Halloween Weekend 2020

Hey friends! Did everyone have a great Hall-o-weekend? It was very low-key around here (like most weekends around here) but I thought it was great to have Halloween on a Saturday. I think we should observe Halloween on the last Saturday of October every year, anyone else with me on that?

Sophie loves her toys from her Barkbox and I love that each month the theme changes. We were of course thrilled to see Halloween themed toys and Sophie has been enjoying her Vampy-corn, Barry Bones, and Ghouly Worm. If you haven't signed up for Barkbox and you have a pup it's a great idea to get a year-long subscription as a Christmas present for them! We truly enjoy having this box come each month and I think the price is 100% worth it!

Guys, it snowed here on Friday!! My poor pumpkin and mums enduring the storm, they look so sad!

We spent a lot of the weekend cuddled up on the couch and Sophie was thrilled with all of it! I love how sweet her face is in this picture. 

I feel so lame. This is what I did for Halloween trick-or-treating. I made 30 treat bags and left them out for our neighborhood kids. We ended up with 5 leftover so it ended up being just about the perfect amount. Even though I put out a pumpkin and some little Halloween decals on the door, I didn't really do much outside decorating for Halloween. I always intended on going back out to pick up more pumpkins/gourds and make the front steps look nicer but I just never did. I felt especially bad about my decorating skills when I saw what The Blonde Abroad had done....

(This picture is a screenshot of @theblondeabroad Halloween post on Instagram)

How cute is her setup?! Her dog Bailey looked so cute as Harry Potter and I couldn't believe all the awesome decor she had. If you aren't already following her on Instagram she is one of my favorites. Normally she is traveling non-stop but has recently purchased a house in San Diego and is doing some home decor content which I love! I felt very inferior when I saw her decor versus what I had going on outside!! I always say next year....

Last week at BJs I picked up a huge box of Swiss Miss Hot Chocolate mix and I kicked off hot chocolate season on Halloween! I love fall and have enjoyed having my fall decor up inside our house but I am ready to decorate for Christmas. 

It seems like more than half the people I follow on Instagram started decorating yesterday for Christmas. I didn't start yesterday but I am planning on starting very soon. Tomorrow I have the day off from work so I will be taking down all of my fall decor and giving the house a good deep clean and I plan on decorating for Christmas maybe next weekend. Let me know when you are planning on decorating for Christmas, I would love to hear how long you are waiting this year.

Speaking of tomorrow, it's my husbands birthday!!!

Happy Birthday Tim! You are the most patient, kind, wonderful person in the world and I cannot imagine my life without you. You are my match in every way and I am so lucky to be married to you!!

Birthday Weekend 2020

Well, it's happened. I am officially 32.  

Despite 2020 (and my age) I managed to have a great birthday weekend! We started off on Friday night with a birthday dinner at my parents house. My mom, dad, my brother, my brothers girlfriend, Tim, Sophie and I celebrated with takeout from one of my favorite restaurants, Pasquales. It was delicious, I absolutely love their penne alla vodka! 

I didn't take any pictures at dinner but I took this picture of my birthday gift from my parents.

My mom and papa both have similar birdbaths and I wanted one so much. I found this one at Walmart and requested it for my birthday. My sweet mom ordered it and my sweet husband lugged it into the car for me to take home. I have it set up on the side of our deck in the corner where it meets our new fence (post on that coming as soon as it's completed) and I plan to plant a ton of things in this area next spring! I want this to be a little secret garden area. 

I also got a special birthday package from Rachel with this cute t-shirt inside! I panicked when I saw the mailman coming with an Amazon package because I couldn't remember what I ordered and I have been known to order so much stuff that I can't remember what is coming!

Sophie was feeling awful sleepy on my birthday Saturday! She slept almost the whole day while I puttered around, cleaning the house and getting ready because we had some visitors coming over.

Brittni came over with her family! Sophie can't contain herself around these girls, she is a nut! It was so nice to have them over for a pizza party and just hang out together. They brought me some beautiful flowers, KitKats and paintings they had done. You can see on the tv what our entertainment was- the girls love Hamilton!

My awesome husband also made me feel so special with a sweet sappy card and some KitKats (can you tell they are my favorite??). We decided to not do big gifts for each other this year since we generally just buy ourselves whatever we want anyways. We also would like to work towards our savings goals AND I just bought a new car so I don't really need anything gift wise ;)

I'm writing this on Sunday and this sums up our plans for the day...

Lots of hanging out on the couch! 

I hope you had a great weekend and are ready to take on this new week!!

 

Life Lately

I can't believe it's already November! Where has this year gone?!

We have been so busy lately, the days are flying by and although I wish they would slow down I am enjoying every second with family and friends.

I'm going to share some pictures of what we've been up to lately. This was out front porch throughout the fall and I've been loving having outdoor decorations. I can't wait to change up the front steps for Christmas and am holding myself back because I know Tim thinks I'm crazy for putting up Christmas decor in November....I'll wait at least a couple more weeks! Anyways, back to the fall decor! I loved having mums and pumpkins out but the mums have started dying and the pumpkins will rot soon enough. Every time I'm outside I look at our gardens and think of all the changes I want to make, but it will have to wait for the spring!

Brittni's family hosted their annual trunk or treat! We picked our costumes based solely on what we could dress Sophie up as. When we found the dragon costume on Amazon and then easily found Jon Snow and Daenerys costumes we had our plan! Sophie's dragon costume was a XL (for small dogs) but didn't really fit her in length, so we put it over her head and front legs and it kind of just hung off her. We learned this past weekend that she weighs almost 10 pounds more than she did at her first vet visit so it makes sense this didn't fit her!

