Is it just me...

or is cleaning the house with the kids around like raking leaves in a high wind?

FYI -- Still looking for that camera cord.

Stalling

So I am very aware that I'm due for another post. Tonight I was all ready to post some of my recent pics and try to come up with something witty to say with them. Unfortunately I can't seem to find the cable that connects my camera to the computer. Sad day for me. It's probably under the couch or ottoman. The problem is E has stuffed every single one of our Christmas ornaments under both of those pieces of furniture and I don't have quite enough holiday cheer to motivate myself to dig through the mess to find the cord. Until I finally embark on my quest for the cord, all three of you readers of the Melton Pot are just going to have to be a little patient. Hope to be back very soon.

He puts a smile on my face (most of the time)

When I went to get E out of bed this morning I found him like this.

I asked him if he put the hat on. He said "No, a snowman". Me -" A snowman came and put it on you." Eli- "A yes." Where does he come up with some of these things?

Since I have the computer out and have a little time to type while I wait for the plumber to locate the source of the water leaking from inside the house all over the back porch (whole different story) I thought I'd take a minute and share a couple of my recent favorite E moments.

A couple weeks ago I got Snow White or "Snow Wipe" as he calls it. (This is your spoiler ALERT if you haven't seen the movie or aren't familiar with the story, presumably because you've been living under a rock) When we got to the end where Snow White is "dead", the first time E had ever seen it, E immediately yelled out "again" like he always does when he thinks the movie is over. I told him to wait a minute because it wasn't over yet. Just then the prince appeared on screen. I said "oh is that the prince." E said "A yes". I said, "Is he going to make things better?" E said "yes, A kiss." Either the movie is really predictable for 2 year old boys, or my son has watched way too many princess movies. BTY after the kiss E then announced that everyone was going to dance and since it is a Disney movie of course they did.

At Gymboree the other day (the play place not the clothing store) E found a hoola hoop. He picked it up and tried to use it. Realizing that he didn't know quite what to do he asked me to come over and hold it for him about waist high. He then proceeded to spin around and around as fast as he could inside the hoop. I guess that is one way to achieve the desired effect.

While we are on the quirky things he does a Gymboree, here's a little habit that he started there. At the end of class the kids get Gymbo stamps. (Gymbo is their mascot clown although E thinks he looks like Santa with his pointy hat so in addition to calling him "Bimbo" he also calls him "Ho, Ho".) Anyway. He gets a stamp on the top of each of his feet, hands and one on the tummy. Now anytime he gets a sticker he is convinced it goes on him tummy. So take this as a warning, if you give the child a sticker he will lift up his shirt and flash you his belly button.

I could go on for days about the weird little things my buddy does but since I'm guessing I think they are more amusing than anyone else, I'll spare you and end now. In short I love that my kids keep life amusing (at least I love it at the moment).

I love you all

Last Saturday night/early Sunday morning I found out that a past roommate and friend of mine had passed away. She was on the LONG list of people that I haven't stayed in contact with despite their attempts to keep up with me. The problem with this list is that I know that I've slacked off and that the person deserves more than just a quick email so when I think about it I decide to put off communication until I can devote the time that they deserve. What ends up happening is I never find the time and so I never write back or call or even acknowledge how important they are to me. As I was laying in bed trying to sleep after finding out the news about Khalilah I realized that there isn't anyone from my past or present that I have any ill will towards and I greatly appreciate the way each of my relationships, whether long or short, have help made me who I am. I am often convinced that there is no way I am as important to people as they are to me. I know this seems really impersonal (and I'm sorry for that) so you may wonder if you are one of the people I consider a close friend and am grateful for our interactions. But if you are reading this I can guarantee that I appreciate you and feel bad for having not told you so recently. I wish that I could say that from now on I'm going to be amazing about keeping in touch with people but realistically I know it is something I'm always going to be trying to improve. Until I get around to finally giving you the interaction/communication you deserve, know that I am thankful for you and your friendship.

