Noon Year's Eve

I have always LOVED this concept of celebrating New Year's Eve at noon with kids. This year we will be celebrating at Kidspace in Pasadena. They have a balloon drop at noon. How perfect. Prior to the balloon drop you can decorate hats and balloons. But if you have decided to stay in or celebrate closer to the real New Year's Eve, I wanted to pass along these adorable photo printable props I found on www.iheartnaptime.com.

http://www.iheartnaptime.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/NewYearsPhotoProps.pdf

Traditions

Traditions at the holidays are what make it so special. Last year I started a few new traditions, in addition to the traditions that I grew up with and my son loves them all.
1. Elf on the Shelf (see post here: http://www.craftynotartsy.blogspot.com/2013/12/elf-on-shelf.html)
2. 25 days of gifts - Our Elf brings the gifts when he arrives and my son gets to open a gift a day beginning on 12.1. This year's theme was books and he loved opening a new book everyday. The first 10 days were chapter books, which were great. Now we are getting into the picture books and we read it right away.
3. Tree decorating - this was the first year my son wanted to help decorate the tree. Thank goodness I have a few non breakable ornaments. I think next year we may get him his own small tree to decorate.

4. Lights - my son LOVES to come home to our house when it is dark and our lights are on. We also like to "go through the neighborhood" as he says on the way home to view lights. Next year we will schedule time to do a Friday night lights tour. We just ran out of time this year.
5. Annual Santa photo - this year (and last) we did it with my sister's family Thanksgiving weekend. All of the kids were great this year. Even telling Santa exactly what they want.

6. Tree Lighting - each year we try to hit at least one tree lighting. This year we only got to see the Danville tree when we were visiting my sister for Thanksgiving. It was a fun evening filled with freedom for the boys (streets are closed off), hot chocolate and fun lights.

 7. Christmas in Montana - this is a fun one because we all come together under one roof. Christmas is so much better through the eyes of a child that still believes in Santa. Having three boys together (cousins) is crazy...fun! Praying for snow so that we can make snow angels on the front lawn. But if no snow, we will hit the slopes at least once. My son has already stated "this year I want to ski by myself. I don't want you to hold me up." We will see what happens.

Holiday Cards

Do you send Holiday Cards? I absolutely LOVE holiday cards. I also love TINYPRINTS.com. I discovered them a few years ago and they are my go to for holiday cards. If you hold out around the holiday season you can typically get them for 25% off.
I also love the new trend in photo cards. This is why I love to send cards. I also love receiving cards from old friends and seeing how everyone has grown.
Our card from tiny prints is below! Happy Holidays.

Holiday Crafts

This past weekend I babysat one of my son's friends and was worried about what we would do for 6 hours. And then I got excited. Six hours to do all of the fun holiday crafts with a little girl. We enjoyed making gingerbread houses (my son ate most of his candy), rolled and decorated our own salt dough ornaments and  made our own wrapping paper. This was of course done between play time, watching How The Grinch Stole Christmas and reading books. What a fun filled and mildly exhausting afternoon.

Elf on the Shelf

Oh how I love this tradition. A small Elf shows up right after Thanksgiving to keep an eye on the kids. Each night the Elf flies back to the North Pole (because he is magic of course) and reports on whether or not said child has been good or bad. Our elf, Jessie, arrived last year right after my son turned three. And while the concept was cute it was not in full effect. Now that my son is four, the Elf really is magic. All I have to say is "If you don't listen to mommy, Jessie will tell Santa you were not good today" and almost immediately his behavior changes. I LOVE THIS ELF.
Below are a few images of the antics of our Elf Jessie. Thank you to all of the creative people on Pinterest for inspiring me.

Hot Spots: Ojai

So we finally made it to Ojai. I have been wanting to go for years and was so excited when I finally got the chance. We stayed at the Ojai Valley Inn and it was magical. 24 hours felt like a 3-day weekend. The resort is so quiet and calm and the staff is 100% accommodating. No one complained or gave us dirty looks when my son was running from the practice putting green to our table to tell me how he saw three bunnies.
After swimming in the afternoon, napping in our room that overlooked a golf course and had a fireplace in it and running freely from our room to dinner we enjoyed making s'mores as a family in the court yard.
The next day we collected sticks, watched people play tennis, visited the kids camp and experienced Ojai Days in downtown Ojai. Amazing weekend!

Land of Nod Holiday

 

I was recently invited to the Land of Nod Holiday Trunk Show. Land of Nod hosted nine parties across the country on the same night. The sweet Katie Harrington invited us and the evening was perfect. The event was held at Jessica Alba's The Honest Company corporate headquarters in Santa Monica. What an amazing office. The changing area alone was to die for!

The toys were so much fun and Addison and his friend loved playing with everything. It helped that they were both fueled by jelly belly!

One the hosts for the LA event was DIY Studio (http://www.studiodiy.com/). Check out her blog of the event. I grabbed the picture of Ad from here (http://www.studiodiy.com/2013/11/25/a-holiday-trunk-show-with-the-land-of-nod/). And if you are looking for new blogs to follow this is the list of bloggers that hosted these great events http://blog.landofnod.com/honest-to-nod/2013/11/nod-traveling-road-show.html. But most importantly, don't forget to buy some toys at www.landofnod.com. Save 15% with the code DIYLA now through 11.27 (Wednesday).

