Share Your Ears for Make-A-Wish

This post is sponsored by Make-A-Wish Foundation but the content and opinions expressed here are my own.

Calling all Mickey Mouse fans!

Ok, that's pretty much everyone, right?

We're big Mickey fans over here. You may even remember that Lola had a Mickey Mouse themed birthday party a few years back. Well, it was her 2nd birthday so it was more than a few years ago. It feels like yesterday though! Way back then I made felt Mickey Mouse ears for all of Lola's party guests and they really were such a fun addition to her special day. Plus they made a great thank you gift for her friends to take home.

We've gotten years of dress up fun out of the Mickey Mouse party ears that I kept from Lola's party, so when I heard of the "Share Your Ears" movement which raises money for Make-A-Wish Foundation I knew I needed to share the Mickey ear fun again - with a fun update!

Have you heard about the Make-A-Wish "Share Your Ears" movement? In honor of the 100,000th Disney wish granted globally (that's a lot of wishes!) and Mickey Mouse's 90th anniversary, Disney is inviting fans to help make even more wishes come true for children with critical illnesses. Just how can you help? It couldn't be easier! Simply snap a pic showing off your Mickey Mouse ears (or any other fun ears) and share it on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter with the tag #ShareYourEars. For each public post shared from November 4th to November 27th 2018, Disney will donate US$5 to Make-A-Wish®, up to US$1 million.

Got a pair of Mickey Mouse ears? Great! Get snapping and sharing those pics! Haven't got a pair of Mickey Mouse ears? No problem! Just follow the simple DIY below and you'll have your very own fun Mickey Mouse ears in no time.

Halloween 2018

It may be November and everyone has already moved onto Christmas, but I'm here with a little more Halloween fun to share.

This year the girls' costumes were a pretty mixed bag. We had Ava as a Minecraft creeper, Lola as a mermaid, and Mathilde as one of her many alter-egos Pinchy the lobster. I did my usual trick of making a last minute costume out of existing accessories and dressed as a cat. Kim Wore his class nerd costume - the same one he has been wearing every Halloween since we moved to the US in 2011. If you've seen any of my previous Halloween posts, you'll know the costume!

Chestnut Picking at Skyline Chestnuts

Autumn is the time of year for farm visits and harvests. 

Apple picking and pumpkin picking are definitely the two most common farm activities for visitors at this time of year, and something we thoroughly enjoy. Last weekend we decided to mix things up a little and spent an afternoon harvesting chestnuts. It was such a fun experience and so very different from picking apples. 

Years ago when Kim and I lived in Zurich, I tried roasted chestnuts for the first time and I was instantly hooked. I knew them as "maroni" and at the time had no idea what they were called in English. I'd buy them in little brown paper bags from street vendors in the cooler months and not only did they taste delicious, they instantly warmed me up whether I was eating them or just holding the bag in my cold hands. When we moved back to Australia chestnuts became a thing of the past, but every now and then I'd see them in a greengrocer and they'd bring back sweet memories of our time in Switzerland. 

It's been almost eighteen years since we lived in Zurich (eek!) and since then I've only eaten roasted chestnuts a handful of times at Christmas fairs in the Sierras and when visiting Canada in Autumn. I've missed their sweet, nutty flavor so when I discovered the U-Pick farm Skyline Chestnuts right here in the Bay Area I added it straight to my ever growing "must do" list.

The chestnut picking season is relatively short at just three to five weeks a year, and it falls right at that time of year when we're busy pretty much every weekend with birthday parties, harvest festivals and Halloween celebrations. Because of this, we've missed the season for the past few years, but this year I was determined that we'd make it. I'm so glad we did!

Simple Last Minute Halloween Costumes

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links for Primary.com

Halloween is a week away, which means that if you're anything like me, there's a good chance you're frantically trying to get costumes made for the kids!

No matter how good my intentions are, I always find myself making the kids' costumes at the last minute every Halloween. I'm going to blame Lola's birthday falling two weeks beforehand for keeping me busy earlier on in the month! That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!

Anyway, I've become a bit of a pro at making those last minute costumes so today I'm sharing some of my favorites with you and they all have one thing in common. They all start off as a basic pair of pajamas, dress or t-shirt from Primary.com! This year's costumes will be no different with colorful pajamas as the base for a lobster, Pikachu and Minecraft Creeper costumes.

