Halloween Surprise Egg

Is anyone else's kid obsessed with watching those toy videos on YouTube? The ones where people just literally unpackage toys? I have no idea how we came across those but eventually those videos led to surprise egg videos and now Ez is obsessed. Surprise eggs are giant eggs filled with random toys and covered in playdough. Not sure how these came about but my assumption is Playdough & toy companies got together and dreamt em up. Genius marketing on their part.

Anyway, fast forward to this past weekend when Joe was out of town. I wanted to save our Halloween outings for when he could join us, so instead I came up with some activities we could do at the grandparents house since they have a backyard and we don't. Cue the Halloween egg hunt. And since we were already combining some Easter fun with Halloween I figured why not just throw in the whole basket of goodies too? And then I thought, what about a pumpkin surprise egg??? Yeah, I have no idea how many cups of coffee I'd had that morning. Clearly one cup too many. But it seemed fun at the time.

I didn't feel like spending a ton of money on even more toys that they really don't need so I dug into my stash of toys and crafts that I have hidden around the house for when I feel like they need a bribe prize. I gave myself a $15 budget mostly to get some of those little surprise toy packages which are the main star of surprise eggs. I picked up three of those, some dollar bin Halloween glow sticks, a pack of candy corn M&Ms, little bath toys for Declan, and plastic pumpkin "eggs". I already had a large plastic egg leftover from Easter, some hot wheels, a monster truck, candy, a Frankenstein painting craft, a little Sully toy from Monster's Inc, some tattoos, and lots of playdough. 

I decided to get a little crafty with the Halloween theme and made a toilet paper roll mummy and Frankenstein to put some candy in. I also filled the pumpkin eggs with a few M&Ms or tattoos. Then it was time for the playdough. I had four little cans of the stuff and it wasn't quite enough. I think five would've been fine, or maybe six just to be safe. I rolled it out with a rolling pin as flat as I could get it and then I covered the egg as much as possible. Since I was short on the playdough I didn't cover the bottom but I don't think Ez noticed or cared. 

I was going for a jack o'lantern look. The result was creepy. I believe Joe's exact words when I texted him a photo were: "Good lord. Delete." Those blue triangle eyes are haunting. We'll just say that was intentional for Halloween. Yep, that's exactly the look I was going for... 

Thankfully Ez didn't find it as frightening as Joe and I. I gave it to him after our egg hunt and he couldn't contain his excitement. He was jumping up and down, exclaiming, "It's an egg! A pumpkie egg! It's covered with playdough! Let's find out what's inside!" It took him about five minutes to get all the playdough off. When he finally got the thing open he beelined straight for the monster truck. I made him wait to open it till he'd looked at everything else so he went straight for the candy in the mummy and Frankenstein. He wound up getting a little jackal in his Lion Guard surprise package, a Winnie the Pooh tsum tsum keychain, and the British Invasion Bob minion. Surprisingly he forgot about the monster truck and started racing Winnie the Pooh around the yard instead. I told him that was the fastest Winnie the Pooh I'd ever seen so every time he raced by me he'd say, "this is the fastest Winnie the Pooh!" and then zoom off. 

You didn't think I forgot about Deckles, did you? Of course not! I don't trust him with playdough, but I did give him a little basket of goodies as well. Thankfully he's as easily impressed by empty boxes and rocks at this stage, so he was perfectly content with a few bath toys and suckers. 

All in all I'd say it was a hit and worth the time and mess that the playdough caused, though maybe you should ask Grampa if he agrees since there's still playdough crumbs in his lawn ;)

Halloween Egg Hunt

Ez has been asking to color eggs every time he spots an egg carton for the past six months or so. Somehow little bits from our Easter egg coloring kit keeping popping up around the house, like the bunny stickers, or that wire dipper spoon thing, and his obsession is ignited all over again. I guess when you stop to think about it there's really no good reason that egg dyeing should be limited to once a year, so we decided we'd dye some Halloween eggs this past weekend. 

Knowing my kids we stuck with eight eggs because I knew none of them would be in edible condition once they were through with them. One bit the dust as soon as we pulled it out of the dye when Ez decided to test his Hulk strength by smashing it immediately. That was a fun experiment to put mommy's hypothesis that eggs are breakable to the test. Turns out mommy's right. Remember that one kids. 