What a cute little family I have! We also had the best time seeing everyones trunk ideas and costumes. Sophie also loved all the attention from adults and kids alike! She is also super well behaved and we loved being able to bring her along for an event like that.

Recently we spent a Sunday morning visiting our friends Graham and Angela. They have two dogs and an almost one year old son, such a busy household! We went over for a puppy playdate and Sophie absolutely loved it! She was a little apprehensive at first, but Tucker and Jake weren't too interested in her so she liked running alongside them and playing inside their fenced in yard.

I see many puppy playdates in our future!

We also celebrated Tim's birthday with a family dinner. Sophie got to meet her cousin Attie and they were a little nervous around each other but seemed to get along with each other by the end of the night!

Sophie did so good with all the dogs and people that particular weekend, I was so proud of her! 

Did you expect me to post about anything other than my dog? Good news, on Monday I'm sharing a quick living room project that we did recently, but my dog is also in those pictures :)

If you are as obsessed with my dog as I am then you can check out her instagram SophieTheGoldendoodleGooding where I share pictures like the above one!

On Halloween we had trick or treaters! Neither of us lived in neighborhoods and really experienced trick or treaters coming when we were younger so it was a whole new experience for us! We had about 50 and I bought wayyyy too much candy but we had so much fun!

At work the other day these were the trees and they were just so beautiful I had to snap a picture!

We have been having a lot of outdoor time lately, just playing in the yard. Sophie digs holes and rolls around, while Tim and I plan out what we want the yard to be eventually.

This is a tree in our yard that I don't really love. It's a Siberian elm and I'm not a huge fan, but Sophie loves it and loves to hide underneath it. If that doesn't convince me to keep a tree I don't know what will.

Last Friday night we met up with Derek and Ally at Whalers Brewery and Sophie loved it! Dogs are allowed in the brewery and she ate up all the attention. There were a few other dogs there and it's always fun to talk to other dog owners because we are all obsessed with our babies!

I also got to see our friends Doreen, Mike, Jess and Kyle! They all gave Sophie a ton of attention and she was the happiest girl around.

She's the cutest thing, I'm not biased at all! 

She didn't feel at home at all......This dog feels at home everywhere. She's so sweet!

On Saturday we headed up to the Raduazzo's for their Halloween party! Megan was back from California and I was so happy to see her! Tim and I couldn't stop saying what a great time we were having and we wished we could've stayed and hung out with everyone longer!

Such a fun night and how cute is their basement bar? This is what Tim wants to set up in our basement someday. 

Sunday was Tim's birthday! We celebrated with a super quiet day and it was so nice to spend time at home just relaxing. I can't imagine a better gift than Sophie's kisses, right Tim?

Seriously, if you're not already convinced she's the cutest dog on the planet..... you're wrong!

Life Lately: Hiking, Ring Sizing and Birthday Celebrations

Happy Monday everyone! 

We were super busy this weekend- it all started with hiking adventures after work on Thursday and Friday.

On Thursday we headed to the gym but once we were in the parking lot it was clear that it was packed. Not wanting to have to fight for weights we decided to go for a hike at nearby Goddard Park instead!

It was a little chilly but we had a gorgeous walk along the water and it was nice to spend some time chatting with my favorite guy.

On Friday we decided to not even try the gym and go for a hike since it was so beautiful out.

Our first hike was to explore the Davis Memorial Wildlife Refuge which was a short hike and only took us about 15 minutes so Tim suggested we head to Rome Point- a trail that leads to the beach and I was in!

What a cool shell right? We never find anything like that around Rhode Island. It was so cool how the whole beach was covered in shells. 

There were so many little trails along the way and so much so see. It's definitely a trail you could go back to and do different every time. I called it a choose your own adventure trail.

We also found this old car in the woods. It was so random but a cool discovery.

On Saturday morning we headed to Stonington CT to get my ring resized. I had planned on sending it back to James Allen but didn't like the idea of being away from my ring for two weeks. My friend Kirstin's older sister Jen works at Simply Majestic in Stonington and she said they could do it same day for me!

My hand was so lonely without my ring but within and hour and a half I had it back on my hand.

And it was super clean and shiny!

On Saturday night we had plans to brewery hop for Derek's birthday so we headed up to Foolproof in Pawtucket, RI where I ran into Jess who I haven't seen in forever!

It was so funny to bump into her so randomly but it was great to see her!

Derek got a t-shirt from Ally's sister with Drake on it. It was hilarious and he continued to wear it the rest of the night!

Next we headed to Long Live in Providence which I didn't take any pictures of but we mostly hung outside while we were there.

Finally we drove into Downtown Providence to go to Trinity Brewhouse for our 7pm dinner reservation! It was such a fun time hanging out with everyone.

The pulled pork sandwich was delicious! After spending time talking with everyone, eating dinner and having a couple of drinks we decided to head closer to home. 

We stopped at The Safehouse in East Greenwich and hung out awhile longer before eventually heading home.

On Sunday we had a special birthday party to attend.

Callan turned 7 this month and we celebrated with a bowling party!

I was having a good bowling day!

Callan got really good at bowling and ended up getting his first strike!

We had three lanes and our group had a ton of fun as well bowled, chatted and ate.

Callan was wiped out by the end of the party!

We had a great time and were ready to have a restful ending to our weekend by hanging out couch together. 

How was your weekend?!