Passionfruit

Hey! Have you ever thought about advertising on heyjenrenee? If you have, I am happy to say that  it's easier than ever. I, along with many other bloggers, have started using Passionfruit to manage ads. Which means you can click on the 'advertising' heading at the top of this blog, choose an ad spot and pay for your ad right here on my website. Click the pink 'buy now' button, upload your ad and submit payment. Super quick, super simple.

Starting at $15/month, your ad will appear on my sidebar. Which is a fun place to be. On average, I get 120,000 pageviews per month and that number can rise to 225,000 and higher. Your ad will appear for 30 days (starting on date of purchase.)

If you need help designing your ad, that's cool. Just let me know. Any other questions? Click here for more info.

Thanks! You rule.

Moop: seconds sale

You've heard me rave about my Moop bags before. (They're pretty much the only bags I carry.) Moop is having a rare Seconds Sale and you should jump over there right now to check it out. Quantities are limited and will not be restocked, so, go! :)

shoe surgery: studded-out Cons

I have had my eye on these Converse Joey's from Free People for awhile now, but they're a little bit out of my budget and I always figured that someday I could try to make them myself. I forgot about them for awhile and then saw that my friend Vee had studded a pair of hi-tops. So cool. I had to try.

Luckily, I already had a closet full of Cons to pick from. Way too many. It was hard to choose. So I just grabbed a basic black low-top pair and got them ready to bedazzle. Speaking of bedazzling, you don't need a 'Bedazzler' or any other special studding machine to do this. All you need are needle-nose pliers, an x-acto knife, studs and a lucky pair of kicks.

I already had a few bags of silver studs in various shapes and sizes, so I decided to use some of those first. I also purchased some super rad yellow hexagon studs here, but I haven't figured out what I'm going to do with them yet. (Maybe I'll use them on a pair of Lo's shoes.)

So anyway, as you can guess, this is pretty simple to do. You figure out where you want the studs to go. Push them in and then bend down the prongs with the pliers.

A few tips, should you give this a try:

Start by unlacing the shoes and push the tongue all the way forward so you have room to work.

This can be tough on your fingers. Make life easier and use an x-acto knife to cut notches into the canvas to fit the prongs into, especially toward the back part of the shoe where the canvas is thicker. My prongs weren't very sharp for some reason, so I had to cut notches each time. If yours are sharp, this won't be a problem.

Pinch the prongs all the way in with the pliers (so they bend inward) so they won't tear up your feet when you wear them. I was really nervous that the pointy edges of the prongs would be sharp if I wasn't wearing socks, but they're totally fine!

Don't accidentally step on one of the studs with bare feet. Ow. This may have happened to me. Twice.

And that's about it. I'm pretty proud of myself for not splurging on the Joey's and making an equally rad pair of shoes from supplies I already had. I think I'll wear them a lot. (But seriously. I didn't have to buy a thing! How great is that?) Let me know if you give this a try ... I definitely want to see your shoe surgeries. Cut them up. It's fun.

new summer jam

Haim/Forever
So who wants to go ride mopeds (or scooters) with me?

Juno Beach

Juno Beach in Jupiter, Florida. This was probably my favorite part of our vacay. We hung out near this pier. And actually, Bowie and I mostly sat under the pier. It was the perfect shady place to keep him out of the sun. Bo and his dad had a chance to surf together. Lo and her cousins had a blast building tide pools, sandcastles and finding shells. Bowie dipped his toes in the ocean for the first time. It was so, so nice.

Scary bit of information: we found out that just a couple of hours after we left, a six-year-old boy was bitten by a shark near this pier. Not even kidding. But tropical storms and shark attacks aside, we are happy to have our first family-of-four roadtrip vacation under our belts. It was fantastic. And we'll do it again. 

**This will be the last Florida vacay post ... promise. Thanks so much for following along! You are rad.

Jupiter

Bits + pieces of the last half of our vacation, spent in Jupiter, Florida. This is the part where we escape to the sunshine.

