OMG - Princesses! On! Ice!

It's no understatement to say my girls love princesses and while we try to expose them to many different exciting things in the world, we sometimes can't help but indulge them. I've made them a Rhapsody playlist that includes Princess songs (among other things) that I play during the day and they get SO excited every time a princess song comes on.

Last night we took the girls to what must be like 3 year old girl heaven - Disney Princesses on Ice!

We met the Woyaks (Aunt Jill, Uncle Jason and Cousin Lily) for the preshow where we got to see a number of "pretty dresses" - like Snow White's above - and be waved at by a real live Cinderella! Abby (ponytail), Claire (headband) and Lily (blue stripes) could not believe their eyes.

We found our seats - Claire above with Ryan - in a very nice, in a not too crowded spot and took in the scenery before the show began.

We saw all our favorites: Snow White and the 7 Dwarves...

Belle (albeit with no sign of the Beast, or as Claire called him, "Tiger")...

The Little Mermaid (w/ Flounder and Sebastian and all kinds of sea creatures)...

Sleeping Beauty and Prince Phillip...

... and Cinderella!

All the Princesses came out for the grand finale, including what might be Claire's new favorite, Jasmine.

Tinkerbell made appearances throughout the snow, along with Mickey & Minnie Mouse and Goofy, so they came out for the finale too which ended with some fireworks shooting out of the carriage. Pretty spectacular!

To end our Princess filled evening, we headed to the downtown Applebee's for a late dinner/snack where the girls practiced taking pictures with my camera.

They took these ones of Claire (above) Lily (below) and me with Abby (far below) - not bad, huh?

Then home we went to put our exhausted little Princesses to bed. And, dare I say it?, to live happily ever after.

Thanks Grandma Sharon and Papa Wayne!

Claire and Abby were so excited to each receive our very own packages full of great gifts from Grandma Sharon and Grandpa Wayne. Thank you so much! We miss you and hope to see you soon!

Outdoor February Fun

Our biggest event for February was the Hot Air Affair held in Hudson, WI. It's the second year we've gone and although we're not really hot air balloon enthusiasts, we really enjoy it!

The fun starts with a fiery parade on Friday night. The balloonists (is that what they're called??) glide down the street, showing off their baskets and fire blowers (I'm sure that's their technical term in the hot air balloon community).

For the girls, this normally means sitting on someone's shoulders (Claire on Grandpa Rich's shoulders, above) and staring in wonderment (Abby, below).

The girls also got to swim in the pool at the hotel Grandma Gwen and Grandpa Rich were staying in, and spend the night there Friday night. Swimming is quite possibly their favorite thing in the world so the girls were in heaven.

On Saturday, we all met up again to cheer on Grandpa Rich as he ran a 5K. Then we headed to the balloon launch that afternoon. This again meant more time on shoulders for Claire (above on Mama's shoulders) and Abby (below with Daddy).

Because it was a pretty cloudy day, the balloons weren't able to launch but they did blow them up. It was pretty cool watching these huge balloons come to life. It's quite the process and takes a lot of people to help control the balloon.

There was also a snowy playground to play on, an arts and crafts fair to check out (inside, thank goodness) and lots of fair type food to be eaten. That night was one of my favorite parts of the event, the Moonglow. It's where the balloons all get blown up on the field and float into the air all lit up. Both years we've gone, it's been too poor conditions for them to go up, but the balloons stay on the field and light up for what turns out to be a pretty cool sight. It's also pretty fun to run around on the field between all these huge glowing orbs.

By this point, the girls were beyond tired and getting crabby so we decided to just to a slow drive by of the field. The above picture was taken through the car window so it doesn't quite give it justice, but you get the general idea. You can kind of see the orange and white balloon (second from left) which is actually shaped like Nemo. That was of course the girls' favorite one!

We'd had so much fun in Hudson that the next weekend we decided to get out and try more outdoor events. (I mean, what's more fun in MN that hanging outside in the snow for hours on end in the middle of February?) We headed to the Lake Hiawatha Heartwarmer in Minneapolis and luckily it was so fun we forgot about the cold.

There was a dj playing music by the skating pond, a bonfire, free hot dogs, cookies and cider, another snowy playground, a snowman building contest and free horse drawn hay rides (Abby, below, having a blast on the hay ride)! It was a great Saturday afternoon.

