my Belle

Hannah has three favorite Disney princesses: Rapunzel, Mulan, and Belle. For her fourth birthday, our present to Hannah was a Belle dress and crown... with a promise to take her to see Beauty and the Beast at the movie theater, and she could wear her Belle dress to the movies. I think she was more excited about wearing the Belle dress outside the house than actually seeing the movie.

I had the day off today and decided it was a good day to see Beauty and the Beast in 3D before it left the theaters. I told Hannah, "Let's make a deal. Do you know what a deal is?" She nodded. "How about we go see the Belle movie tonight, but in order to go... you have to take a nap today because we're going to stay out late." Hannah was very excited! She ran to her bedroom, jumped in bed, and shut her eyes. It was so funny! This from the girl that forever tells me, "I'm not tired."

After a good nap I helped Hannah get the Belle dress on with plenty of warm clothes underneath. It's 26F degrees outside, after all! She also requested to wear gold sparkle shoes and carry a pink wand. We had dinner at Panera Bread and got all kinds of smiles from the other diners. I don't think the other diners expected a "character dining" experience when they decided to eat at Panera tonight. After a quick Target run, we hit the theater. We didn't even have to tell the ticket attendant what movie we wanted to see. Somehow... he guessed that we were there to see Beauty and the Beast!

She was so good and so sweet tonight. "Mama, there's some scary parts at the end. But it's okay. It's just a-tend." Hannah kept offering me popcorn from her popcorn cup, and wanted to make sure that I had plenty of snacks, too.

Today was a great day. Love that girl!