Disney on Ice Adventure

If you ask Annika what she wants to be when she grown up, she'll tell you "an ice skater ballerina." When I saw a billboard for the Disney on Ice show, I knew she needed to go. To quote one of my favorite movies (Real Genius), it was a moral imperative. (I also invited my mom to go just for added fun.)

To keep the anticipation from being too much for Annika, I didn't tell her about the show when I got the tickets, opting to wait until the day of the performance to spring it on her. This morning, I surprised Annika with the announcement that we were going to the Disney on Ice show today. She was thrilled ... and then asked for me to unpause her TV show. ::sigh::

We left in PLENTY of time to get to the arena a good 20 minutes before the show was supposed to begin. I didn't take the gridlock we'd experience the last 0.4 mile of the journey into consideration when deciding when to leave the house. Eventually, I pulled what I'm guessing was an illegal UI-turn, freed us from the parking log of a street, circumvented the traffic, and parked. We then stood in a ridiculously long line to get in the arena and got into our seats about 2 minutes after the show began.

All of that was beyond worth it to see the look of pure wonder and elation on Annika's face throughout the entire show. Saying she loved the performance would completely underestimate her response to the experience. She sat on the edge of her seat with her eyes the size of saucers the entire time. She even waved at the performers as they skated by waving. Beyond adorable!

The show focused on telling the stories of three princesses: Tiana, Cinderella, and Rapunzel. The athleticism of the ice skaters was incredible. I think most of the adults in the audience were just as enthralled as the little kids because of having an appreciation for the skaters' abilities (not to mention core strength!). The costumes were just as wonderful as the skating. I found it interesting that the skaters lip synced to the various movies' voice actors; the familiarity of the voices definitely helped with character consistency.

I highly recommend this show if you have a Disney fan!Annika is already asking to go back to the rink so we can watch the show again. :)

Tiana and Charlotte in the opening "Princess and the Frog" number

Tiana and the waiters in the "I'm Almost There" number

Tiana as a frog with Louis the crocodile

Princess Tiana and Prince Naveen

The show wouldn't have been complete with Minnie and Mickey

Cinderella and the evil stepmother and stepsisters

Cinderella's mouse friend

Cinderella in her carriage on the way to the ball

Cinderella and Prince Charming

Flynn Rider stealing the crown in the Rapunzel opening number

Flynn and Rapunzel performing one of many impressive aerial stunts

Rapunzel and Maximus the horse
(I think the horse costume was one of best of the show)

Rapunzel and Flynn in their finale
(talk about incredible strength!)

Mickey and Minnie during the show's finale

Finale fireworks

Conor's Artwork

 This afternoon, when I picked up Conor from daycare, one of his teachers quickly came up to me and told me that Conor was a bit more colorful than normal... and that they tried to stop him as soon as they saw what was happening and washed it off as much as possible. Apparently, Conor decided to apply his own makeup during art time.

 

Isn't he PRETTY???

 

(Side note: Since taking these photos, I've washed Conor's face a few times.... and he's sporting a blue hue. This might take awhile...)

 

"CHEEEEESE!!!"

Closed eyes, to fully show Conor's artistic blue phase
 

 

My Halloween Costume

This year, I decided to go all out on my Halloween costume. The idea was sparked by one of my co-workers who suggested everyone in our seating area dress up like people from the TV show "Mad Men". As a huge fan of the show, I took that idea and ran with it. (No one else in our area did, but that didn't really matter to me!)

I did a number of Internet searches to find an authentic-looking dress pattern, but wound up lying on the floor asking for oxygen when I saw the price tags associated with the vintage patterns. Eventually, I ran across a blog post that referenced a sewing challenge and how the blogger found a pattern at a Portland, OR store called The Knittn' Kitten. I emailed the store explaining my situation. I quickly received a reply and after a few back and forth emails, decided on a pattern that I thought would be ideal .. for $5 (a price I could definitely stomach).

I took the pattern to a local fabric store and picked out the most vintage fabric I found. Surprisingly, the dress came together quite easily. The only sticking point was getting the pleats in the dress to be just right... after 3-4 attempts, I finally got it!

I was able to accessorize with a 1950s hat that I inherited from my grandmother, a fake pearl necklace (picked up from Claire's), bright red lipstick and fingernails, white gloves, and a mink stole on loan from my great aunt.

