Salem

 

The air has turned, I can wear my sweaters, I can snuggle up under a blanket and can burn my fall scented candles. I am one happy girl!! I am a fall girl through and through. If the winter wasn't so long, ugly and depressing, with all the bare trees, I might like winter too, solely because I can still be cozy, but it just goes on and on and on. Why oh why is winter so long?! Fall is just much more pleasant, the foliage, the warm sun cool breeze, we can actually be outside without sweating or freezing. Pumpkins, I can't forget pumpkins. The kids love Halloween so that makes it extra fun as a mom. Not to mention, Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. Ahhhh! Fall you have my heart. 

We decided to kick off "Spooky Season" with a trip up to Salem. I haven't been to Salem since I was a little girl and Mike hasn't been since an elementary school field trip. We knew it would be fun and my kids (and Mike and I) absolutely love Hocus Pocus. We didn't go up with much of a plan other than to just walk around, take in all the sights and hit all the Hocus Pocus filming spots we could. Fun Fact: Hocus Pocus opens up with a fly over of what's supposed to be Thackery and Emily Binx' village, well they filmed that part right here in our hometown of Plymouth at Plimoth Plantation! The kids love announcing that every time we watch the movie, and we watch it A LOT this time of year. But majority of the movie was filmed in Salem so why not go check it out?! 

Since we went and I posted about it on my Instagram and Facebook a lot of people were asking my thoughts and how it was. Busy wise it wasn't terrible, but we did go early in the season, October 1st. I talked to a couple street vendors, and they all told me it will only get busier and crazier. As I mentioned in my last post its rained here a lot so I imagine the sunny days will be extra crowded. As for the kids, they loved it. Nothing was too scary for Kensington and Tenley, but Smith was definitely a little timid about the whole experience. He's the kid who loves The Nightmare Before Christmas, so we assumed when we saw Jack Skellington he would be over the moon, but he was not. We are also talking about the kid who doesn't like Santa or anyone in any type of costume so I shouldn't be too surprised, but I was hoping this would be the year he enjoyed it.

I would definitely recommend it to families and definitely to adults as well. We didn't do any museums this time but decided that is a must for next time! The walking tours looked really cool but I didn't see anyone with kids doing those. I think those are definitely geared towards adults. I may be wrong and if so, please met know int he comments. There is SO MUCH history up there and I really think my kids as they are getting older will really appreciate the history when we go to a museum. Our plan is to go up again probably in 2 years. I don't know if there's enough to do to go every single year. Unless of course, you are super into Halloween. There's a lot of costumes, street performances, really good people watching and tons of shops and restaurants.

Here we are in front of the Town Hall, which is where the Halloween party in Hocus Pocus takes place.

The girls were so cute with Frankenstein. Kensington told us she wanted her picture taken with him. We said that was fine, but she would have to go up and put his tip in his tip jug. She marched right up there so proud! Kensington is absolutely our most sensitive and shy kid, so this was so funny to see! She did great and we got a super cute picture!

Auntie, Nick and Baby Rowen joined us too! Oh, my goodness I could squeeze her!! We love her so much!! Uncle Zacky had to work so Nicole, Parker and he missed this trip. But they will definitely join us next time!

We just bopped around taking everything in, the little girls go their faces painted, as seen above. We had lunch at probably the nicest restaurant we've ever brought the kids to, and they did fabulous! The manager of the restaurant kind of looked at us like we were insane when we rolled in with 6 kids, but they certainly proved her wrong!!  We grabbed some ice cream after lunch and the weather was absolutely gorgeous! With so much rain and having this date on the calendar for nearly a month, we were very very grateful for the weather!

We finished up our day going to Max and Dani's house! If you know Hocus Pocus, you know this house. We went around 6pm and it was just us and 2 other cars. Easy to walk up and take a quick pic and be on our way. God Bless these homeowners. I don't think I could live here. LOL! I'm sure it's an absolute zoo the entire month of October! From what I read online they don't care as long as you aren't like up on their front porch. 

