THE QUEEN OF QUIRK

weekend recap

Lara and her BFF went to the fair this weekend and Lara raved about it so much that we just had to take the other kiddos. So, yesterday we set out to have some good old fashioned fun at the fair!

Colin and Norah on the walk downtown. Can you tell Norah's excited!?!?

All the photos are from my iPhone since I forgot the camera. They're not the greatest, but they turned out good enough. ;)

the kiddos on the big swing. this is always a favorite. :)

i love ferris wheel photos!

colin and mia on the ferris wheel. snuggling because it's SO HIGH. well, and because they just like to snuggle :)

another shot of the ferris wheel. love the bavarian flag theme. so pretty!

norah on the pony ride. it was, by far, her favorite ride!

one last shot before we left for the night.

It was such a fun night. It was decided totally last minute but I am so glad we went!

It didn't come without drama though. On the last ride, the girlies were getting bullied by bigger kids (and ADULTS!!) and couldn't get on the rides because there's no line and it's basically a free for all. So we had to get up there and fight to get them seats. Poor little things were crying and upset at getting pushed around, but we managed to get everyone on the ride at the end. The drama never stops with this many princesses in tow! ;)

so stinkin' funny

Found this today on themodernmormonmom and laughed so hard I cried. Had to share.

 

If you can't see the embedded video, please visit tmmm's blog here.

legoland '10

We seem to get ourselves over to Legoland at least once a year. It doesn't really matter where we live...there's always one that's close by.

This year we went with some friends and their kids and had a complete blast despite the pouring rain!

Norah being her goofy self with her little friend, Molly.

 

Mia pretending she's crashing a Lego car.
 

Lara at driving school. This is by far her favorite part of all the parks.
 

Lara being attacking by quite a cheeky little Lego bunny.
 

This year we stayed in the Lego Holiday Village which is just a 5 minute walk from the park. It's very small but it was so nice to not have to drive after a long day at the park. There were a few themes but, by far, the favorite playground was the pirate ship in Pirate Cove.
 

On our last day, we huddled the kidlets together for a group shot in front of the park. They had such a  blast.
 

Colin has shared his love of Legos with our kiddos and I'm so happy. They play for hours and hours by themselves and with him, building crazy models and fantastical creatures. We need more shelves just to house them all. :)

recap: essen spiel

We've attended EssenSpiel (pronounced ess-en-schpeel) before and we had a lot of fun. It is, however, basically a convention center full of geeks and unwashed teens who rarely see the light of day for fear of leaving their games and actually interacting with...people. So, I was a bit apprehensive about going again. I mean, I've seen it once before, right?

In the end I caved, though, and we ended up having a great time. These are some of my favorite moments.

The best part about this convention? You get to play to your heart's content. The girls absolutely love this place and we get to test-run board games before we actually buy them. It's good because we're very picky. The games need to be good enough to hold our attention as well and they also need to be easy enough for a 3 year old to handle. That's a tall order. We did, however, find a few that went home with us.

Oh, the things he would bring home if he endless amounts of cash. Thank goodness he has his own game room now and I don't have to look at his geek stuff constantly.

I'm sure he would say the same about my crafting, though... 

;)

And then, of course, I get roped into standing next to this guy who loved the fact that my level of discomfort rose significantly when he shoved that spiked head into my face. I'm smiling but I seriously couldn't wait to get away from this dude.

A rather typical day for us, I'd say. :)

legoland for father's day

We took off Friday night for some much needed down time/family time. We'd been planning a trip to Legoland Windsor for weeks and the kiddos were so excited to finally be on the road! Colin is a big kid himself and Legos are his absolute favorite toys, so we knew we were going to have a blast. I'm a big Lego fan myself, but the rest of my family? Absolutely bonkers for them.

They say that getting there is half the fun. Well, it is if you have the Doots along for the ride.

This would be called: Sponge Bop Square Doots, Norah's impression of Sponge Bob Square Pants.

Doots then insisted on playing with the camera, so I showed her how to use it and she took a photo of me. This one came out considerably better than the one she took of Mia.

Considering just how much Mia is drooling in this photo, that may not be such a bad thing...

At last! Now the fun part begins...trying to please 3 princesses who all have very different ideas of how these two days are going to play out. Everyone wants to be first to do everything.

So we told them that if they fought over anything as ridiculous as who gets to what with whom, when and where, then we would feed them to the dinosaur.

It didn't work...but hey, we tried.

We rode the Space Tower first since it was closest.

The sun kept playing hide and seek with us, so all our shots have wonky sunlight. This is Lara trying to pull herself up while being blinded by the sudden rays of sunshine.

Mia and I took a turn on the monorail together. Love that we got this shot. Yay! One of my kids looks like me!!

A shot of miniland as seen from our ride.

YOU can dance!!! YOU can JI-IVE!

I think this one of the first highlights of our trip. ABBA, immortalized in LEGO.

Groovy.

The English seaside, complete with windbreaks. It looks just like Hunstanton!

Doots, completely ice-creamerific, having the time of her life, sooo wanting to go Godzilla on miniland. I could tell.

More shots of miniland.

