So it’s November now, which is fine, we’re fine, it’s all fine. Except that in 6 weeks I promised Caroline I would throw her a Nutcracker-themed 5th birthday party and two weeks after that is Christmas and then it will be 2016 and  OMG. Let’s just focus on this past (excellent) week.

Sunday:

Getting as much costume time as possible this week

I got my first RocksBox! I’m really loving wearing fancy jewelry. My affiliate code good for 1 free month is bebehblogxoxo, if you’re interested in trying it out.

I brought Dorothy to help at a photo session and she charmed a farm dog, OF COURSE.

Monday:

NO PICTURES PLEASE (He’s kidding, he was an excellent photo subject)

DELIGHTED with our fake gravestones

HELP I’M BEING MAULED BY A NURSING LION

Tuesday:

I think he’s judging my hair.

Every day

Linc has a HUGE crush on all the tiny ballerinas

Wednesday:

Now he’s judging Aldi for being a weird grocery store

I might have been a LITTLE early with the reindeer leggings but WHATEVER

Helping himself to Caroline’s uneaten lunch. Caroline now BUYS her lunch.

Thursday:

OUTSIIIIIIDE

OOOOOOUTSIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDE

Not happy to be inside, sorting wraps

Friday:

Definitely my kid

LOBSTER TWINS

A scary monster/vampire

Saturday:

SO PROUD of her first trophy

Totally normal

Letting the kids hand out the candy so I can sit and drink my wine #excellentmomming

I did NOT watch the Walking Dead tonight, because my husband is forcing me to watch The Packers embarrass themselves all over the teevee, so I’m going to do the smart thing and pass the hell out. I’m going to make the end of daylight savings work FOR me instead of against me. Fingers crossed all the kids are on board with than plan. They should be, right? Kids are totes reasonable about that kind of thing.

Disclaimer: Some of these links are affiliate links, because I figured it couldn’t hurt to try to earn a few dollars to put towards actually ordering more pajamas.

IT’S TIME TO THINK ABOUT THE HOLIDAYS. START THINKING ABOUT THEM. DO IT. START NOW. CHRISTMAS IS COMING AND YOU CANNOT STOP IT.

Last year for our Christmas cards I did the kids in front of the twinkle light background while wearing matching pajamas. I am a huge fan of matching pajamas, both for Christmas and for photos. I have done a lot of matching pajama research, so I’m going to share some of my findings with you in case you are also in the market for Two-piece Pajama Sets. Let’s say MATCHING PAJAMAS one more time. It can be tricky to find them in all the kid sizes when kids span different sections of the store (*shakes fist at Target for making my 6 year old buy ugly stuff from the BOYS department*) so I’ve included that info too.

Hanna Andersson (Price: $35-$46, not on sale. Last year they got down to under $30 on Black Friday) – Oh Hanna. What can I say, these are my favorite pajamas in the world. I ordered two different sets for all 3 kids last year and they still wear them at least once a week. They truly have all the sizes, from baby to adult, although their Swedish sizing can be confusing at first. Buy big, they last forever.

Our Christmas card photo

STILL wearing last year’s Christmas pajamas in August of this year

This year, they have Star Wars Christmas pajamas. They look like traditional Swedish prints but are in fact Darth Vader heads. Unfortunately, buying ALL THE JAMS for my whole family would cost as much as our entire Christmas budget, so I’ll probably settle on the (still wicked cute) Dear Deer red reindeer ones.

The Children’s Place (Price: $13ish to $20ish? They always always have sales) – One of the challenges of MATCHING jams is that Evan is in boy’s sizes, and boy’s clothes are way less cute than toddler clothes. So the good news is The Children’s Place has red stripes in sizes from 4-14. Evan and Caroline could both match in those. The bad news is they (currently) don’t have the same stripes for Linc. Their toddler sizes run up to 5T though, so last year holiday stripes like these would have been perfect. I ordered Linc a couple pairs of TCP jams a couple weeks ago and they’re pretty nice. I love the not-feet style (like Hannas!) because then they fit for a super long time.

The Children’s Place jams I ordered Linc – I love this pattern!

