October is the true beginning of the fall season and the entire month is filled with festive Halloween events. With every passing week of the month, the childrenβs anticipation builds up for October 31st. For most families Halloween night is synonymous with the time-honored tradition of trick-or-treating. Many children celebrate Halloween by dressing up in costumes and visiting neighbors in your neighborhood in search of candy.
So why would you decide against celebrating Halloween with trick-or-treating? There are several reasons to possibly avoid taking to the streets on Halloween. Some neighborhoods are not suitable for walking door-to-door, they may be too spacious and rural. Other places may just be unsafe and not very child-friendly. Extreme weather can hinder trick-or-treating or maybe your tweens are just getting too old.
No matter what your reasons, my guide is filled with many fun and festive Halloween alternatives to trick-or-treating. My suggestions are great for children of all ages (and for adults too!). Your friends and family wonβt be disappointed with the spooky fun youβll be serving up!
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Christmas is a time of celebration, but itβs also a time of accumulation. The tradition of giving gifts means that by January weβve got a slew of new items in our home that we need to find a place for. Itβs very easy to discover that clutter has begun to pile up around the house after the festivities have ended.
The best way to combat this holiday untidiness is with planning ahead before you get into the thick of the gifting season. In this blog post I will outline the best ways to purge your house of unwanted items and then organize your home so that new items can be put away easily.
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The 5 Love Languages is both a theory and best selling book on how to improve your relationships with the loved ones in your life. Chapmanβs advice is simple and uncomplicated, but still very impactful and easy to implement.
In a simple summary, every individual has both primary and secondary ways that they prefer to give and receive love. As individuals we are all unique in how we express emotions, and sometimes we have a hard time communicating or acknowledging those feelings with our loved ones because we weβre aware of their particular love language.
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I love using blood oranges for cocktails because they add a splash of drama and color to the evening. I always prefer to use freshly-squeezed juice, and then some fruit slices as garnish. This cocktail recipe is super simple but full of sweet citrus flavor, the orange and lime really complement each other.
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Blogtober is a content creating challenge in which a blogger publishes a new blog post and social media posts every day in the month of October. Not only is it a great way to pump out crucial content during a peak season, itβs also a really fun way to enjoy everything the fall season has to offer.
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Halloween is coming up quickly this October and we decided to get crafty with some DIY pumpkin painting. My 2-year-old daughter Scout insists that Halloween shouldnβt be scary, so instead we decided to make it colorful and full of art.
Keep reading to see my step-by-step guide to planning and creating your own Yayoi Kusama inspired painted pumpkins for the fall season.
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We are officially entering into the month of December, which means the magical holiday season is upon us. Itβs a time for gathering with family and friends, spending quality time with loved ones.
Putting out a spread of food is a must and one of my favorite ways to feed a crowd is with an impressive charcuterie board filled with an abundance of foodie favorites.
If youβre new to building charcuterie boards, fret not! These culinary creations may look tricky or intimidating, but I promise itβs actually quite simple when you follow my easy steps. And the best part is that thereβs really no wrong way to build a charcuterie board, itβs all about what you and guests like to eat!
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You may know me as the blogger who travels all over California, but I actually do have a full-time office job working as a Marketing Manager for a Northern California surrogacy agency. I wanted to write this blog post because there are so many questions and concerns that potential surrogates have and the information available online is very limited.
Iβve seen so many happy families with their surrogacy babies and I know there are many more women out there who would make excellent surrogates. In general thereβs a shortage of qualified surrogates compared to the amount of Intended Parents waiting to get matched.
So buckle up! All of the conversations Iβve heard happen behind closed doors Iβm putting in this blog post because information is power. Your top 50 surrogacy questions answered with all brutal honesty I can muster. If thereβs something holding you back from filling out a surrogacy application, hopefully I can address your concern and put your mind at ease.
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For years my husband and I were paying high rent costs for our tiny apartment in San Francisco. All the photos in this blog post were taken during our last year of renting. While we loved living in the city, we knew eventually we would be moving into the suburbs to buy a house and start a family.
One day we received a letter from our landlord that our rent would be going up again, and this was the kick in the pants we needed to lay out the groundwork to homeownership. This notice was the straw that broke the camelβs back and we made the decision to get serious about buying a house and putting a permanent end to paying rent.
This guide compiles all the research and steps we followed in the process of buying our first house. It took us about a year to complete all these stages in our journey, not to mention saving up for the downpayment.
