The Symphony, A Christmas Market and A Birthday Party!

 

Wow, every Friday should be this good!  Sydney and I had a fabulous day today filled with so many fun things!  We got up early this morning and headed downtown to the Playhouse Theatre to meet up with our Dunbar Moms to take in the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra's Tiny Tots concert.  It was a very fun time, there was singing and instruments, tubas, trombones and trumpets.  Sydney did so well sitting for pretty much the entire length of the concert, she was quite interested in watching the performers and at one point was cheerily clapping along.  It was very cute!

Right next door to the theatre, the Vancouver Christmas Market was set up.  I had a guy doing some work on the house the other day and he happened to have some free tickets to this event that he threw my way, so Sydney and I and our friends Lori and Weston headed over to check it out.  It is amazing, if you live in Vancouver and haven't been, you simply have to go.  It is a traditional German Christmas market, filled with vendors selling everything from mulled wine and sausages to handcrafted toys and Christmas ornaments, candles and chocolate.  There are lots of interactive things for the kids to do, decorating their own candles, lollipops and gingerbread men along with a huge carousel which Sydney just had to ride on.  It was her very first carousel ride and she absolutely loved it!  She was all smiles the whole time!

I bought us a couple of things, a little ladybug change purse for Sydney and a lovely pair of hand knit mittens (which fold back to expose your fingers, very handy for a Mom!) for myself.  I would love to head back one evening and wander slowly through the market with a mug of mulled wine in my hands, it was lovely!

We rounded our day off in the afternoon by heading to our friend Andrea's house where she threw the most fabulous party for Syd's friend Aaro who is turning two in a couple of weeks.  Aaro loves trucks so his party was a truck theme.  We were greeted by this digger parked on the front lawn, the kids went nuts!

All the kids had little hard hats to wear with their names on them and Andrea served food out of the back of dump trucks.  Even the food was in keeping with the theme, it was amazing and delicious!

Our friend Rachel's sister, Katie B, did a music session with the kids to start the party off, everyone had a blast singing and dancing and playing instruments, what a fun way to start the party!

Andrea is such an amazing hostess, she is always so thoughtful in every detail of her parties and makes everyone feel so at home!  I could have stayed all evening drinking champagne and munching on her delicious goodies!

We came home with a wonderful loot bag filled with some new socks, a penguin flashlight, a reusable lunch sack, a cloth crayon and notepad holder and a delicious homemade granola bar!  We were spoiled indeed!

It was such a fun day getting together with so many of our friends and having the chance to take in some great events and celebrate with Aaro!