Saturday, October 21, 2017

Fall into Fitness Giveaway!

Thanks to Hanes for sponsoring this giveaway on Being Mommy with Style! All opinions are my own.



All New C9 Champion Line at Target


If you've stopped by the fitness section in your local Target lately, you've probably noticed the Champion brand has an all new look! Champion has been one of my "go to" workout brands for a number of years, for my yoga and Zumba classes! After our move, I took some time to get settled in before adding additional things into our schedule, but the new C9 Champion line available at Target is perfectly timed! I've just been looking into Zumba schedules in our new area the past week to find classes that work around our schedule here, so it's a perfect time to add some new workout gear into my collection!

Hanes sent me this super soft C9 Champion Tech Fleece Full Zip sweatshirt, available in sizes XS through 2XL, which will be great to put on over my workout gear for getting to class! The color shown is Fog, and these are available at Target for $32.99.



Another item that I've been loving and actually picked up when there was a 25% code on Cartwheel (don't forget to check the app while you're in the store for additional savings!), I picked up a few pairs of the C9 Champion Freedom Capri Tight pants! These capri workout pants are perfect for yoga and Zumba class, and also work great for lounging around the house as well! I like that the Duo Dry + fabric holds its shape and that there's a hidden pocket in the waistband. These are $24.99 at Target and Target.com.



Fall into Fitness


Hanes wants you to "Fall into Fitness" and what better way to energize your workout than with some new C9 Champion items! Enter below to win a pair of C9 Champion Embrace Run Tights and a $50 Target Gift Card, that you could use to add some new C9 Champion workout pieces into your rotation!

Giveaway begins on Saturday October 21, 2017 and will run through midnight on Thursday October 26, 2017! Full details on how to enter are below!


You can also "Fall into Fitness" with the new C9 Champion line available at Target Stores and on Target.com. They have a huge new selection and I'm loving the set up in the athletic clothing section at Target! Comment below with your favorite items from the new C9 Champion line at Target!



** This is a sponsored post. All opinions are my own. 

Thursday, October 19, 2017

Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party 2017

Thanks to Disney, we received complimentary tickets to attend Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party. All opinions are my own.

Star Wars family costumes!

Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party 2017


We are back from our magical vacation and Disney vlogs have started running on my YouTube channel! I will be running the usual recap videos, souvenir haul, taking a look at how we planned and what worked for us after the daily vacation vlogs are done running - but I first wanted to touch on Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party, since October and these parties will soon be coming to a close!

First of all, it's worth a mention that... I did it! On a follow-up from my previous post, talking about a plan to maximize our time at Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party, I mentioned that this would be the first year that our family was in fully themed costumes! We had a lot of fun, it was neat going around at the party and having people express excitement at us when they saw our costumes, and I think the kids had a great time wearing them to meet Star Wars characters at Disney's Hollywood Studios the day before our party night as well!

Meeting BB-8 at Disney's Hollywood Studios

We did stick to the plan, and had a leisure day during our party day - with a character brunch at 'Ohana at 11:20am for breakfast/lunch, and then back to the resort to swim for a bit before it was party time. We wanted to go into the party with as much energy as possible, to make it as late into the evening as possible. This strategy did pay off, because we did make it until basically close and left Magic Kingdom at 11:30pm to head out to the bus area to catch a bus back to Art of Animation.

Later Party Times?


Our family is well acquainted with Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party, in fact it's one of our family's favorite special holiday events to attend. However this year, there was one slight change from previous years that I was interested to see what effect, if any, it had on our party night. And that was the later times for both the Boo-to-You parades, and Hallowishes fireworks show.





We opted to go to the earlier Boo-to-You parade time, and watched again from the Frontierland area, just across from Country Bear Jamboree. Watching the parades from Frontierland has been a great fit for our family, because you are near the starting point of the parade and while it is dim in that particular area so that you can see the parade better, the lighting is still good enough for my camera (Canon g9x, which works great in low light, by the way!) to pick up good shots while we are watching the parade.

