It’s that time of year again…Halloween! It’s my favorite holiday, and along with our yearly tradition of watching Sleepy Hollow and Hocus Pocus on repeat, I love whipping up fun, DIY costumes for my kids. Better Kansas City asked me to come on their morning show last week to share a few of my favorite DIY costume ideas. Grab your spray paint, some old boxes and enjoy!
You guys, it’s been an interesting summer around here! There have been good and bad developments (more on those later), but one of the most fun has been the addition of a new KITTEN to our family! Lucy has been begging for a kitten for about four years, but her dad was very against the idea. I’m not sure what changed his mind, but out of nowhere he decided to surprise her with a kitten for her birthday earlier this summer! A few weeks later we came home with Pickles!
Pickles was a barn kitten, so when we brought her home we knew she was little, but had no idea how young she actually was. Turns out she was WAY TOO YOUNG and we ended up feeding her goat milk from a dropper until she was big enough to eat on her own. The good news is she’s now about 10-weeks-old and doing awesome! The bad news is she likes to sleep on my head in the middle of the night…
We were a little worried about how Teddy would do with a tiny kitten, but it turns out he’s the best dog ever! He takes so much abuse from Pickles, who likes to play all day long, but he is fairly patient with her and seems to enjoy having her around. After I posted a few photos of them to social media, I had quite a few requests to create them their very own Instagram account, so now you can follow their adventures over at @teddyandpickles. Beware, you may be overwhelmed by the cuteness!
Every year our little family packs up the ole’ minivan and heads out to Western Kansas for a week of peace and time with our family. I always have the best time during this week away from the city. While living in an urban area is a lot of fun, after a few months of our hectic schedule, it feels pretty nice to head to the country for a few days.
Our main purpose for heading west is for my daughter to attend dance camp at my sister-in-law’s dance school. Since we’ve been doing this for a while now, it’s pretty nice for the kids to see their friends that they made in years past. This year my son decided he also wanted to participate in dance camp, and I was so proud of him! He was the first boy to ever join camp, and while I may be biased, he was pretty darn talented! It was a joy to watch him on stage…he was having such a good time! And my daughter did wonderful as well, performing a more sophisticated routine than in years past, which was really fun to watch. My sister-in-law, Ashley, does such a wonderful job with all the kids, and we feel pretty lucky to be invited to participate each year!
Along with dance camp, we spent much of the week enjoying the simple pleasures of country life. We went to the small town pool, got old fashioned ice cream sundaes at the soda fountain, chased frogs, helped run the sprayer out in the fields, and even got to go on a few open air private airplane rides with Uncle Ace! It was an awesome week, and I can’t wait to go back!
A few weeks ago our little family was fortunate enough to work with the crew from the Kansas City Star on an advertisement for CommunityAmerica Ballpark! The home of the T-Bones baseball team, the ballpark is running a fun special this summer where you can enjoy “dinner and a show” on Saturday nights. And I can tell you, we taste tested just about EVERYTHING that the stadium had to offer for this short ad spot, and it was all Peters family approved! The atmosphere at T-Bones games is so fun, and it’s a great, budget-friendly alternative when you want to get out to a pro baseball game, but don’t necessary want to drop a ton of cash. We had such a good time working on this ad and spending time out at CommunityAmerica ballpark! We will definitely be headed back again before summer is over!
Fun Fact: When we shot this ad, we had just flown into Kansas City from a few days away in Tennessee for a memorial service, so we were totally exhausted. I was worried about the kids keeping it together (even though the spot is short, the filming took a few hours) for the entire time, but the crew did such a great job keeping them excited and engaged. The production assistant even taught Tate how to beatbox, and he’s been running around doing it ever since! Thanks to the team from the Kansas City Star for such a wonderful experience!
Last week I made a huge leap for my business…I upgraded my camera! (For all of you camera nerds, it’s a Canon 5D Mark III and it’s AMAZING…) But of course, right after I brought home my new baby, Tate had the entire week off of school. I didn’t have much time to play around with my camera, and I knew I had some big shoots right around the corner, so we decided to make the best of it. Tate picked his five favorite places in Kansas City, and we brought along the new camera so that we could get to know each other a little better. In the end, I found we had a bunch of fun footage, so we put together this little video of our week!
Tate’s favorite places in Kansas City include…
With summer coming, we are on the lookout for some good, local activities…what are your favorite things to do in Kansas City?