We dyed them outside using ziplock bags to minimize the mess. My fingers were stained green for a few days, we poured orange dye all over the patio, and Declan stomped in a nice big puddle of dye with his white shoes. Not sure why I even try to avoid messes anymore. I should really know better by now...

Once the eggs were colored to our liking we let them dry and then I drew monster and jack o'lantern faces on them. It's around this point that the "we want EGGS!!" chant got pretty overwhelming. It was time for the egg hunt before a riot broke out. Uncle Avery entertained the kiddos while I scattered eggs around the backyard, then we armed the kids with buckets and let them go at it.

Declan knew the concept of collecting eggs in his bucket immediately. Along with rocks. And limes. And lemons. And then throwing the eggs out of the bucket to make more room for rocks... He's definitely improved since Easter when he just threw eggs at us.

Ez caught on to the fact that the little plastic pumpkin eggs I got from Target had crappy candy inside. Each one he found he'd immediately bring to me exclaiming "open it??!" and those little suckers were tough to pry open. That extended the egg hunt by a good twenty minutes. 

True to my predictions all the eggs were good and smashed by the time we were finished and the kids were on nice hyper sugar highs before lunch. Definitely a successful Saturday morning. Ez even gave me his unprompted super big happy smile several times and then asked to do egg hunts on repeat all through Declan's nap. Eventually the eggs disintegrated to the point that we had to discreetly sneak them away to the trash can, one by one. For the few remaining ones Ez decided to smash them and peel them and find out what exactly was inside an egg. The fun ended with egg yolk smeared everywhere, a bucketful of egg shell and bits, and baths for everyone. 

Only one weekend left before Halloween!! Any last minute Halloween activities planned for you and your family? I think I've got about ten things too many on my to do list, so we're going to be busy!

Honeymoon Pt. 2, Sacramento

Considering how close Sacramento is to my hometown I really haven't spent too much time there. Joe on the other hand went to Sac State and he loves the town. It's one of those places that isn't too far away, but it's just far enough that we never seem to want to make the drive with two toddlers. But since we were toddler free and going that way anyway we decided to take advantage and make a little pit stop in Sacramento on our way to Tahoe. Joe found this great pub that had the "best scones in the entire galaxy" according to our server. That's a lot to live up to but I'm inclined to agree. I'm not a huge scone fan and I didn't order one but as soon as I tasted a bite of Joe's he knew he was going to have to share with me. And he gave me the better half too. The top half. That's love right there.

After breakfast it was raining pretty hard but we decided to put our hoodies to use and do a little sightseeing anyway. We walked over to the capitol building, yet another place I should have visited by now, but for some reason haven't. This is actually mine and Joe's second time visiting, but we couldn't go inside last time. They have a really nice rose garden and a firefighter memorial outside, so we explored the grounds last time and this time we got to check out the inside. 

In my head I was thinking it would just be a bunch of closed office doors. Not exactly exciting. It's actually set up like a museum. You can walk all over the place and there are several replica rooms of the vaults and offices from the past. There are also some statues, paintings of all the governors, and really amazing architecture. 

I was surprised that you can actually walk into the Senate and Assembly rooms. I was also surprised at the gaudy pink and green walls. I'm not sure I could concentrate in a room like that. As soon as I walked in there was so much color, it was a little overwhelming. Despite our differences in decor, it was really interesting to be in the same room that so many important decisions and laws are made. 

My favorite part of the building was the domed ceiling (also pink). It's so ornate, with these crazy, angry little golden bear head statues sticking out, and tons of intricate lights surrounding all the windows. I think Joe liked checking out the governor's portraits. He made sure to get a picture of Arnold. 

We wandered for over an hour and when we got back outside it was raining harder than ever. We debated getting ourselves an umbrella but instead we made a break for the car, with a quick stop for coffee along the way. On the way back from Tahoe we stopped by again for lunch, and to pick up a few little gifts for the boys. After that it was back to reality, and our short but sweet little honeymoon came to an end. I'm still dreaming of all that yummy food, gorgeous scenery, and one on one time with Joe. I'm thinking honeymoons should be a yearly thing from here on out ;)

Getting Ready for the Big Day

A very exciting thing happened last week....

We got our wedding photos!! I'd only been checking my email every hour on the hour since the wedding. I was trying really hard not to nag the photographers but I broke down around week 5 and asked when they'd be done. They said on Monday so I resolved not to check my email anymore. Then I saw an email: Your photos are ready pop up on my phone the Friday before they were supposed to be done. It was the best honeymoon present ever. I couldn't resist going through them on the drive up to Tahoe, and then Joe and I went through them in more detail later that night. The wedding flew by in such a blur so seeing all the photos was like reliving the day at a more leisurely pace. 