Here's a look at some of the simple costumes I've made for the kids in the past.

Powerpuff Girls
Can you believe I convinced all three girls to go with a group costume? Neither can I, but it happened! These costumes are still my favorite two years down the track. These costumes consist of sleeveless dress in green, pink and blue worn over white tights with black shoes. I made wide black belts out of stretchy fabric, but you could easily use wide elastic instead. The masks were made out of felt and were the most time consuming part of the costumes. You could skip the masks and still look like the Powerpuff Girls, but for me they really made the costumes. To give Ava that Blossom look I sprayed her hair orange with a washout hair color and tied it back in a high ponytail. I topped off the look with a giant red bow made out of felt and wire (to keep it upright) attached to a headband. For Lola's Bubbles look I tied her hair back into piggy tails. I stitched blue felt balls onto hairbands as I was unable to find blue hair baubles for her. I thought about spraying Mathilde's hair black to complete her Buttercup look but seeing as she was still young enough for naps at the time I figured there was a good chance we'd end up with black hair spray all over her bed! One of my favorite things about this costume is that the girls got a lot of wear out of these dresses. They're such great every day dresses. Surprisingly, two years down the track the girls still fit into the dresses. Extra value for money!

Robot
Seriously, how cute is this little robot? It's a super simple costume to make and almost everything can be found in your recycling! A box, some silver duct tape or paint, bottle lids and a couple of pipe cleaners over a pair of grey pajamas. You can find the full DIY here.

Smurf or Smurfette
This costume can easily be a two for one! I made the smurf hat with detachable yellow hair (it goes in place with a strip of velcro) so it can be worn as either a boy smurf or Smurfette. For Smurfette I paired blue pajamas with a white dress over the top. For a boy smurf I paired white pajama pants with a blue pajama top and added a blue felt ball as a teeny, tiny Smurf tail. You can find the full DIY here.

Coyote
This simple costume would easily work as a dog, cat, wolf, mouse, squirrel... Pretty much any cute, fluffy animal you can think of. Mathilde loves coyotes so that's we went with.
I made a simple tail out of faux fur fabric attached to an elastic waist band and furry ears attached to a headband. Pair with some brown pajamas and voila!

Unicorn
What's that walking with the coyote above? It's a unicorn! This costume also features pajamas as the base and you could use any color you like. Lola wanted to be a white unicorn with a pink mane, tail and horn. The tail was made from lengths of wool stitched into an elastic waist band and was super simple to make. The hat was a little trickier, mostly because I made the whole thing from scratch. Starting with a simple pilot style cap would make things a lot easier. I stitched lengths of wool all the way down the middle of the hat to make the mane and felt ears on the sides. I made the horn by rolling up a piece of felt and used a hot glue gun to hold it together and onto the hat. I wrapped a sparkly pipe cleaner around the horn for some extra sparkly magic.

Vampire Bat
This costume is made from a simple DIY that I found on the creative blog mypoppet.com.au. You can find it here. You may recognize one of the bats in the post! At the time I paired the wings with a black leotard and a pair of leggings but you could also go with a black t-shirt instead of the leotard. I made some big bat ears out of felt and attached them to a headband. I drew on some sharp teeth to make Lola look menacing. Or not. She still looks pretty damn cute! One of the things that I love about costumes that are just accessories rather than a whole outfit is that they can be worn time and time again by different members of the family. I was a bat for Halloween last year, and while I was definitely too big to use these tiny wings from 3 year old Lola, I was able to wear the bat ears as part of my costume.

The deadline for guaranteed free delivery from Primary.com finished today, but there is still plenty of time for the faster shipping options. In fact, you can even order as late as October 30th for next day delivery!

Apple Picking at Apple-A-Day Ratzlaff Ranch

The weather here in the Bay Area is always a little odd. It's technically Fall, and there are leaves falling off trees all over the place, but the sunny days we have had lately have been some of the warmest of the year. Of course, that's nothing unusual here as our seasons are kind of weird!

Despite the warm weather, I've been keen to get into the Fall spirit, especially seeing as Halloween is just over a week away! One of my favorite Fall activities is heading to a farm to enjoy the harvest season. Whether it be pumpkins, apples, pears or even chestnuts, there's just something about the Fall harvest season that is special.

