Birthday at Magic Time Machine

Rachel was excited about her birthday dinner at Magic Time Machine. It seems to have become a tradition that the kids get a birthday dinner there. It is so much fun for them to see the waiters dressed as their favorite characters and listen to all the wacky things that go on there.

Rachel dressed up as a princess fairy. Such sweetness!

...and silliness!

We requested a booth in a section with a princess or fairy waitress that Rachel would like.  She was happy to see that Snow White would be serving her dinner!

 

Our booth was really cool because it was decorated with an explorers theme which is exactly what we are studying in school right now!  Nicholas showed us where we are located on the giant wall map.

Then he gave us a brief explanation about the travels of Marco Polo from Venice to China.  Yes, homeschooling isn't just learning in a classroom from 8:00 - 3:00.  There are learning opportunities all around us every day!

Rachel was doing a happy dance in her seat.  Blue smokey ugly drink and a salad of just green bell peppers and mushrooms and she is a happy girl!

Tinkerbell stopped by to say "Hi" to the birthday girl.

And of course, several people came to sing Happy Birthday including Marilyn Monroe and Waldo.  Odd mix, right?

Although the serenade was quite entertaining, Rachel apparently didn't like their singing very much.

They gave her a free birthday cookie with ice cream and she happily blew out her candle.  Dig in!

A busy day and a tired princess couldn't help but sleep on the way home.

By the time we got her out of the car at home, she was well rested and wide awake.  We got the kids bathed and ready for bed but we still had birthday cake for the sweet girl.  I picked up a beautiful floral cake at Target and Stuart offered to write Happy Birthday Rachel on it in icing.  He did a fabulous job with "Happy" but he realized he wasn't going to have room to add "Birthday" and "Rachel" to it.  He could have just written "Birthday" and it would have made perfect sense to have a cake that just said "Happy Birthday".  However, Rachel loves seeing her name in writing so for her sake, we decided to just add "Rachel".  After all, she is a happy Rachel.

We let her add a few pieces of Hello Kitty decorations to the cake herself.

What a sweet little girl.

Licking the bottom of the candle is a privilege reserved for the birthday child.

Make a wish sweet girl and we pray that they all come true.

Happy Birthday Rachel!  We love you!

Happy 4th Birthday, Rachel!

Our sweet little angel is 4 years old today! She was greeted with presents galore and even a Cinderella balloon as big as she is!

She got a few puzzles.  This girl loves puzzles and can't get enough of them.

She was excited about her little Cinderella doll that comes with several different outfits to change her into.  She is such a fashionista.

After she opened another puzzle, she happily went to place it on her puzzle shelves.  She was so proud to see them on her shelves.

She then ripped into her big present.  What could it be?

A Dora Magical Castle!  It is pretty cool because there are secret rooms and trap doors.  Even Nicholas had fun exploring it :)

Rachel forgot about the rest of her presents and was totally engrossed in her Dora Castle.

They worked together placing furniture and people in all the rooms of the house.

Grandmother C. gave Rachel a Bitty Baby from the American Girl Doll store.  She loves baby dolls but especially this one because it has blonde hair and blue eyes just like Rachel!

She's named it "Baby Rachel".

Two sweet baby girls.

Rachel loves pretend jewelry but I don't like her wearing a lot of that painted plastic stuff from China because sometimes I catch her with some piece in her mouth.  I just don't trust the safety of that paint.  So I picked up a real little necklace for her.  It is colorful and sparkly, just like Rachel.

Rachel also got some pajamas that match her Bitty Baby's pajamas.  She was excited to show them to her baby.

More Disney princess dolls and clothes to play dress up with.

Rachel is such a beautiful joyful little girl.  She is truly a blessing in our lives.

Happy Birthday Rachel!

An Enchanting Dinner...At Pepsico

Stuart bought a raffle ticket at work with the hopes of winning this prize.....

Dinner for 6 at the Frito-Lay Culinary Innovation Center and Flavor Kitchen....."Experience the Culinary Innovation Center at Frito-Lay in Style!"

Oh, how we prayed to win!  And he did!  Woo hoo!

