Saturday was the big day.  Magei has be waiting forever to see Lion King.  Our tickets arrived last year as part of our Broadway season tickets, so it really has been a long wait for her.  We tried to make the day really special for her and have been doing some prep work along the way.  During the week we learned about African animals and looked at picture books about elephants and lions that we checked out from the library.  We have been listening to the broadway soundtrack for a few months now, so she was able to sing along with most of the songs.  There are some really awesome songs that were composed for the broadway production, seperate from the cartoon.  I was thinking that Elton John wrote the entire score, but he was actually responsible for writing the music, while Tim Rice wrote the lyrics.  Nate also got out all of his Africa pictures and told Magei about his trip.

We dropped Sam off at the babysitter and made our way to Cameron’s to have dinner.  So good.  We started off with goat cheese beignets, which were awesome.  Nate ordered the Creole gulf shrimp with goat cheese grits and broccolini.  I had the roasted halibut with procuitto orzo, wilted spinich and lobster butter sauce.  We would definitely get all three dishes again.  Magei was so charming that our server brought her vanilla bean ice cream, compliments of the house - she was in heaven!

We brought a present for Magei to open at the restaurant, which she thought was the coolest thing ever!  The second I saw this elephant purse, I knew Magei would fall in love with it…and I was right.  She hasn’t let it out of her sight since last night.

We made a pit stop at Nate’s 2nd home (the prostodontic lab at OSU) to pick up some work that he had left there earlier in the day.  The mess we’re standing in front of is actually his desk.

Next, we were on to the show.  It was awesome!  Magei declaired it the “bestest”show she has ever seen.  The costumes were amazing, although Nate didn’t like the hyena’s faces.  I would say it was 98% sensational, 2% perplexing.  That 2% is soley based on the “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” sequence.  I found it odd.  And was that a left bum cheek I saw on one of the dancers?  Oddly enough, I read that Garth Fagan (the choreographer) was adamant about the tiered ballet dancers that dominated the scene.  It wasn’t my cup of tea, but I’m not the one with the Tony awards either.  Our favorite parts had to be both opening and closing scenes.  They brought out all the animals for both of these scenes, and the costumes and puppets were incredible.

We had such a wonderful time!  Special thanks to the Howells for watching Sam for 6 whole hours so we could have a special night with Mags!

Nate totally surprised me by coming home to study tonight at 6:15 instead of staying at the school!  I was so happy!  It only took Magei and I about 30 seconds to decide we were going to ditch the boys at home tonight and have a girls night out.

We decided to go see Kit Kittredge even though I have rolled my eyes at every preview I have seen for this show.  I was even contemplating bringing my iPod to watch my own movie if I got bored.  But hello…this turned out to be a good one!  Magei and I both loved it, and it was actually kind of a tear jerker.  I managed to hold them back, but Magei did start crying at one of the sad parts.

I thought it was going to be about some little kid who wanted to be a reporter…and it was, but there was much more going on than that.  I would definitely recommend this movie, especially if you have girls.  It doesn’t look like much, but it’s really cute.

OK, and I have to include this picture.  At this point, Sam still thought he was going.  He was so sad that we left without him!

Is it pathetic that I take my kids on field trips to Whole Foods Market?  Whole Foods is my idea of a good time, and if I call it a field trip, they think it’s fun, too.  Doing all my grocery shopping at Whole Foods is out of the questions (hello…$.69 for ONE egg!) but they sell locally grown produce and I love to support local farmers, so I buy what is reasonable.  It’s also the only place I know close to me that you can buy pearl barley and bulgar in the bins. Today I found organic multi-colored sweet corn on the cob that I couldn’t resist.  Considering the fact that when I was a kid and we grew it on our farm (heck, it was probalby even organic since my dad made us weed the fields by hand) and sold it 13 for $1 it was a rip-off…but, I think that about any corn on the cob I buy in the grocery store.  The kids and I ground our own peanut butter and for a little extra excitement we added chocolate chips.  It turned out really good.  They also had capricho de cabra (a kind of cheese…we love, love, love cheese in this house) that Magei and I couldn’t resist…However, at $13 a pound, I only got 2 ounces.  Our greatest find of the day was these:

These are sunflower seeds M&M style.  I’m actually not a big fan of M&Ms because it is too much semi-sweet chocolate for my liking, but these have the smallest amount of chocolate coated around a sunflower seed.  Seriously, these are so so good.  I even let Sam eat a handful that he dropped on the kitchen floor so they didn’t go to waste.  I will definately be buying these again soon.

Since quiting my job, there are a few things I’ve noticed:

