Disney on Ice

All ready to go!

Guess who was in town????  Disney on Ice!!!!  YAY!!  Grace was SO excited to see Snow White and I couldn't wait to get some one-on-one time with her.  It's pretty rare these days and I was just as excited as she was to see the excitement on her face and spoil her rotten for a couple hours.  We got tickets with some friends and neighbors of ours and we were pleasantly surprised to find out that our seats were in the SECOND ROW!!!  WAHOO!!  We thought we were going to have decent seats but not THAT good!  I know what you're thinking.  We probably spent a fortune to get second row seats, right??  NOPE!!  For a mere $34 we got up, close, and personal with all of Disney's finest!!

Awesome seats!!

The princesses were the second big act to come out and if you could've seen the look on Grace's face, you would've gotten just as excited as she was!  Grace announced each princess with a BIG "SNOW WHITE!!", "ARIEL," "CINDERELLA!!!!"  Hysterical!!

Aladdin!

Nemo!

During intermission, we dined on a 5ft long hot dog, nachos, and popcorn.  That's all part of the fun  right??  WAHAHAHAHA!!

Grace was tuned in the entire time and Disney (once again) put on a GREAT show!!  When it was over, all the characters skated to the outskirts of the ice and everyone started rushing to touch one of their idols.  All of the sudden, I flashed into another time and I felt like I was at a Keith Urban concert.  I grabbed my purse and Grace's hand and ran as fast we could to get a good spot.  I found myself saying, "Grace, grab his guitar!  Can you touch his foot?  Try to get up on stage!!"  Oh wait......this is Disney AND my child is with me!  Snap out of it already!  WAHAHAHAHA!!  In any case if I see Snow White, you can bet I'm pulling her hand off until Grace can touch it!!  We ended up not getting to touch anyone BUT we were right in the middle of the action.  Grace just stood in awe as they all skated past her!  TOO cute!

Cinderella!

Goofy!

Woody!

Toy Story!

"It's a Small World"

We had such a great time!!  Grace came home with a new Dori stuffed animal and a Jessie toy and couldn't have been happier!  I love getting to spend one-on-one time with my girls and this was well worth the money spent!!
Thank you SO much to Erica who watched Anna for me when Matt couldn't at the last minute!!  I'm sure she'll be ready to join us next year!

HaPpY HaLlOwEeN!!!!

I think you all know by now that Halloween is a day that we look forward to with much anticipation in this house!!  We start discussing possible costume ideas a couple months in advance.  This year, I wanted to dress the girls in something handmade.  I am tired of paying ridiculous amounts of money for mediocre costumes.  Some of Grace's ideas for a costume were a skeleton princess (like the creativity there!), a spider (I kept telling her she was a spider for her first Halloween), and Little Bo Peep (BORING)! Grace saw the Smurfs movie in August and loved it.  I immediately started to wonder if Mom still had our old Smurfette costumes from WAY back when (I'm talking when Maggie was still in a walker, way back).  Much to my surprise, SHE DID!!!  Next came my pitch as to why Smurfette would be a GREAT costume AND we would even paint her face blue.  Luckily, she agreed!  YAY!!  Mom dug out our old costumes but decided to go ahead and make new ones.  They were SO dang cute!!  We had one small problem......Anna would immediately take her hat off once I put it on her head!  Hmmmmm if I glue it to her head, it shouldn't stay any longer than a week right?  Maybe two??  WAHAHA!!

Baby Smurfette!

Halloween finally rolled around and Grace was nearly peeing down her leg the entire day!  If I heard "Mommy, when are we going to paint my face blue?" once, I heard it 1,000,000,000 times!  :)  My plan of action was to get the girls dressed, get Grace's face painted, and paint Anna's face as she was literally walking out the door so our house wouldn't be covered in blue paint.  Can I tell you Anna left her hat on the ENTIRE NIGHT and she didn't touch her face once!!!  WAHOO!!!  You never really know what's going to happen or how long a costume will last at this age and I definitely lucked out!  Grace would've worn her costume for the entire week if I let her and was SO excited to have her face painted!

Grace LOVED going up to each house and really enjoyed it this year!  Anna stayed in the wagon for the most part and may have eaten a piece of candy or two!  :)
Grace was also a big fan of handing out our candy once we were finished with our rounds and back home again.  I'm going to give all our neighbors a little piece of advice for next year.  Wait to come to our house until we're back home and Grace is handing out the candy.  You will go home with your buckets filled after just one stop!  WAHAHAHA!!  Anna got in on the action and handed out a few pieces, but mostly enjoyed trying her hardest to unwrap every piece of candy in her bucket!

The girls kept laughing at Matt's costume and Anna even ran up to him to hold her!  Seems kind of strange given the appearance of his costume but they know it's "just pretend."  Matt took his mask off a couple times when a little one look scared, but Grace quickly told him to put it back on!  Only my kids!!

We had a blast once again this year!!  And I'm quite sure our candy will last us until NEXT Halloween!!  THANK YOU SO MUCH to Nana for making the costumes!!  They were the cutest Smurfettes in town!!

Franklin Creek Fall Festival

Ready to go!

Our neighborhood held its first annual fall festival this year and we couldn't have been more excited!  Our good friends, Erica and Erin, organized the event and did a fabulous job!
The fall festival included a bounce house, several games, food, candy, and a parade!!  Grace LOVED the bounce house and could've stayed in there all afternoon.  Anna's favorite thing was jumping on/in all the cars, scooters, bikes, etc. that all the kids brought!  I turned my head for a second to take off Grace's shoes (for the bounce house) and turned around to see Anna actually on a razor scooter just scootin' along!!!  Yep, both of her feet were on the scooter and she was just truckin' along!!  She honestly has NO fear!

Everyone got a bite to eat and the the kids lined up for the parade.  I didn't realize (DUH!) that most of the kids were bringing their "vehicles" to ride in/on during the parade.  I asked Grace to hold Anna's hand and help her through the parade and, by the grace of God, SHE DID!!  It was too cute!!  Granted it was only as long as half of the the parking lot at the pool but still. I was pretty excited about it nonetheless!

Thank you to Erica and Erin for doing all that you did to organize the fall festival!!  It was a fun way to get neighbors together to celebrate a GREAT holiday and season and let all the kiddos have a ball!!

And don't I have two cute smurfs!!  Just wait until you see the pics from Halloween......blue faces and all!!

Lining up for the parade!

Holding hands during the parade!  CUTE!

Candy toss!

MORE candy!

AK taking a ride!