We invited some of our dearest, long time friends to enjoy the evening with us.  I loved spending time with them and catching up on all of our busy lives.  It's nice to have a date night now and then that is totally kid-free and just focused on the adults!

 

The beautiful ladies

And the handsome gents

The evening was just incredible!  Jody Denton, Executive Research Chef for Frito-Lay and staff put together an amazing dining experience for us. We sipped champagne and experienced a multi-course “dream” dinner complete with wine pairings prepared by the most creative chefs in the industry. 

The food was incredible but what was really fascinating was that each dish was prepared with some kind of Pepsico product!  And we got to watch it being prepared right in front of us. So amazing!

Here's a peek at what we had.  (Please try not to drool on your keyboard!)

Hors d'Ouevres

Petite Ruffles Lobster Roll on Toasted Brioche

 Doritos Barbacoa Empanadas with Rajas con Crema

Amuse
(When you have two young kids, you don't usually get to go to places that serve an "Amuse".  How fun!)

Peas and Carrots with Smoked Rabbit and Bacon with Kettle Cooked Mediterranean Herb Chips

Soup

Tomato and Naked Carrot Juice Soup en Croute

Pasta

Butternut Squash and SunChips Gnocchi with Parmesan-Sage Brown Butter, Prosciutto and a Basted Farm Egg

It was such a neat experience to be sitting at a bar right in front of the chefs making our food.  They were all friendly.  They chatted a little, answered questions for us, and told us a little about how they made the dishes.

Main Course
(Yes, all of that food and we are just now getting to the main course!)

Olive and Herbes de Provence Marinated Roast Leg of Lamb Ratatouille Tian, Lay's Lyonnaise Potatoes with Trop 50 Mustard Sauce

Here the chefs are plating the potatoes.

Oh, the lamb!  It was divine!  It melted in my mouth.

Beautiful presentation, of course!

Dessert

Quaker Oatmeal, Peach-Blackberry Crostata with Tropicana Orange Ice Cream

Yes, we were full by now but we all made room for this delicious finale!

What incredible fine dining...right there in the Frito Lay Flavor Kitchen.  Here's a list of the Pepsico products used:

• Ruffles Potato Chips
• Doritos Tortilla Chips
• Kettle Cooked Mediterranean Herb Chips
• Naked Carrot Juice
• SunChips
• Lay's Potato Chips
• Trop 50 Orange Juice
• Tropicana Orange Juice

I'm so inspired to pull out a few bags of chips and see what incredible ideas I can come up with in the kitchen.

After dinner, we got a sneak peek into the behind-the-scenes workings of the nerve center for Pepsico creativity.  I had no idea there was so much work and so many people involved in making the perfect chip and chip flavoring.  It was fascinating.

Thank you Chef Denton and the incredible staff in the Frito Lay Flavor Kitchen!

Cowboys Game in Arlington

Stuart won 2 tickets to a Dallas Cowboys game!  The only problem is that the game was today, a Sunday, and Adventure Kids, our drop in child care place, isn't open on Sunday.  Fortunately, we finally have a babysitter that we can use.  So with the kids taken care of, we headed out to the game.

I've only been to one Cowboys game in my life before this one and it was in the old stadium.  The new stadium is quite impressive.  That is, once we finally reached the stadium after our mile-long hike from the parking lot.

  

This was a shot on our way to find our seats.  There was a whole display here of Ford vehicles....several floors up in the stadium.  How did they get those cars and trucks up there?  The people lined up in the background are looking down at the field.  It was a bit overwhelming at first.  There was just so much going on and a lot to soak in.

See the big brown building in the distance?  That's the Rangers Ballpark.  We parked way back behind that.  Trust me, it's farther away on foot than it looks.

It was neat seeing the Pepsi logo hanging above.

The Cowboys played the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.  Our seats were incredible.  They were practically on the 50 yard line and although they were high in the stands, the big screen made it seem like we were sitting on the field.  That is one obscenely large screen.

Here is the view from our seats.  Not bad but we did look at that screen a lot...of course, how could you help it?  It's almost as big as the field itself!

The Cowboys won!  16-10.  Yay!