1. Cousins.

2. The digs at Ritz-Carlton.

3. Fish tacos + frozen raspberry lemonade.

4. Sunshine and pool time.

5. Rainbow popsicles.

6. Hanging in the AC.

7. Cozy robes.

8. Bright dresses.

9. Cousin from Chicago.

10. Family time.

11. Lounging.

12. Lizards.

13. Coral Sea Shells.

14. Shells.

15. Morning.

80/35 music festival - 2012

Another 4th of July weekend, and another 80/35 music festival in downtown Des Moines. We look forward to this every year.

 Bowie's very first concert was officially Dinsaur Jr. – not bad, huh?

It was a pretty hot day, but we sat under a tree on a blanket and enjoyed the bands from a grassy area in the shade.

I even brought a bunch of frozen teething rings for Bowie to chew on and play with in an attempt to beat the heat.

 These two were up to their usual antics.

And, just like every other year, Lo spent some time cooling off in the water feature/fountain in Western Gateway Park. We love that this is right inside the festival grounds so we can park our blanket, stroller and towels and sit nearby. This year, we even remembered Lo's swimsuit! Smart. If you're bringing kids and you think they might play in the water ... bring swimwear.

And a quick note to parents! You can totally bring the kids to this festival. 80/35 has done a great job of making sure that everything is kid-friendly. There's a play area where they can hang out and jump in bounce houses and play. There are also shaded, grassy areas where you can hang with the kids away from the stage and you'll still be able to see the bands. It's the best of both worlds.

 So, this year's lineup was fantastic! (And did I mention it was hot?!)

Atmosphere.

 

 Leslie and the LYs.

The Avett Brothers.

And Deathcab for Cutie. There were obviously a lot more bands, but let's face it ... this year, we had a baby. But we saw everyone we wanted to see! And definitely had a wonderful time, as usual. And as I've said every single year after 80/35 is over ... we are so lucky to have this festival bringing these bands together for an amazing weekend in our city.

** This was our fifth year at 80/35. To see photos and read more about the other years we've gone to this festival, click here. **

it's a small, small world

One more Disney photobomb: It's a Small World. The ride.

This was my favorite escape from the rain of the entire day, because the line and the ride were totally covered. The line went fast. And everyone in our group loved it so much that we went multiple times. 

There's so much to see! Even Bowie was into it. Everything was so colorful and full of detail. Can you tell I'm a first-timer? I loved it.

Loved it so much. But now I can't get the song out of my head.

Cinderella's royal table

So, we had just one more surprise for this kid on our Disney trip. Reservations are tough to get, but Lo and I had a super special girl-date breakfast inside Cinderella's castle with the princesses. 

She couldn't believe we were going to eat inside of the big castle that you see at the beginning of all of the movies. Too. Cool.

Now, I will be the first to admit that we are not a hugely princess-obsessed family. Lo is totally girly and loves to dress up, but she also skateboards and snowboards and isn't afraid to hang with the boys. All things aside ... she's five. She's such a sweetheart. She loves Disney movies as much any other kid. And this experience was super magical for her. The girl can be a bit shy, and I could tell that she was starstruck when she saw who was coming over to our table.

I had secretly packed her favorite Snow White dress-up outfit for her to wear to the breakfast, and she was thrilled that the first princess to come over to say 'hello' was Snow White.

Next up was Aurora (Sleeping Beauty.)

And Ariel (The Little Mermaid.)

And finally, Belle (Beauty and the Beast.)

The princesses were all so incredibly nice, and they all took their time to say 'hi' to us without being rushed one bit. Snow White asked Lo if she had seven dwarves living with her, Ariel said that Flounder had helped her collect shells for her necklace, and they all took time to take photos and give hugs and sign autographs. Their voices sounded exactly like the characters they portrayed. The whole experience was really sweet and a lot of fun.

And the food! There was so much of it and everything was delicious.

