Leap Year Day 2020

Happy Leap Year Day!!!  February 29th only comes around every four years.  To me, that makes it a special day like a holiday.  How did you spend your "bonus" day?

Four years ago, I told you all that I was spending my extra day of the year working on stuff that I had been putting off.  Nowadays, that feels like every day, so I took a totally different approach this time around- I simply lived in the moment.

This morning, Eliot and I got up really early to drive the 2 hours down to Burlington, MA to meet my brother Jeremy at our closest Disney Store.  (Please bring one back to Portland and Maine!)  As I've said, we're collecting the Disney Store keys.  Today, they released a Tigger key for the Leap Year!  Of course, Tigger is one of my favorite Disney characters, so here we are!  I love that they made a Tigger key!

All three of us ended up buying things from the new Disney Eats ice cream collection in order to meet the $15 minimum to get the free key.  I was really excited to add a few items to our kitchen collection!  After we left the Disney Store, we headed over to the Lego Store to check out the new Disney and Harry Potter Lego sets.  Then, we went to the food court for slices of pizza since none of us had eaten breakfast.  After that, we walked out to our car, said goodbye to Jeremy and headed back to Maine.  It was a quick trip down, but it was nice to visit with Jeremy- even if it was only for a little bit!

Of course, I like to dress up for holidays, but instead of going all out in orange and stripes to channel Tigger, I decided to take my cue from another one of my favorite characters.  Since we're celebrating having an extra magical day of the year, I decided to dress in casual Sorcerer Mickey Disneybound style!!!  

I really love how my outfit turned out!  I wore my comfy black leggings with a red long sleeve shirt.  Over that I wore my red buffalo plaid shirt.  Then, I added my Cakeworthy Sorcerer Mickey hat that I bought years ago.  It's a low-key, casual Disneybound, but I had fun wearing it.  But, I have to admit I'm shocked that no one said anything about my hat when I wore it at the Disney Store.  I figured Disney fans crazy enough to line up ahead of the mall opening for a key would recognize my hat!  Oh well; I loved it!

Eliot and I definitely had a great day!  I wore a fun outfit and ended the day with new Disney ice cream bowls and matching spoons, and three Tigger keys!  No matter how you spent it, I hope you had a wonderful and magical Leap Year day!!!  °o°

Flashback Friday- Tigger VS Eeyore

It's hard to believe that tomorrow is Eliot's and my second wedding anniversary!  Time really flies!  In honor of the occasion, I thought that I'd do a special Flashback Friday.

A few nights before our wedding, Eliot and I had our Bachelor and Bachelortte Night in Downtown Disney.  Katie, Ryan and BJ created a Photo Scavenger Hunt for our wedding party and friends to do together after dinner!  They dubbed it Team Tigger (the ladies) vs Team Eeyore (the guys).  It was so much fun.  I'm so glad we have the photos from the scavenger hunt to remember all of the fun we had!

We had dinner at the Rainforest Cafe, so the scavenger hunt started there and went throughout all of Downtown Disney.  Here's a look at the fun:

Find a stranger with Mickey ears on and get a group photo with him/her.

Find a stranger with Mickey ears on and get a group photo with him/her.

Go to the Bibbity Bobbity Boutique and get sprinkled! Take a photo of your sparkly hair.

Take a picture of your whole group modeling different variations of Mickey Ears.

Take a picture of your whole group modeling different variations of Mickey Ears.

Aaargh! Find ye a pirate and sail his ship. Don’t forget to snap a shot!

To infinity and beyond! Find Buzz, let him grab your butt!

To infinity and beyond! Find Buzz, let him grab your butt!

Have a member dress in Disney's trendiest fashion and give a little catwalk (hint: TrenD)

Go up to a cast member and ask for a Disney sticker, stick it on the bride or groom and take a picture of the bride or groom with the cast member.

Take a photo of three group members running away from or encountering a T-Rex, rawr!

Take a photo of three group members running away from or encountering a T-Rex, rawr!

Go to Rainforest Cafe and try to camouflage into the gift shop, take a picture to prove it.

Go to Rainforest Cafe and try to camouflage into the gift shop, take a picture to prove it.

Take a picture of a group member riding The Harley.

Take a picture of a group member riding The Harley.

Take a family photo, try to blend in with the blocks.

Carol with your Disney Friends. Group shot!

In the end, it was quite the race to the finish.  Team Tigger ended up winning by one photo!  As Team Tigger's captain, I ended up winning a $25 Disney Gift Card, so that was pretty awesome!  (I wasn't expecting a prize!)

This is a great activity to do for wedding parties, but it would also be a lot of fun for a family reunion.  If you're interested in doing the Downtown Disney Photo Scavenger Hunt for yourself, I've created a PDF version of the rules we used.  You can download it here.

It was so much fun!  I'm hoping that we can do it again someday!  °o°

Busy Bee!

Hi Friends!  

I wanted to stop by to say hello!  This has been a crazy week.  I've been a busy bee- which is actually pretty appropriate.  The name "Melissa" means "honey bee" in Greek!

