I’ve wanted to check out Kanga’s in Long Island City with the family for a while now. We ended up attending their Halloween party over the weekend. They had arts and crafts, face painting, and a discovery dig activity. The indoor playground was cool and had separate fun areas for various age groups. I also appreciated that they had a small cafe to get food; nothing fancy, but it was at least something. We will be back!
We attended a Trunk or Treat at Astoria Park. It was super crowded but super cute, and my daughter got a lot of treats!
I wanted to find something low-maintenance that my daughter and mom could do together this year to celebrate Halloween.
I bought the Highlights Halloween craft kit. It included cute pumpkin decorations (which we used for Maxi’s pumpkin), stickers, and a cute tote bag that Maxie could use for trick-or-treating.
Here are pictures of my mom and daughter decorating the bag together ♥️.
Here is the final product!
My daughter is obsessed with Hello Kitty and Friends Supercute Adventures. I saw this on Instagram, and I had to buy it.
It’s a ten-day countdown to Halloween, but my daughter could not wait, so we started earlier, and we are now just opening them up whenever.
Each box has a cute sticker (or page of stickers), and they are gorgeous. Also, each one is meant to be a color activity, but my daughter just wants the stickers 😆.
I have always loved Hello Kitty and Sanrio in general, so I’m enjoying the calendar as much as my daughter is.
We got two great pumpkins from Cityside Pumpkin Patch.
Check out the cute pumpkin Maxi created.
Here is the pumpkin my husband created.
I can’t believe summer has come and gone, and I can’t believe it is the last day of September.
Now that it is holiday season, I have a lot of baking in my future. It’s a good thing I’ve been incorporating some baking time with Maxine already.
In August, we made some yummy cupcakes.
We have yet to make them from scratch, but Maxine loves baking cookies. We made a few batches in September.
Putting it out to the universe this fall, I’m hoping to make an apple pie or tart, pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, and madeleines.
Last week, I went to a Filipino Makers Market celebrating Philippines Independence Day. As a half-Filipina, I wanted to represent and support.
I got some yummy treats from Beabingka.
I also picked up these beautiful earrings from Made by JRDJ Astoria, NY.
I’m a bit late, but I want to share my Easter this year. It was extra special because I helped organize an egg hunt at the New York Junior League (NYJL), and I had family from California visit.
We had approx 70 kids participate in the egg hunt at the (NYJL). The kids decorated their egg-hunting bags, bunnies and chicks, and photo frames. It was a huge hit.
Here are pictures of my family enjoying the event.
For Easter, I did most of the cooking. I wanted to cook ham but couldn’t find any, so chicken it is!
This year, I went a little light with the Easter baskets. Less is more!
For family activities, we did cookie decorating and classic egg coloring.
Nothing better than spending quality time with the family.
Earlier this month, I celebrated my friend Adrienne’s birthday in true Adrienne style with an immersive adventure. This time we got ourselves locked up in jail for the Shawshankd cocktail experience. The show is inspired by the movie and was fun and laid back. Our group had a blast because we all embraced the role-playing aspect of the night. The strong drinks were a bonus.
Here are some pictures of the night.
Need to find my next adventure!
This past June, I participated in the St. Jude’s Baking Challenge. I thought it could be something I could do with my parents and my husband, but it just turned out to be a solo mission. I didn’t mind, I got to eat everything, and I shared with as many people as I could. Each week I had a different baking challenge. In week 1, I had to make cookies, and in week 2, it was pie. In week 3, the challenge was bread, and in week 4, I had to make a cake.
Week 1: Lemon cookies
Week 2: Apple pie
This was my first time making an apple pie. It wasn’t as complicated as I thought if would be.
Week 3: Banana Bread
I didn’t have any eggs, so I substituted them with olive oil, and it came out fine.
Week 4: Cake, but I switched it up and did strawberry cupcakes with chocolate frosting.
Overall, the challenges were fun but most importantly, I raised $120 for St. Jude’s!
The Casual Explorer 