Itβs never too early or too late to begin your own plan of action towards owning your first home. My advice is to take it one step at a time and give yourself a reasonable amount of time to complete all the steps.
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The Christmas party episode of The Office was pretty memorable. The theme was ββnights in Moroccoββ as stated by Phyllis Vance, who wanted to plan an original Christmas party. After enduring so many traditional holiday parties put on my Angela from the Party Planning Committee, Phyllis was ready to flex her power as the new head of the PPC with an exotic party theme.
Whether you want to replicate Phyllis's Moroccan Christmas party at home, or would like to know what parts of the party were actually Moroccan and what parts were not, here is everything you need to know about that episode.
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Thereβs something so romantic and nostalgic about vintage board games. It brings you back to a time before technology had taken over our lives and people really took their time to enjoy each otherβs company.
For myself and my husband, our perfect date night consists of lively conversation, good food and drinks, music playing and cell phones turned off.
The board games listed in this blog post were each chosen because they are great options for two players. Each game has its strengths and will set the tone for a romantic evening. So grab two glasses of wine, light some candles, play some chill background music and let the competition begin!
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As a busy mom, you know that thereβs never such a thing as too much money. Whether itβs for planning that next family vacation, back-to-school shopping, or simply a hefty grocery run, a few extra hundred dollars per month can stretch quite a long way.
If youβve been looking for a side hustle that is both lucrative and respects your busy schedule, this article is here to help! Weβll be showcasing five of the best side hustle ideas for mothers, including how you can easily get started.
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When a family's young adult leaves the nest and goes away for college, you may be excited for them to start the next stage of their life. But this big life transition comes with mixed feelings of excitement and anxiety, not to mention homesickness for those who have a close relationship with their parents and siblings.
Homemade care packages are a great way to let the college student in your life know that you are thinking of them. This small token can go a long way in showing support for students who arenβt used to living far away from home and family.
In this guide Iβll outline some easy to recreate DIY care package ideas, which can easily be tailored and customized for each individual student.
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Many of us enjoy actively documenting our lives, using all kinds of photography to create photo memories that last forever. We often seek the services from professional photographers for life milestone portraits such as weddings and elopements, maternity and newborn photo sessions. We also have easy access to high quality cameras to photograph the everyday moments that fill our days.
With photography being such a a popular pastime, so many of us have taken thousands of photos of family, friends and pets. Not to mention all the inherited family photos from the generations before us. Now the question is, what do we do with all these photos?
Just like with all of the belongings in our life, we need to develop an organizational and storage system for our photos. Developing this system works double duty: keeping our memories safe and secure, while also preserving our sanity and avoiding a home filled with chaos and untidiness.
And finally, we share unique ways to display your favorite photo memories so that you can admire them as often as youβd like.
In this guide you will gain valuable insight from a professional photo organizer on how to get started with your own photo organizing project. We cover the entire process from start to finish, giving you the confidence to tackle the ambitious project of organizing your photo archives and creating a streamlined process for future photos. If youβre ready to get started, then roll up your sleeves and letβs dive in together!
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Pregnancy beauty is the stuff of legend. Before you pop, your skin is glowing from the extra blood circulating through your body and your hair is lush from those pregnancy hormones.
After the baby comes? Not so much. Between a lack of sleep, adjusting to your new post pregnancy body, and the postpartum hair loss that affects up to 90% of all women after they give birth, it can be easy to feel out of control.
Fortunately because postpartum hair loss is so common, over the years women have come up with a host of natural remedies that can help you regrow those lost strands. Here are some of my favorites to help you get your groove, and your hair, back, naturally.
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Itβs a widely accepted fact that owning real estate is one of the best financial investments you can make. My husband and I own two homes in Sacramento - we live in our East Sacramento house and we rent out the other to tenants. Our next big venture will be to invest in a vacation home that will most likely be rented out the majority of the time.
The process of acquiring real estate requires a lot of research beforehand. But the type of research youβll be looking into really depends on the end use of your property. In the next several paragraphs I will go into detail about all the important checklist your vacation property must have to be successful.
Additionally, this blog post explores the top ten cities in North America that we have been looking into and Iβve reported my findings to help anyone make an informed decision about investing in their own vacation property. Whether you're getting a house for convenience, sentimental value, or investment, I've outlined why each city should be a contender in your house hunt.
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