4th Birthday Party

Obviously I have not posted anything in a long time, but I thought this was worth making the time.  :)

Natalie turned 4 years old last week, and requested a princess party! So I had my fun with painting cardboard again and made our staircase a castle!

Guests were invited to dress-up for the event!

 

Then Rapunzel arrived and painted pictures on their cheeks and arms.

 

Arts and crafts were provided, as well as making their own tiara!

Since Rapunzel arrived, Natalie decided that she wanted to wear her Rapunzel dress instead of the Belle dress. After the wardrobe change, Rapunzel read her story book, and sang the song from the movie Tangled! 

 

Then it was time for the birthday song and cupcakes!

Look at all these beautiful princesses (and princes)!!! They sure were chowing down on those ring pops!

 Happy Birthday, Natalie! We love you so much! 

 

Deep thoughts on Beauty and the Beast

Disney's Beauty and the Beast is currently Natalie's favorite movie (and is also one of mine), and she requests to watch it every day. Building upon my friend's post on "Deep Thoughts on the Little Mermaid" at Twinfamy, I thought it would continue the parental expressions of confusion on another one of these timeless Disney movies. I should probably give my hubby some credit, too, as he and I both made the following comical observations:

IMMATURE ORPHAN PRINCE
I calculated that the prince was an 11year old boy when the spell was cast. To quote the narrator,
"[It] was truly an enchanted rose, which would bloom until his twenty-first year." Later, Lumiere sings, "Ten years we've been rusting, needing so much more than dusting." Personally, I think it's a little much for the enchantress to expect an 11 year old boy to NOT be selfish and unkind (maybe it's just me, growing up with a younger brother and all, as well as teaching 11-13 year olds for the past 9 years). Also, why is the 11 yr. old prince answering the door to his own castle? Where are his parents (king/queen)? If they're calling him a prince, there must still be a king alive somewhere, otherwise HE would be king.

MAKES SENSE

Did anyone else know that the the excessively boy-crazy identical blonde triplets who fawn over Gaston are called the Bimbettes (otherwise known as Claudette, Laurette and Paulette)?! I just found that out by looking at the credits. Wow.

THERE ARE LIMITS
When Belle finds her father in the dungeon and offers to take his place, Beast says, "But you must promise to stay here forever," Belle ponders the situation and realizes she can't see him, so she says, "Come into the light..." Is there maybe a certain level of scariness to his appearance that would have changed her mind? Perhaps if he was too scary, then would she say, "Never mind!" as she ran out of there, leaving her father to die? Silly.

CHIP OFF THE OLD BLOCK

Did Chip the teacup originally have the chip in the rim, or did he acquire that carelessly during his time as a teacup? If so, once he turns back into a boy, will part of his head or body be missing? Eeep!

EGGS-AGGERATIONS

When Gaston sings, "And now that I'm grown, I eat five dozen eggs so I'm roughly the size of a barge!" I couldn't believe that 60 would be a safe number of eggs to consume on a daily basis, so I looked it up and found out that an 88-year-old man who had eaten 20 to 30 soft-boiled eggs a day for at least 15 years (reported in 1991) had no adverse effects from eating the eggs throughout the day. I still find Gaston's boasting hard to believe.

Gaston also sings, "And every last bit of me's covered with hair!" he gives a little wink. Are we to imply that he's talking about an unmentionable area(s)? Thanks for that mental image, Gaston. Yeesh!

SUCH A TEASE
Belle mentions that she's hungry, which is why the kitchen utensils put on a song and dance for her meal. However, does anyone see her eat anything other than a cherry and a finger-full of "gray stuff?" All of these gourmet dishes are paraded in front of her, and then the show is over and she applauds. I'd be like, "Um, where did all of that wonderful food go? I'm STARVING!"

KATY PERRY'S "ROAR"
Since he's a beast, when he sings shouldn't it sound like "Roaaaar, roar ro-ro-roaaaar roar (etc.)?" I guess I'll let this one slide since he's an enchanted beast.

THIS IS HEAVY
(Yes, that was a Back-to-the-Future reference) 
I always shudder when the armoire character falls on the Frenchman intruder during the invasion scene. There is no way he survived that, and he’s shown not to have moved an inch for several scenes after. However bad the Beast might have been he wasn’t a murderer (unlike his wardrobe).

HUNTERS' CODE?
What if Gaston killed the beast? Would he mount his head on his wall as he promised? If so, would the Beast's head eventually turn it back into his human head? That would be awkward... especially it it's at the same time the Gaston is showing it off to his friends.

December

We had so much fun this December!

Natalie still wears size 5 clothes, and size 9-10 shoes. Thank you to all my friends who kindly pass-on their daughters' used clothes to Natalie! She loves to lay out outfits and then try each one of them on. 

Here is a panoramic picture of our hallway with all of her outfits. Funny! Except when it's time for bed and she refuses to go until she tries on every single outfit. Ugh.

"Look at me!"

Here is a super cute video from a couple months ago of Natalie and Brian dancing to the My Little Pony song Smile!  It is my favorite! (it's much longer, but I had to shorten it to fit on the blog)

One Saturday, while I was getting my tires rotated, and Natalie and I walked across the street to the park to have a mini-picnic! It was super cute and I loved every minute of it! But we spent a lot of time looking for a spot that didn't have duck poop everywhere. Here's the video of us walking around, and you even hear me say "Whoa." It had rained the day before, so everything was still wet (and lots of mold, which at first I thought was duck feathers..... but it was mold. Gross).

We actually went to ZooLights this year with a few friends (we hadn't gone the past 2 years). It was pretty packed as usual, but the girls had a blast!

Brian bought an inflatable Minnie and Mickey Mouse for outside Christmas decor, and Natalie wanted just to sit and look the night we got home from ZooLights.

Speaking of sitting and watching, Natalie makes herself comfortable while watching TV. This was the morning of Pajama Day at preschool. The kids wore their pajamas and read the Polar Express story and drank hot chocolate. Cute!

Natalie met Santa for the 1st time this year at the Bass Pro Shop. She just loves going to that store anyways, so it was perfect! Going on a Monday night, there wasn't much of a crowd. She wasn't scared at all (like me when I was her age), but she wasn't over excited, either.

Elf on the Shelf also appeared for the 1st time this year! Natalie named her elf Chemical, which we thought was super cute! Prior to this, her baby doll's name was Chemical. There were a couple appearances that Natalie was unsatisfied with - such as when Chemical was holding Baby Jesus from the nativity scene. Natalie got upset and insisted that Baby Jesus should remain in the manger, and asked her elf to put Him back!

Brian performed the solo Let It Go with the Salt River Brass, so we had to bring Natalie! Check out those red pants of his! Her favorite song of the concert, though, was Farandole because, in her words, "it's the Little Einsteins song!" Hilarious!

Other favorite TV shows of hers include Sofia the First, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Curious George, and Olivia. Here is a clip of her dancing to the intro music for Olivia. Adorable!

Here she is making her 1st gingerbread house with her friend, Harlee. She later ate the candy off of it, but not the gingerbread, because she didn't want to destroy her house.  :)

For Christmas presents, Natalie and I made chocolate and yogurt covered pretzels, sprinkled with crushed candy canes and other sprinkles - YUM!

Per tradition, we spent a few days up north at my parents' cabin right after Christmas. (Christmas pictures will be in my next post!) Unfortunately, though, we missed the snow - it came just after we left. 

Here she wrapped herself up in garland - so cute!