Being a person who HATED wearing dresses as a little kid (they were drafty, ya know!), I found it entertaining by how much fun I had wearing this dress. I continually found myself swaying so I felt like a bell ringing. (side note: I have great respect for the women from the 1950s and the actresses on Mad Men ... petticoats to not make trips to the ladies room easy at all and they are insanely HOT!!!!)

Both of our kids loved my costume... Annika made sure to point out "Mama, you look cuuuuuute!" while Conor kept poking the fluffy skirt.

Thanks to everyone who helped make this costume a success!

Valeria's 4th Birthday Party

This weekend, Annika attended a birthday party for one of her best friends, Valeria. All week long, Annika could hardly wait for Valeria's party and was practically twitching with anticipation once Saturday rolled around. The girls are in the same pre-school class and adore each other to no end. Having such a great friendship is a blessing ... as is the fact Valeria's house is about 3 doors away from our house; it really couldn't get much better! Oh, and Valeria's parents (Daniella and Carlos) and fabulous people, too. Win, win, win.

The party was a lot of fun ... both for the kids and the adults. The house looked festive and the atmosphere was high energy. At one point during the party, Carlos pulled out a huge bag of hats/wigs and let the kids go to town. That was a brilliant move; the kids had a blast trying on the fun hats and dancing to the club music that was rocking through the speakers. In addition, they had balloons galore for the kids to play with and make into a variety of creations (from dogs to aliens to flowers), and a cat pinata for the kids to whack at. It was a treat to be included in Valeria's special day and we are so grateful to have been invited.

The birthday girl

 

Pretty decorations

Me trying to be artistic

Annika-Diddy

 

Carlos got in on the accessory fun

Valeria rockin' the blue wig while singing and dancing her heart out.

This baby was 1 day shy of being two weeks old ... she was beyond adorable!

Me still trying to be artistic

Valeria taking her turn at the pinata

Annika showing her brute force

I love this picture through and through

What a great family!

Valeria even got to blow out the candles twice ... once after we sang "Happy Birthday
in English and again after we (aka everyone but me) sang "Happy Birthday" in Spanish

Daniella made these traditional Venezuelan desserts that were sooo yummy!
They're basically layered jello, but not overly sweet, which I really liked. Annika was
thrilled at the idea of having a pink dessert!

Carving Pumpkins

Happy Halloween!!

It is raining like made here in Seattle, so we expect a very damp trick or treating experience tonight. That's ok ... we're natives and are only thrown off of our game when it ISN'T raining on Halloween.

To help our house look a bit more festive, we broke out our pumpkins and carving knives on Monday. The kids were thrilled to have a chance to get into the holiday mood ... not to mention, decide what their pumpkins would ultimately look like. We tag teamed the kids (and their pumpkins), which seemed to work out quite nicely. No one had to be patient or feel left out of the experience. Parenting win for us!

Annika and Eric sketching out her concept

Conor adding his two cents worth to his pumpkin's sketch

The first incision

Conor "cooping" out his pumpkin

We were amazed by how thick and unseedy these pumpkins were...
made cleaning out the insides very easy, thought

Annika cleaning out her pumpkin

Conor and his finished jack-o-lantern

Annika and her finished jack-o-lantern

The whole "fierce pumpkin" carving team

Conor and his pumpkin really see eye to eye

Conor checking out his workmanship

Eric finishing up the creative process ... notice
the lack of children at this point; they abandoned the process temporarily for
something more exciting... aka chasing each other around the kitchen a few times

Conor inspecting his flameless candle

Annika and her "fierce" pumpkin

Our Kennewick Weekend

Last Friday, Annika's school was closed for teacher training. That meant one of us would be home with her and the idea of "hey, why don't we make a weekend out of it an visit the extended family in Kennewick before the passes get snowy" took shape.

Before kids, the door-to-door drive would take us 3 hours in the summer and 3.5 hours in the winter (barring anything weird like pass closures, etc.). On Friday, it took us 4.5 or 5 hours to go door to door. Nothing like traveling with wiggly kids who have to pee every 10 minutes!

