ice capades

with the trip to disney looming we didn't really plan to go to see princesses on ice. but the kids and i drove past a billboard for it every day on our way to school/work. and they are totally obsessed with tangled. so we gave in and planned a last minute venture.

caroline dresses the part. her rapunzel doll also joined us.

quentin brought his mickey in hopes of a mouse sighting (and also wrote all over his face with a ballpoint pen. sigh.)

yay. mickey, minnie, goofy, and donald started off the show and turned it over to the princess and the frog.

caroline was very focused

cinderella was next. pickle = in heaven.

she told me that "cinderella's boy" was very handsome. oh boy.

tangled time

with every passing hour, i'm so glad i left my tower

and then mickey and minnie came back out and introduced rapunzel as the official 10th disney princess.

and then all 10 princesses and their "boys" came out for the finale. pickle was floored.

membership has its privileges

the day after christmas we used the reciprocal benefit of our philly children's museum membership to go to the tiny museum in my hometown. (seriously, it's so small that no one has ever apparently tried to use a reciprocal membership because the women working the front desk looked at us like we were speaking dutch or something.)

caroline quickly discovered a stage, dress-up clothes, and video camera and started performing

and the shimmery skirt did not come off for the duration of our visit

driving the space shuttle back to the stage

see, quentin was there too

and now he's on the stage too

two tired kids = mission accomplished.

christmas day

christmas day. hard to get photos when 8 adults, 3 children, a big red dog, and the biggest mountain of presents imaginable are squeezed into one tiny room.

a megasaurus primer

in case you need the megasaurus back story...

we saw megasaurus at three different monster truck events last year. and Q is smitten. he often recreates megasaurus with a red dragon happy meal toy and the trailer portion of a matchbox tractor trailer truck. maybe someday they will make an actual toy.

christmas morning

caroline told santa she wanted princesses. quentin told santa he wanted a megasaurus. santa is quite familiar with the princesses so that was easy. santa and his elves do not, however, make a megasaurus toy. so he did the best he could: a cardboard megasaurus hat, a megasaurus t-shirt, and an autographed picture of megasaurus. and he threw in some monster trucks too. and angry birds, since he knew how badly Q wanted to win one at hershey park.

a prelude

a few days before christmas we let the kids open up a bunch of gifts that had accumulated here, rather than haul them up to massachusetts and then have to haul them right back. it was chaos as they tore through the paper. but they loved all their gifts! after this, we told them about disney world, but i don't think they really got it. i expected a bigger reaction. maybe next time.

holiday hounds

and this...

was where dr. noodleberry was hiding the next morning. Q got a kick out of it. and then he wanted his truck back.