California Birthday Trip: Day 1

Alright, lets get the ball rolling already.

Overly excited toddler in stow, we flew to LA on United Airlines last Thursday afternoon after getting a ride from my oh-so-generous brother-in-law to Denver International Airport. Kalynn did awesome on the plane and mostly drew Paint Sparkles on the iPad while munching on Goldfish Crackers. Having skipped her nap that day, I was super relieved there were no melt downs. Not one. High five.

We went straight to my Mom's house, ate dinner, and directly climbed into bed. Traveling, as I'm sure everyone knows, is totally exhausting. We had a big day ahead of us so we needed some good rest.

Friday morning we spent a few precious hours with my grandparents taking pictures and hanging out before heading off to Disneyland. The Paradise Pier Hotel let us check in early, which was awesome because Kalynn was already ready for a nap by the time noon rolled around. Our room was totally adorable, decked out with characters in a beachy theme.

We had an amazing view of the water slide and the pool although we never got to use either of them because it was record breaking low temperatures the whole time we were there. Parts of LA County even got snow. Can you believe that? Leave it to us to choose the one weekend of the millennium that the temperatures decide to chill out in the 30's.

She woke up happy and ready to go! Thank God!

Off to Sleeping Beauty's Castle!

It felt so good to be back! We immediately headed to Fantasyland to meet up with our friends Melissa and Brandon and their son Elin (the same ones who gave us the hotel suite a couple December's ago in San Diego).

I can't even explain how nice it is to be around my friends again. People whom I've known for eons. People I can just pal around with and feel like we never skipped a beat.

Our kids played, we rode rides, we caught up on everything there was to talk about and we got to just have an awesome day.

Kalynn and I took a detour to say hello to Snow White while my mom saved us the perfect spot to watch the parade. Although Kalynn was initially super excited to meet her idol, she was a little nervous when Ms. White wanted a hug. 

Walking back from Snow White's Wishing Well to my mom, who was saving our parade watching spot, we got a bit of a surprise. There she was, sitting in the middle of a circle in mid conversation with Alice in Wonderland, The White Rabbit, The Queen of Hearts and the Mad Hatter. The 4 characters must have sat and talked with her for 10 minutes about absolutely nothing important while lines of patient Disney fans waited for pictures and autographs.

Kalynn wasn't as enthused. She's pretty terrified of the Queen of Hearts. Rightly so. Anyone who goes around yelling "Off with their heads!!" should expect a frightened toddler to deny a photo opportunity.

After the parade we met up my my friend Chris and his daughter Lilly for more rides. We kept the kids awake until 8:45 (9:45pm our time) to watch the fireworks, but they were canceled at the last minute due to high wind advisory. Just as well. Someone was a little tuckered out anyway.

My mom and I popped open a bottle of red wine (by popped open, I mean accidentally pushed the cork through the wrong way forcing a volcano of Cabernet to explode all over my face, the walls, the floor and the couch) and blew up a million balloons to cover the hotel room floor for Kalynn o have the next morning on her 3rd birthday.

Day 1 had overly exceeded my expectations of our first visit since our move to Colorado. It couldn't have gone any more perfect.

Day 2 (just as awesome) coming soon!

Cross Stitch Bitch

Ok, so if you aren't a big fan of swear words as much as I am, you should probably just quit reading. I'm not trying to offend anyone, it's just that I so love the packed punch of a good F-bomb.

I've been a total freak about cross stitch lately. Whenever I have a spare minute I pick it up and dutifully execute my perfect x's in formation to make pretty much the coolest things ever.

Like this, for example: an amazeballs bookmark with C3PO and R2D2: (lml/)

Or this little Alice and "white" rabbit for Kalynn's bedroom:

And even this lovely wall hanging for our best friends' house

I'd like to give a special shout out to my crazy ass mom, who upon seeing my horribly drawn home-made patterns, busted out her business-fancy Excel spread sheets and whipped these up for me all in a single afternoon. She's kind of a big deal.

Let me know if anyone wants the pattern and I'll email it to you!