We had plenty of time to do some trick-or-treating and ride a few rides before the parade time. The one thing I did notice, is that it felt like we had less time to go from the parade to the Hallowishes fireworks this year. (Which we typically watch from Fantasyland, just to the side of the carousel.) After the parade was done, we were able to go over to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad to ride one ride, hit a few trick-or-treating spots in that area, and then had to head straight over to Fantasyland to grab a seat for the fireworks show.



This worked out just fine, I did notice it just felt like less time than previous years. After the fireworks, we had about an hour to ride a few more rides and grab some party specific treats before calling it a night.

How about those treats?


There was a great selection of special party treats to chose from this year at Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party, and the one I knew I wanted to try for sure was the Pumpkin Cheesecake - and it did not disappoint!



The cheesecake had a light pumpkin coating, that was lighter than an icing and not as sugary, it worked as a great compliment to the cheesecake. The cheesecake itself was moist and had a good flavor to it, not overly powerful in the sweet or tart department.

Our family also tried the Candy Corn Ice Cream, and even my husband that isn't the biggest fan of candy corn took party and enjoyed finishing it off! I thought it had a great flavor, which again wasn't too strong - it should be noted that I am biased... I'm apparently one of the few people in the world that actually LIKES candy corn! I thought it was a fun take on a Halloween tradition, and I would get it again.



The last special party treat that we tried was one of the Haunted Mansion desserts. I ordered the raspberry version from Auntie Gravity's Galactic Goodies for brevity sake since we were already there to pick up the candy corn ice cream, but it was also one of the top two flavor versions of the treat I had hoped to try. We didn't test this one until the following day. (After carrying it home on the bus inside a ziplock container and placing it in our mini refrigerator at our resort.)



This treat was really great and the only change I would do in the future would be trying this one (or one of its four counterpart treats) earlier in the evening, so that it didn't have to be refrigerated. It was still great, but I suspect would be even better right on the spot in the park. Everyone in our family that tried this one really liked it, and next time if they have similar treats in subsequent years, I know we would like to try the Oreo version as well.

Party Night Wrap-up


We had a fun night that included lots of rides, lots of candy, and special Disney fun! The girls enjoyed seeing all of the characters in the parade, one of our favorites, and I still get goosebumps every time the theme park is lit up by the perimeter fireworks that go over at the end of Hallowishes.



Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party was a fantastic time, and I think that being able to dress up at the party really puts the experience over the top fun for us. I also think that going into our party night with a plan helped immensely! Having an idea of what order we wanted to do events in helped us to keep our night on track and see all of the things we were wanting to see on our party night.

Check out our vlog of Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween!



All of the Disney blogs will be placed on one playlist to be able to watch them in sequence, you can check out our whole vacation here:

Wishing you lots of not-so-scary fun if you too are heading to Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party this year!




** We were hosted at this event. All opinions are my own.

Friday, October 6, 2017

5 Ways to Maximize your time at Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party!

It's "Boo to You" season, and our family is excited about heading back to Walt Disney World Resort for some Fall Fun with Mickey and friends!

Split stay! So two sets of MagicBands. Those rose gold ears though! 

We're looking forward to some new experiences on the trip, like seeing the all new Pandora area at Disney's Animal Kingdom and trying the new character breakfast at Trattoria al Forno that features Ariel, Eric, Rapunzel, and Flynn! We'll also be staying at Art of Animation, that will be a first for our family, and I'm excited to see what the girls think about the The Little Mermaid rooms there, as it will be their first time seeing those!

We will be doing some returning favorites on this trip too though, and one of those is going to Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party!

Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party


We attended Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party on Halloween Night, in both 2014 and 2015! Last year, we returned to Walt Disney World Resort during the Christmas season so we could try out Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party! (Which is also a great time - check out why we loved that party as well HERE!) Our family LOVES dressing up in costumes, trick or treating in the park, and all things Halloween - so to say we are excited about returning during Halloween time at Disney would be an understatement!

Check out some of our previous Halloween trips on YouTube!

2014 -





2015 -




Ariel was obviously a very important character for us in 2015!

Maximizing our time at Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party


This year, we have a plan in place to maximize our time at Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party! We are attending the party one night - and here is our plan for having a SPOOKtacular time at the party!

