And I know what you’re thinking, but yes, this is an ACTUAL playhouse! The “Little Diamond Head” playhouse was built for I’m sure if Miss L saw this playhouse, she’d feel right at home. I mean, what child doesn’t need a Hawaiian themed playhouse to go with their Hawaiian themed room?

And I know what you’re thinking, but yes, this is an ACTUAL playhouse! The “Little Diamond Head” playhouse was built for Project Playhouse: 2011 in Orange County, CA and is available for purchase by auction to the highest bidder!

Look! It even comes with a TV & DVD player…. and the decking all around it!

The other houses for auction this year include …

Dorothy’s “Over the Rainbow” Cottage

A Tuscan themed abode (this one resembles our house frontage a little too eerily… hmmm)

Sir Lyon’s Castle

I’m pretty sure I was jealous of the kid with the plastic Playskol house… so I’m certain that even the kids in OC will be jealous of the neighbor kid who puts this in their backyard… and I’m sure it’ll come with an ocean view too!

For yet another year (see 2010’s iteration here) we chose a “family” costume for this year’s October 31st festivities. Can you guess what we were from the photo of our handmade costume pieces below??

We were the Tweedles (Dee & Dum) and Alice in [...]]]> Happy Halloween everyone!

For yet another year (see 2010’s iteration here) we chose a “family” costume for this year’s October 31st festivities. Can you guess what we were from the photo of our handmade costume pieces below??

We were the Tweedles (Dee & Dum) and Alice in Wonderland!

On Saturday night, we got dressed up for the first time and went over to our friend’s house in Folsom for some seriously haunting good times. Shellie, the mistress of the house, is actually a professional haunter, so visiting her house is like going to a mini version of the Haunted Mansion. This year she added a “Madame Leota” crystal ball to her entry window… with her face and narration!!! It’s always quite a sight to see everything, and there’s always great fun and company to be had!

We’re not quite sure how it happened, but Miss L stayed up all the way until 9:30pm, at which time she traded the Mad Hatter (above), for her more snuggly companion: the Cheshire cat (below).

And once again, on Halloween night, we came home from work and daycare to get dressed up one final time for the year.

Miss L went trick or treating (aka. “TriTREAT!”) to a few neighbor’s houses and over to see Grandma M as well. She got books from our nextdoor neighbors, and huge cookies from Grandma M.

And she grabbed quite a bit of candy from this spooky house across the street with an inflated headless horseman!  She was never scared of visiting any houses, but made sure that Daddy was there with her to hold her hand the whole way.

When we came back home, she’d help say, “Hi” to all of the visitors, but didn’t quite understand why we were giving away all of the stuff we had in our treat basket… or more importantly, why she couldn’t have any of it.

She indulged in some plain M&Ms (after some really big PLEASE’s and pity looks at Daddy), and had no urge to take off any of the components of her costume all night.

And at the end of it all, I’m going to declare this Halloween quite the success! Good costumes, two successful nights of dressing up, and quite the stash of candy in the end!

I hope your Halloween was just as wonderful as ours!

[p.s. here are the components of our costumes: Miss L’s Alice in Wonderland dress, Tweedle yellow shirts, red sweatpants & red hats, Tweedle collars, blue bows & flags = crafted from scrap materials in the craft room. And a big THANKS to Mr. M for coming up with our costume theme once again this year!]

How much fun [...]]]> I’ll admit I lost my love for Polyvore right at about the time I gave up fashion blogs (short story: normal clothes don’t fit me, so why lust after things you can’t wear)… but I think my passion has been reignited with these wonderfully fun creations by Leslie from DisneyBound.

How much fun is it to think of fashion in terms of characters… and Leslie just has a wonderful knack for doing so!

Some outfit sets are character specific…

…even for the men…

…while others just draw on imaginative themes.

It’s fun to think and dream outside the box some days. Who am I  kidding… it’s fun every day!

