Adventures of Kevin, Cara, Anna, and Jane: Other December Activities

I want to wrap up December so I can get to the current year so I'm throwing a bunch of stuff into this post.

I wanted to take Anna to see the Nutcracker this year but the KC ballet was crazy expensive. I didn't want to go that bad so I looked into the performance in Topeka. It was much more affordable so we asked Grandma and Hailie if they wanted to go too. Anna was stoked about the ballet and kept saying how much she loved the ballet. I reminded her that she'd never been to the ballet before but her reply was "I know I will love it".

Anna did in fact love the ballet. She was a little restless during the second Act but for a 4 year old I thought she did amazing.

Stretching our legs during Intermission

After the show we went to Orange Leaf for Ice Cream.

I think Grandma enjoyed the show too. She had never seen the Nutcracker either!

Anna got all dressed up for the show. I liked getting to put her in her Christmas dress and have her wear her fancy red coat.

We had dinner and stayed the night at Kevin's parents house that night. The girls had fun doing a Christmas tree craft with Grandma!

Our friend Jason (we know him from Stanford) was in town briefly and we were lucky he was able to stop by for a little bit with this girlfriend, Rana.

Jason is a research fellow at Stony Brook University and lives in Brooklyn. He's from St Louis though! Even though it was brief we were so happy he stopped by so we could catch up a little bit.

The week after Christmas we went to see Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer: The Musical at the Coterie Theatre in Kansas City. We'd never been there before and it was a really good show. We're going to a play there in April and it ought to be fun.

After the show we had dinner and then walked over to Union Station to hang out and play.

All of the Christmas decorations were still up and it was absolutely beautiful. Plus there were no crowds!

There were some projections of snowflakes on the ground and there was music playing. The girls had a blast running around and dancing on the snowflakes. It was pretty cute!

We dound someone to take a family picture on Santa's sleigh.

The girls were pretending to be asleep.

There was a really cool play area outside that we stopped at on our way back to the car.

It was a little cold but that didn't stop the girls and they had so much fun running and climbing on everything.

It was such a fun evening!

Later that week we went to an event at Pinstripes. They had bowling and cookies with Elsa! Several of our friends were able to go too and we were all on the same lane and had a blast bowling! It was both Anna and Jane's first time!

Ready, Set, Go!

Every time Anna bowled she would stand there with her arms outstretched until the ball reached the pins. Adorable.

After our time was up it was our turn to go and decorate cookies and take pictures with Princess Elsa. I wasn't sure how Jane would do but she actually went up to Elsa and talked to her a little bit. Anna wore all blue that day (plus Elsa underwear) to be ready. Her blue shoes were too small so she picked gold shoes.