a 2-fer

where the hell did this year go?  how on earth is it already halloween?  good gracious.

we decided to surprise the bean with tickets to "mickey's not so scary halloween party" at disneyland one evening.  and since all four of us were going, we decided to squeeze in our family photo shoot on the same day.  because why not?

i got rid of my nike-inspired nails in favor of these:

and while i didn't really take pictures during our shoot, i did sneak this one in.

and of course, at least one selfie.  since the disneyland railroad will be shut down in january for about a year or so, we wanted to make sure we took at least one more turn on it together.

with the picture part over, we headed to the lockers to get the girls changed into their costumes.  i had something to put on too, but got lazy and decided to skip it.  the bean had chosen something in the theme of her most favorite ride at the park:

and the old lady looked super cute in her "sally" outfit, too.

it got dark really quickly.  we joined the crowds and got in line at the various "treat trails" - this one went past the submarines and up to the monorail station.

 another one went through pixie hollow, home of tinkerbell and her fairy friends.

this one was next to the matterhorn.

while "it's a small world" is shut down temporarily, they still managed to use it as decor (it opens again in november with the annual holiday overlay).

and we went through the one here, too, since this area will also disappear come january as construction begins for the new star wars land.

the line to see mickey and minnie was really long, so i settled for a quick photo from afar.

of course, there was a pirate ship.  here, the photo op was with jack sparrow (with just as long of a line as mickey and minnie), but we selfie'd it instead.

and we definitely had to take a turn on our mini indy's favorite ride.

being a school night, she was tuckered out and ready to go home right around the time she would normally have been going to bed.  with a sack full of candy that we'd collected at the treat stations that weighed about ten pounds (and that's after only visiting about half of them!), we headed out.

thanks for a fun evening, mickey!

a plethora of pumpkins

with halloween coming up this weekend, i finally got to work on the pumpkin that had been sitting in the house waiting for me to decorate it.  the girls and MIL had already done theirs while i was up in san francisco, so it was up to me to finish off the one they'd saved for me to do.

the bean had picked up a snoopy stencil for me to use, because she knows how much i adore him and the peanuts gang.  i really hate actually carving pumpkins though - pulling out all the gross pumpkin guts just ain't my thing.  so i decided to go a different route and busted out a can of spray paint to create a canvas to work with.  it was easy and dried quickly.

i used to spend hours drawing pictures of snoopy when i was little - right around the bean's age, actually.  and it all came back to me as i did a pencil sketch first on the pumpkin, and then grabbed a jumbo sharpie to go over it.  with a dab of red paint and a smidge of black, i was done.  it had taken me all of about ten minutes.  BOOM.

the bean was delighted to see him join his pals outside.  she had done these almost completely by herself, and she was super proud of her pumpkins.

the old lady had done one of her own, and i love it too:

and if that weren't enough, we headed out one evening to santa anita race track for "rise of the jack o'lanterns," a display of 5,000 carved and painted pumpkins spread out along a trail that went on for 1/3 of a mile.

 there were lots and lots of different themes throughout the trail.  we went on safari:

saw some dinosaurs:

stopped at sesame street:

visited a pineapple under the sea:

to a galaxy far, far away:

of course, there were celebrity sightings.

hopped across the pond:

and over to china.

all the emotions were there.

sorry, professional pumpkin artists.  my kid did a better job.  but nice try.

there was a car show:

and some sportsball, too.

jack and sally were near the end:

and then that was it.

now, here's fair warning - save your money and just look at these photos (and others online).  the tickets were pricey even with the online discount, and while the pumpkins were really cool and i guess i'm glad we saw them...really not worth it.  but it was a lovely evening that we spent together as a family, so it was still a win.

but really...don't do it.  unless you get tickets for free or something.  trust me.