1. We are taking it easy during the day on Party Day!

This one can vary depending on size of your party, ages of the people in your group, how many days you'll be at Walt Disney World Resort, and so on... but we've found for our family in particular, dedicating our party date to the party is what works best for us! We like to take some time to explore our resort, do some shopping at Disney Springs, and have a bite to eat at a character meal. We will not be going into a theme park during the day and instead opting to waiting until party time, so that we can make it as far into the evening as possible!

Historically, guests have been able to enter the parks at 4pm with party tickets, and it sounds like that should be the case this year as well. Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party officially kicks off at 7pm and ends at midnight. And most years, we have been able to make it until the very end of the party - even when the girls were ages 2 & 4 and used to much earlier bedtimes!

Natalie "Letting it Go" before the party in 2014!


This year the girls will be ages 5 and 7 on party night, and we will have a plan in place to meet their current preferences of activities, which leads me to my next point...

2. Have a plan, but be flexible!

We will plan ahead of time by looking up the Mickey's Boo-to-You Parade times (this year will be at 9:15pm and 11:15pm, a bit later than it usually has been), Hallowishes Fireworks (10:15pm), and Hocus Pocus Villain Spelltacular (8:15pm, 10:45pm, & 12:00am) - to chose the times that I think will be the best for us to try to attend for each event.

Our family likes to go do "an event", something like meeting a character, riding a ride, or seeing one of the party special events, and then going to do some trick or treating. The girls don't eat a ton of candy (and trust me, you can walk away with a TON) - but there is something very special about trick or treating in the middle of Magic Kingdom, so we try to make the most of our experience and fill our bags up throughout the night!

Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party 2014!


3. Meeting Characters

Character meet and greets were a VERY important part of our Disney experience when the girls were extremely small, you could say that our trips basically revolved around meeting the characters when they were preschoolers! Now seeing their favorite characters is still important, but we've found that riding particular rides have started making the list of "must dos" when we visit the theme parks as well! The holiday parties offer the opportunity to meet specific characters that are not available in the parks at other times of year or during regular theme park hours - so if one of these characters is on your "must see" list, then I would make sure to keep that in mind when doing your party planning.

We try to meet 1-2 of the party characters during the party time, to keep our evening balanced doing a variety of activities. This year, I see Moana being very close to the top of the list on our "must see" characters. In previous years, we knew that Tarzan, previously in Adventureland during Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party, would be a must see - because my older daughter went through quite a Tarzan phase! If you are able, lining up early before party time is often recommended for "must see" characters and occasionally characters may even start greeting before the official party start time.

Mulan, meet Tarzan. 

I always struggle with where to place waiting for the special characters into our schedule, but I will say that order of importance will differ by family. I know for our family, probably our top event at the party will be Mickey's Boo-to-You Parade, so I will time our character greets to either have us well done with the meet and greet prior to parade start time, or lining up afterwards. Hallowishes Fireworks are also AH-mazing, and the perimeter fireworks that go off during these fireworks are one of my all-time favorite Disney experiences, it is sure to not be missed by us either... which leaves lining up early party time, trying to squeeze meeting a character in between the parade and fireworks (which would not be optimal for us), or waiting until the end. This decision I will likely make on the fly, whether we chose beginning or end of the party based on crowd levels and dispositions of our party that day... however what I tend to do is ask the kids what their one or two MUST SEE characters are for the evening and plan around those!

4. Get our costume on to get our party on!

Our family LOVES to dress up in costumes? Did I mention that?? I know some families do not dress up at all or go with Halloween t-shirts, you will see the full range of clothing on Halloween party nights... for our family, being able to dress up and fully immerse ourselves in the experience is a bit part of the fun! I mean, when else am I going to be able to run around Walt Disney World in a green wig?

Wearing a green wig inside Cinderella's Royal Table, ya'll!


In 2014, it was our first Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween experience, and my husband & I dressed as Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head. I couldn't quite talk the kids into doing the full matching thing... so we had an Elsa and Mulan that year trick-or-treating with us!

Then in 2015, we return on Halloween night to Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween as Anger and Disgust from Inside Out, which had recently been released! Again, I couldn't quite get the kids to buy in on family costumes - though I got OH-SO-CLOSE.... they went trick-or-treating as Anna and Elsa. (Oh Frozen, you did have a stronghold on our house for quite some time...)