We wound up driving two cars over because of our plan to leave our spare car behind so our nieces can use it. Great in theory... in practice, that resulted in Eric having a very peaceful drive over with our dog and me having a stressful time driving our kids over in the van. We did caravan and used Annika's Hello Kitty walkie talkies to maintain an open line of communication between the cars, but that didn't help when the kids needed new movies in the DVD player or helping picking up the book/toy/shoe/water bottle that they happened to drop. I was pretty frazzled by the time we pulled up to our destination but was glad we made it in one piece and me without too many bald spots. ;)

Our plan was to stick around until Sunday, but that had a chance of getting hijacked when Eric's boss reached out to him saying there were Internet connectivity issues back at the office. Mind you, this was at 9 Friday night. Eric wound up working with a guy from the ISP until 1:30 AM on Saturday (can we have a collective "ugh, that poor guy!!" inserted here, please??) Fortunately, the issue was resolved and Eric didn't have to pack up our crew for a Saturday return trip to Seattle, which he thought might have to happen.

Conor woke up at 4:50 Saturday morning (can we have a collective, "ugh, that's early" inserted here, please??); to pass the time, he and I hung out in the bedroom's walk in closet (all of us shared a room that weekend) and read stories until Annika woke up a bit after 6:00. To let the others in the house sleep as long as possible (namely, Eric), I shuttled the kids off to the closest Starbucks for hot cocoa ("hot toto", per Conor) and the opportunity to speak above a whisper.

The rest of the weekend was really mellow. John (Eric's brother) made chocolate chip cookie dough before we arrived so he and the kids could do a project together. (Wasn't that sweet of him??) It was a huge hit; the kids loved it ... and the rest of us loved the resulting cookies.

It was a rainy, cold weekend, so we mostly hung out at the house and caught up with Eric's brother and his family, as well as Eric's sister and her husband, who live close to Eric's brother (et al).

A few months ago, Eric's brother's family added a 3rd Great Dane to their pack. They named him Zed; he's super cute, but already bigger than our Buca. He decided that Annika (who runs everywhere and makes random squeaky noises) was his toy, so took to chasing her and trying to play with her. Annika wasn't overly impressed with that idea. Zed also wanted to play (aka nibble  and slobber on) Buca, who like Annika, wasn't overly enthusiastic with the idea, so poor Zed spent a lot of the weekend segregated from the kids or on a leash. Our kids had a great time with the older Danes (Nevaeh and Boomer) who were much slower and less inclined to think our kids were chase-worthy.

On Sunday morning, we packed up and made the long drive home. (Fortunately, without the many potty stops that we had on Friday!) Because of our fairly early start, we had the freeway to ourselves for much of drive to Ellensburg. We saw quite a few gorgeous fog banks (partially making me wish we had the ability to stop on the side of the freeway so I could practice photographing landscapes), not to mention beautiful waterfalls in the mountains and some stunning autumn-colored trees all along the way.

Nevy

Zed

View of the canyon Friday night

Boomer and Erin chillin' on the floor

Makin' cookies with Uncle John

Coooooookies!

October Daring Bakers Challenge: Mille-feuille/Napoleon

This month's Daring Bakers challenge really had me revved up from the minute I saw it. We were tasked to make napoleons ... including making our own puff pastry from scratch. Really? Puff pastry and pastry creme all layered on top of each other in one stack of heavenly goodness. Oh darn! :D

I found this challenge really straightforward and not tricky. The only difficulty I had was finding the time to do it. October proved to be a really busy month for us and mille-feuille is a two-day baking experience. Much like when making croissants, a dough (not yeast-based, unlike croissant dough) is made and rolled into a square (Day 1). Then, butter is pounded a bit and placed in the middle of the dough square. Then dough is folded in over the butter, rolled out, turned, refolded, chilled, rolled, folded, turned, etc. etc. etc. The pastry creme is also made on day 1. Both creations spend the night in the fridge to get nice and cold. The next day, the dough is rolled, folded, turned, rolled, folded, turned a few more times. Once the required rolling, folding, and, turning is complete, the dough is rolled out one more time, cut into thirds, and baked. After the dough has a chance to cool, the napoleons begin to really take shape because that's when the stacking of the pastry creme and puff pastry goodness takes place.

This recipe called for topping the napoleon with royal icing and a chocolate drizzle, but I found that to be unnecessary ... too sweet. I would have preferred an unsweetened whipping cream with raspberries instead... it needed a little tartness to the dish. Another thing I decided was to pre-cut the puff pastry before stacking the napoleons... aka make a bunch of little ones instead of making one big one; cutting got a bit messy because the knife's downward pressure made the pastry creme ooze a bit. That said, it still tasted good!

All in all, though, I was pleased with how my dessert turned out. Hurray!

Our October 2012 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Suz of Serenely Full. Suz challenged us to not only tackle buttery and flaky puff pastry, but then take it step further and create a sinfully delicious Mille Feuille dessert with it!