Happy Halloween

Another Halloween has come and gone, leaving me feeling nostalgic and the kids acting off their rockers. Never again will they be 8 and 6. Time is flying by. Life is happening now. I have moments where I am overwhelmed (and maybe the tiniest bit paralyzed) by wanting to hold on to an exact moment or feeling. These moments have a way of happening a lot during the holiday season when I am feeling particularly grateful for my life and those who I share it with. And then just like that...the kids are punching each other in the face and I am threatening to lie down in traffic somewhere!

Our Halloween festivities began with our (now) annual pumpkin carving contest that we have hosted the last 2 years. Last year we invited one other family over to carve pumpkins and watch the World Series. This year we invited 4 families, served pizza, listened to spooky tunes and purchased every carving tool that Walmart had on their shelves in the hopes that it would inspire creativity and make the kids excited for the holiday. What we found was that the kids do very little carving...or brainstorming...or scooping. We parents were exhausted carving, scooping, designing, repeat (we all have more than 1 kid who refused to do anything having to do with the actual process) and then we also got to clean up the mess! The kids then proudly stood by "their" pumpkin, which was really "our" pumpkin because we worked on the damn thing for an hour. Each. In the end it was all worth the blood, sweat and tears we put in to creating spooky creations for our kids. Because without it we would have never gotten this ONE amazing picture!

A few days after we recovered from the carving contest (an adult's design was chosen as the winner...IN YO FACE KIDS!) my little gymnast and ghostbuster went trick or treating. Our neighborhood is notoriously crazytown on Halloween so in order to cope I invite friends and bring (several) road beverages with me. Without these necessary items I would not be able to leave the house. It is that crazy. Or it was that crazy. This year it was like everyone took a Xanax (Benadryl for the kids) and chilled out on Halloween. There was no pushing or shoving or trampling expensive landscape to get a fun size Snickers bar. I did not witness one adult, pushing an infant in a stroller, hold out a Walmart bag and ask for candy "for the baby." It renewed my faith in God and people! Happy Halloween 2105!

AJ's Benadryl Was Kicking In!

Legoland

Last weekend the Mazotti family traveled to the happiest place on Earth for 6-10 year old kids...better known as LEGOLAND! Tony flew to the Bay a few days early (5 days actually, not that I am keeping count or anything) and I drove to San Diego with the kids by myself, never once day dreaming about where I was going to go when Tony watches the kids for me for 5 days. I drove to Phoenix the first night and stayed with our friends Ian and Paige, where AJ proceeded to play tackle football with their pit bull Rocko in piles of dog poop. After doing an unexpected load of laundry and showering we finally got a good night's sleep for our big day when we would meet Tony at Legoland!

We blew our entire vacation budget on the Lego Hotel but hell, YOLO! After checking in to our "Pirate Theme" room we headed down to the lobby for a little friendly Lego building competition. It took 4 of us, 2 hours and every black Lego they had in the hotel but we came up with a masterpiece that was truly a group effort. 51 kids stood up and presented their creations but in the end they were no match for our little witchy! Best Design goes to the Mazottis! Boo yea!

After winning the recognition that we, like obviously, deserved we decided to focus our time and energy on other important issues like minifigure trading. I had read online that the Legoland employees wear minifigures that you can trade with so I purchased 40 retro ones online for 75 cents a piece knowing that Cienna and AJ would have a ball with them. What I didn't expect was that Tony would actually hoard them and spend every waking moment plotting and scheming how he could trade for the ones he wanted most. We had more than one meltdown regarding "fairness" and "Legoland being for kids not adults" during the trip. I guess Tony didn't get the memo!

All in all, Legoland was a huge success. The lines were almost non-existant, the weather was beautiful, and our friends from Albuquerque joined us to make it an even more festive occasion. We rode rides, met characters, tried out the water park, and thoroughly enjoyed our stay at the hotel. I have a feeling it is not our last time at Legoland!

Before leaving southern California we could not resist a day at the beach. I have to admit... it made me miss my home state and dream about one day having a little bungalow somewhere near the water. We will see what the future holds!