Last week I asked for advice on a new video [...]]]> Excuse me for the small amount of text that will appear in this blog post. My right hand is suffering from clicker-hand… which is very similar to Wii-bow but just simply comes from smashing too many buttons with too much passion on a game controller.

Last week I asked for advice on a new video game to jump into and play… and I got an answer from the other adult member in our household. Mr. M reminded me that we had purchased, “LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1 -4” last fall but never opened it up to play it. Looking back, this is a tragedy of epic proportions, as this game is lots of fun and full of all kinds of cuteness.

And the best part? It’s all co-op played! That means that instead of shooting people in endless rounds of online warfare, Mr. M can sit by my side and use “wingardium leviosa” to levitate students at Hogwarts. This is 10000x cuter than LEGO Star Wars… if that was possible, and is a nice way to jump back into HP-fever this summer!

Next up… LEGO Pirates of the Carribean?

Anyone else out there playing a co-op game with their significant other? Or maybe even a LEGO game?

For Christmas, I got my own superhero to protect me when Mr. M was away. It was a POP! Superman. He was cute and little and just the sort of fun collectible gift we like to exchange. Then, just today, they released their Disney collection at the Disney Store online. I [...]]]>  

For Christmas, I got my own superhero to protect me when Mr. M was away. It was a POP! Superman. He was cute and little and just the sort of fun collectible gift we like to exchange. Then, just today, they released their Disney collection at the Disney Store online. I think we’re in trouble people… this is a heck of a lot of cuteness to handle in one fell swoop.

Well, [...]]]> Last night, Miss L and I had a “girls night” together just laughing and playing and giggling through dinner and bedtime. The current nighttime (and non-bath night) routine is as follows: playing, dinner, downtime with TV/movie (10-15 min), change into PJs, read books/drink milk, brush teeth, cuddletime and then snuggles down into the crib.

Well, last night got off course during PJ time.

While I was changing her diaper, she was sing-song’ing a tune and moving her hands. Once I got the diaper on, I watched her intently, trying to figure out if she was trying to sign me something new and/or just figure out what was going on.

She kept going… and I kept watching… smiling with her and trying to encourage her to keep playing.

And then I suddenly got it.

And I started singing and moving my hands.

“The itsy-bitsy spider went up the water spout…”

Her eyes lit up so quickly and she started squealing with delight. It was like she was saying, “OMG Mom! You know the song too!”

And so we sang and did the hand motions for the song for the next 20 minutes. I tried to read a story, but she kept tapping my hands and then starting the song. And so we’d sing it again and do the motions together again. And we’d clap and cheer for ourselves at the end (she added that part in).

Her favorite part is when we “…. washed the spider out.” She likes to shake her hands and wash everything away.

I wanted to run downstairs and grab my phone to videotape the moment. But I didn’t want to ruin it either, so I stayed upstairs and kept playing.

There was no 3rd witness to the magic other than Memphis, but it was seriously the cutest moment we’ve shared to date.

P.S. Here’s a little clip of the magic the very next day…

“Quack quack quack!”  “Quack quack quack!”

But then I heard one single, “QUACK!” And that’s not how the lovely iphone alarm plays…

So I flipped around in my chair to look out my window and saw that the [...]]]> A few months ago, I thought that someone’s iphone alarm was going off in a nearby office…

“Quack quack quack!”  “Quack quack quack!”

But then I heard one single, “QUACK!” And that’s not how the lovely iphone alarm plays…

So I flipped around in my chair to look out my window and saw that the sounds were coming from an actual duck quacking away downstairs! A mallard male and female were just waddling around in the grasses below and enjoying the afternoon.

And almost every day since then, the same thing would happen around 2pm. I began calling them my duck family, and while I hadn’t named them specifically, I would fondly say “Hello duckies!” whenever they crossed my path around the building!

Yesterday, I heard the quacks as usual, but along with them was a lot of chirping. Could it be what I thought??

I ran downstairs with my phone and here’s what I captured…

Little baby ducklings are just the cutest things in the whole darn world! And I’m totally taking a work break to adore the cuteness whenever they waddle past my window!