Happy Halloween!

I've been posting about the costume my husband made for our little one.


I was very surprised that my youngest chose this, as the one who had loved this character to begin with, was my oldest (he even had his latest birthday party with this theme), but he's moved onto superheroes.

Thank goodness our oldest went with a store-bought, because my husband needed every last minute to get our youngest's costume done.

The Saturday before Halloween, our cousin needed help for his costume, so most of that day was spent working on that. His costume was (luckily for my husband) just the headgear to become DeadMau5. Yeah, I'm old, because I was seriously creeped out and had no clue who that was. My oldest, though, had no problem sitting on DeadMau5's lap for a pic.

Sunday was the deadline, then, and my husband went to work, the level of detail in this costume blew me away.

The base of the costume itself was carpet foam that he got for free just by asking carpet installers. The spikes were cut from foam, primed, then spray painted. The texture all over the "skin" is small stripes of silicone. The teeth were cut from foam, then painted and attached to the upper and lower jaws, same with the foot claws. The feet are cut to go over our son's shoes. We decided to not make claws for the hands in case our little man got overenthusiastic and scratched one of his classmates.

Here is the head, almost done:


My husband helping our little man right before his parade:


Waving to one of the people taking his pic. Kids and grown ups wanted to have their pic taken with him, people were filming him, it was hilarious!



After his parade was over, my husband and I and my in-laws (who joined us for the morning) had breakfast, then headed over to my oldest's school.

A quick wave from a busy Captain America:


His good friend S. was Wolverine so there was lots of superhero talk :D


So this was our morning, now we get a few hours of quiet before the madness of "candy extortion" as my husband calls it. And oh yeah, Godzilla was made for under $35.

Happy Halloween from Captain America and Godzilla! Be safe and have a great time!

Costume progress - and a hint!

My awesome husband is almost done with our little man's costume. Good thing because he has a parade tomorrow morning!

The attention to detail keeps amazing me. Also, he helped with his cousin's costume Saturday afternoon. I am not posting that yet, but it came out great. I think. Because I was a little creeped out by it and wasn't really sure what/who it was. I looked it up and I'm still creeped out. Today my hubs is putting the final details on this costume and I can't wait to see it finished!

Featured at Comin' Home

My bloggy friend Donna at Comin' Home is a wonderful lady. She always has a kind word and good advice, and I love reading her posts, so I was delighted when she included my fall wreath in her recent post about fall decorating.



I love the bottles with the reeds she included and my boys are going to make a Thanksgiving garland much like the one she featured.

Go check out Donna's post, it has many ideas for fall decor that are easy to do and are sure to autumn-ize your home. Is that a word? It is now ;D

Fashion Friday: Scarf it down!

I love scarves, and I love that we're in the perfect season for them. Right now afternoons still get a little warm but in the morning when take the boys to school, it is deliciously chilly!

I am super lucky that both my mom and my sister are avid knitters/crocheters, so they have contributed a large percentage of my scarf stash. My favorite purchased scarf is the tan one with tassels on the bottom right.

It is from Old Navy and it came in 3 different colorways, and yeah, I wish I had bought the other two because I love that thing.

A scarf can be such a versatile accessory - it can instantly transform a ho-hum outfit, i.e. what I wear most of the time, into something interesting. That said, I cannot wear two types of scarves - 1, the infinity type scarf, which are basically a big circle you wrap around your neck a few times, because my makeup and hair get wrecked. Graceful, I am not. And 2, the type that are very delicate, either lacy or the ones that are a bunch of flowers joined together, because I have two kids and two cats, and again, graceful I am NOT, and within 5 minutes the thing would be snagged into unwearable uselessness.

Luckily for me, there are plenty of other types of scarves that I can wear. As a devoted francophile the scarf is my accessory of choice - I love this article that came out last year about a writer who gets seduced by the power of a great scarf. Since I rather pride myself on not spending much for my "couture" I don't think I'd be shelling out 150 euro for a scarf, but it's a good article anyway.

I leave you with some images to inspire your weekend, stay warm!

