Santa's Wonderland at Bass Pro Shops

A first for us this year...a visit to see Santa at Bass Pro Shops.  They have this super cute Santa Wonderland with bunch of activities for kids as well as the real Santa.  I mean hands down this is the most realistic Santa I have ever seen.

I decided to take the girls on a Tuesday night.  They had a short day at school and I figured that it wouldn't be too busy on a weeknight.  Well, I don't have anything to compare it to, but it was definitely pretty crowded for a Tuesday.  While we were waiting for our turn to see Santa, we kept busy wandering through the store:

We were definitely out of our element in this store.  Sorry, but we are "city folk."  Paige saw a fishing pole and asked me what it was.  Ashley said, "this store is really interesting even though I'm not really into this stuff."  Amen, to that Ashley.  I think this picture is a classic--Paige putting a letter in Santa's mailbox with a crossbow in someone's cart in the background.

Finally, it was our turn to see Santa

All visitors get a free picture with Santa, free craft ornament, a Christmas silly band and a free kids meal at the attached fish house restaurant.

By this time, we were starving so we took our free certificates for kids' meals over to the restaurant.  I highly recommend the bread they bring to the table.  It is a sweet yeast bread with a crusty sugar topping.  Ashley told me, "this may be the best bread I have ever eaten.  No offense mom, but it is even better than your homemade bread."  It was pretty good.

Good times.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

I confess.  I don't really look forward to decorating for Christmas.  Last year because we were out of town, I basically got out of it, but this year we are staying home for Christmas so...

Thank goodness for two girls who are excited and filled with Christmas spirit; for Paige who kept asking me when we were going to put the Christmas tree up and if we could put some lights outside and for Ashley who was so happy that I came with her to Activity Days to help her decorate a gingerbread house.

We usually do the tree the day after Thanksgiving, but I couldn't even think about it this year.  We waited until family night on Monday and had a tree trimming party.  I made gingerbread men to hang on the tree and just opened all the ornament boxes and let the girls randomly put up the ornaments in any fashion they saw fit.  After the tree was 'a twinklin' we had doughnuts and egg nog for refreshment.

It did take me the next few days to slowly finish with the stockings, lights and garlands.  I kept it pretty simple this year, but we are now ready to go.  Add the first big snow we are supposed to get this weekend and it will officially be Christmastime around here! 

Today Is Your Birthday....

Mister Smith celebrated another birthday!  We played it pretty low key as we were still recovering from Thanksgiving.  He already enjoyed his birthday present a few weeks ago in the form of tickets to a Notre Dame football game.

After sleeping in, we went to see the movie, Tangled, which Paige now considers her favorite princess movie.  We all agreed it was pretty cute.

Dave and I also went out for dinner.  Dave picked one of our favorite restaurants--Heaven on Seven.  This time we did something totally new and ordered the seven-course chef's choice meal.  This basically means that you don't pick your food, the chef does it for you.  Our server, recommended that we share one, seven-course meal, which was good advice because between the two of us we couldn't even finish this!

For the foodies, here is what we had:

The first course was an andouille sausage, polenta, mustard, and carmelized onion appetizer.  This was my favorite.  Each element was good on it's own but when you put it all together in one bite; it just exploded with the perfect flavor.  Loved it!

Our second course, was soup and bread.  We got one of their famous cornbread muffins and samples of gumbo and turtle soup.

Courses three through seven were all smaller portion entrees (this was a ton of food.)  We had blackened tilapia over a crabcake, a voodoo chicken enchilada, worchestershire beef tenderloin tip with horseradish mashed potatoes, a bowl of red beans and rice, and finally orzo jambalaya.  We couldn't even eat the jambalaya.  We were so full we just had it packaged to take home.

The final course was dessert.  Yes, you get dessert, so it's really an eight-course meal.  We were very full by this point, but somehow you can always make room for key lime pie!

Everything was delicious and it was a very fun way to eat, because you never know what is coming next.  Okay, now here is the best part...the total price for this experience was $35!  Yep, $35 for two people and all that food.  What a steal!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I love cooking, I love family, and I love Thanksgiving!  This year we had dinner at our  house and had Dave's cousin Rob, his lovely wife Mary, and their 5 children come over.  Dave's colleague from India, Naveen, also joined us for his first ever American Thanksgiving dinner.  Rob and Mary have four girls (and 1 boy,) add them to our two girls and it makes for some real fun girl time.

