

On Saturday my dad and Edie hosted their second annual Halloween party for the grand kids and it was so fun being able to attend this year!! It sure kicked off Liam's sweet tooth because he wasn't going to let me forget about a single piece of candy we came home with! haha The joke is really on me now that we have a heaping bucket to go along with it after Halloween night!

It was fun to have another reason to get all dressed up in our costumes.
Liam and daddy, our defenders as Iron Man and Hulk. Lyla girl and I, a farmer and her little piggy ...

And my goof ball of a dad who dressed up as Captain Underpants haha ...

Grandma, Pa, and all of their grand kids ...

We had chill and corn bread for dinner and a few hands in the apple cider bowl to drink. ;)

After dinner we headed out to the garage to play some games! My dad put together most of them ... the kids played spider races where they had to blow a spider down a table and ring the witch's hat with glow sticks! I also brought a couple to share ... nothing more festive than fear factor on Halloween! Everyone had to stick their hands inside these little black bowls and guess what was inside ... witch's finger nail clippings (coconut), Dracula's eye balls (pealed grapes), Goblin Guts (spaghetti), boogers (gack), and spider legs (pipe cleaners). SO entertaining watching their faces and hearing all the little ones go, "EWWWWW!" haha

While some of the adults had a turn participating in the games, my dad hung on to Lyla and as grandpas do, immediately gave her a cookie that she covered herself in. haha

I love this one ... caught you cheating Liam! No peaking!!

Cute Maddox the pilot and Olivia the unicorn!

Grandma had the BEST prizes to go along with the games ... Liam came home with a pumpkin decorating kit, a couple of tractors, glow bracelets, and lots of candy. The lucky adults got gift cards!

Most of the kids tried bobbing for apples ... I wasn't about to stick my face in that germ infested water! haha

My dad of course didn't care ... always the life of the party!
After watching everyone else struggle, he dunks his whole head in the water and goes, "You've got to pin it to the bottom. I know how to do this!"

They also had a witch piñata that would not break open! I think each kid got 3 or 4 turns each before grandma finally took a wack at her! haha And my dad with all that was left, her head ...

Lyla liked the apples too ... her first one she ate whole.

It was such a fun night! Thanks to Edie and my dad for making the holiday one to remember!

carving pumpkins

I have the song 'This is Halloween' from the Nightmare Before Christmas playing on repeat in my head while looking at these pictures! haha

I've had people ask me lately why I take/share so many more pictures of Lyla than I do of Liam and the answer is this ... he is in a season of life where he doesn't really love getting his picture taken and I don't like to force him to. Whenever he is willing, it is almost always accompanied with a silly face so we used it as an opportunity to practice our potential pumpkin faces we could carve. ;)

Speaking of Liam, he was not into carving pumpkins what-so-ever this year ... unless we were going to let him take a turn using the knife, then he was in. Yikes! Lyla girl however ...

The progression of her first time feeling the guts of a pumpkin ... brave enough to dive right in, somewhat disgusted with the texture at first, and then happily playing in it the rest of the time!

Love the two of them pretending to eat the pumpkin guts together and that Liam looks littler than he has in real life lately sitting on Nic's lap! 

It wasn't long before the seeds went in the mouth ...

Yummy! haha

Liam picked a spooky face and we covered Lyla's in stars (ya know, because she's usually the star of the show haha)! Liam also decorated those other two hilarious ones with a kit full of silly face stickers he got as a prize at my Grandma and Pa's Halloween party last weekend. And Papa, if you're reading this ... we didn't forget about the awesome kit full of Spider Man parts to stick in one of the pumpkins ... they were just well played with and loved before we even got pumpkins and now half the parts have mysteriously gone missing around the house. As soon as we find them, we're decorating a pumpkin or saving them for next year if it's too late!!

Our first picture on our new front porch ...

Love carving pumpkins with my favorite people! Cute pictures from last year here too when we tried to stick Lyla in a pumpkin! ;)