Yo ho, yo ho our pirate turned three

So ever since Christmas E has been talking about, and I've been thinking about, having a "pirate party". It had been on my mind 24-7-- coming up with ideas, making plans, keeping a to-do list, etc. Planning parties is what I live for. Anyway the long awaited (at least in the Melton household) birthday finally came.

Our first celebration was a little night out on E's actual birthday. We took him to Incredible Pizza Co. where he got a little birthday prize bag and got to spin the birthday wheel for an extra surprise. We told E he had to eat before playing games. He was so excited that he scarfed down his pizza in the salad bar line. He rode some rides, played some games and picked out some prizes.
A few days later came the main event. I morphed the pirate theme a little to be an adventure in Neverland. The kids were greeted at the front door by Nana and then Wendy, John, Michael and of course Peter Pan as they came in the door.

By thinking the happiest things and with some faith and trust and a little bit of pixie dust the kids flew through London to the second star to the right and straight on til morn (AKA the kids bounced in a bounce house we set up in the living room).
We had a pirate room with a bunk bed ship, Smee in a dingy, cannon with balloon cannon balls, and hook trying to escape a hungry crocodile.

We filled Miss A's room with blue balloons and bubbles to make a mermaid lagoon.

The play room served as our lost boy hideout.
We tried to keep the kids busy sword fighting with balloon swords, decorating fairy wings or a pirate hat, making a pan pipe or coloring magic crocodiles.

The menu included a boat filled with carrots sitting over goldfish swimming in an ocean of blue m&ms, fruit pixie wands, giant pretzel panpipes, chicken salad boats with chocolate crocodiles, cannon balls (olives), and peanut butter cookies topped with Wendy Kisses (chocolate thimbles).

All the kids took a couple whacks at our pirate ship pinata (it was too cold to hang it up outside so we improvised).

After that we had cake. Thanks to making the pan, hook and crocodile figures well in advance, I actually finished the cake to my liking this time (Last year my biggest regret with E's party was not giving the cake the time it needed).

And of course it wouldn't have been a great time without all the great company. Two of our buddies were even kind enough to dress up as John and Michael.

Thanks E for turning 3 and inspiring such a fun adventure! Love you buddy.

Couldn't think of anything else to post

This week was somewhat uneventful. We did finally go to Miss A's 6 month check up (yes she is almost 8 months). While the doctor was checking A out I asked him question about developmental mile markers for E so I could prepare for his upcoming check up. One thing the doctor mentioned was that he should be able to dress himself. I've actually never let him dress himself so since then I've been having him do it. Well today when Br went to go get him from his "nap" (no he didn't sleep) E was standing there in his birthday suit. I guess nobody told him his birthday isn't for another couple weeks and I guess that he's got the undressing part down.

Blinded him with science

So we had another outing that was picture worthy. Of course E is wearing his red plaid shirt like in all the other pictures on the blog since November (It's not my fault this time since Br dressed him). In any event we made our way to the science museum. We've been planning on going since we moved here but it's taken us like 8 months to actually get over there. We all had a really really good time. Hands-on science is one of my passions and E walked around the place mesmerized. He loved seeing a gigantic bell and an actual cannon,
had to be dragged from the train exhibit kicking and screaming,
piloted a space shuttle,
and loved making stuff and experimenting with daddy.
A place that kept E happy and engaged that Br and I enjoyed too-- we are definitely going back.

I'm going to divulge my secret.

I only decorate cakes, I don't really bake them. Although the cakes usually come out very moist and yummy the credit goes completely to Betty (Crocker that is), the Doughboy (Pilsbury of course) or Mr. Duncan Hines --which ever one is on sale.

Well, Thursday night I decided to branch out and and make a couple cakes from scratch. Before I even started Br warned me not to do it, actually he sort of told me not to do it. I assured him it was something I really really wanted to do and I wasn't going to cry about it if it didn't turn out. I was pretty sure I could do it. Yeah, many HOURS and tons of ingredients later I realized that I need to stick to the box. Let's just say that the cake was mostly just decorative. (I'm being serious people-not trying to be modest or anything).

I'm sorry I abandoned you my good friend and cake companion. I will not abandon you again (Until I have lots of spare time and ingredients for experimentation -after all baking is just chemistry, right?). Cake box, I don't know why you get a bad rap. You take only three ingredient, one of which is water. In a matter of about 5 minutes of prep and baking time I have a nice moist cake in about a billion different varieties. Why do people look down on you? Is it the extra preservatives and such in your mix? Do you have things in you that aren't healthful? Well I think people need to get over it. They are eating cake for goodness sake. Is it really supposed to be good for them? Your not a bran muffin.

So in short, give the box a(nother) try. I will appreciate how simple life can be with the help of premixed ingredients and chalk up my last baking attempt as life experience.

Things I think about...

... as I'm going about my day being mom.