1. I no longer loath Sunday evenings. I used to really be bothered by Sunday evenings. The closer it got to bedtime, the more grumpy I felt. I’m not sure why, because I really liked my job so I wasn’t necessarily dreading work in the morning. I think it was just knowing that starting a new work week was sooo close. I actually really enjoy Sunday evenings now.
2. I’m not as bitter as I used to be about having 1:00 church. I think I don’t mind as much anymore that it is right in the middle of my day. Maybe it has to do with not dreading Sunday evenings as much…
3. My house is cleaner. I’ve actually always kept a pretty neat house, but when I first quit my job, someone told me not to expect my house to be cleaner. I’m happy to report that it usually is pretty clean and orderly. And I make my and the kids’ beds every day…which I’m embarrassed to admit (and my mom would be so disappointed if she knew) that when I was working it did not get done - I just didn’t make time for it in the mornings. Although, now that I’m a bed maker, I should also admit that I actually despise un-making it every night.
4. I stay up later, but still get up just as early. I have no idea why. You’d think it would be the other way around.
5. Some days are better than others. I think it is the same with anything, but as a stay-at-home mom, some days are better than others. I’m not ashamed to admit that one day last week my children (mostly Sam) were so cranky all day that we all needed a little break. Nate had left the house that morning at 6:30 and I knew he wouldn’t be getting home until around midnight, so when Sam woke up from nap we headed straight to the gym…so I could drop the kids off at kids club. And yes, I did go work out, but I also went and sat in the hot tub and then went into the cafe and had a smoothie and read my new magazine on the big, comfy couch…all by myself. (I should add that my kids absolutely love kids club, so it’s not like I’m torturing them…they have fun the entire time.)
6. I still get dressed in the mornings…and comb my hair and brush my teeth. I was a little nervous that I would want to stay in my pajamas all day. I really love being in my comfy pajamas and I was wondering if it would turn into a habit…that would eventually lead to me never wearing make-up and doing all the other things that I normally did to get ready for work every day. So far, so good.
7. We spend less money. Nate and I used to have to eat out for lunch at least once a week because we were too hurried in the mornings to pack lunches. We also hardly ever go out to eat for dinner anymore. When I worked, there were a lot of evenings when we’d get home so late that the thought of making dinner didn’t seam feasible, so we’d eat out. Now, I plan time to make dinner into my day, and Nate has left-overs to take for lunch the next day. I also drive a lot less, so I save in gas. We’re also saving by not paying for the kids’ tuition every month. However, this is countered with the fact that I no longer earn a paycheck, but still…technically, we are spending less.
8. Saturdays are more enjoyable…for the most part. We don’t always get to hang out with Nate on Saturdays, but when we do it is so nice not to have all the chores and errands that we use to have on Saturdays. For example, I now do our grocery shopping every other Friday morning and do laundry on Wednesday. That leaves more time for things like family bike rides (which is what we did this weekend).

And trips to the library.

I’ve been wanting a mini-muffin tin for a while now, and I finally found one that was good quality and on sale.  Magei and I decided to make strawberry muffins on Friday while Sam was asleep.

The recipe I used usually makes about 18, so I thought I’d have about 25 mini-muffins.  Yeah…wrong!  I ended up with over 70 muffins!  Seriously, there were muffins everywhere I looked.  My kitchen was invaded!  We ate strawberry muffins all weekend long, but here it is Monday, and I’m going to have to toss a bunch.  No one can eat that many strawberry muffins.

Magei and I also recently finished the Mercy Watson book series by Kate DiCamillo. I’m sure many of you are familiar with DiCamillo as she is also the author of Because of Winn Dixie, The Tale of Despereaux, and The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. Her Mercy books are fabulous little chapter books for a younger audience. Chris Van Dusen is the illustrator and is a genius. His art is amazing and captures the characters perfectly. You can look at his other books here, which I think are equally awesome.  There are plenty of pictures in these books to keep a young reader’s attention right to the end. Magei even looked through them several times on her own after we had already finished reading them. We both thought they were fun little reads.

Magei and I just finished Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown. I’m sure that everyone has already read this book, so I wont go into the details, but I will say that we thoroughly enjoyed it. We decided to make our own Flat Stanley…or should I say, Flat Magei.

As a side note, pay no attention to Sam’s cowboy hat…it has nothing to do with Flat Stanley. Sam just insists on wearing it ALL THE TIME!

We spent a good part of our day Saturday in the city. We started out at Columbus’ Oldest Tradition, North Market. We skipped right past all the produce and headed straight for the cheeses. We love cheese in this family, and the locally produced cheese is wonderful. We bought some Baby Gouda and some goat’s cheese (which Magei spread all over her corn today at dinner and insisted it was goat cheese on the cob), and the find of the day was Quark…which I love and is very difficult to come by.

We wandered down the street and found this great little park. The entrance reminded me of the Arc de Triumph in Paris. I don’t know if it was modeled after it or not, but we thought it might be.

There were lots of people running and there was an outdoor fitness class going on, so we stopped along the paver sidewalks and watched.

We stopped for lunch at Johnny Buccelli’s, a place we have been wanting to try for a while. Nate and I split the tomato, basil, fresh mozzarella baguette…we both really liked it. I’d say, if you have a coupon, you should try it. It was a little on the pricey side, but we had a card for $10 off.

We had to make a quick stop at Home Depot and the kids spotted this cart in about .2 seconds. I bought a “No Soliciting” sign for my front door. Nate was against it because he thinks it’s too big, but I didn’t care. I hate strangers coming to my door when I’m home alone during the day now…and I get a ton! I’ve had three in one day before, but at a minimum, I get four a week.

Our last stop of the day was at Anna’s Restaurant for dinner. (I know…eating out twice in one day…naughty!) Anna’s is kind of a tucked away Greek restaurant that we’ve been meaning to try. Nate had the Moussaka, which is layers of potato and eggplant topped with some type of heavy (really heavy) cream. I had roasted peppers stuffed with rice and eggplant. We both had a side of lemon potatoes. Mine were especially lemony, and I couldn’t finish them. It reminded me of the time that we tried to make lemon sorbet with the Scoresbys and it turned out so sour that we all had stomach aches and puckered lips by the end of the night. However, our main dishes were really good.

This is a daily occurrence at our house.  Seriously…is Sam going to kill me one day for posting these?  I laughed out loud when he came out in his little flash dance leg warmers.  I don’t know how Sam is going to get even with Magei for this, but I’m sure the time will come.