Disney on Ice and St. Nicholas

After a hiatus last year, we continued our annual tradition of Disney on Ice! And oh, it was absolutely magical this year. First of all, it was in the 50s when we left our house so that's just the best. I really am a southern gal trapped up here I do believe.

And the kids just watched and enjoyed it. M sang her little heart out and we were the only people in our section which is exactly the way I like it.

We saw ALL our Disney favorites. Rapunzel, Belle, Cinderella, Aurora, Moana, Miguel, Anna and Elsa, Minnie, Mickey, and Goofy. It was truly just so wonderful. 

Then we got home and the kids put their boots out. C's teacher told them that when her daughters were little they would put boots out so they could get bigger presents. He thought that was very smart so they put their boots out too. 

Luckily, St. Nicholas came and brought his customary Christmas jammies and a book for each kid. 

Have a terrific weekend friends!

A Little Mid-Week Check In

Let me be the 97th person to exclaim that they can't believe it's December! It's just ridiculous how fast 2019 went. I am against it. 

Anyway, Saturday, this kid came with me to a show I had to review. We don't get to have many C and Mom dates so it was nice. He picked Starburst as his treat and used his own money from his wallet. It was precious. 

Monday, I reviewed the last show of 2019 and I can't even believe that either. I would up seeing 30 shows for work and with a show just for fun this weekend and next, I will have 36 shows under my belt for 2019. Not too shabby!

And here's a view from my spot on the couch. You have a spot too I am sure. I love sitting around in the evening by the lights of the trees. We let the kids have a tree this year too. 

Have a great Wednesday!

Gingerbread 2019

Over the weekend we worked on our annual gingerbread house. It was a much calmer year this year. Which was good. This year we had a sketch about a week before, but we still didn't build our template until Saturday morning. (Next year though, I am putting my foot down!)

This year we only made 3 batches and wound up throwing about half of the last batch out. We used our regular recipe.  Which we LOVE, but it doesn't hold well and we weren't interested in baking up more than we needed for our houses. (Our house, my friend K's house and then the two kid houses.)

Here is our little Gingerbread Cottage.

I made up a whole backstory about Michelle and Patrick who live in our house with their teenagers Taylor and Andrew. It made me chuckle but it may also make me sound unhinged. But there we are. My true self is out there. 

C's house. 3 gummy bears live in his house. 

M's house. Pink, purple and yellow were the primary color choices. Too bad the Vikings lost. 

Clearly, C's house made a big impact on his weekend. His Thanksgiving break was jammed packed with so many things but this is what he wrote about at school yesterday. 

Anyway, all in all, gingerbread weekend 2019 was great. 

Thanksgiving Happenings on Black Friday

I hope you all had an absolutely fantastic Thanksgiving however you spent it. We had our traditional untraditional Thanksgiving day.

We actually kicked off our festivities by going to the Festival of Trees on Wednesday night.

For the record, I was all about decorating for Christmas early and no one in my family would let me because we "had to do Thanksgiving first." Nevermind the Festival of Trees is all Christmas and starts a week before Thanksgiving. Apparently other people and places can start Christmas stuff early, just not us.

Anyway, the kids were super excited for the fesitval and it was good. I am going to be honest and say that I am glad we had free tickets. We spent about an hour wandering and exploring the decorations and art. We didn't buy anything. But we had a nice time as a family and sometimes that's what counts.

They were a tad short to be gingerbread people but that's okay. They had fun anyway. 

Yesterday we started our day with our traditional parade in pajamas while eating monkey bread. The best kind of Thanksgiving morning in my mind. 

In the afternoon we went to see Frozen II. I absolutely loved it. From start to finish. Maybe even more than Frozen? 

We all really enjoyed it. M wore her Frozen II shirt and we took her picture by the big sign. And we came home for our awesome Thanksgiving dinner. 

We had ribs, mashed potatoes, veggies, a cornbreadacopia, "pumpkin pie," and "turkey drummies."

We made the cornucopia Wednesday night and then filled it with the cornbread muffins. Both the pie and turkey are Rice Krispie treats. (The drumsticks are white chocolate covered pretzels.) 

