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A Saturday Night at the Derricks

We turned on photobooth tonight and had a little too much fun! I know this is an embarrassing video (plus terrible background noise and image quality), but I don’t really care. I’m just so grateful for a family with whom I can be completely goofy! PS-TJ said I could publish this, don’t worry! #relationshipgoals right here, guys. Not to sound like the girls on The Bachelor, but I love this man!

Christmas Book Roundup: Week 1

If you follow me on instagram, you probably saw my post about reading a new Christmas book to Eva each night (most of them are from the library) and then wanting to review them here. We finished our first batch and wanted to share:

img_0008-13 The Golden Christmas Tree: Yeah, we were not fans of this book. I can’t even remember what it was about, that’s how lame of a story it was.

img_0001-13I Love Christmas: This one was cute but for a younger audience than Eva’s.

img_0002-9Little Bunny Finds Christmas: I loved this one. The repetition and flow of the book was well done and the story was simple and sweet. That night in Eva’s prayers, she even mentioned some things she learned in the book. Very cute!

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Reindeer Christmas: I enjoyed the classic Christmas illustrations in this book and the rhyming was also cute.

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Santa Claus and the Three Bears: A Christmas twist on the Goldie Locks story. Eva really liked this book.

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The All-I’ll-Ever-Want Christmas Doll: I thought this one looked interesting but it was for an older age group than Eva’s because it’s set back during the depression and Eva just didn’t really understand.

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Looking for Christmas: This was the first Christmas book we read this season and it made me cry because it was such a sweet message. The snowman is searching for Christmas and on his journey, gives all of his belongings to woodland creatures that need it more than him. It was such a beautiful yet simple message. It’s only $5 on Amazon, so get this one!

Halloween Day

On the actual day of Halloween, we really didn’t have much planned except for trick-or-treating in the evening. In fact, I had TJ take the car, so we were pretty much stuck at home. But I felt like we couldn’t just hang out at the house on Halloween! So, we met up with friends at Zaxby’s for lunch (kids ate free if they were in costume-Finn was a “bunny in a pumpkin patch” and Eva was a cat!) and then because Eva, last minute, wanted to be Elsa, I threw together Finn’s costume while he was napping. It was actually pretty fun getting his costume ready to go and getting Eva all dressed! She looked so cute with her whole costume on! TJ came up with his costume-he was Sven, the reindeer from Frozen. I was going to be a wolf from Frozen (remember, wolves chase the sled?) but the makeup didn’t turn out as planned, so I went as the cat again. We trick or treated in our neighborhood and Eva was running around like crazy. She did up and down the street with some buddies in the time that our group barely went up half the street. It was so funny! We ended the night by visiting TJ’s parents to show them the kids’ costumes.

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Haunted Forest + Gardner Village

The Friday before Halloween, we hit up our friend’s brother’s haunted forest. It was kid friendly and the kids seriously loved it. I think Eva went through six times. They were all so cute running through and telling us what to watch out for! Unfortunately, it was a bit rainy that night and Finn was crabby from teething (in fact, we switched off sitting in the car with him since he fell asleep), but we still had a good time catching up with friends.

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On our way home, we decided to swing by Gardner Village since that was on my Fall to-do list and I really wanted to see the witches there! We didn’t stay long, considering it was past 9 pm when we arrived and it was a bit rainy. But it was still fun to blow off the kids’ bedtimes and just have a fun Friday night out! Usually I’m so big about getting the kids to bed right at seven, so when we stay out (especially on a weekend), it’s a special treat! Oh, and splitting a caramel apple sure made things nice 🙂 !

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Eva’s Preschool Halloween Party

On the Friday before Halloween, Eva had her special Halloween party and presentation for the parents at preschool. They were all so cute, dressed in costume, singing and dancing to the songs they had worked so hard on! She really loves this new school and her teachers!

Trick or Treat Parties!

We trick or treated at TJ’s dad’s work on Friday afternoon. They always put on such an awesome, huge party! So many amazing decorations, tons of candy and treats, it’s was a highlight of our Halloween for sure!

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On Saturday night, we had our church’s Trunk or Treat party. I used one of our old moving boxes to paint a monster face to put in the trunk. We had some old Easter basket filling, which I used as his hair, and topped it with a witch hat! We had such a nice evening!

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Hee Haw’s Farm

The first pumpkin patch we visited this season was Hee Haw’s. TJ actually made their logo for them back in high school, so when we were about to pay to enter, they insisted we go in free which was so nice! I think out of all the pumpkin patches/farms we went to this Fall, this one was my favorite. It had a lot of activities but was still small enough, it didn’t feel like a carnival (nor was it crowded). Plus, you could pet goats and baby pigs. So, obviously that made my day.

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Disney: Snapchat Edition

I love snapchat. It’s just so casual and fun. Such an easy way to document the regular part of your day. So, I snapped some at Disney and put it all together. I love rewatching the part about what Eva packed in her bag for Disney. Too funny!

 

 

California Adventure

The final day of our trip, we went to California Adventure. The weather that day was perfect and the crowds were at a minimum… so it was basically a perfect Disney day! We got to ride everything we wanted, Eva was tall enough for bigger rides which was so fun! We got to ride Tower of Terror for its last time and experienced the World of Color for the first time ever, which is complete magic and an amazing way to end the trip! Turkey legs, corn on the cob, Cars Land, it was a great day!

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Mickey’s Halloween Party

On Monday of our trip, after we went to the beach for a few hours, we had tickets to Mickey’s Halloween Party at Disneyland. I talked a little about this on my Disneyland tips post, we really enjoyed all the decorations, the parade, and villains, but probably wouldn’t do the trick-or-treating again. Once we figured out what was going on and realized the rides didn’t have any waits because everyone was trick-or-treating, then we finally got to relax and enjoy our time! The kids, however, loved getting candy (duh!) and looked so cute in their costumes!

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