Alice in Wonderland Cupcakes

Remember those heart shaped chocolate ganache filled cupcakes that I made a while back? Remember how I said if you don't want to make the entire army of cupcakes, the batter freezes fantastically? Well today I felt like some cupcakes. I moved the batter into the refridgerator right before bed last night, by morning it was perfect for baking just 6 perfect little cakes. I had some left over frosting that I needed to use up from these horrendously frosted Star Wars cookies I made earlier this week. It's ok to laugh. I did. A lot.

Anyway, so I decided to make some Alice in Wonderland cupcakes with the little miniature porcelain dolls I have. I actually got them down to do my Easter sugar eggs, but I used them for this instead. 

Oh and on an unrelated side note: I've been accepted to join the www.topbabyblogs.com website! So now it's up to you guys to get me some rankings! Right now I'm listed as site number 489, which is not very high. It's not horrible, but it's not good either. SO, you don't have to sign up for anything or spend money or give away your email or anything like that. All you have to do is VOTE for me! And vote often! You can vote for me once every 24 hours. Just click the brown square blinking link on the top right of this blog page, (right under where you can join my Pinterest, Instagram and Twitter) or click HERE if you're on mobile, and then it'll open a page with two owls. Click the LEFT OWL. That's it! They track by the website you last visited, so make sure you drop by here before you cast your vote away. Thanks guys! I really really appreciate all the help and love I've been getting from all of you! Have a kick ass Saturday!

Alice in Wonderland / Through the Looking Glass photo shoot

I know I've gone missing the last 2 days. I've been in a photo editing haze. The following is my excuse:

So by now you know I'm pretty much a crazy person. I spend WAY too much time crafting, taking pictures, baking, cooking... But I'm going to have to say this project pretty much skyrockets me onto another level of crazy.

I'm an Alice in Wonderland FANATIC. (Yes, FANATIC absolutely deserves the capital letters AND the italics.) I have been since I was a little girl. Over the 31 years I've been around, I've collected enough Alice in Wonderland / Through the Looking Glass memorabilia to open a museum. Some of it is on display in Kalynn's nursery, but the expensive stuff, the stuff I've had shipped from different countries and out of print collector's stuff, that's all packed away for safe keeping. Safe Keeping = when no children live in my house.
Kalynn was Alice 2 halloween's ago, but her costume was gigantic on her. A year and a half later, here I am spending sleepless nights making a tiny room from a box for this insane photo shoot I've been dreaming about. The SECOND I found out I was having a little girl, this photo shoot began bouncing around in my brain. It was even on my bucket list. The time has finally come.

I know I'm not getting any rewards here for this, but I would like to thank my husband for allowing my delusional sense of time escape me for the last few days. For lugging tables and tea sets and million pound mirrors all over the place. Also for standing back when my quick fuse lights and my temper explodes on a poor tree that wasn't standing where it needed to stand.

That being said, here's a handful of my favorite pics. The whole shoot can be found on my Facebook link HERE. Enjoy!

Through the Looking Glass

Down the Rabbit Hole

Checking out the Cheshire Cat (he's on the tree)

Chasing White Rabbits

The Mad Tea Party

Painting the Roses red

The entire photo shoot can be found HERE

The Nursery

Now that the lady baby has officially become a lady toddler, I find myself wrestling with the issue of what to do for her "big girl" room. Before I change anything, I'm taking pictures so I never forget what her original Alice in Wonderland nursery looked like:

This old night stand was from Jason's bachelor pad days. He didn't want to completely get rid of it, but I didn't want to completely keep it. So we compromised and I gave it a new paint job. I also drilled a hole in the back and now it houses our WiFi router.

This used to be my toy box when I was little. Its amazing what a sander and a coat of paint can do

My Uncle Don made this for Kalynn out of an old entertainment center

This personalized Pottery Barn embroidered polka dot chair was Kalynn's first birthday present from her Aunt Kari and Uncle Nick.

Ok, well maybe I won't change anything. It is pretty cute...