Disney on Ice!!!!

The BIG event came on Thursday when we got to go to Disney on Ice!! Papa splurged on our tickets and got us FRONT ROW SEATS!!! I felt like a little kid the closer we got b/c I KNEW Grace would absolutely LOVE it! Look at the girls all dressed up and ready to go.....LOVE the pose Soph!! haha After Nana insisted on getting the girls the "official" program and a toy of their choice we headed for our seats. We nearly died once we arrived b/c we were literally 2 feet from the ice! There was no barrier between us and the rink which made me SLIGHTLY nervous considering I had an almost two year-old to keep under control! I now fully understand the purpose of those child "leashes!" :)

Please look at how close we were to Minnie!!! Now look at the picture to the right and just imagine what Grace was thinking!!! She didn't quite understand why she couldn't go out and sit with Minnie.......afterall there was plenty of room on that bench for Grace's little tooshy! Mickey and Minnie did this "love" number and at the end of the song Minnie had a rose to give out to someone in the crowd. Much to our amazement, she came right over and motioned to Sophie to COME AND GET IT!!!!! We all sat completely frozen as if we were at a Keith Urban concert and he just asked us to come on stage and get a guitar pick! Finally once we got ourselves together, we told Sophie to go ahead and she got the only rose that Minnie gave out! Can I even tell you how exciting that was! Check out her picture below!

Intermission came at the perfect time b/c Grace was starting to get a little restless. I let her run a few thousand laps and then the show came back on. Nana saved the day with her tinkerbell snow cone. Once Grace got a hold of that, she forgot what was happening around her. Let me explain. You see she only drinks milk and water and had had juice 3 times up until that point. As soon as she figured out that she could drink that sugar water through the straw, she drank like she had never drank before!

We had SO much fun and I am SO glad we decided to go! There is nothing like seeing that through your child's eyes! And we saw those eyes until 11pm due to the overload on sugar water! hahahahahaha



Thank you again Nana and Papa!!

My little punkin' head was pooped the next day! We got to play with Grandma during her lunch break and this picture was taken right before she conked out on her lap!

First Gingerbread House

Grace also got to help make her first gingerbread house while we were in IN! Every year, Grandma and Jack make one and this year they were nice enough to let us "help!" Grace actually did pretty well, and Jack (bless his little heart) was VERY patient with her! They started decorating the roof and took it pretty seriously. Grace didn't start "sampling" the candy decorations until we had a good portion of it done. And then she started popping candy into her mouth so fast I didn't even notice she did it. She got away with eating a spree (yes the perfect candy for choking) before it was already too late! Here's a picture of the final product......not too shabby!!!

Odon Christmas Parade

The next thing on our agenda was supposed to be a Christmas show in Indy. Unfortunately, we found out that no child under 3 was allowed since it was a theatre-style show! BOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! Poor Grace and I headed back to Bloomfield sulking in our misery.......alright I'm kidding although I was pretty disappointed. We found another Christmasy event to go to.......the Odon Christmas parade! Who knew! For as long as I lived in Bloomfield, I had never heard of it. This didn't quite work out as scheduled either. Laura and Brent looked on their website and it showed a parade start time of 6:30pm. So Mom and I get Grace in around 5 layers of clothing, and got her out of the car just in time for the parade TO BE OVER!!!! WHAT!!!! Yep, the start time was wrong on their website! I would like to share some words with the townsfolk there in Odon! :) Only kind, stern words.......come on people it's Christmas!

Luckily, there was still all kinds of fun to be had. Odon transformed their park into a winter wonderland complete with lights galore, Christmas trees of every color (Grace's favorite was the purple tree), live animals, and Santa of course! Most of the buildings in the park were transformed into a different Christmas theme. We walked into the building that housed the big man himself, and encountered a line you might see at King's Island! Most of you know that Grace isn't a real shy type of child, and definitely showed her colors that night! She wasn't about to wait in line to see Santa. She grabbed Grandma's hand and walked right up to him. Yes, I was the horrible mother in the background taking pictures and watching while Grace was completely ruining some little girl's moment with Santa! All she did was touch Santa's leg twice and she walked away! It was HYSTERICAL! I'm pretty sure we all had a little tinkle in our pants after that!

The last stop in our Odon adventure was the new community building where cookies and hot chocolate were in store! We even got to listen to some local talent..........FABULOUS!!! :)

I would highly recommend the Odon Christmas parade......although next year we're hoping to actually make it to the parade!! :)

Happy Thanksgiving!!

We're finally back from our extended stay in IN, and I have a lot of catching up to do! First I'll start with Thanksgiving. We had an impromptu dinner with the Gentry side of the family the night before Thanksgiving. We were originally going to feast on Thursday, but when the Townsends had a change of plans, we decided to go ahead and have dinner when everyone could be together. Barb, Laura, and I started whipping up all of the deliciousness while Jack and Grace ran at least 500 laps around Barb's house! If I heard Grace say, "Come on Grandma" once I heard it a thousand times! We also came up with a new pumpkin pie recipe. You see if for whatever reason you make your pie and add condensed milk THAT ISN'T SWEETENED, simply taste it mid-way through cooking and start adding sugar!! You'll end up with a lovely twice-whipped pumpkin pie and no one will know the difference! :) It's a real good thing that Barb decided to give the pie a taste before it was done!!

On Thanksgiving day, we headed to Greenwood to have dinner with the Harding side of the family. We got to see Maggie and Adam's new house for the first time and it's beautiful! It's got me all geared up to move myself! Anyway, we once again stuffed ourselves to the gourd and couldn't stop eating! Grace tried some of Maggie's chocolate-cinnamon pudding, and clearly LOVED IT!! Later that night, the kids had a make-shift campout in Sophie's playroom complete with a camp fire! Then we locked them up and went to the movies!! hahaha Ok so we didn't lock them up, but the girls did head off to see New Moon that night (Go Team Edward)! We made sure to get home at a decent time so the shopping extravaganza could begin the next morning! We didn't make it out until about 10am but still found almost everything we needed. The big-ticket item that we couldn't find is now on lock-down in a safe, secure place since it was a certain someone's #1 item on her wish list!!!!!!!!!!