House Party: Julius Jr

Did you hear? We hosted another House Party. If you do not know House Party check it out at www.houseparty.com. It is such an amazing concept. Since we already throw many parties, I usually integrate the party into a play date I am already doing.
I have been dying to do a pj and pancake party. And I thought that a TV show party promoting the new Julius Jr TV show would be the perfect excuse. It took me about 10 min to put the decorations together and everything turned out soooo cute. Way better than I even expected. I decided to forgo the pancakes for something that was made ahead of time and since our schedule did not allow for a morning party/play date we hosted a breakfast for dinner play date. All of the friends came over in their PJs. We had coloring in the dining room, a Julius Jr video playing in the family room and fun everywhere.

Dinner set-up below. We ended up making a frittata and french toast casserole. Both were a huge hit and so easy.

The kids had a blast playing, getting goofy and of course settling in for a viewing of the new TV show.

Holidays & Kids

Last week the toy catalogs arrived in the mail and my four year old spotted them right away. I let him look through them and asked him to circle anything he wanted from Santa. I didn't look at his choices until the next morning when he was still asleep.
I absolutely love the results (pictures below). Some of the choices are too young or too old but the effort on the circling is awesome. And I love how he did not circle everything on a page leaving one or two. And he is clearly Super Hero, car and Disney's Planes obsessed.
Do you and your kids go through the toy catalogs?

Halloween

I am not really a big Halloween person but ever since I had my son, I am obsessed. I love hosting all of our friends and trick or treating in the neighborhood. The kids have the best time and the whole evening is fantastic through the eyes of children.
My son, Iron Man,  with Spiderman and Spidey Girl.

 Iron Man and his Princess.

 Group Shot - five Super Heroes and a Princess.

 My favorite angle - door shot.

 In action - mask did not last long.

 And the end shot, stuffing his candy into his mouth.

Hot Spots: The Hollywood Bowl

If you live in LA and you have not gone to the Hollywood Bowl, shame on you. If you are like me and rarely went to the Hollywood Bowl, you need to start NOW. With the heat in the late summer, the bowl is a perfect evening spot. Enjoying a pre-show picnic is the best. We made it to one show this year and it was fabulous. My son experienced his first bowl AND John Williams. But the highlight of the show was the light sabers that lit up the sky when the Star Wars theme was played. What an awe inspiring moment. I actually got choked up as I saw my son's face light up with joy as he put his light saber into the sky with all the other light sabers.

Obsessed: Pinterest

Do you pinterest? I absolutely LOVE it. Not sure why I did not start earlier. Prior to Pinterest I would pull images from magazines for whichever project I was working on (bday party, redecorating, baking, etc) and paste onto a piece of paper making a mood board. Then I discovered pinterest. LOVE. You can follow my boards here:
http://www.pinterest.com/aedepp/
Below are a few pictures of things I have seen on Pinterest and then done on my own. Such an inspiring site. Full addiction.
My only complaint or recommendation is a tool that would allow me to choose a few images (or 10) and add to a mood board and print so I could see everything next to one another. Anyone know if this is possible?

 above: diet coke chocolate cake

above: onsies for each month - gift to my sister

 fort kits: gifts to many boys

 pink spray painted mason jars with succulents - in my nieces room

above: toddler shakers - for my niece - please note, if thrown down stairs by older brother it will break :)

Hot Spots: Underwood Farms

If you have not yet visited Underwood Farms in Moorpark, you must go now. If you have, you completely understand why you must go now. Underwood Farms is the Disneyland of pumpkin patches. Last year was our first visit and it was amazing. This year we coordinated with many other families and made a day out of it. The drive is easy but the distance is far. It is away from the traffic of LA and the openness is inspiring.

The kids started the day off running from the top of the hill to the bottom. One fabulous father even bear hugged the kids as they ran to the bottom which elicited many squeals of delight. More than one tractor ride was had for all and even a semi-kids only ride. My son shared with his bestie and they enjoyed the freedom of no parents. And then it was off to choose pumpkins. And to my surprise they were not as overpriced as I had recalled. The largest one was $12 and for a small sized pumpkin it was between $3-$5. Not bad at the Disneyland of pumpkin patches.

Obsessed: Michael's Craft Store

As any crafter would know, Michaels craft store is amazing. Even non-crafters who venture in know that they have everything. A new Michaels opened around the corner from work and I am obsessed. I want to roam the aisles looking at everything and dreaming up fun projects. Unfortunately reality and life set in and I cannot. So if you are bored or curious drop by a Michaels and check it out.

Pink Pancakes

If you know me you know I love PINK, the color. And if you know my almost 4 year old son, you know he also LOVES pink too. I like to make pancakes on the weekend and one weekend decided to turn them pink. I did not tell him until I was done making them and he was happily surprised. He loved them and now requests them all the time. It was beyond simple. I made the pancake mix and dropped in a few drops of red food coloring. I mixed and the perfect pink was mine. In the pictures below you can see that I also created his name which was very exciting for him. Happy customer in the last photo!