A few weekends ago we headed north toward Sebastapol to visit Apple-A-Day Ratzlaff Ranch for an afternoon of apple picking. It was a hot, sunny day - definitely nothing like a traditional Fall - but we had a great time all the same. So long as we stayed in the shade!

Here's a look at our "not-so-Fall-looking" day of apple picking fun...

Lola's Emoji Themed Birthday Party

Last weekend we celebrated Lola's 8th birthday with an emoji themed birthday party. There were smiley face emojis, heart eye face emojis, winking face emojis, and, yes, plenty of her favorite: the poop emoji!

We had a beautiful sunny day here in Berkeley and celebrated Lola's birthday up on our roof deck as we usually do. It wasn't even windy, which is pretty rare! In fact, we were even able to light a candle on her cake without it blowing out straight away. I don't think that has ever happened at any of our parties!

The emoji theme was spread across all aspects of Lola's party and I'll have lots of fun (and simple) DIYs coming soon. I made emoji face decorations and photo props, I baked emoji cookies, cupcakes, poop emoji meringues and a rainbow poop emoji birthday cake, we had an emoji face piñata, emoji themed gifts in the party bags and pass the parcel, and the girls wore emoji t-shirts. So many emojis!

Jigsaw Puzzle Fun for Busy Families

Sponsored Post: This post is sponsored by Jigsaw Puzzle, but the content and opinions expressed here are my own.

So much of our lives is digital nowadays.

Being a pretty tech savvy family it's amazing just how much technology shapes our day to day lives. Keeping in touch with friends and family, staying on top of busy schedules, shopping for groceries, ordering dinner, organizing transportation, keeping the kids entertained on long car trips, learning new skills, documenting our travels... There's an app for pretty much every aspect of our lives.

I recently discovered the Jigsaw Puzzle app and it has become a favorite with the kids and I. The kids have long enjoyed playing jigsaw puzzles, but with limited storage space in our apartment there are only so many jigsaw puzzle boxes we can possibly fit into our lives. This is where the Jigsaw Puzzle app comes in super handy. With over 20,000 puzzles available there's always something new to play and I don't have to worry about making space on the book shelf for yet another box! Hooray!

The puzzles on offer in the app cover a wide range of categories when it comes to the designs. Animals, nature, art, landscapes, travel, food, maps... So many options, but the one thing they all have in common is stunning imagery and vibrant colors.

Jigsaw Puzzle app is incredibly customizable which makes it perfect for all three of the kids to play despite their age differences - and me too. The kids can choose how many pieces they'd like their chosen puzzle to be broken into; from 16 pieces for a Mathilde friendly game, up to 400 pieces for a challenge for Ava or myself. And that's just on the phone. On the tablet we can play up to 1024 pieces! Talk about a challenge!

The puzzles can be made more complex by selecting to have the pieces rotated at random, just like they would be with a physical jigsaw puzzle, or can be kept simple with them all facing the correct way up. Timers can be set, clues can be given, and the background display and music can even be selected. No matter how simple or complex the kids choose to make their puzzles, they're keeping their minds sharp and strengthening their analytical skills while being entertained.

One of my favorite things about the Jigsaw Puzzle app is that it can be played pretty much anywhere. We're out and about so much during the day and the app comes in super handy for keeping Mathilde, in particular, entertained while we're on the bus to speech therapy or watching Ava and Lola train at swim team. It's a fun app for when we're on the road, in the air or even just chilling on our roof deck, and I don't have to worry about losing pieces, which inevitably always happens when we take physical games or puzzles out and about.

Jigsaw Puzzle works with both Apple and Android products which means we can have it on all of our devices. Ava and I like to play on our phones while Lola and Mathilde prefer the large screen format on the iPad and Lola's tablet. 

Another one of my favorite things about the Jigsaw Puzzle app is that it gives me a great way to keep my mind sharp while I take a brief break with a coffee. I usually don't have the time to sit down with a book, but with this app I can keep my game as long or as short as I have time for by switching up the complexity. It's a great escape when I need it.

Are you a fan of playing jigsaw puzzles too? They're such a classic and I love that the Jigsaw Puzzle app makes it easy to have so many quality puzzles right there in my pocket.

Make sure to check out the Jigsaw Puzzle app on the Apple Store here or Google Play here.