As Disgust and Anger in 2015!


THIS year... 2017. I've done it! We will be in a full family themed costumes! Inspired by Star Wars, which my girls have taken a liking to (yes, we are DEFINITELY counting down the days until the new Galaxy's Edge area opens at Disney's Hollywood Studios!!) we will be attending Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party as Han Solo, Princess Leia, Rey, and BB-8! (Insert squealing... lots and lots of squealing!) Stay tuned for pictures, because I think they will be classics!

BB-Natalie!


5. Take time out to have a treat

What's a Halloween party without a treat?! And Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party will have plenty of treats this year! I'm looking forward to trying the Pumpkin Cheesecake Dome from Main Street Bakery or Gaston's Tavern...

Photo Courtesy: Disney Parks

... these delightfully spooky Haunted Mansion desserts at one of four locations throughout Magic Kingdom, I'm aiming for the Oreo filled one from Aloha Isle or raspberry filled one from Auntie Gravity's Galactic Goodies...

Photo Courtesy: Disney Parks

... and some Candy Corn ice cream that can also be found at Auntie Gravity's Galactic Goodies! YUM!

Photo Courtesy: Disney Parks

Boo to you, and you, and you... Happy Halloween!

So that is our family's plan to maximize our time at Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party and have a SPOOKtacular time at the most magical place on Earth! I'm looking forward to sharing our experience on YouTube after we return, and Disney vlogs will run in sequence until the end of the trip!

After all of the vlogs have been uploaded, check back here for a playlist to view them all at one time!



** We received complimentary tickets to Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party. All opinions are my own.

Wednesday, October 4, 2017

Wellie Wishers: Garden Fun App + Giveaway!

Thank you to Mattel for sending us this app to test out and share with our viewers!


Wellie Wishers: Garden Fun


Our family is excited to share our thoughts on an all new kid's app from American Girl developed by XCube, "Wellie Wishers: Garden Fun"! It releases on October 4, 2017 and is available through the app store for iOS and Android. This new interactive game lets you go into the world of the Wellie Wishers and play games in the garden!



The app was designed with ages 6 through 8 in mind, and my girls had a great time testing it out! Natalie is 5 years old (soon to be 6 in November!) and Isabella is 7 years old, and the Wellie Wishers have been a big hit in our household since they were first introduced! We own all five dolls - Willa, Ashlyn, Camille, Kendall, and Emerson, and the girls enjoy changing their outfits, putting on plays on the stage, and having tea parties with their dolls. 




Now, in the new Wellie Wisher: Garden Fun app, the fun can be on the go with us! And they can change the outfits on the Wellie Wishers, take care of Carrot the pet rabbit, have a tea party, and complete hidden treasure games that are interwoven with fun storylines within the app. 

Isabella's favorite part of the app was the "Find Hidden Treasures" search and find games, and collecting the acorns to unlock new areas and animals. Natalie loved the personalization and playing dress-up in the app, she especially enjoyed putting different costumes on the characters. 




The app is free to download with in-app purchases available. There were occasional ads that popped up during game play for other American Girl apps, and these could be clicked down by hitting an "X" button in the corner. The full play pack to unlock all of the games and features is $9.99, and you can also purchase just portions of the dress-up packs or search and find games for prices as low as $2.99.



This app will be great for our upcoming travels and the girls really loved how interactive it was, especially since we have read all of the Wellie Wisher books and many elements from the storylines in the books were seen in the app as well.

Check out our video review of Wellie Wishers: Garden Fun!



Look in the app store on your mobile phone or iPad, and the Wellie Wishers: Garden Fun app is available for download now!

Enter to win a Wellie Wisher


To celebrate this new app being released, I've partnered with Mattel to bring you a fun GIVEAWAY! Enter below to win a Wellie Wisher doll chosen at random. One winner will receive a Wellie Wisher doll! 


If you've been loving the Wellie Wishers as much as we do, this app is sure to be a hit in your household as well!



** This post was done in collaboration with Mattel/American Girl, some items were received complimentary for purposes of testing. All opinions are my own.