Night with the Lights and First Family Movie

      Besides eating, laughing, talking, game-playing, wedding planning and movie watching, we did a couple of other notable things while in Wichita.  Mom and Wes treated our family to "Illuminations"- a Christmas light event at Botanica Gardens in Wichita.  It was really beautiful and a pleasant evening to walk through the lights - though it was a bit crowded.



Here are my siblings and their spouses (or soon to be spouse in Laura's case.)  (my camera had a hard time focusing this night, which was a bummer, hence the blurry pictures)



Our little family.  Hard to get a good picture when even John is revolting against it.  Glad he straightened up and pretended to be happy in that second shot, which is more than we could get from the girls.



Mom and Wes.



Through the rainbow in the children's section.

Afterwards, we sat around eating popcorn and laughing, especially when John and Lily tried to catch it in their mouths.  (again with the lack of focus - bummer, but I still love the picture)



We did the lights on Friday night, and on Saturday afternoon, we took the girls to see the Muppet Movie, which was their first movie theater experience.  We were a little wary of how Bella would do, but it went better than expected.  Mom and Wes and Aunt Ellen came with us a reinforcements, which was helpful.



Lily's reaction was about what we would have expected - she had a poker face, but seemed to enjoy herself and did not move or make a peep for most of the movie.  Bella was also about what we expected - she did well for the first 45 minutes while the popcorn and Sprite were flowing freely.  Then, she got antsy, and we took turns holding her near the exit in case she decided to start screaming.  She didn't, and after a while, we brought her back to the seat.  The best moment was when she decided using her hands was no longer necessary to eating popcorn and face planted into the tray of popcorn to eat it.  Awesome.  She also liked feeding John popcorn, which was super cute.



All in all, it was really a fun movie and good experience with the girls.  (notice Bella's lack of socks - I cannot get that girl to keep anything on her feet.  not sure what to do, especially since we are beginning to face bone-chilling temperatures.  she is not yet fazed.)