I forget which castle this is...I think it's here in England, though.

One thing we didn't take a photo of was the model of Minack Theatre. However, I was so impressed with the model, that I made it a point to look it up when we got home.

We are so going here. 

photo courtesy of falmouth-cottage.co.uk

The model of Sacre Coeur, one of my favorite spots in Paris.

A rare treat...a family photo in which I do not look barfilicious! SCORE!

We watched the Johnny Thunder Adventure Show and the kids were tickled pink. These guys were having a good time jumping off this tower, you could just tell.

After a full day, we made our way back to our hotel. Colin set up the entire trip and we were pleasantly surprised when we arrived at our hotel, St. Anne's Manor. It really was beautiful, inside and out, and the staff was super friendly and talked to the kiddos endlessly about Legoland.

photo courtesy of hilton.co.uk/stannesmanor 

The Doots crashed pretty hard that night and we had a hard time waking her up the next day. She looked so peaceful that we didn't really want to disturb her. But, hey, we had another fun-filled day waiting for us!

Besides, it was Father's Day and we needed to have some very important Daddy time before we headed to the park!

Wakey wakey!! :)

I so want this at the front door of our dream house. Everyone would be so jealous.

Next up: driving school. Mia was absolutely hopeless on the track. Lara, on the other hand, kept a very cool head about her. She was just so dang excited to be behind the wheel of a car!

We then went on a fairytale boat ride.

Look! A fairy godmother!! I made the kids stop asking for wishes and I asked her for a $500 gift certificate to Anthropologie. I know she heard me because her little animatronic arm swung her clear lego encrusted wand right down on my head. And then she winked. She loves me.

By the end of the second day we were all a little bit tired. Lara and Mia were still all smiles and rarin' to go. The Doots, however, was full of stink and bile. Little stinker. She's supposed to be having fun!! 

That's normally how she looks at me. Don't let all these smiley pictures fool you!

But kids never act how they're supposed to, right? So, with a sulky, cranky Doots, we stopped one last time at the gift shop/blackhole and then we headed home.

Goodbye, dear Legoland. Thank you for entertaining our punks and lifting the burden of all that cash we had in our wallets. What would we do without you?

(((HUGS)))

church fete

At the church up the hill from us, there is a church fete every year at the rectory. We'd never been up there, but Lara's country dancing (folk dancing) class was asked to participate along with a bunch of other dance groups during the fete. Lara was so darn excited about performing for a bunch of people. She is a complete spotlight junkie!

She did such a good job, though!! All of the girls messed up at least once or twice and every time they did, the whole audience giggled along with the girls. It was so sweet. They really were just happy to be there, having a good time. We, of course, had to have a bit of tea and cake, too. Then we rummaged through some of the thrift tables and found a couple of goodies to bring home.


Just on the other side of that big hedge on the left, there was a fire engine that the local volunteers brought out so the kids could climb on. I had a hard time getting any shots of the kids because they were literally flying all over this thing. 
That's Mia getting into the truck.

Of course, that last statement does not include the fact that the youngest piglet ADORES having her picture taken. When the fireman put this helmet on her, she started screaming for me because I just HAD to look at her. And then it was all:

"Take a picture!! MUMMY!!! Take a PICTURE!!!! Look at ME!!!"
Yes, I see you, you little stinker.
Dag, she's cute.

sawtry carnival

Every year our little village has a carnival. All the local vendors, crafters and organizations come out and it's a really big deal. There is a big parade of all the groups such as cheerleading, the schools, the pre-schools, etc. to kick off the carnival. The Infants' school (grades K-2) were asked to dress up as the 101 Dalmations. Mia held hands with her friend Tuesday throughout the parade. They were so cute!

Noodle and I walked with her pre-school. Their theme was TV, so Noodle dressed up as her all-time favorite superhero, Sportacus. Complete with a mustache that Maria painted on her. She just couldn't get over herself. She was absolutely obsessed with her painted face.

The parade was led by a local bagpipe group...not really sure who they were, but it was so much fun to have live music in the parade. And get a load of their socks!! I want a pair! :)

Maria was getting absolutely swamped at her face-painting booth, so I offered to pitch in and help. Thank goodness there was a book I could reference! We both sat like this for about 2 hours that afternoon and our backs were absolutely killing us. Ouch!

It was so fun to get to talk to the kiddos, though. They were so sweet and shy and I think my American accent threw them off a bit, too, which is always fun. ;)

During a bit of downtime, Norah asked to have her face painted and she picked this aquarium looking thing from the book. I have to admit that I really liked the way it turned out and Norah was completely in love with herself. She kept stealing the mirror we used to show the kids how they looked so she could stare at her "FISHIES!!!". Little stinker.

All in all, it was a really fun day. Although, I didn't get to see the actual carnival very much. Colin did as he was chasing 3 rowdy girlies around the place. :)

that happy feeling

Found this today while reading through some of my favorite blogs.
I don't know if it's because I love The Sound of Music so much or if it's because this is just so incredibly awesome. But I was so happy I was in tears.
Wow.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EYAUazLI9k
It could also be because I am the biggest softie alive and will cry at anything.
I hope you have a lovely Monday!

