playdate paint jobs

in my quest to keep the bean busy during her week off from school, i finally got my shit together and coordinated a playdate with my friend nanette and her girls.

i suggested meeting up at the americana at brand, since it looked like a pretty decent halfway point between us. and upon further inspection of their website, it seemed that they offered free kids club activities on the day we were planning to meet. yay for free fun stuff!

we arrived first, with enough time to stroll around a little and check out their rather impressive holiday decorations. this christmas tree is gigantic. 

and while santa's cottage looked awesome, we were bummed to see that it had taken the place of the playground i'd been banking on for the girls. 

the bean enjoyed the water show at the fountains. 

we spied nanette and her brood the very moment they exited the parking garage, and the bean was super excited to finally be reunited with her friend em. seems the feeling was mutual. 

they made themselves comfortable at the arts and crafts tables and cranked out a couple of cute thanksgiving decorations. i'd show you what they looked like had i not forgotten ours in the bottom of baby mimi's stroller. oops. 

my kid is not usually a big fan of face painting, so i was surprised when she asked to get in line to have something fun drawn on her face. the lady was really good, and i grabbed one of her cards for - well, just in case.

this is my favorite picture of that day. em was hesitant at first, only consenting to have something painted on her hand. but her curiosity was most definitely piqued, wouldn't you say?

she was pretty proud of her new (temporary) ink.

it was enough to give em a little push, and she sat down in the chair for some facial artwork of her own. 

how cute are they? i love how they both made sure to turn just so for the camera.

i melted a little more every time i overheard the girls say "come on, let's hold hands!" 

little blue boxes all over a christmas tree. sure, why not?

we went into barnes & noble to look at books and have a little storytime. 

then they entertained me with silly faces as we waited to be seated for lunch. 

it was a super fun way to spend an afternoon, and we'll have to do it again over winter break. i wonder what sort of shenanigans we'll get into next time.