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The Nightmare Before Ruby’s Birthday

With Ruby’s birthday only being two days after Halloween, I’ve always worried about lumping them together because it just didn’t seem fair. Turns out, Mom was completely WRONG on this one! Ruby absolutely adores Halloween and was thrilled that it fell on a weekend this year so that she could have a Halloween birthday party! We’ve always had a crew to trick-or-treat with, so we just invited folks over for a little extra fun before hitting the neighborhood.

One of her very favorite movies is The Nightmare Before Christmas, so we did our best to make the celebration worthy of an event in Halloween Town. She was pretty happy.

Of course, Daddy had to be Jack…

My last minute costume was dressing up as Shock, one of the troublemaker kids in the movie who kidnaps “Sandy Claws”. She dresses like a witch but wears a big, oversized green mask. Props to Ed for constructing this last minute for me! (And how great did Daddy pull off Sally‘s awesome makeup?!?)

Matchy-machy Tim-Butron-esque tights. :)

Ed went all out and decided an Oogie Boogie piñata needed to be made. He did the whole thing … paper mache and all. I didn’t know how he’d pull it off, but he sure did — it turned out incredible!

A few pics from the celebration:

And finally, the Annual Halloween photo — AKA, the Orange Couch Session!

Trick or Treating in the neighborhood

KimTrippin: Pacific NorthWest — Day 13 (Grouse Mountain, Vancouver)

Today we escaped from city life and went to check out Grouse Mountain, just outside Vancouver. We were initially drawn in by the aerial tram rides, but once we got there, we found there was so much more to do.

The ride up on the tram was stunning. You could see all of Vancouver and beyond. We don’t know our geography that well up here, but we were told the snow capped mountain visible was Mt. Rainier, way out in Washington.

We found out the Cheung family was planning on visiting Grouse Mountain, too – so we got to meet up with them today. Ruby was thrilled to see their girls again. We saw a Lumberjack competition and a Bird Show!

For a few bucks more, we paid to ride the chair lift and go up even higher. It was definitely a memorable experience.

Tomorrow will be our last full day in Canada, and then we’re headed back down south!

KimTrippin: PacificNorthWest — Day 4 (Salem, OR)

Leaving Bend for Salem was another 130+ miles, and it was definitely time to hook Ruby up with some quality “kid time.” The plan was to go to Enchanted Forest, a whimsical little amusement park with a Fairy Tale theme. The road to Salem was very pretty … we saw the scenery we were expecting to see driving through Oregon: Tall green trees and streams and lakes. We passed through the cute town of Sisters (which we know we’ll have to stop in next time) and we drove by Klamath Lake.

Enchanted Forest ended up being a real find. It’s very quaint and almost feels like you’ve gone back in time! The path you take leading into the park is storybook themed and you see everyone from Little Red Riding Hood to Hansel & Gretel to The Little Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe. Ruby was very tentative at first, but by the time she got to the shoe with the slide, she was into it!

They also had a bunch of kiddie rides that Ruby got to go on by herself. She rode the train, the kiddie ferris wheel, the bumper boats and even “The Frog Hopper.”

After the kiddie rides, she got really brave and decided she wanted to go on her first roller coaster! She and Daddy rode in the very back car …

Being used to Disneyland, we found Enchanted Forest to be incredibly low key! The park is literally cloaked in trees and the forest shade keeps you so nice and cool (it was in the high 80s today). We also couldn’t believe how cheap everything was – we actually bought her a souvenir that only cost $1.95! Short lines were nice too. It was cute, kitschy and even a little bit weird. But it was exactly what we needed after a few long days in the car.

We got through everything in a little under three hours and went to grab some dinner. Then, we met up with friends in Oregon for dessert at the Willamette Valley Pie Co.. It was such a cool place – more pies than you could imagine and even a playground out front as well! Our friends’ daughter Annie was born just three days after Ruby. They were instant buddies. :)

We said our goodbyes and then it was a about a 50-mile jaunt to Portland. We’ll be in Portland for the next three days and are looking forward to exploring this awesome city!

Valentine Photo Shoot

We consider ourselves pretty lucky to have friends who introduced us to Isabella’s Cookie Company. (Thanks, Kim!) Not only are they amazingly delicious, super adorable and the best cookies we’ve ever eaten, they just so happen to like to take pics of Ruby munching on cookies. It’s a win win ’cause we all end up getting some pretty adorable photos!

Since she did such a great job around Christmas time, they asked us to be a “cookie pal” again this year! These Valentine’s Day photos just melt our hearts.

We love Isabella’s! :)

Halloween 2013

Halloween was a blast this year with the crew as usual. Ruby was excited to put the Word Girl costume back on and she definitely couldn’t get enough of trick-or-treating! These kids ran to every house, and Ruby’s bag was practically dragging on the ground because it was so heavy, but she kept insisting that it “wasn’t full!”

These guys had the routine down this year for sure.

Look at the difference from last year. (We missed you this year, Violet!)

However, even with all the candy she got, her Halloween basket from Halmoni was still the favorite. Inside the basket were a bunch of amazing things, but the absolute best was the new Tallulah book! This girl LOVES the Tallulah books. Ruby is so obsessed with ballet these days, and our little ballerina practically has the two Tallulah books she has memorized. Thank goodness Mom + Dad have a new one to read – we’ve practically got them memorized, too!

Finally, I was feeling a little guilty that we are just doing a small family birthday party this year, so I decided to make some mini almost-birthday cupcakes to celebrate, since some of her buddies were here tonight. After trick-or-treating, we all had a cupcake bite and sang Happy Birthday to our girl.

All in all, it was a great night. Happy Halloween!