• I sometimes feel like I'm part of some crazy, and sometimes dangerous, acrobatic act when I'm attempting to change diapers and/or get the kids dressed.
• Why is it that my son has no problem eating paper or other random things he finds on the ground but won't even try the delicious dinner we've made?
• I should see if Energizer wants to use my kid as their new poster child since he too keeps going and going and going and going.
• I realized as I've looked through my recent posts that E is wearing the same shirt in almost all the pictures-- unpluggits, gymboree, the indoor snow, and Thanksgiving. I swear I don't make him wear the same thing every day.
• I will admit though that I could never be a fashionista since what the kids and I wear every day is dictated by what's at the top of the clean laundry pile that is waiting to be folded or what hasn't yet made it the ginormous dirty laundry mountain.
• Speaking of laundry. I think the saying about the only guarantees in life should be changed to "death, taxes, and never ending laundry".
• I will never again judge the parents of screaming, crying, or crazy kids.
• Am I a bad parent if my kid and I almost always look like the example of how not to use the shopping cart?
• What doesn't kill them makes them stronger, right?
• I feel bad because I sometimes forget about the little one just because she isn't as loud as the big one. That's getting less frequent now that the little one is often the cause of the big one's noise. "NO BABY, NO!", "MINE BABY!" sometimes followed by a response that results in the little one needing some comforting and the big one being in time out.
• My favorite times of the day are when both kids are crying and the dog is yelping at me. I'm not sure if she's just trying to let me know the kids are upset or yelling at me "hey woman, what kind of mother are you? Why won't you do something about these kids?"
• How come when I hide something from the kids the only person who can't find it again is me?
• It's funny how when I've lost something for a while I almost always eventually find it in a "safe place"?
• "What possessed you to do that?"/ "Where did you come up with that?"/ "Are you serious?"/ "You have got to be kidding me!"
• Why will E almost always do what Mickey or the Little Einsteins ask him to do but can't ever seem to follow my directions?
• How wrong would it be if I let E wear two different shoes when we go out? I would love to find the black hole that seems to swallow up one, and just one, of every shoe and sock we own.
• I'd also like to find the little creature that seems to run off with the remotes, my keys, wallet, and cell phone.
• There is nothing that makes me happier than seeing my kids happy.
• There's nobody that can make me laugh harder than my kids.
• I'm glad I found such an awesome big dude to help me out with our fun little dudes.

Hijacked

I hijacked some pictures from my mom's blog. She came and visited us over the New Year's weekend. E was a little nuts during that time because the snow from the week before kind of kept us home bound. There was no playgroup, no gymboree, no playing outside, no nursery, no place to get all of his energy out. For those of you who haven't met him, he has A LOT of energy. To help him have a place to focus some of his energy we went to Unpluggits a place with an indoor playground, giant pirate ship, sand table, dress up, puppet theater, and craft stations like painting, play dough, and lots more. It's probably not surprising but E spent more of the time being a pirate. He dressed up in these lovely boots and a hat and marched around the place singing "Yo Ho, Yo Ho, a pirate's life for me!". Actually he marches around pretty much everywhere singing this, including at church. Luckily we finally have him trained to sing it in a whisper voice there.

A had a good time there. She really liked riding around on this little car. She thinks she is so big. I have a feeling that she's always going to think she is older than she really is. I'm in trouble.

While I'm posting random pictures I'm going to post these too. After having my phone, with its really really sad camera, I finally found the cord to upload the pictures. These are some of my favs. When we first moved to OKC we took E to the Saturday morning kid's project at Home Depot. He really enjoyed himself and made me this cute little wheel barrow planter for mother's day. This is E's first full candy bar. Actually he just licked the chocolate off and then handed the rest back to me.

These are from gymboree play and music, our favorite place to get out of the house and get some of our energy out.

A new year

Happy new year people! I am aware it's a little late.

As I reflected back on this last year I'm amazed at what has come and gone. If a year ago today you told me that I'd be living in Oklahoma I'd look at you like you were crazy. It makes me realize that I'm not going to even begin to guess what 2010 will hold for the Melton family. But I guess it is the unexpected that keeps like fun and interesting.

I really want to make some good family memories this year. I want to focus on doing more stuff with the kids. With that in mind, I decided to take them down to meet up with a few people at the Natural History Museum in Norman. E was super excited to go see the "scary 'saur bones". He loved every second of it. Who knew the kid had such enthusiasm for natural history? Miss A even got into it, especially in the hands on room. Good times! (sorry for the over abundance of pictures. I couldn't decide which one's to post so I used them all.)
Last night we took the kids to their first pro basketball game. A was super excited during the whole thing, especially when everyone would cheer. E actually watched some of the game and got into the songs and cheering. They didn't last the whole game and we may have made the lady sitting in front of us regret coming to the game, I'm glad we went. (I know I know, the picture stinks. I took it with my very sad phone camera).