First, I'm very happy you enjoyed BJ's guest post!  I know he had a lot of fun with it! We are already talking about him stopping by again to tell us about his and Katie's Disney and Broadway themed wedding and about going to Disney Paris for their honeymoon!

This week I've been working hard on a few orders for my hat business.  I finished Elsa with her new skirt fabric this week!  I love how it came out!  It's so fun and sparkly!!!

Eliot's been working on listing new soaps on his Etsy page.  These new Mickey Mouse part soaps are so cute!  I absolutely love them!

We've also been trying to get some spring cleaning done!  Today was rainy and gross so it was a good day to stay inside.  But the weather has been beautiful the past few days and it's been such a nice change from all of the snow and cold!   Yesterday it was over 60 degrees out!  We even brought one of our warm weather friends out of hibernation.  I really want to get as much cleaning done as possible now.  When it's summer and the weather is gorgeous, I want to be able to fully enjoy it!

Speaking of summer, the other day we officially booked flights for Eliot's youngest sister Elissa.  She is coming to stay with us for 6 weeks this summer!  I'm super excited and I know that Eliot and Elissa are too.  I've dubbed her stay "Camp Cady" and I've been hard at work thinking of fun things we can do together.  Elissa and I plan to have a lot of craft time.  I have a few Disney projects that I want to show her.  I seriously can't wait!

That brings me to what's ahead for this week: more crafts!  I've got Easter projects that I'm working on, so I'll be posting more about those soon!  Hopefully I'll have time to make a few new hat designs.  The Post-It notes and sketches of hats are overtaking my desk!

Well, I think that's all for now!  I'm off to work on those projects some more!  °o°

Happy Birthday to Me!

Yesterday, I officially started the last year of my twenties.  Wow!  It feels like I just turned 25 yesterday... my how time flies!

Aside from the dental procedure that I had to get done, I had a great day!  I wasn't sure how I'd feel after the appointment.  But after the Novocain wore off, I felt great and was even able to eat the steak and the lobster mac & cheese that I'd really wanted for dinner. I also enjoyed a piece of chocolate cake!  I was incredibly relieved that the appointment went well since my Mom, Dad and brother drove all the way here to celebrate with Eliot and me.

No birthday in our family is complete without a little bit of Disney magic.  We have a saying that "it's not your birthday until Winnie sings."  A few years ago, Eliot and I bought my mother a Winnie the Pooh plush from the World of Disney store that used to be on 5th Avenue in New York City.  He plays the "Happy Birthday" song, although he's seen better days.  (I think it's time for Winnie to get a new battery!)  Every birthday since then, Winnie the Pooh has played us all the birthday song while we blow out our candles!

This year, my brother Jeremy also added a sprinkle of pixie dust.  He and I have a large plush collection.  It's basically an unspoken tradition that we get each other some kind of plush toy for every birthday and Christmas.  We used to play with our plush toys for hours together when we were younger.  They were always some of our most favorite toys growing up.

This year he surprised me with two plush for my birthday!  First, I got a small Bumble bean bag plush.  (From the claymation Ruldolph movie which is one of my all time favorite Christmas movies.  I'm somewhat obsessed with Bumble... but that's another story.)

Then, he gave me a Tigger plush to go with my Tigger collection.  The Tigger is holding a small plush Eeyore!  It was absolutely perfect and I love it!  I don't think that I've ever shared the Tigger and Eeyore story with you, so now is probably a good time.

When Eliot and I started dating, he was a closet Eeyore collector.  He didn't want anyone to know that he had a collection of Eeyore plush.  When he and I started hanging out, I told him about my Tigger plush collection that I've had since middle school.  He confessed that he had an Eeyore collection, and I was somewhat skeptical.  (Ok, I admit it.  We had just started dating and it seemed like way too much of a coincidence.  Right?)  

The first time I went over to Eliot's dorm room, a few days after he had told me about the Eeyores, there they were!  He had about 5 Eeyores on his dorm room bed, and the rest were still at home in California.  So, ever since then, Tigger and Eeyore have kind of been our special connection.  I guess it was love at first plush collection?

Anyways... all of our friends and family go out of their way to find us Tigger and Eeyore stuff, and we love it.  (We have Pez dispensers, tons of coffee mugs, Vinylmations... etc.) So my brother's gift was really special.  It's not everyday you see something with both Tigger and Eeyore together!

Eeyore even seemed pretty excited to have some new friends!

I also got a few other surprises that are not Disney related, but are still part of my birthday fun so I'll share them anyways!

Our waitress at Longhorn Steakhouse gave me this awesome ice cream, complete with candles.  (I couldn't get my usual watermelon margarita due to my dentist visit, but I was pretty excited that the ice cream came in a martini glass!)

I also got this beautiful flower arrangement from Eliot's family.  The chick on the side of the vase is really cute.  I'm thinking that I'll use him for an Easter floral display this spring.

Overall, 29 has been great so far!  And the celebration isn't close to over yet!  This weekend we're having our friends come over for a Fab Five reunion, Catching Fire, and more cake.  And I'll have a few more birthday surprised next week at Thanksgiving with with the other two November ladies in the family!  Yay!

