Summer's Last Hurrah

It will be sad to say goodbye to lazy summers but it will be so much nicer when the cooler weather is her and fall is upon us. The past week we have been busy preparing for the beginning of a new school year and it's been exciting for the little one as he enters preK! 

We start next week so Aston has been sleeping early to get used to the schedule unlike his laid back summer days. Waking up to cartoons and getting extra hour up awake at night will be replaced with a more strict schedule of early bed and early mornings!

The other day, I treated him to a cupcake and milk break over at Crave while we waited for daddy to finish his work day. Of course, I have to have my treat too. He had the red velvet, I tried the cranberry/mandarin. Yum-o!

Another window shopping trip the other day ended up with some major shopping spree at Williams-Sonoma where they have Marvel comic characters baking and kitchen wares. He has been obsessed with action heroes ranging from Spiderman to Incredible Hulk and he loves their display even if they're far from real toys. We ended up staying a good 45 minutes browsing and enjoying the collection. Thankfully, they still have some Star Wars collection on sale and had to get him the tin box (which can be used as lunch box) filled with Star Wars character sandwhich cutters (under $10!). Great score!

As a kid, I loved scribbling and doodling and I wished Aston would be too. This summer I had him practicing his letters and tracing his name. The pen grip is still awkward and the letters are far from recognizable but I'm sure he'll get the hang of it. 

Blogger friend Rebekah of A Blissful Nest shared some back-to-school free printables on her blog this week and I was dying to use them for Aston's teachers treats. I printed them on sticker paper and used them as labels for the hand sanitizers, pens/notepads and the bags of butterscotch I baked for them. 

This boxed butterscotch from Williams-Sonoma are soo good and I packed a few bars for the teachers to try. I hope they liked them as much as we all did at home!

That's all for now. I will have full report of his first day of school next week! 

Makeover

Just needed to change my whole blog look this time of the year. I am wanting a cleaner simpler overall look for the blog but i want the title banner to pop. And voila, navy and lime green does that (with a new blog title) and i LOVE it! 

thanks Danielle!

Legoland in July

We have another trip planned there for next week and I realized I never shared the rest of our other photos from our visit last July. The little guy is excited to go back and this time we will try our best to visit their famous zoo as well (if we can get him to get out of Legoland). 

My Week in Instagram

I love my iphone Instagram app and have utilized it more than anything in my phone. Here are a few pictures i took when I got crazy taking shots of random things as they happen to come my way.

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Last Saturday was my niece's vintage-inspired bachelorette party. This was the pearl-clad chandelier in the kitchen!

Ever since I've committed to hair blow-outs twice a month at Blow Dry Bar, I significantly reduced my trip to the nail salon and try to do it myself. I've stocked up on pretty fall colors from Essie (Case Study and LadyLike) and Chanel (peridot - second picture below). They are lovely colors!

I love flipping through the pages of this book and dreaming of Paris and dress like a true Parisian :-)



Still in back-to-school preparation mode, I stopped by Hobby Lobby and snatched these plain colorful tshirts and a few iron-on letters (they are on sale this week!) and completed Aston's first week of school wardrobe!

With a little fiasco on the iron and the letter T, resulted to this monogram added on the side of his green shirt! Cool!

How was your week like? Enjoy the weekend, folks!

Planning My Life

After much anticipation, my package from Erin Condren arrived earlier this week. The life planner is what I've expected and more. 

I've recently just used my iphone for appointment scheduling and keeping track of Aston's school schedule. Using the phone was ok but the life planner not only let's you jot down appointments ~ it let's you document notes, scribble thoughts, mark special dates, keep receipts/calling cards etc on really pretty colorful pages with coordinating stickers and hard-to-miss color coded monthly tabs! 

Thank you for the extra goodies too!
Now here's mine and I can't resist taking a shot with a matching colorful pen found at the dollar bins from Michael's! 

Love this video from their site. You can order your's here.

Enjoy the weekend friends!

Quick Easy Dulce de Leche

 So last week my sweet tooth desire got the better of me and I was googling "dulce de leche icing recipe" to try my hand in making them. My new cobalt blue standup mixer arrived and I was dying to try it out. 

I had a few baking ingredients in my pantry but most of the essentials were lacking. I tried making icing without powdered sugar and instead used cornstarch with granulated sugar and I just have to say it was a disaster! Never again! 

I had a leftover boxed cake mix of chocolate fudge cake and I wanted to try a dulce de leche icing to give it a twist. I found this recipe and gave it my spin. 

Here's my ingredients for the dulce de leche frosting : 

1 can condensed milk

1/3 cup nutella

3 cups powdered sugar 

2 sticks unsalted butter

1 tbsp vanilla

Here's a not-so-great shot of how it turned out. Its delicious nevertheless! 

More Legoland Adventures

I'm sharing a few Legoland shots from our friends Vinnie and Grace!

We are currently checking our schedule to possibly squeeze another trip back before school starts! Can't wait to go back! 


all photos by Vinnie

Legoland Water Park

First thing we did when we arrived in Legoland on our third day in San Diego was to get soaked and wet at the fairly new Water Park. 

Our friends Vinnie and Grace drove down from Pasadena with their family that Friday night. We have not seen them in so long and it was great for Aston to finally meet the boys and they had so much fun!

Aston and Roman bonding over a lego figure!

Cheetos! Power snack of the day!

More pics of the Legoland adventure coming up soon! 

Sea World San Diego Part 2

Sea World was our destination for our second day in San Diego. It was a fantastic visit to say the least. Here are some of the highlights. 

Hanging out with daddy and meeting a few wet pals along the way, shamu and the dolphins. 

We were amazed and entertained by the troop consisting of the Cirque de la Mer show. 

The bayside sky ride was slightly scary with cable cars wobbling a bit in the strong winds but it was still a gorgeous ride viewing the Mission Bay from the sky! 

Some farewell shots but with an uncooperative tired little boy! 

4th of July Weekend Part 1

We took a quick trip to San Diego last weekend for a much needed break and thoroughly enjoyed the stay as we soaked on the beautiful weather. That was something I was really looking forward to ~ escaping the Texas humid heat even for just a short time. 

We stayed at this beautiful resort hotel right next to Legoland and we loved the convenience of how near this place was to the park and the nearby outlet mall. They even have their own private entrance to the resort which was a brief walking distance away. 

Aston right away jumped in the pool for an afternoon dip the day we arrived. It was difficult to get him out of there. We had to bribe him for a day at the waterpark if he gets out in time for dinner. 

Dinner was at the hotel's restaurant grill as it was Tapas Thursday night. Yum!

Next stop will be Sea World. 


I hope you all had a great July 4th weekend celebration as well!