Source: nettevivante.blogspot.com via Myrtille on Pinterest

Source: makeit-loveit.com via Myrtille on Pinterest

Source: atlantic-pacific.blogspot.com via Bruna on Pinterest

Source: jcrew.com via Meggie on Pinterest

Source: plumo.com via Rachel on Pinterest

Source: outfitidentifier.com via Tori on Pinterest

Costume progress

My awesome husband has taken on the task of making our youngest's Halloween costume. Every night after he's done with work he works and works on it for a few hours. I think it's going to look awesome!

I have to say I'm surprised that my youngest chose this and my oldest ended up going with a store bought costume. Can you guess what it is?

Nuh-oh is so good for you

My youngest's love for oatmeal cannot be denied. It is a love that is all encompassing, and it is also a love that keeps him regular - win/win! It started with my oldest, in fact, who started eating some of the oatmeal my mom would make for her own breakfast, and then it became a ritual. He outgrew his love of oatmeal but once my youngest started eating it, he was hooked.

Because of his autism, my little boy was slow to speak, and when he wanted his favorite food, he couldn't say oatmeal, so he settled on "nuh-oh". Now he has no problem saying oatmeal but he still prefers to call it nuh-oh and I think it will be nuh-oh until he's all grown and out of the house.

My mom uses the packaged instant oatmeal but I've switched to the quick 1-minute oats that come in the big tubs. And I know, I know, everyone knows how to make oatmeal, but I just wanted to share what I do to make my boy's breakfast as nutritious as possible.

This is about twice the amount that would be in an instant packet

The gorgeous canister label is from Leen's shop, I love them.

We use rice milk because of my son's (and my) allergies

Trader Joe's has the cheapest price in rice milk, and since my son eats oatmeal 3 times a day AND drinks it as well, I make sure to stock up.

After two minutes in the microwave

I add a heaping tablespoon of peanut butter for some good protein.

The bulk oatmeal has a lot less sugar than the instant packets, but I do add some honey

both for flavoring and because it helps his allergies.

The last touch

is a bit of cinnamon, yum yum.

I usually add a sliced banana, but the ones I had were super green, so this was Sunday's breakfast for my little guy:

Warm, hearty, flavorful, and it fills his belly with lots of goodness.

It's so good that I've been known to make myself a bowl to warm up on a chilly morning. I usually skip the banana, but it gives me a good start to the day. As I was editing this post, my son came over and smiled as I showed him each picture in sequence. When I showed him the last one, he threw his hands in the air and said, "nuh-oh!". He REALLY loves his oatmeal.

BTW, have you heard that peanut butter prices are going up? I've stocked up, just in case!

Fashion Friday: at the Pumpkin Patch

This time it was time for me to join my youngest and his class on a field trip. We went to one of our local pumpkin patches and had a blast. We've gone to Uesugi Farms a few times with our boys and we've always had a good time. They have hay rides, a train, a pumpkin lab to see the growth process, and my personal favorite, the honey booth. Not to be confused with a booth babe, the honey booth had lots of different flavors of honey grown in the farm itself. I tried two and they were yummy. My boy was less than impressed but I think it was more the texture of it that made him wrinkle his nose.

This morning was super chilly, so even though I love the cold weather, I brought along a knit scarf to keep my neck warm.

Later on it was a bit warmer so I was glad to wear this super light chevron-stripe top. We each got a pumpkin and I bought some small white pumpkins at 3 for a dollar. We were happy to be home but had a wonderful time with our friends and classmates.

Have a great weekend!

Field Trip with my oldest

My son's class went on a field trip to Villa Montalvo yesterday, to see a production of The Magic School Bus. I was very happy to go as chaperone and had a blast with my boy and his friends. I only had two kids to chaperone, my son and his BFF, so it was great.

While I had a good time, the trip was not all smooth sailing. First, the bus driver was taking us to the wrong location, although my friend A. said I should have gotten off there instead :D

The show itself was a little underwhelming. I know I wasn't the target audience, but the songs were not catchy, the pacing was dreadful, and you couldn't even understand some of the words because the songs so convoluted and two of the performers didn't seem to be miked at all. The kids were done about 30 minutes into the show and were super restless. I overheard a boy saying "that was a baby show!" which tells ya that they weren't really hitting the right balance of education and entertainment.