ETA: If the link doesn't work for you, search for "sound of music train station" on youtube.com :)

ten years of mamma mia!

About 3 weeks ago I noticed how absolutely in love with Mamma Mia! our oldest daughter was. I think she has the same love for musicals and music that I do. She is always singing and dancing and making up her own little tunes. Not only that, but she has an amazing little voice and has the ability to very accurately mimic a tune soon after she's heard it. Love that about her. Reminds me so much of myself when I was a kid.

So, the thought popped into my head of how fun it would be to take her to see Mamma Mia! live on stage. I was a bit discouraged at first because the tickets I found were over a hundred pounds apiece. After searching for a couple of days I found tickets for around 22 pounds. Not too shabby. So, I called the ticket office to purchase them and when the guy asked me which night I'd like to go on, I had no clue. So, I asked for his suggestion. Without hesitation he said we would really enjoy the performance on April 6th. It was to be the 10th anniversary London performance. I thought "Ok, cool." and didn't really give it another thought.

I decided to keep it a secret from Lara. I simply told her that she had a surprise in London and left it at that. Lara, however, could not stop talking about it. She was dead set on guessing what it was and she would ask me all kinds of questions. I eventually had to tell her that we couldn't bring it home (only because she was trying to pick out a place for it in the house). Colin and I laughed our tushies off thinking about bringing the cast home on the train!

So Monday afternoon we headed for London around 4 pm. When we got to Piccadilly Circus, I let Lara choose the restaurant and of course she chose Pizza Hut. I didn't care much because at least Pizza Hut was going to be fast and we only had an hour and half!

After dinner (which was painfully delayed and sprinkled with less than bad service) we walked out to the street so I could find the theater. I spotted the marquis in the distance and we started making our way towards it. I just waited for Lara to spot it and to see her reaction. About a block away she saw it and thought it was the coolest thing ever.

We walked up to the theater and it was completely packed with people on the sidewalk. The doors were blocked off and the street corners across the street were even filled with spectators! We then started talking to the people around us and it seemed that Benny and Bjorn of ABBA were expected to arrive at any minute. This was the point when I realized I had forgotten to take the memory card out of our printer and all I had was the hard drive memory...which could take about 6 photos on the lowest resolution. I had to choose wisely. Ack!

While we were standing in front of the theater, Lara's face suddenly lit up with understanding.

"Is this my surprise?!?! Are we going inside?!?! What's in there?!?!"

I told her that inside this building was where they performed the musical live on stage and then she said something like

"LIVE!?!? ON STAGE!??! I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT!!!!!"

So, Benny and Born and their entourage showed up and the crowd went wild. It was kinda unbelievable seeing these 2 older gentlemen trying to squeeze through the crowd without getting crushed. After they were safely inside they let us all line up to get in. Even though we'd arrived at 6:45 for a 7:30 show, we got to our seats around 7:20 so I decided we would wait til the intermission to get snacks and drinks.

The show did not disappoint. Lara literally sat on the edge of her seat throughout the entire performance. At the intermission, we got up so she could go to the bathroom and because they had signs everywhere offering free champagne as part of the celebration. So while Lara went to the little girls' room, I went and grabbed some champagne and juice and a couple of mini tubs of ice cream. We then walked back to our seat and had our snack while the curtain went up for the 3rd act.

I wish I could convey the energy of the crowd. It wasn't like going to any musical I'd ever been to. Even when I know all the lyrics, I would never sit in the crowd and sing along with the actors. But on this night, it was a veritable free-for-all sing-a-long! The entire audience was clapping and singing and dancing in their seats. I'd never seen anything like it!

I think that's what Lara loved the most. She didn't have to sit there all quiet just enjoying the show. She got to sing along with some of the biggest Mamma Mia! fans out there!

After the performance, the actors did a little encore performance of a couple of songs like Dancing Queen and Mamma Mia and then the producers took the stage for a thank you toast and to talk a bit about the show and its beginnings.

Then, they suddenly announced Benny and Bjorn and they came out on stage! The crowd completely erupted and the energy was taken up a notch with explosions of confetti, streamers and fireworks! They shot fireworks INTO the crowd! It was kinda crazy!

After the guys spoke for a couple of minutes, the actors started dancing again with a 3 song dance number and the whole crowd sang along, on their feet, clapping their hands.

The energy was fantastic!

I swear everyone in that crowd left the theater on Cloud 9. It was an exhilarating experience and I'm so glad we took the booker's recommendation. I'll never forget this performance.

I have to say, though, that it was all for her. This face was what I was aiming for. This sweet little face filled with happiness and wonder. I think I got it. :)

My favorite part?

During the intermission, she stopped eating her ice cream, placed her hand on mine and said

"This is the most fun I've ever had. I never thought I could have this much fun."

update coming soon

Lara had a blast. She had such a good time I almost cried.
But the update is on hold because I forgot my memory card in my camera and had to save the photos to my camera's hard drive and now I can't get them off. So instead of taking a photo of the photos on my cameras screen, I'll wait til Colin gets home and then I'll sweet talk him into getting my photos for me. Sigh...