Apparently, There is No Recession at Sesame Street Place

The big day finally arrived on Saturday morning. The day we had been preparing the children for all week by letting them watch various clips on YouTube and participating in many discussions on what the letter of the day might possibly be.

Saturday, the Phillips Family headed out to Sesame Street Live.

I am not one bit embarrassed to reveal that I seriously prayed that this would be a successful trip for our little family of four.

Having never partaken of such a children's event, I was a bit nervous as to how our children would react. Evelyn is a bit of a question mark in such settings and Isaac can wear his heart on his sleeve. Tobe and I knew this was going to be a really great 90 minutes or a really dreadful way to spend the first part of a weekend.

Fortunately, it turned out to be a really great 90 minutes.

Being the nerd that I am, I currently receive email updates from the Sesame Workshop. Because I am on their mailing list, we get to purchase tickets to such Sesame Street events during presales. All of this to say, we were on the fourth row, center stage left due to our early ticket buying tactics.

Both kids loved the show. Seems that ol Sesame Street still has a knack for understanding the preschool crowd because there was no grand entrance of characters (which can really freak a parent kid out) but rather a gradual presentation of each cast member. The production was not too loud nor obnoxious (however, I am still singing several late 80's songs whose covers were used. Wonder how The Pointer Sisters feel about Elmo singing their hits...). There were no stringent rules about what can/cannot be taken into the arena, so we were able to cart along snacks for the kids.

Overall it was a great experience, in case these two faces did not already relay that sentiment to you.

Although our country seems to be tightening its purse strings and the stock market gets worse every day, it appears as if the kiddy market is doing splendidly. As the house lights were turned on at the beginning of intermission, the aisles were suddenly swarmed with employees holding large displays of Elmo balloons. The shrieks of "Elmo balloon" were almost louder than the actual Elmo who had been singing on stage mere minutes before.

We aren't really the souvenir type people, especially when everything being sold in the stands could be purchased at one's local Target for about ten dollars cheaper. Fortunately such stands were not flashy nor particularly appealing, so neither child even noticed them.

Evelyn did however notice the Elmo balloon.

For a girl who goes crazy over balloons and Elmo, the combination could have been deadly.

Fortunately I had had some wits about me earlier in the morning and had stuffed a few books in our bag in case we had to wait awhile for the show to begin. I was able to distract E. with a book and some crackers until the cast returned to the stage. During that time of distraction, I casually leaned back and asked the parents behind me how much such a balloon cost.

$10.00, people.

Seriously, ten dollars for a balloon that was not completely filled with helium...meaning that by Sunday morning most kids would wake to discover Elmo's head lying lifeless in the floor.

Apparently the recession has not hit Sesame Street, because those balloons were selling faster than hot cakes (whatever that means).

In summary, Sesame Street Live was fun times. Fun times indeed.

Our Little Ones Taking it All In

Our View
Isaac and Me...not sure what he is looking at

Evelyn discovered her parents' drink. She had taken several big gulps of Dr. Pepper before we noticed. We let her have one sip more to commemorate such an occasion. By the way, we don't plan on this occurring again until years down the road.

Tobe and Isaac

Isaac had his first batch of cotton candy, thus the reason for the blue teeth.

Characters came down the aisles to greet the children

Notice big brother's arm around his sister

On a very random side note, I thought it would be a good idea this morning to do a craft with the children involving crayon shavings.

Let me just be very clear in saying that crayon shavings + young children + indoors really never equal a great idea.

We might be discovering crayon shavings for years to come here at casa de phillips.