I can't speak for everyone, but I had a great time.  The dinner was good and the company even better.

During the last minute rush to get everything finished in the kitchen, the girls went to work making turkey placecards out of oranges, marshmallows and turkeys.  They did a great job and even organized where everyone would be sitting. 

This year our turkey finished a little earlier than expected but fortunately, I was able to keep it warm and it made it to the table with everything else, no problem.

After dinner, the girls played a few games including a rousing round of Twister.  The guys watched a football game and we all enjoyed dessert: pumpkin bars, cherry pie and coconut cream pie.

As the evening wound down, there was definitely a sense of happiness and gratitude as I looked back on the day and the year: grateful for the many blessings we enjoy, for the Lord's merciful hand in our lives, for my own little family, and for our extended family.  It has been a great pleasure to be close to Rob and Mary and have the opportunity to get to know them better.

Following the party and a little clean-up after everyone had gone home, I went out with a few friends for some late night shopping.  We went to the outlet mall which opened at 9pm.  I found some good deals and earned some sore feet by the time I got home at 2:30am, but it was fun!!  And good ol' Dave finished the dishes while I was gone.

In Thanksgiving

Gratitude is the most humbling of virtues,

It helps me see the abundance in my life.

It helps me to recognize the blessings

and feel the love.

My Favorite Girls

This week was parent-teacher conference.  I went to Paige's but not to Ashley's.  I was planning to see Ashley's teachers but she has straight As and I got emails from two different teachers telling me that due to limited conference time, if you don't have concerns or questions it is better to leave conference appts. for parents of students who have issues---basically we were uninvited to P/T conference.  Whatever!

Ashley is such a good girl and student, I'm not too worried.  This week we had lunch with Dave's new boss and his family.  Dave's boss has 3 girls, two are the same age as our girls.  Of course, you never know how something like this is going to go.  Not only are you meeting strangers for the first time, but you are at a restaurant and have your kids with you.  Before we left, we just told the girls to remember their manners and be friendly.  Well, Ashley didn't disappoint.  She is a such a socializer/talker.  She immediately sat down and struck up a conversation with one of the girls who is her same age.  I just watched her and smiled as she kept the conversation going, was very friendly, and even ended up tickling and entertaining the 4 year old.  It reminded me of Dave's mom who is also very good in social situations.  Funny thing is that all the kids got along famously and the wives were very talkative, but the two people who actually know each other and work together were the most quiet and reserved.  I think it probably has something to do with two guys having been outnumbered by the females for most of their lives!

Now for Paige's P/T conference.  She also has all high marks and is above grade level, so no academic worries.  I did appreciate her teacher telling me that Paige is "a really good person."  I'd rather hear my child has a good character more than good grades.

Ashley and Paige are my favorite girls!

Soccer

We survived another soccer season,
although I am a little late getting the pictures up.  

This season was Paige's first season playing all-girls in "real" soccer games.  She played really well and in her mom's opinion, was one of the best players on the team :)  She scored the game winning goal in her first game.  However, little did we know that that game would be the highlight of the season.  Her poor little team didn't win one other game.  In fact, they didn't even come close, losing every game by big margins.  Paige did manage to score a few more goals and save a few as goalie.  Fortunately, at this age the girls don't care about the score of a game, they just have fun running around.   

On the otherhand, Ashley had a great team this season.  They had a number of ties but they did go undefeated this season.  Ashley is pretty much a full-time defender now.  She plays last man and has a very good understanding of the game (now her mom just needs to get out with her more and help her improve her kicking skills.)

She is still only playing recreationally.  We have been very torn about putting her on a competitive traveling team.  The problem is games are on Sunday and we just don't feel like we can commit to playing games on Sunday, so she will just keep playing for fun and exercise.  This winter she is going to play co-ed indoor once a week.  I am a little worried about the co-ed thing, but friends who have played assure me that it's fine.   

I did a pretty poor job of getting pictures of the girls playing this season.  Paige's pictures were taken by another parent who gave me a copy and as for Ashley it seemed like it was either raining, too cold to hold the camera or I was too busy talking to my friend, Cheryl (her daughter also plays.)