I rather enjoyed our festivities. Today we are staying in. (I hit Target last night for the one item we needed for the holiday.) Tonight the tree goes up! I can't wait!! 

I hope you all have a very good weekend!

Weekend Recap!

We had an extremely productive weekend. Friday night we had a Frozen Family Movie Night to gear up for seeing Frozen II this week! (Yes, M watched it for the second time in a week, she didn't mind at all!) It was the perfect cozy night in.

Saturday we got our week's shopping done. Well, everything but the biscuits. Two different grocery stores were out so that's my task for today to track some down. We can't have our traditional Thanksgiving parade monkey bread without biscuit dough! Yes, I am aware we could make our own dough but good gravy let's hope we can avoid that.

Our major goal for Saturday was getting our Christmas card picture taken. Our kids are currently in a stage where for whatever reason they cannot both look at the camera and smile without being incredibly awkward. After much cajoling and bribing, we did manage to get one semi-okay one. We got our Christmas cards ordered and so that task is underway.

Then yesterday it was pretty nice out, near 50 and sunny so we did more yard clean up. I think the bulk of the clean up is now done. Which is a big relief on my part. With so many leaves and two snowfalls to contend with it's been a messy and wet season for yard waste.

And with that, here is an unrelated picture of M's art from school Mass. Well, it's Elsa so I guess it relates after all! Happy Monday of a short week! I love short weeks!

It's Almost Time for Frozen 2!

I had the 3 Musketeers on Tuesday and we spent the day getting excited for Frozen 2! While we aren't going to see the movie until next week we are pumped and wanted to share the joy with our friends.

Among coloring in Frozen 2 coloring books, I got from the dollar store, playing and eating lunch we had a snowball fight!

Seriously, if you're looking for some cheap family fun, buy a few bags of cotton balls and have an indoor snowball fight. We had 200 cotton balls for the 4 of us and it was perfect. There is some clean up involved, little cotton bits in hair and carpet but vacuuming isn't the worst chore in my opinion. 

But the kids were entertained for almost 40 minutes, moving their bodies, teaming up to come up with a plan to get me. Cotton balls do not hurt if they are thrown at you so attacks are perfectly legit. We listened to a Frozen playlist during the snowball fight, a mix of both movies. We're already obsessed with "Into the Unknown."

We played pin the nose on Olaf. That is a 50 cent piece of tagboard. Ignore my lack of artistry. The kids didn't mind one bit. I don't really know why this game is so fun for kids, but they all love it. 

We watched popcorn pop. Endlessly entertaining. The anticipation and the joy when it finally starts popping is my favorite!

We watched part of Frozen. I don't usually do screen time with the kids but it was a super gloomy day and it went with the theme. 

They all got a glow stick so they could "Let it Glow" and then they pretended their glow stick was their Elsa powers. It was fantastic. Of course, they started having another snowball fight during the movie. I didn't mind at all. 

It was a fun few hours getting excited about Anna and Elsa and Olaf's big return! Are you going to see the new movie soon?

Soup!

I don't know about you, but all this early gloomy weather is just making me want soup! So yesterday I made a new recipe and it was DELICIOUS! Not only that, but it was so so easy. It tastes like someone spent a great deal of effort on it but it takes almost no effort at all!


You should probably make this soup. Don't be the Soup Nazi. This is absolutely soup for you!

Creamy Italian Soup

Ingredients:

• 1 lb of ground sausage
• 1 box (4 cups) vegetable broth
• 2 cans Italian style diced tomatoes
• 1 block of cream cheese
• 1 small package of spinach
• tortellini 

Directions: 

1. Brown and drain sausage.
2. Put sausage, broth, full contents of cans, cream cheese and spinach in a crockpot. Be sure to break up the cream cheese into pieces. 
3. Turn on low for 4 hours.
4. Stir in Tortellini 30 minutes to an hour before serving. 
5. Enjoy! 

We ate ours with a loaf of Italian bread. It's delicious and filling. I took no pictures but trust me, it's good. A very pretty color!

And an unrelated picture of a giraffe on an Etch A Sketch from car line yesterday.