Land’s End – The first year we did matching jams I ordered plaid fleece from Land’s End for Evan and Caroline, as seen in this post where I announced I was pregnant with Linc OMG and also here, for our Polar Express train trip:

BABIES, LOOK AT THEM

The have nightgowns that match the old-man style pajamas, which are both adorable on children. I love this green and blue plaid nightgown that matches the green and blue plaid jams for boys which match the toddler-sized jams (no baby sizes, but they go down to 2T).

Burt’s Bees Baby ($19.95+, which is less than Hannas but still organic!) – Have you ever looked at Burt’s Bees Baby? All my fancy photographer friends buy gorgeous, neutral clothes from them for their gorgeous, neutral photo shoots. I’ve stalked a few times but it wasn’t until I was looking for matching jams that I checked them out seriously. They have a whole family pajamas section! Toddler goes from size 2 to size 7, baby one-pieces start at newborn and baby 2 pieces go from 12 months to 24 months. They also have adult sizes, which is really tempting. Epic family photo, anyone?? All cream/white henley-style jams would be catalog-style perfect on Christmas morning. I don’t have action shots yet, but I’ll update when I do (because I just ordered the matching Candy Cane jams for all the kids).

If you have a secret source of adorable matching kid pajamas, please leave me a comment so I can also order those. There’s no such thing as too many pairs, since you wear them 365 days a year (even the Christmas ones). Happy holiday shopping!!

I was going to do this an hour ago but then I decided to watch The Walking Dead and (no spoilers) now I don’t  really feel like it. EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE.

Sunday:

Ok, sure, I GUESS you can bring that birthday party snack in the car

BEEP BEEP

Sunsets this week have been amazing

Monday:

He would sleep in a mountain of blankets

I let Evan walk to the end of the street to put something in the mailbox and he was really excited

Being a big kid

Tuesday:

A murder of crows, circling the bus stop.

He’s reaching for a leaf in my hand, he doesn’t actually know how to look at a camera

This is their new favorite game

Wednesday:

This was outside my house all day, and after a lot of peeking out the windows to see what happened I think the elderly man who rented the apartment in that house passed away. So not interesting, just super sad.

Bare feets

Being a scary ghost

Thursday:

View from Bluff Point

View from Avery Point

Very nicely sharing the Panera buzzer

Friday:

Toddler friends

It was VERY COLD by the ocean for my evening session

Even my husband got this right, and he doesn’t even care about my garden

Saturday:

The faerie village was amazing

Oh ok, go ahead and look 15

ORCHARD WEDDING YOU GUYS SO MANY PICTURES COMING SOON CONGRATS JACKIE I NEED TO STOP YELLING

I am seriously drowning in photography work, which is both good (yay money! yay doing a thing I love!) and bad (my house is a disaster! we have no food!). I have a dress I need to return – by mail! I don’t even have to go to the store! – and it’s been sitting on my table for a week because remembering to put it in a package is too much. I suppose I could stop planning any fun fall stuff for the family and JUST take care of my messy house and grocery shopping, but that doesn’t sound fun either.

Just a couple more weeks and then it will be way too cold for anyone to want photos…right?

I read a thing the other day that said October is for photographer what April is for accountants. It’s absolutely true. I love being busy but this time of year Ginger Snaps sort of takes over my life and I’m working constantly to keep on top of my editing. What I’m saying is, this post (and probably every other post until Christmas) is late.

Sunday:

They could do this for hours

Church fashion (and cookies)

Caroline’s scarecrow is named Olivia and is truly terrifying

Monday:

I am unable to do anything but sing Home on the Range when I see these photos

Linc has already perfected his photobomb skills

They did this for a good 10 minutes straight

Tuesday:

Rainbow – and a super high tide – at Bluff Point

No nap grumpy pants has to come to the bus stop

THERE’S the nap. At 5 pm.

Wednesday:

Shopping for tunic tops to match my crazy leggings

Swinging

Great sunset! Too bad it happened 10 minutes into soccer practice.

