Pirates & Princesses

It is no secret that Lila has a huge affinity for princesses...and she may or may not think she is a princess, too!  Several months ago I got a pre-sale email for the Disney Pirates & Princess show at the US Cellular Center which featured Sofia the First and Jake and the Neverland Pirates, two of Lila's favorites!  I hopped online quick and secured 3 tickets for 5th row center and stuck them in a secret space until the big day arrived!  We knew that we needed to keep this one quiet until the day of or we would have been bombarded (and annoyed) when asked every day when she got to go to the show!

The day arrived and we told her we had a big surprise for her, to which she responded that she wanted to guess what it was!  With a few questions involved in her guessing, it wasn't long before she figured it out and she giggled and screamed with excitement!  We got her all dressed and ready to go, but there was one final surprise...a Princess Sofia Amulet!  This special amulet was a special gift Sofia received that allows her to talk to animals!  You would have thought we had given her the world!  We were ready to go!



Wearing her {glowing} amulet!

Every time we get ready to do something like this I find myself wondering what we have gotten ourselves into?!  Yet at the same time, I am so happy to be doing it for Lila because it is really all about her when we do this stuff, it has nothing to do with Mike or I, she deserves that from time to time!  It is always fun to walk into a performance like this and see all the other parents doing the exact same thing for their princess and/or pirate lover! 

Lila's new friend, Izzy!

The show began with a short performance of Doc McStuffins, another one of Lila's favorites!  After Doc performed it was time for Sofia!  Lila was in awe of how beautiful princess Sofia looked!  Each segment of the show was them acting out an episode, so each performance lasted close to 30 minutes which was nice because it allowed them to keep a storyline and keep the kids engaged!




Doc McStuffins



Sofia the First


After Sofia there was a short intermission and it was time for Jake and the Neverland Pirates!  Lila really likes Jake, but at this point she leaned over to me and said, "I really like it better when the characters are kids like on the TV show!"  BUSTED!!!  Either way, she was having a great time and as quick as that comment came, it went and she was totally engaged in the magic of it all!

Jake and the Neverland Pirates!

Daddy & Lila enjoying the show!

 



 

The finale which included Mickey & Minnie!

There will be a time in the near future where performances such as this won't be as magical as they are right now, so we will make sure we squeeze as many of these make-believe opportunities in as long as we can!  It was a fun day for Lila, but Mom and Dad would be lying if they said they didn't have fun too!

Family fun!

Officially Fall!

Not only has the weather finally started to feel like fall, we marked our family fall tradition of going to Bart's Farm on the 5th of October!  This tradition was something Mike and I did even before Lila was born and one we plan on carrying out as long as the Gingrich family owns the farm and opens their home up to visitors who are in search of their fall treasures! 

 



Where the tradition began...our first house!



For those of you that don't know about Bart's Farm, it is a cute little farm off of Alburnett Rd.  The Gingrich family started the pumpkin patch to raise money for their kids and their college tuitions!  It has a lot of the fun amenities of the bigger pumpkin patch options, but it has a family feel that isn't commercialized.  We highly recommend going!

 

 

Welcome to the farm!

We started the adventure with a trip into the barn to see all of the animals!  The barn is the home to cows, horses, kitties, and other livestock!  After the trip to the barn we moved on to start our pumpkin gathering!

Daddy & his girl in the barn!

 

 

Lila amongst the pumpkins!

After gathering up all of our pumpkins we headed home to put our very tired girl down for a nap with promises of decorating when she woke up!  We didn't waste much time diving right in when she woke up.  Even the puppies enjoyed helping us put the display together this year.

Lila picks out a "baby" pumpkin each year!

Tag posing for a picture! 

 

The finished product!

 

 

Wait!!! Something was missing!  Oh, Lila & puppy, it's now perfect!

While putting the porch together the temperature had dropped a bit and it had started to drizzle.  We decided to go inside and warm up and bake a batch of my Grandma Harvey's delicious chocolate chip cookies.  I had shared in a recent post how much Lila is enjoying helping out in the kitchen...she is really quite the helper (she is a certified taste tester)!

I love carrying on the tradition of family recipes!

Why is it that the dough tastes so darn good?!  YUM!

Another fall tradition I love is the Saturday that I spend with my girlfriends doing our annual fall shopping & lunch trip!  We take a Saturday and start in Mount Vernon making sure to hit our favorite spots and have lunch at the Lincoln Café.  After we wrap up in Mount Vernon we pick different destinations to visit to round out our shopping and fall leaves tour!  This year we picked Independence and Vinton stopping at many of their stores and picking up items here and there!  Whether we walk away with a car full or not, it is the time spent together each fall that really kicks off the season!

A very large metal "E" that had to come home with me!

Every year I pray that we have a longer fall than the next!  The weather stayed rather warm longer this year, so I keep hoping that our fall weather will extend well into November...here is to wishful thinking!