Mary Alice in Wonderland

I've been away for a while. I wish I had more time and energy to think of fun things to say. It feels like much of my time is spent on keeping the kids fed, clothed, clean, and educated. I'm afraid once I'm finished with all of my responsibilities, I am an incredibly boring lady.

Her are a few pictures of some of the adventures that our Mary Alice girl has been having, though.

Her birthday present from us (way back in August) was a card that explained that we would take her to the American Girl Bistro to eat with our family. This past Sunday we finally made it out there. Let me tell you...that place is a amazing! I felt like I was a little girl again. Visiting this wonderland of a place took me back to a time when I would pour over the wrinkled pages of my American Girl catalog. It always came in our mailbox about three or four times a year, and, by the time it finally made it's way to the garbage, I'm sure it was dog-eared and scribbled full with the circled items and notations from a girl whose greatest wish was to receive one of those beautiful dolls.

When I was a little girl, my favorite doll was Molly. I researched and schemed and hoped and plotted to get that doll. Sadly, it was just not meant to be... (I don't think I suffered too terribly much, though. :) This store does bring back some of those feelings. My heart wanted to walk out of there with armloads of accessories, clothing, etc. for Mary Alice. I can definitely see how it would be easy to get carried away in that beautiful store. We did walk around every inch of the place, though we left emptyhanded. I don't think Mary Alice suffered too much either. She thoroughly enjoyed herself just having fun with the family.

The food was a little distasteful and a lot overpriced. (At one point, Josh looked over at me during the meal and whispered something about what kind of a meal that dollar amount would have bought us at Saltgrass.) We all had fun, though. It was something different and exciting to do with the girl. Mary Alice loved it!





Milla looks so funny in this picture. She has this HUGE mosquito bite right between her eyes. That, coupled with her odd expression, makes this picture hilarious to me!







These last two pics are from when my parents took the girl to see the new Mary Poppins musical in Dallas. Apparently, it was awesome! Mom told me that Mary Alice filled them in on what was going on during the show. The musical was based on the P.L. Travers books. Mary Alice has read them all, so she was able to explain the storyline to them. Going to this musical was a special thing to do with her grandparents and was also a birthday gift given to her back in August.


They also took her to the fair while they were waiting for the show to start.




And...Last but not least... Our church had a ice cream fellowship after church last night. As soon as Mary Alice heard that they were holding a contest for the best ice cream, she said, "MOM, We must do this!" So... On Friday night, before the kids went to stay with their Grumpy and Nonnie, Mary Alice and I stayed up until almost midnight making two flavors of ice cream. I wanted to try out something different, so we decided to try out some fall flavors. We made apple pie ice cream and pumpkin gingersnap. Guess what? We won! Nevermind that there weren't that many contestants... It was so sweet to see the girl go up and claim her trophy for fantastic ice cream concocting. Very special. Here she is after the social, trophy in hand.