Introduced You To It: March 2020

Who doesn't want to hear about Halloween in late March? If this is not timely blogging than I don't know what is ;). But since this is more for me as a scrapbook, I am still going to plug away and try to get all caught up!

The weekend before Halloween, we decided to have a little pumpkin painting party - it was my in-town family and a little bit of Wes's family. The prep is one of my favorite parts! Emma helped me to make popcorn hands! Wes got flowers - it was our first time to host (other than Everly's birthday party!).

We made bat cupcakes!

And spider sandwiches :).

The whole spread! The girls were really into it until they were not and I finished everything up.

One of my favorite views in our house - I just love the front door with the tile with the wood with the rug!

We gave the kiddos options of whether they wanted to carve or paint. Emma chose carving and Everly chose painting. Look at what they found in their pumpkins - money!! My dad always did this for us growing up and it is one of my favorite Halloween traditions :).

We laid a tarp in our garage and let the kids go crazy!

And then we ate snacks and hung out - and sadly, I didn't get a picture of just Everly and her pumpkin but oh well :).

The next day, the girls got in costume and got ready for our church's Halloween festival. I love this chance of getting pictures of the kids before the big day because on the big day, they are all hyped up and don't want to stop for pictures.

Everly chose to be an LOL doll.

Is this not the most precious thing you have ever seen?!?

And Emma decided to be a dragon queen.

Just love that sparkle with her sparkly blue eyes.

This is my updated view point on Halloween costumes. As a mom, enjoy the first four years where you can basically coerce them into being little animals (my favorite!! remember Emma and Everly as the elephant! and the tiger!). Then they will start having opinions. We have just decided to let them choose because we know they will only be into it for a few more years - so who cares? And if they choose, they will wear it! Would I love for them to still dress up as lions and tigers and bear - yes! Do they want to? No... so we just go with it! And I think it turned out pretty darn cute!

Their scary faces. Watch out!!

We headed up to the church and they had lots of games for the kids to play.

Our kids did quite well and Everly even won herself an Everly-sized bear!!

They both won the cookie walk at one point or another!

There was even a cookie monster!

We decorated pumpkins.

hunted for treasure...

and tossed balls. All while winning too much candy ;).

We let them change into their regular clothes and bounce on the bounce house until it was time to head to Bobbob's for dinner.

On Halloween night, we ate pizza and we all got dressed up! We ended up taking the girls to Bobbob's house and walking a few streets in his neighborhood before heading to my parents and calling it a night. Wes's costume was so good, but the only picture I have has Bobbob's address on it ;) so next year I will make sure I get a picture.

Those two sweet girls loved trick-or-treating with each other!

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays and I feel like we celebrated to our full potential :).

Back in October, Wes and I spent a long weekend in New York to celebrate our 9th wedding anniversary! Neither of us had been back since we went for our one year anniversary (and I was pregnant with Emma!) so it had been awhile! We love New York and it was super fun to get away for awhile (it happened about 10 days after we were done with the big re-model!).

We flew out super early and made it to New York around 11am. Love the city skyline from the plane.

Took an Uber to our hotel which was right in the middle of 42nd street! The last time we went, we stayed in New Jersey and bussed over every day so this felt like a small luxury staying right in the middle of it all!

We got dressed and were ready to hit the ground running!

First stop - lunch at Shake Shack! This is where we really fell in love with Shake Shack all those years ago so it only felt appropriate to eat it in New York as well ;).

Everything was decorated for Halloween which was so fun! We stopped at an Irish pub for a mid-day beer (no kids!).

Before going to see Mean Girls!!! It was so funny!

After the show, we strolled to Central Park - we had the most amazing weather. Took notes of this playground - we would love to bring Emma and Everly here one day when they are older.

So many people were out - we were just soaking it all in.

And wound up walking through Rockefeller Plaza and the ice rink was up! Is it up all year? I really can't remember, but I don't think I had seen it before.

For dinner that night we googled tacos and overwhelmingly this place came up - we knew we were in for a treat when we showed up and there was a line out the door!

These street tacos were soooo yummy (we actually ended up eating here twice!).

And we capped off the night with a drink at a pub.

The next morning we grabbed breakfast around the street and headed out to walk the Brooklyn Bridge! It is something that I always wanted to do, but never had done. The weather was crisp, the sun was out - it was just a perfect morning strolling from Brooklyn to Manhattan.

My initials (LM) were on those balloons way up there - what are the odds?

After we finished up, we had a few hours to kill so we stopped at Joe's pizza for lunch.

Seriously delish - I loved my white pizza so much!

Next up - we headed over to Metlife Stadium to watch the Cowboys play the Jets!!!

We love checking out sporting events when we travel and we were pleasantly surprised that the Cowboys were there while we were there!

The Cowboys lost, but we had a great time.

Another night, another pub - I looked up some recs before we left. We shared a flight of beer.

And some appetizers. Yum!

The next morning we headed to Greenwich Village. We stopped and got a bagel.

Ate it in this lovely little park - the leaves changing colors were just at the beginning stages, but I am so glad we got a feel for it!

Before we headed out on our food tour!!!!! We had the best time walking around with our guide and getting to try so many samples of different Italian food!

We met the nicest couple on the tour that took this picture of us! They told us we were exactly what they thought of Texans, haha.

Baked donuts!

One of my favorite parts of the tour was walking through the neighborhoods!

We stopped and talked to one of our tour guides friends who was sitting on his stoop!

The Friends building.

This was my favorite house - the cream with the hunter green was such a good combination.

After we finished up - we took the Staten Island Ferry so we could get a look of the Statue of Liberty.

I always love taking this ferry!

When we finished up there we decided to walk the Chelsea Highline.

And go through Chelsea Market.

We shared a lobster roll because we knew we would probably have a late dinner.

Went back to our hotel room, hung out for a bit and then hit up a tex mex restaurant for margaritas before capping off the night with tacos from our new favorite spot ;).

We wanted to wake up early the next morning, but we just didn't (ha!), we headed to get a coffee and banana pudding for later.

Before walking over to the Today Show! We only made it for the last half hour, but we still had a blast!

Walked to The Smith to have breakfast.

Checked out FAO Schwartz and picked up a little treat for the girls.

And then decided to head to the Central Park Zoo. If you have been reading for long, you know we love checking out zoo's when we travel. This one was quaint but had some nice views.

Where are the girls when I need them ;).

Those yellow trees stole my heart. We sat here and ate our banana pudding from Magnolia and soaked up our last kid-free hours.

For a late lunch, we headed to Katz's Deli and boy, was it an experience!

It was super crazy and loud but also somewhat organized? The nicest butcher made our sandwich - we looked up an article that told us what to order :).

We couldn't finish this - it was so huge!

We headed back to our hotel to pick up our bags making a pit stop at the M&M store to get the girls a fun little treat!

And then we headed home! Such a fun little getaway :).

Meanwhile, the girls were having the best weekend and two school days with my parents!!! My parents took such good care of them and we are forever grateful for the love they pour into these two! Here is a peek of what they were up too! Minus all the school stuff :) but I will say my mom was a rockstar making sure they got everything done!

Puzzles.