Hope you're also out enjoying the rest of our snowy wonderland! Spring will be here before we know it.

Eagles Nest Pics

Jumping...

... and sliding! Abby above and Claire below.

Snippets of January

January has been quite the exciting month! We started it off with a trip to the MN History Center. It was the History of Chocolate exhibit that we went for, but once we got there, I was reminded how incredibly much there is for kids there. Abby loved driving the classic Greyhound bus...

... and Claire had a blast in the Grainland play area.

Grandma Sharon and Granpda Wayne came for a visit the first weekend in January and we had our Christmas celebration with them. Abby and Claire were spoiled with there very own recliner chairs! Here's Abby testing hers out...

... and Claire snuggling in hers!

Thanks Grandma Sharon and Grandpa Wayne!

Two weekends later we had more visitors from Wisconsin - Amanda, Atticus and Sampson! Amanda's dogs came along too so we had 4 dogs, 4 kids (age 3 and under) and 3 adults in our small house. A little chaotic but so so so so much fun!

One highlight was a trip to the Transportation Museum in St Paul. They had model trains running plus a bunch of train tables for kids to play with (Atticus, above). We got to walk through trains that were over 100 years old and take a short ride on a more recent model.

All aboard!

Other than that we just played and played and had lots of fun - so much fun in fact that Abby fell asleep on the couch watching Toy Story.

That Sunday, the 23rd, was another exciting event - a 3rd Birthday Party with all our family for Claire...

Abby...

and Lily...

...complete with princess decorations and...

...a princess cake!

The spoiling continued with lots of very nice gifts for the three bday girls. I almost died when I saw one of the gifts my sister got my girls - a dress up Barbie lab coat! So perfect, considering my last post. Abby put hers on immediately and jumped up and down with excitement.

All three girls also got these cute dolls from Aunt Pat. The dolls have their names on them AND came with clothes homemade by Aunt Pat. So nice! Add to that the clothes, toys, personalized bags, robes, puzzles, and BIKES (from Papa Mike & Grandma Maggie) that they got from everyone, these were 3 very lucky princesses.

On our actual birthday this past Friday, the girls were treated to a bday lunch at Fridays, complete with singing and ice cream sundaes! Abby fluctuated between happy...

... and confused...

... while Claire just enjoyed the ice cream!

(We also went to the Eagle's Ridge indoor playground in the morning, but the pictures aren't posting right. I'll try a new post with them.)

With all this running around, I think we are all ready for a spa vacation. I mean, come one, we already have the robes for it and everything.

Hope your 2011 has also been so far full of fun!

Barbie 1, Feminism 0

Happy 2011 everyone! We had a GREAT new years celebration with both of our cousins (Lily and Alex) over to celebrate at the same time. Talk about fun! We even got to do a 9:00 New Years toast with sparkling grape juice where we ran around clinking plastic glasses and saying "Happy Ew Ear!" (My girls version of Happy New Year).

So, as most of you know, my girls absolutely love "pretty dresses." Every day I hear, "Mama, I wear pretty dress?" When they do get to wear a pretty dress, they start twirling around and showing it off the instant their arms are through the sleeves. See how happy they are in pretty dresses?? (Oh, and for those of you who didn't know, backpacks with pretty dresses are the latest in thing. So stylish!)

Also, they love Barbies. They got some for Christmas (mostly the ones that are like Disney Princesses, such as the Tangled doll below). They usually pretend the Barbies are talking to one another and more often than not the first question out of Barbie's mouth is "You like my pretty dress?"

Now, even though I'm a little concerned about the ideal Barbie portrays, it's not that I think Barbie is pure evil. Plus, the girls like to play with them which means I get some quiet time - that alone makes me love Barbie all the more. But I do want them, even at 2 1/2, to realize that there's more to life than pretty dresses. So when I am playing Barbie with them, I like to answer the pretty dress question with things like, "Yes, it's a very pretty dress, Barbie, but will anyone even see it under your lab coat?" or "I bet the judge liked your lawyering skills even more than that pretty dress!"

I can't tell yet if I'm having any impact with this yet, but if these two grow up to be doctors or lawyers, I think we'll know who to thank.