Well, that wraps up our Salem trip. It was so much fun! We'll see you in a few years, Salem! Thanks for the memories! :)

Target Halloween Crafts

Hey hey! No, your eyes are not deceiving you, I am here on the blog writing. I often wonder if there will ever come a time, I completely give this up? I certainly hope not. I've been talking a lot recently about how I am missing my own creative outlet. The kids are so so busy, and it leaves little to no time for me. But as I've preached before, time for myself doing something I love, is key to being a happy mama. So, here I am. I actually remembered to take pictures of a fun activity we did this weekend, and I really am excited to share. This is what makes me tick. Sharing things! When I think about my vision for this space, and maybe even my Instagram page, I envision a place where I share what I love, what I do, what I eat and even what I hope to try. I am not an expert on anything and sometimes I wonder if that is what has held me back in the past. This notion that in order to share things and give "advice" I would have to think of myself as having it all figured out and therefore come across as having this superior attitude to others and that is so not me. I have, however, tried this whole blogging things a few times before (as most of you know) and have even had a little bit of "success" in the past and believe it or not, a few collaborations that I was very proud of. But life, others' opinions (hello grown adults making fun of a mom with a hobby) sadly often got in the way and ruined it for me. But the truth is, I miss it, I really really miss it and I think I'm in a place mentally that I am ready to drown out the noise. Whether I have 4 readers or 4,000, this makes me happy, and I don't think that's anything to be embarrassed about. This blog and Instagram page will probably always center around motherhood, that is after all the biggest part of me, I do think it's time to figure out who Kristen is outside of motherhood and maybe even be consistent with my posting and really give this a go.... I hope you all join me for the ride, whichever road we may go down! Here we go again......

Saturday called for rain, so I knew I had to come up with something to keep the kids entertained. It feels like its rained almost every single weekend for months. Either Saturday or Sunday and some weekends both days. My girls LOVE crafts (And Smith will do anything his siblings do). Every single day at the end of the day as I'm cleaning up for the night, I find new art projects scattered around. It's no surprise the most obvious choice for something to keep us entertained on a rainy day was an art project and seeing how its October, and we love Halloween, a Halloween project seemed to make the most sense. Friday morning after getting everyone off to school Smith and I headed to one of our favorite places on earth, Target. We grabbed a bunch of wooden Halloween crafts from Mondo Llama, a Halloween tablecloth and some Halloween candy as well. Each art kit cost either $5 or $10, so definitely affordable, the tablecloth was $5, and the Halloween candy was under $5 each. Much cheaper than taking my 5 kids to the movies, out to lunch or even to ice cream. The kids loved it, I loved setting it all up and making the day extra special and when all was said and done, I can display their cute projects all around as Halloween decor. I love kids' art! It's a win win in my book!

This Paint your own wood jack o lantern kit is adorable and comes with 3 different pieces to paint. All the kits come with paint included aside from the freestanding wood jack o lantern, but we just used the paint we already had. These kids are so simple and easy, and the paint cleans up so easily! As I said, my girls love art so we do our fair share of painting and this paint is by far the easiest to clean off the kids, their clothes and any surfaces it accidentally gets on. 

Kensington and Smith opted for the pumpkins. Logan decided to sit this one out. And Tenley chose the skeleton sign. No surprise there, she's thinking of being a skeleton for Halloween this year. A "pretty skeleton", of course. That girl cracks me up!

Kamryn tackled the Halloween countdown sign and the hey boo sign and I absolutely LOVE how they came out!! She did such a fabulous job; they almost look professional! Like I said, I love using the kid's art as decor in my home and truly they are so stinkin cute!!

That's just what we got but you can find so many more options at your local Target. Here I linked up all the Mondo Llama Halloween crafts. If you are local, I do believe it looks like next weekend may rain AGAIN. Ugh. But why not make the best out of it, and make it extra special for the kids?!

Just 23 days left until Halloween!!

Phew! Well, that wraps up my first post in well, forever. I feel like that first scene of the Gilmore Girls reboot when Lorelai and Rory are going back and forth talking super-fast and one of them says "That felt good." and the other says "It's been a while." I'm paraphrasing here, but that's how I feel right now. LOL! Right now, it is 60 degrees outside, I've got a pot-roast in my crockpot, and I am one happy girl! Pot-roast recipe coming soon if this turns out.

Happy Sunday!!