Elliot's 3rd Birthday Party

Elliot will be 3 on July 7th - but since we will be traveling then and then again, we had her party today.    Confusing, since she knows her birthday is in July, but it is still June.  But she also thinks her birthday is in "July And September" sometimes, so who knows.  She has been talking about her birthday party for months, so we hope it delivered.  We had fun.  The kids were great.  Zoo/animal/jungle theme and an invasion of 3 year olds.  Hats off to the older cousins who played along so well and to Mindy for tediously rolling frog eyes in green sugar for the cupcakes without rolling her eyes at me (at least where I could see it)...

Playing beauty salon with Charlie before the party.  Charlie asked "what is this?" while she was adjusting her new yarmulke into place (a wedding momento from our friends Jen & Eric - and now repurposed as a elastic holder).  This was all going down moments before Charlie (sniff sniff) moved back to Chicago - something this website refuses to publicly acknowledge.

Posing before the party.
The cake(s).  I set out to do this not knowing I would have an audience into the madness.  Not sure the Johnstons expected to be up to their elbows in frosting their last night in MA (well, one of them anyway).  Chocolate and vanilla cake with cream cheese frosting, marshmallow eyes (frogs' eyes moistened with water and rolled in green sugar - ouch!) , Cookie Crisp cereal monkey ears, and ground up Oreos tiger mane & monkey hair.  Come to think of it, tigers don't have manes...
Ami, Alex & Elliot playing with animal figures & decorating Lion tails.
Lion tails and balloons as the kids arrive.

Next, we were "Going on a Hunt" to the basement safari.  Where Ben was, ahem, supposed to take a picture of all the kids in their safari animal hats.  Ben, did you take them on a different camera?

Ruby is in the jungle safari tent above.  Explaining "Pin the Tail on the Lion" below.
Amelie takes a turn...is she peeking?

We sing Happy Birthday

Alex & Zoe dismantle the tent and invent the one-legged race.
Samantha and Benjamin Dinkin mug for us.
Samantha was over-served.  

Storyland, Glen, NH

You might be thinking that anyone with the audacity to post this many pictures really has no picture censor at all.  Well, trust me this is only a faction of the actual photos taken ... and I am posting as a much to lure all our Chicago and LA readers to plan a trip to Storyland while your babies are still young, with the bonus of visiting your Boston friends along the way.  Many New England ladies who lunch go up during the week with girlfriends and make it an annual pilgrimage.  We made it for the weekend and it was great (about 2-3 hours from Boston).  Definitely going again - for us, it lived up to the hype.  

Um, are they wearing matching madras?  Yup, we are dorks, but our kids could tell us by our shorts in a crowd of adults.  Thanks Old Navy for outfitting the whole family in slightly different versions.  

Little Miss Muffett (the spider lowers when she sits on the stump!).  

Our vikings in the costume shop.

Great big LOVE for the lion drinking fountain.  Everytime.

There was a splashy splash area to cool off.  

One Two, buckle my shoe.

Three Four. Shut the Door.

Five Six & Seven Eight, we did not illustrate.  (forgot to take pics there...)

Nine Ten.  A big fat hen.

Four and 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie...

In the science house thingy all these spongey balls were bowing around and being shot out of things, dumping on us and being vacuumed up.  I swear any one of these areas would have been enough to occupy a day.  Like, there was a Circus inside - a full show!  And, Elliot hated it and it was naptime, so we saw the opening 3 acts and had to bail on the circus, but hey, you can do that when its not the only thing on the agenda for the day and you didn't pay extra for it.  

The Prince's throne inside Cinderella's castle.
Posing in front of Cinderella's castle.  Elliot is off to the side because there were 2 sisters in the center posing, when Elliot marched over and sat down and would not move until we took her picture.  I am sure the other family is wondering who is that little girl who desperately inserted herself into their family photo.    
Inside Cinderella's pumpkin carriage.

The Pumpkin Carriage ride up to Cinderella's Castle.
There were also paddle boats and swan boats outside the castle, but we did not do them this year.  

Curious George and other PBS characters were visiting the park the days we were there as part of a promo thing.  How perfect for our George lovers.  And who even knew they know about Super Why?
Elliot is still talking about how she got to drive and antique car all by herself.  In fact she told me today that she wanted to go to Trader Joe's.  I could take the car with Samantha and Daddy and she would follow us in the van.  To show how serious she is, she stopped being funny with opposites and keeps telling us she will "stop at the red lights and go at the green."  
Here is the bunk bed room in our condo (same condo as the bear).  We stayed at The Seasons New Hampshire condos (for future reference).  It was all of about 3 minutes from Storyland - much closer than the hotels on "the Strip" - but when the girls are older, we will probably stay in those motels (Pirate's Cove is attached to mini-golf and there is one with an indoor water park - too old for our pack this year - we relished having our our kitchen and room to roam in the condo, even though it was super quiet and full of bears.  Johnstons, we would have had to flip over which family got the bunk room - we weren't expecting it.  

Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater ... this is where the wife lived.  
Exact replica of German carousel.  Who would know?  I think they call it that to sound fancy and to explain why it spins in a circle but you have to rock it yourself to make it go up and down.  See Sammy & Ben on the bench.  Poor Sammy, this was the beginning of her blah sickness that brought us all down this week and last.  
Yeah, there were only a few rides Elliot was too short for - the roller coaster and the river rafting & water logs.  Lots of rides and lots of shows and lots of hands-on playgrounds.  I needed more time there, but everyone else was cool to leave when our 1.5 days were over. 
Flying Dutch Shoes.  
Mary Mary quite contrary's house.  Perfect for Samantha.

Bye Bye Humpty Dumpty!  We sure had fun.  

Storyland Schmoryland - We saw a Bear!

This is Elliot & Samantha "watching for animals in the wood" - namely because we have been reading Annie and the Wild Animals - and because we were staying at this condo in New Hampshire for our big weekend at Storyland.  And we have tons of pictures of Storyland to share, but we'll get to that.  It would have been a great event if even a little chipmunk would have walked by in the hours over our 2 day we stared vigil out this window.  Ben & I gave up the animal watch.  BUT, our little lark, Elliot, up at 5:15 every day was up this morning too.  Ben was leaning on the wall half asleep while Elliot colored & I snored in the bunk bed next to Samantha...until Ben looked up and saw this:
Elliot was so excited, she sprinted to get me, but I was already on my way, having heard Ben start.  Grabbed the camera from the breakfast table and there ya go.  Black bear for breakfast.   The flash may have scared her off - thank goodness, b/c that is NOT zoo glass there.  It is rickety condo glass and a flimsy screen our little tasty morsels, Samantha & Elliot were gawking through. 
When we left later, we bolted to the car, loaded up and drove off, only to see this bear stalking about 10 yards behind the garbage cans in the parking lot.  This pic, taken from the safety of our car - we think may be the same bear, but it was definitely bigger than a chipmunk.  Ahem.  We were expecting to see bears this weekend, but more made of polyester and fiberglass and following Goldilocks around hugging kids ... made for some interesting lessons to teach Elliot.  "you can hang out in the 3 bears house at Storyland, but when there is a bear out our window, you cannot bang on the glass or open the door..."  What's a 'real' bear mommy?