Even my picky eater loved her breakfast. She really like the mini cinnamon rolls and her french toast sticks, eggs and bacon.

And I ordered the stuffed French toast with berries. It was awesome.

So yes, we absolutely loved our breakfast at Cinderella's royal table. It was such a special thing for the two of us to do together and I know I'll never forget it. I don't think Lo will, either!

** A quick note. For those of you reading (hi there!) who are planning a trip to Disney in the near future and may be first-timers like me, let me give you a heads up on the whole Cinderella dining thing! Reservations for this book up fast. You basically need to make a reservation online or on the phone 180 days out from the date you plan to be there. Not even kidding. 180 days. But it's definitely worth it if you can work it into your trip. Luckily, you can keep checking back for cancellations and there are lunches and dinners at the castle with the princesses, too. You can find lots more info here.  :)

Disney magic

'We're going to Disney World!' Yes. Our first official day in Orlando started off pretty sweet. We kept it a secret until we actually got there. Up until then, we only told Lo that we were driving to Florida and going to the beach. Which was true ... Disney was just the (surprise) cherry on top. She was pretty stoked. Bowie was indifferent. But he was in for a fun day, too.

I had made some fake Disney tickets with our names on them to make the surprise more real for Lo.

We gave each kid a pair of Mickey ears and told them we were really going. That day. Like, right now.

(Eeeeeeeek!)

Even I got excited as we drove in. Bo had been here before, but this was my first time at Disney.  :)

 

We met up with Bo's family at our rad hotel. The kids loved checking everything out.

We stayed onsite at Disney's All-Star Movies Resort, which had enormous statues of characters from Fantasia, Toy Story, 101 Dalmations and other animated movies.

We decided to hit the pool first to let the kids hang and relax.
 
It was cloudy, but nice! And no rain. (Yet.)

This would be Lo pretending to be shivering next to an 'iceberg' at the kiddie pool.

Even Bowie got to dip his toes in for a bit.

It was late in the day, so we hit up Downtown Disney and had dinner, then came back to the hotel and hit the hay. 

The next morning, we woke up to a rather rainy situation. Hmmm. This would be that whole Tropical Storm Debby thing. This was our day at Disney World, however, so we grabbed our jackets, stroller rain covers and super attractive plastic rain ponchos and went for it. 

Lo and I got to the park early to be ready for our princess breakfast at Cinderella's castle (more on that later.) 

We got to see the little show with all of the characters as the park opened. Yo, Mickey! See him waving at us?

Thank goodness we had those rain covers for the strollers. Things got seriously wet. Never in my life have I seen rain like that. It was a steady downpour that did not stop for one single minute that entire day. And that is not an exaggeration. (I ensure you that somehow, Bowie stayed totally dry in there. And there was lots of airflow coming in through the sides and underneath. Promise.)

We hit up the rides that were under cover if we could, and checked out some of the shows that were indoors. Luckily, lots of rides were covered so we still had lots of fun. At least we weren't baking in the sun, and the lines were short!

The one ride that Lo had her heart set on was Dumbo, which was totally out in the open, but we were wet anyway and rode that thing about seven times. It was still fun and she loved every minute of it.

We eventually hit a point in the day where we were all tired, soaking wet, and needed a break. We went back to our hotel and dried off a bit.

We ordered pizza and the kids chilled out and played Cut the Rope while we decided if we wanted to head back to the park, or call it a day.

And call us crazy, but we hadn't had enough of Disney World yet. The rain tapered off a bit and we went back out for some nighttime fun.

Our little fam stuck it out until the very end and got to see the light show that's projected on the castle. 

(Gosh, it was cool.)

And then, much to our delight, they still had the fireworks over the castle in the rain. Yay!

It was the perfect ending to our rainy day at Disney.

Our little sweetie went to bed with a magic wand in hand, making wishes on stars and talking about the day. She didn't even care about the rain. Magic and memories. That's what it's all about.