It was the first time I chaperoned on a school trip and I loved it. Which is good because since my poor husband just hurt his foot (again) I am replacing him as chaperon on a school trip with my youngest later this week!

Here are a couple of pics of Villa Montalvo from pinterest - if you have the chance to go, it is a gorgeous place. I am planning on going back soon just to take some photos of the place.

Source: google.com via Susan on Pinterest

Source: montalvoarts.org via Leila on Pinterest

Spooky mantel!

Granted, the black and white effect is what kills it here, but still, we love our Halloween-ed mantel. The pumpkins are all from our backyard, I left some of the branches on them for a more rustic feel.

My boys helped with the decorating, the center display is made up of my oldest's first Halloween toy given to him by his grandparents, some favorite Halloween books, and a souvenir from Disneyland. They also liked my web ribbon so it was added on the sides.

Hope you liked our spooooooooky mantel, I think all the candy up there makes it a little less scary ;D

Fashion Friday: Favorite Outfit

I'm not a big fan of sweaters -- cardigans are one thing but closed sweaters make me claustrophobic. This one, though, is so comfy and the neckline is not so tight so there's no problem.

I love the richness of winter colors, browns and bronzes, olive greens and ambers, and my favorite of all colors, burgundy. Not in this outfit, but then it would be my lipstick ;D

Have a wonderful weekend!

I Wear Pink

This being Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I'm joining the I Wear Pink sets on Polyvore in honor of my sister, a breast cancer survivor, and everyone battling this horrible disease.

Tiled outdoor counter

When we moved in to this house, we found a BBQ and counter attached to one of the outside walls. It wasn't in very good condition and the fact that it was right next to the house concerned us. There was a kegerator with spouts both inside and outside. Awesome, right? Except we don't drink beer.

The old BBQ finally collapsed, full of rust, and left a huge hole in the middle of the counter. We figured, since we were redoing the bathroom floor, we could use the same materials to re-vamp the counter into an actually usable piece.


The process was basically the same - clear off all old materials, layer backerboard, mud it, then lay and grout tile. For this counter, we purchased edging pieces and an extra pack of the tile we used for the bathroom. At 68 cents per tile, it was perfect.

Now we have a beautiful counter that is both useful and presentable:

On the top left corner you can see a switch box, we can hook up music, a coffeemaker, a fan on hot days, etc. so it is a very serviceable area for entertaining.

My awesome husband did a great job on this as well, didn't he?

Fashion Friday: Fall is here!

I am deliriously happy because my favorite season has truly arrived - no more deceptively cool mornings followed by blistering hot afternoons. No. Now cold mornings are followed by cool afternoons, and sometimes, even rain! Swapped my summer shorts for my beloved jeans:

Source: polyvore.com via Joy on Pinterest

Aside from a pair of leopard print flats, I am not really shopping for anything this fall/winter:

Lauren Conrad by juliak featuring leather tote handbags

Jackets are back in rotation:

Source: shop.nordstrom.com via Gayla on Pinterest

Tall boots make a comeback:

Source: polyvore.com via Milena on Pinterest

It's all about layers, layers, layers!

Source: stumbleupon.com via Bethany on Pinterest

My beloved knit hats will be topping my outfits once again:

Source: etsy.com via Erin on Pinterest

Everything in warm, cozy colors:

Source: polyvore.com via Breanna on Pinterest

What are you looking forward to wearing this fall?

Fall outdoor decor

I'm joining up the fall parteh at Sarah's today with my BOO pumpkins. I saw this idea on pinterest and I decided to switch it up a bit.


First, I spray painted the pumpkins with Oil Rubbed Bronze. Then, since my oldest was helping me with this craft I made it a little easier for him by scribbling the letters on paper first.


This made it easier for him to "trace" with the silver thumbtacks:


Once the letter was done, I held the thumbtacks in place and gently pulled off the paper.


My stylist-in-training decided that my Martha Stewart web ribbon would be perfect on the urn I painted a few months ago:


Pretty simple and easy, and I love how the thumbtacks reflect light so even if it's getting dark you can see the pumpkins with their BOO :D

Hope you enjoyed this outdoor craft!