Thursday:

Elf baby

Post swim fashion choices

He is convinced this is his new chair

Friday:

We’re about 2 weeks away from pitch-black morning bus stop

Both of these toddlers were pretty pleased with themselves

That corner of his blanket is SO GROSS

Saturday:

I can’t remember the last time I was actually outside and happy to see sunrise

Dadding like a boss

The most amusing part of our casino date night was this glitter alllllllll over the floor of the women’s room

I have like a billion phone photos I didn’t post this week, just because no one needs to see EVERY kind of beer I drank at Oktoberfest or ALL the corn maze selfies. But if you like these posts and don’t follow me on Instagram, you should do that. I try not to repeat stuff, so my feed over there is generally better than these.

Now I’m going to try to edit three photo sessions AND clean my house while Linc hangs on my knees and begs me to help him put a hat on so he can rip it off over and over and over. I’m optimistic.

Last week Lincoln and I were invited to a preview of the new Boscov’s store at the Westfield Meriden Mall to get a tour and do some shopping before they opened to the public on Saturday. (That means they’re open RIGHT NOW. You should go.)

We met up with a handful of other local bloggers to check out the store. If you haven’t heard of Boscov’s before, they’re a family-run department store founded in 1914 in Pennsylvania but now they have locations from Maryland to Connecticut. They’re similar to Belk or Dillards or Bon-Ton, none of which we have around here, so the next closest thing is probably Macys or Kohls. But I’m not a huge fan of either of those stores. I’m always worried I’m missing out on a coupon code, or rewards dollars, or some sort of secret friends and family sale that would give me half off. At Boscov’s, they don’t do any of that. Stuff is always on sale, no coupons.

And the sales are really good. All the kid’s Carters stuff was 60% off the tags. I bought Evan a high-performance winter coat for $9.99. There were racks and racks of holiday dresses for Caroline for under ten bucks. They also had a candy counter and a toy department, which is where I almost lost Linc, because he was SO excited about the stuffed animals.

The staff was also incredible. They were very friendly and even though the store wasn’t even open yet they gave great directions. We also met not one, but TWO Mr. Boscovs. Albert, the original founder’s son and his nephew Jim Boscov, who is the current CEO. Jim told the ladies at the candy counter to give us all the samples we wanted. I like Jim.

They make their own fudge. It was delicious.

That’s the excellent Mr. Jim Boscov.

Linc and I did a ton of shopping. Boscov’s had everything from blinds to Barbies, an eyewear department, appliances, all the kinds of clothes and more. Some of my favorites were accessories (because who doesn’t love trying on hats?) and the seasonal departments (I would have spent all day looking at Christmas decorations if I hadn’t been afraid the baby on my back was going to smash something).

I wish I had bought that sweater dress behind me. Isn’t that a great color?

Their dressing rooms had TWO awesome things: first, that seat where I could strap Linc while I tried stuff on. GENIUS. And second, the kind of magic mirrors that make you look thinner. They also made a great spot to nurse a tired baby who couldn’t focus with all the people walking around.

One of the other things that makes Boscov’s a great addition to the area is their community outreach. On the day I visited, they had sold early shopping passes for $5 and every single one of those dollars went to charity. They sell those passes as fundraisers for local organizations all the time, you can check out details here for the Meriden store. The store also has an auditorium room built into their space that they allow the community to use during the year. When their spokesperson was talking about Boscov’s involvement with the local area, you could really tell that it was a passionate part of their business.

It was a pleasure to be invited and such a treat to get to shop without three kids in tow. There was an unfortunate incident with one of my tires (stupid tires!) in the parking lot so Linc and I had a little extra shopping time while we waited for a repair. I had no idea the Westfield Meriden Mall was such a great shopping spot. Plus also their kid’s play area was Linc-sized. He could have played for another two hours if I’d let him.

Now I’m going to go finish off my box of fudge while wearing my bus stop slippers*. Thanks again Boscov’s for the great day!

*slippers I wear to the bus stop. Ain’t nobody got time for shoes.

I was invited to the new #BoscovsMeriden store as a member of the Connecticut Bloggers group. I received a store gift card to spend during my visit but no additional compensation was included. All opinions, words and photographs are my own.