Disney Princesses! On ICE that is...

Some dear friends of ours bought tickets for our entire family to attend the "Classic Disney Princesses on Ice" show in Portland last Friday.  And boy am I ever grateful to them for that incredible gift! 

I told Hallie the good news on Monday, and she had stars in her eyes for the rest of the week.  She said "I can't hardly wait!" about 47 times a day.  

With the tea party and princesses in her near future, I was amazed that her little heart could handle that kind of excitement without bursting.  

This was pure fun for me.

And I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I too, was counting down the days to see those lovely ladies swirl across the ice....I mean I still sit down with Hallie to watch Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast and have every word of the script still safely intact.   

When we got to the civic center, Hallie was in awe at how big the place was.  She said, "I've never been in a place like this before....this is a cool place."  She knows "cool" when she sees it!

 

 I told her to show me how excited she was for the show to start.

 

The lady sitting up behind us was nice enough to offer to take a picture of our whole family.  I wish she'd have told me to go do a once-over to my hair in the bathroom before she snapped it.....good heavens!

 

Lori was so sweet and let Hallie pick out a toy from the vendors outside....Thank you Lori!  She has played with it every day since.

This castle was amazing and had many faces according to which princess was on stage.

 

Boy could these girls and guys ever dance out on that ice...making it look effortless.

 

Guess who was in a trance the whole time?

 

    I'm regretting not taking 100 more pictures but I was so mesmerized by the whole thing, it only dawned on me before the show and at the end that I should take my camera out! 

I was worried about bringing Chandler, but man alive did he ever LOVE it!  He was on my lap violently pointing at whatever new character made their entrance from the castle, and then raised his arms up over his head in a clapping frenzy.... about 80% of the show,  providing additional entertainment to all who sat within eye-shot. 

Occasionally he would look up at me with a huge smile as if to say "isn't this the BEST mom?" and it made me ever so thankful to be a mother...right there in that stadium... row 17, with my happy toddler on my lap and my totally entranced girl to my right.  

Thank you Dan and Lori for this spectacular  night!  

On the ride home, Hallie topped us off with a line that made Elon and I beam. 

She said, "well I guess magic really is real."

Disney does it's job brilliantly.

New Tradition...

The fun has been packed in like brown sugar around here!  I'll start with the Valentine tea party that happened last Wednesday, because it had this little girl brimming with excitement for days beforehand.  

I mean look at this face:

We started out up to our elbows in construction paper, glue, heart punches, and paper doilies to make place mats.

 

Those blue eyes are two of my favorite things in the whole world.

We made Valentine candy necklaces (I don't care how old you get, those things are fun to chew on)!

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Any excuse to make sugar cookies is a welcomed one :)...my mother in law made me that cute apron.

 

A couple days beforehand, my mom took us to the Fairfield Antiques Mall to pick out teacups. This one is mine, and can I just add that this trip was one of my favorite shopping outings ever!  We saw soooo many beautiful cups with their gold rims and matching saucers, and I had visions of Hallie picking the most "frilly/girly" one in the whole place....

 

... but it turns out she has a soft spot for lonely, dingy, saucer-less ones.  And there was absolutely no changing her mind.  But it did fit in that dainty little hand of hers perfectly..... and if you ask me, it now has the sweetest owner of them all.

 

And lucky for Chandler, his nap ended just in time. 

I'm so thankful to my mom for starting this tradition last February! 

I finally have a BLOG!

And I can't tell you how good it feels!  I've spent the last year or so drooling over other people's blogs, wishing I could be keeping such a good family record just like they do, but being too darn intimidated by technology to attempt it.


Turns out it was easy as pie.....as soon as my mom showed up to hold my hand through the process.


I mainly want to blog because there are no expectations.  Unlike my hard-bound journal with a whole page worth of lines that make me feel the need to scrawl all the way to the bottom of the page before I can close it and call it a night, this blog I could end right here and feel totally at ease.


I don't want the "snip-it's" of my life to slip away and be forgotten forever, because as much as I think I'll never forget what Hallie said the other day....I will, because I can't even remember what it was now, I just remember it was funny! 


So...here I go...setting all correct punctuation and grammar aside, am going to try this blogging thing out so as not to lose those precious moments of the here and now!