Next year, I'll have to try and plan something BIG for my 30th!  Perhaps a trip to Walt Disney World might be in order?  I still haven't been to Disney on my birthday... and it's on my Disney Bucket list!  I guess we'll see if next year is the year!  °o°

Halloween 2013 Recap

Hey Everyone!

I'm sorry that I never got back to do my Halloween post over the weekend!  Saturday Eliot and I were really busy with taking all of the decorations down and packing them all away.  Then Sunday threw me completely for a loop with the time change.  I keep thinking that it's 4 or 5 in the afternoon and then I look at the clock and it's only 1:30 or 2. (That happened to me at least 2 times today.)  I keep feeling like I am getting extra hours all over the place, but I'm completely exhausted too.  I went to bed "early" last night and my bed is already calling me now... anyways!

Here is the Halloween Decoration post that I promised!  We went a little crazy with the outside decorations.  As I've mentioned before, this is the first time that we've had a house and a yard to decorate!  I've become used to decorating a small apartment porch with a few light strands so we had fun this time around.  Here are our outdoor decorations at dusk.  (I wanted to take a few pictures before it got really dark.)

We brought our Kermit and Captain Jack Sparrow jack o'lanterns out on our porch for the night.  We also have our Mike and Sulley door greeters and my inflatable Vampire Tigger!

Here is what our house looked like when it was dark.  We never ended up having any trick or treaters, probably because it was pouring out.  But we ventured out to take a few photos!  (We really need one more orange rope light to complete the garage side...)  We also got cool pathway lights.  Eliot went light crazy and added a few of our Christmas netting lights to some of our bushes.  But it did help light up the path.

Our window display was my big project this year.  We used my Mickey Candy Corn garland for the top of the display as well as some Halloween garland.  We also added Captain Hook Mickey and Tinkerbell Minnie door greeters.

Halloween Duffy, Mickey, Minnie, Red Sox Tigger and Sailor Duffy made appearances facing towards the outdoors.

This is the display at night with the outside lights from our porch.

The lights outside made our window clings glow and it looked pretty cool.

And this is the window view from the outside.  Our porch looked all orange from the lights!

Since it was raining, I brought Mike and Sulley inside and put them on the bookshelf in our entryway.  We also had a few welcome signs and my large Tinkerbell sign that I got from the DisneyStore online a few years ago.

Our Mickey and Minnie figures and snow globes from Wal-Mart were tucked into our wine shelves in the dining room.

And as you've seen before, here are my Halloween kitchen cupboard decorations.

Halloween isn't complete without the candy!  I couldn't find my large candy bowl, so I improvised with a Halloween bag that my Nana made me when I was little.  I did a quality assurance test  on the candy mid-day to make sure that it was ok.  (he he...)

Finally, the Many Adventures of Eeyore continue.  Since Eliot and I have no kids, or pets, and had no trick or treaters Halloween night, and I couldn't even find Nightmare Before Christmas OR Hocus Pocus on tv, we had to have some Halloween fun somehow.  I surprised Eliot earlier in the day by making Eeyore a costume.  Eliot loves the San Jose Sharks hockey team, so I decided to modify Eeyore's usual jersey that he wears for games.  His Build-A-Bear jersey usually is number 00, so the only possible way to make him a "Shark" for the day was to make him #88, Brent Burns.

Brent Burns had been growing out a beard so he could raise money and then shave it for charity.  (Which he did the other day.)  But I knew that this was the perfect costume for Eeyore and that Eliot would get a kick out of it.  So, Eeyore "grew" a felt beard, I changed his jersey numbers with stickers and he was Brent Burns for Halloween.  He even got a trick or treat bag to complete the look.

I did mention that we were a little bored, right?  Anyways, I took photos of Eeyore with a few of his "friends" around the house.  And I thought it would be funny to stuff some candy in his treat bag.  I was actually really, really disappointed that we didn't get any trick or treaters, so Eeyore was forced to make up for it.  (Apparently, he really likes Kit Kat bars and M&Ms.)

Finally, we "gave" Eeyore a small Duffy bear that was his size.  I used a Duffy keychain that Eliot had his Mom grab at Disneyland and took the keychain part off of it.  Ta-da! Instant small teddy bear.  I personally think that it's adorable.  I know that we're nuts... but you have to admit that he looks cute in his costume sitting next to Duffy.

So, that was our Halloween 2013!

We're already coming up with ideas for next year.  We bought some Disney window clings that were on sale after Halloween at Walgreen's.  As I mentioned in my Jack O'Lantern post, I'd like to add some Haunted Mansion Hitchiking Ghosts to our collection. I had a million projects that I wanted to do this year but I just didn't make the time to do them!  Next year, I'm hoping to add some Haunted Mansion inspired quotes to my word printables.  We've got a lot of wall space.

I have some wreaths that I need to make.  I bought some supplies with they first went on sale at ACMoore but I didn't actually make a wreath with them!  I also had some ideas for some throw pillows and some outdoor decorations.  I guess between now and next Halloween I'll be really busy making Halloween 2014 awesome!  °o°