the.amanda.sewell

Last night I took my little ballerina E to see the Nutcracker for the first time.   First we parked, and on the elevator down to street level, we met one of the dancers who played an angel and a soldier.  That was cool.  Then we went out to eat at Steve's Grill about a block from the Symphony Hall. It was actually really yummy and they had the skinniest fries I have ever seen.  It was cozy and relaxing.  It was raining a bit while we were in the restaurant, but when we left it was just barely misty. YAY! In the symphony hall, we got our picture taken with a Sugar Plum fairy -- I asked E if she wanted it to be just her, but she insisted I be in the picture as well. Then the show began.  We had great seats - row 11.  It was magical.  E sat the first half on my lap because she was leaning back and forth a lot and I wanted to make sure she could see.  Then at intermission we got her a booster so she could use her own seat.  The show went by super fast.  The music was fantastic and t

Hehe!  We made a gingerbread house   er . . . nice pile of gingerbread decorated with candy.  It was a lot of fun, well, except for the roof sliding off just moments after we took some pictures.  In the end, it dried okay, and I learned some lessons - 1 ) use enough icing, but not too much   2 ) prepare the house base and let dry before letting kids know it is time to decorate the gingerbread house   3 ) icicles really MAKE the house, leave them off and it looks bad   4 ) stick to gingerbread men, they are so much easier with little kids! That said, here are some cell phone pictures (sorry for the bad quality but my camera was MIA in my disaster house - please ignore the messy counter in the background): Decorating . . .    Smiles with the FINISHED HOUSE:

(Singing Happy Birthday to E) E turned 2 today!  Michael had to go to some political thing, so we spent the morning in town and got balloons for him and did some shopping at Kohls!  I love that store!  I got a cute new dress (red) for Christmas, and some cute trouser jeans, ties for the boys and one to match for hubby.  It was a great morning.  When we got home we set up for E's family birthday party.  My SIL Laura came over with her hubby and cute kids.   Laura and I went shopping for stuff for taco salad and went to a holiday boutique and then we all just hung out at my house.  We even managed to get in a game of "Settlers of Catan" in before they left which was fun as we had not even opened our game boxes since we moved here two years+ ago.  Sadly I was not the winner though. I am so glad they came!  It made it so much more like a birthday than just a special day where we ate brownies (yup, little man doesn't like cake so much).  Thanks for making the drive you

Michael really wanted to see the ocean.  We usually avoid it because almost always we all get sunburned regardless of the amount of sunscreen we use.  SO, we decided we would go for 30 minutes only.  Usually I don't burn, and in the 30 minutes I was not burned, but I did get burned in the 30 minutes more it took to change all 4 of my kids out of wet swimsuits and into clothes for the ride home.  I changed them in the van but my back was exposed to the sun the whole time, so I got a burn on just my back.  No kids are sunburned though, and neither is Mic (my silly redheaded hubby) so I am calling it a success.  

I am SO glad we decided to schedule a character meal.  Breakfast was fantastic.  The food was great, the service was great, then encounters we had with characters were AWESOME!  The kids had SO much fun!  I will for sure be doing this again next time we go, since there are like 4 other places that have character meals.  It was pricey, but not that much more than the cost of most food in Disneyland, and just so relaxing and great! (J getting Chip's autograph) (E making a new friend) (Goofy signs E's autograph book and Baby E loves Goofy) (E meets Belle who she has a lot in common with and they discuss books) (The kids meet Mulan and J shows off his gummy worm mustache) (E & J doing the twist in Goofy's kitchen in the middle of breakfast) (Mac n cheese pizza and peanut butter and jelly pizza - YUM *gags*)

We are SO not the DIEHARDS that we used to be.  Four kids at Disneyland is sure a workout!!  We used to be able to stay till midnight with ease, but by 9:30 pm, we were so tired (E even said "mom, lets not do anymore rides and just go back to the hotel").  We had fun though.  We lost one of my favorite hats for Baby M, but *maybe* Disney will find it and send it to us (we reported it lost to Disneyland Lost and Found).   (Kids made a totem pole - or tried - in front of the rose garden at Disneyland Hotel) We arrived at the park at 8 am, and got our free volunteer tickets (from the Give a Day, Get a Disney Day program), and then hopped on the Disneyland Railroad and rode it to Toontown station and then visited "It's a Small World" (which was fun with all the new additions) and all the rides in Fantasyland.  We knew it would be so crowded later in the day.  It was super happy and hardly any lines at all.  The longest line was for Peter Pan and I think it was all