Knuffle Bunny

Mo Willems. Know him?  He writes children’s books.  One his books -Knuffle Bunny – A Cautionary Tale was made into a children’s musical. We took Alec on Sunday to Merrill Auditorium to broaden his (and our) repertoire of cultural experiences. This cultural experience also included dressing him up. Urban and classy we are.  He cleans up well I think.

 

The stage:

Lucky for us we were pretty close to the stage.

Checking out the place:

Reviews:

Erik and I thought it was cute.

Alec’s thought on the show was an unforgiving “I did not care for that at all”.  And so you have it. The 40 year old man in child’s body did not care for the Knuffle Bunny musical. However, I caught him singing a song from it on several different occasions today, so something must have made an impression on him.

I ended up having to do some research on how to correctly pronounce Knuffle because we had been pronouncing it with a silent K (nuffle) and they were pronouncing it with a very hard K (KAh-Nuffle).

Here is what I have discovered:

1. I should have read the 2nd book because they address this issue in it. FYI-  it is completely fine to say it both ways

2. Knuffle is a Dutch word that means snuggly or cuddly. It is pronounced "Kuh-nuffle".

3. Mo Willems has a pretty cute  WEBSITE (just click the link to check it out!)

 

And for the record we did not stop anywhere to eat. Guess my indulgence trend is over….

Where have I been?

Where have we been? I’m not sure. I’ve picked up a few more hours/days at work for the next month(ish) so our playtime has been nixed a bit. Sometime in April I will go back to my sweet 3 days a week gig and Alec with go back to his 3 day a week gig and then maybe he will stop telling me how much he hates ‘school’ and I will stop feeling like a horrible mother but that is a blog for another day.

Back to where I’ve been….in some unimaginable way the planets have aligned and I have been out and about a bit (quite a bit) more. I have eaten out more recently than I have in a long, long time. Last Friday we hit FEDERAL JACKS in Kennebunk with a few friends that I worked with at the bank. It was great to catch up with them! Saturday I had mentioned that we went to BINGA'S WINGAS before the hockey game. Tuesday Alec convinced me to take him to the Children’s Museum in the afternoon. We decided to go late and meet Erik for dinner afterwards. It just so happed Erik had a restaurant.com coupon for MESA VERDE (they don’t have a website but here is a review). It is more authentic Mexican than American Mexican. Wednesday night I met up with another bank friend and her husband at MARGARITAS for dinner before going to see Jeff Dunham at the Civic Center. Obviously I live under a rock because I had no idea who he was. I went cause I love my friends, they had an extra ticket, I love to go out and I love to laugh. He did not disappoint. Here is a clip of one of his sketches ACHMED . Saturday night Erik and I just happened upon a babysitter and a GROUPON for TANDOOR (also does not have a website)- it’s decent Indian- we ate late and then strolled though the Old Port before heading home. We felt so young adult, hip and urban which is a nice change from the middle age dowdy we are starting to feel.

And, of course, doing some grocery shopping here…TRADER JOES.

So that’s were I/we have been…literally eating our way through the greater Portland area. We have to go back into Portland today….I wonder if we will eat somewhere? :)

Messy Marvin (Wordless Wednesday)

Fashion-ista

I think Alec is ready for our trip to Florida too.  Don’t you think so?

ARRG!

We went to a Pirates game Saturday night with Auntie Hil and Grand-pooh-pa.

We stopped in for some Bingas-Wingas pre-game. (Auntie Hil has all those pictures!) But take my word for it the wings and sweet potato fries are yummmeeee!

(my handsome guys!)

The game was a good one. If the Pirates score five goals you get free McDonalds fries the next day…I think we got our free fries by the end of the first period. It was a high scoring game- the Pirates won 8-3.  It was fun but there were more fights than I would prefer with a 3 year old in tow. Particularly a three year old who questions the motives of others regularly. Although I successfully distracted him from a few of them our seats were right on the ice and one broke out right in front of us- literally directly in his face . UGH.

We do love the zambonis. Unfortunately they did not play the zamboni song. Alec and I were a little disappointed about that.

It was nice to be out and in-town on a Saturday night.

Still embracing winter…..

Last weekend we made the trek to OOB for their winter carnival.

I’m not sure we (I) really wanted to but we (I) went anyway. It is getting harder for me to embrace these winter activities with enthusiasm. Our trip to Florida can not come quickly enough.

I digress….back to winter carnival.

Why is this bus here? To block traffic for this……

Yep! Sledding down the main drag!  We came prepared.

Here they are at the top!

And I pretty much missed them coming down. I’m an ace with a camera..can’t ya tell?

They didn’t make it very far and so Alec didn’t want to go again. Too boring. He’s an adrenalin junky.  We moved on to the next activity- in Alec’s eyes even duller (more dull?) than the sledding.

 

And that was about it. 

Gnomeo and Juliet

Auntie Hil and I took Alec to see Gnomeo and Juliet the other day. It was a Monday afternoon- there was no one in the theater but us which allowed me to take ridiculous pictures like this one. And yes I do carry around the little camera in my purse for moments such as these. Because really..that’s why you read the blog..right?

Next time I need to do a little more research before taking Alec to the movies. I’m not always big on details. I’m good with ideas. I saw the previews -noted that it was rated G (yeah!) and that where is my short attention span stopped.  I failed to pay attention to the fact it was in 3D. When did that grab my attention? When I paid $23 for a Monday afternoon movie for 1 adult and 1 child. I’m sorry but I nearly poo’ed in my pants.  That’s a lot of money for an hour and 20 minutes of animation.  And that’s even more money for a child who REFUSED to wear the glasses for the entire movie save the last 2 minutes. There was no amount of bribing, cajoling or otherwise that would get those glasses on him until he decided it was worth it.

Possibly he has fashion sense?

Aunti Hil can make anything look cool!

When we got home I asked him one more time why he wouldn’t wear the glasses. His response: “They were too big and they kept falling off”.

True..so true. Those last few minutes he had them on I was holding them on him while he was sitting on my lap. Then it got me thinking…why would you have a 3D movie geared towards children and not have child sized glasses? It’s so logical it’s almost ridiculous. Look how big those are on his head.Once he pointed out this obvious fact I almost called them to complain. But I didn’t. Mainly because he enjoyed the movie anyway even without the 3D.

And just so you know…Cars II is coming out in 3D and it looks awesome.  I am going to see that movie with or without Alec. Care to join me? Start saving your pennies now.