There are so many great ones that I can't possibly fit them all in one post. Consider this your warning that there will be lots and lots more wedding posts around here. #sorrynotsorry I promise I'll definitely wrap up all wedding stuff by 2017 ;)

In my last wedding post I talked a little bit about how my sisters and I had a pre-wedding sleepover and got ready together the next morning. My sisters traveled far for the wedding, Bianca and Serena came from Germany and Daniela lives on the East coast. I also have one more sister who thankfully lives much closer, but she wasn't able to sleep over. Fun fact about my sisters: we were neighbors before we were sisters. I've known them pretty much my whole life and we were friends even before my dad and their mom got married when I was eight. So not only are they my sisters, but they're also my oldest friends. Pretty cool, huh? 

We didn't go crazy wild the night before the wedding because we wanted to look decent the next day. We got ourselves a few bottles of champagne and sat around with face masks on chatting and catching up on each other's lives while my sisters did their best to calm my nerves. That night I couldn't help but think how crazy it was that months and months of planning and anticipation had flown by and here we were, the night before the wedding. Just hours from the big day, instead of days or weeks. Thankfully my sisters were a great calming influence. I would've been freaking out if they weren't there, going over each possible worst case scenario in my mind - from weather, to toddler tantrums, to stains on my dress, you name it I dreamt it up. They kept everything lighthearted and fun and instead of stressing too much I started looking forward to all the excitement right around the corner. 

The morning of the big day we woke up and immediately went off in search of coffee and a few hair supplies. I pretty much never do my hair or makeup so I hired a very talented makeup artist to take care of that for me. My sisters are great with hair and makeup and they all did each others'. When we got back to the room there was basically a mad dash for the shower, and then the craziness began in full force. We tried to straighten up a bit since the photographer would be coming by to get some photos of just us girls. Amanda, who was doing my hair and makeup, arrived a little after 1:00. We turned on the VMAs and listened to music, chatted, and sipped champagne while getting ready. 

Once my hair and makeup were done my mom arrived and she helped me tear rose petals off the bouquets we bought earlier to scatter on the bed. I remember saying that I didn't think Joe would even notice, but in fact he did. It was a nice little touch. For my something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue I wore: old sandals my friend gave me for my birthday three years ago, blue nail polish on my toes, new accessories, and I borrowed a bobby pin from my sister, which I made sure to return the next day (after I'd pulled approximately a thousand bobby pins out of my hair). I can't promise it was the same one she lent me, but hopefully that still counts. 

I definitely remember that around this point my nerves were creeping back up. I felt this need to just scream and shake all that nervous energy out, so I'm pretty sure we were jumping around screaming and yelling for no reason and probably scaring the crap out of the photographer. Maybe that's why he asked us to do some posed shots of us laughing, so he could take control of the situation a bit. We started out awkwardly fake laughing but then that turned into a real "I don't know why I'm laughing but I'm gonna go with it" laugh. It was actually a great tension reliever. Almost as good as screaming and jumping ;)

Now came the serious, it's getting real moment: putting on the dress. You can get a glimpse below of all the tiny, closely-placed buttons on the back of my dress. It was a multi-person job to get those all buttoned up in the right order. And tying my sash in a suitable bow was another ordeal. Funny how much those tiny details seemed like such a big deal at the time. Thankfully my sisters and their nimble little fingers saved the day and got me all ready to go. 

Around this time my mom let us know the driver was downstairs and waiting. Joe and I opted to do a first look pre-ceremony and we were meeting two hours before the ceremony began. Running through my list of everything that needed to get to the car, and making sure I had everything I needed not only for myself, but for Ez and Declan, started getting my nerves going really good again. We pinned my veil in, grabbed the million bags of stuff I wanted to bring, and I headed out the door with butterflies in my stomach. 

The car ride there was somewhere between "I can't believe this is happening" banter, nervous sighs, and hysterical giggles, and maybe a few more screams just to test the driver's patience. This is totally normal pre-wedding bride behavior, right??

To all you brides out there, what were you feeling right before? Excited, nervous, calm, stressed? I think I was a mixture of all of those. Except calm. 

Next up Joe makes his appearance in our first look!