frozen in the park

we have been so spoiled by the library lately! and tonight was no exception. you might remember that we went to see mary poppins in the park last year. it was such a great time, but we never made it back for any of the other shows last year. i was thrilled to learn that they were bringing it back this year. the first movie? frozen! 

it has been rainy off and on all week so we kept it as (yet another) "surprise" for the kids in case it just didn't work out. i am happy to report that it was a beautiful sunny, breezy and then cool evening. perfect for a movie in the park and there was a lot to enjoy while we waited for the show to start!

the kids were all given a "do you want to build a snowman?" in a cup.

we sat down to get to work.

i think mason was the only one who even bothered to get the marshmallows stacked.

this is what we should have ended up with...

 ... instead we got cheeks full of marshmallow and big grins.

manning wanted me to take his picture too. you can see how gorgeous the afternoon was!

there were a few more activities to choose from - face painting, games and balloon animals. the kids wanted to get balloon animals first. so matt took madelyn to wait in line. and then mason, maddux and manning ran over. and they waited. and waited. and waited. in one spot. a little over an hour into their wait they had moved about half the distance of the line. (matt is holding manning - in the white shirt - in the line behind the two guys in the picture.)

matt is the greatest. i was staying with our stuff to make sure that we had enough room to sit together. i was getting tired of waiting so i downloaded a short book to my phone and started reading while enjoying the late afternoon sunshine (it was glorious). i really love matt. he was so patient keeping all of the kids in line. mason came to sit down around the hour and a half mark. i guess they offered a pre made animal to those waiting in the line because the movie was going to start soon. he was the only taker of our group and picked a blue dog. he gave me the dog and then went to get a free slice of papa johns pizza and another bag of pop corn (again - free).

someone from the library had brought pizza to everyone waiting in the balloon line which was very appreciated. once the movie started, matt was able to convince the rest of the kids to give up, get some popcorn and sit down to watch the movie. the temperature was also rapidly falling and they were starting to get too cold in their short sleeves; their sweatshirts and extra blankets were starting to sound pretty good.

the big boys huddled together under a blanket enjoying their popcorn as the show started.

they had some audio problems at first (right up until anna meets prince hans on the dock). it didn't matter too much though because most of the kids could recite the movie. manning even sang extra loud for those sitting around us. once they had the audio fixed, it was a great showing.

the temperatures continued to drop and the wind picked up. our kids were also pretty exhausted so we called it quits around 10:30pm. so much family fun! love.