A double standard

So as I was sitting in Sunday school today, completely amused by baby A spitting in my face, I realized that we had a double standard on our hands. Coincidentally Mr. E has spent a lot of time the last few weeks in time out for spitting in people's faces. It's so sad that when A does stuff it cute but when E does the same thing he gets in trouble or just looks ridiculous. A is so cute when she plays for hours in her exersaucer.
E-- not so much.

Her little loud squeals make me smile. His screaming drives me up the wall.

I got a little worried but then my mom's voice resonated through my head "It doesn't always have to be even Steven."

I do have to admit there is one standard that is the same for both kids, I don't think it's cute to change anyone's poopy pants.

Falling for Fall

Despite the fact I've been awaken by the sound of leaf blowers every morning, it seems this year I've really been enjoying Fall. I'm not sure why this year is different. Maybe it's because our new neighborhood is filled with mature trees which we've been able to watch slowly change color and lose their leaves. Maybe its because the weather has been gorgeous for weeks now -- crisp but not cold enough to have to wear a jacket. Maybe its because E's been so enthusiastic about the season of "pumpkins" looking to the near future with great anticipation for the season of "Ho ho". Maybe it's because I spend a majority of everyday sitting on my couch looking out very large windows watching leaves slowly dance down from the tree to join the blanket of brown and yellow that stretches across the entire lawn (I think the brown takes me back to living in NM - Everything may look dead but it was almost transformed by the beautiful blue sky and bright sun that shines all year long).

I love the leaves. I don't know that my yard man Br is loving them since he's spent the bulk of the last two weekends trying to get them up, but I've sure enjoyed them.

Earlier this week I took the dog and the kids on a walk. We purposely walked through the leaf filled gutters. I ran through the especially large collections. E would scream with excitement and lift up his legs to avoid the spray of leaves being kicked up by the tires almost like water. He was excited to see the neighbors still have pumpkins out but was a little confused as to why the "bones" are gone. I keep trying to explain to him that Halloween is over and we have other things to look forward to. The conversation goes like this.

Me -"Halloween is over"

E- "Halloween?"

Me - "Yes, Thanksgiving is coming up. There are turkeys and its a time to be happy"

E- "Turkey? No no. Bones...Pumpkins...Scary"

Oh well. In the mean time I'll just enjoy his enthusiasm and let it add to my excitement.

Enough of my random musings. I leave you with this thought-- Why is the sound of acorns cracking underneath your feet exciting, but the same sound is absolutely terrifying when you are backing out of the garage?"

31 days of Halloween- the beginning

It was early in the month when I discovered E LOVES Halloween. One of our neighbors decorated their house at the end of September (I guess they really like Halloween too) and E saw it as we passed it on a walk. He decided that since the outside looked so festive it must mean there was a party going on inside and insisted on going in. I tried to explain that there wasn't anything special going on inside but asked him if he wanted to help me plan a pumpkin party later in the month. He agreed but of course every time we left the house he asked if we were on our way to play at the pumpkin house. Nearly every conversation E had this month has involved, pumpkins, bones (skeletons), ghosts, bats, spiders, or witches. Every night he's slept with some sort of Halloween decoration, toy or costume. And so the month long Halloween celebration began.

I spent the first few days of the month putting together costumes. I rounded up scrap material and made a little Snow White dress for Miss A. As I was trying to make the scraps look like a dress I soon realized that my hopes of being on Project Runway one day were never going to come true (I've since started dreaming that I was on Top Chef although I don't really cook either). By the time I was finished with A's costume I didn't have much left in me for making E's costume so he ended up being Peter Pan made out of a cut up green polo shirt, scrap cloth belt, and a hat and sword made out of a piece of felt (I figured after the dress debacle I should try to avoid as much sewing as possible).

31 Days of Halloween - Oct's big event #3 - told you I'd get back to it

Our first real Halloween celebration started when we took our little Snow White and Peter Pan to their home in Florida to attend Mickey's Not so Scary Halloween Party. We took E there for his first Halloween and figured it wouldn't be fair if A didn't get the same treatment (Okay we went because we have a serious problem and wanted to get one more trip in before E turned 3 and had to pay admission- we're pretty sure we got rid of the Disney virus this time). One of the highlights of that night was when our Peter Pan got to meet the real Captain Hook and Mr Smee. He was also mesmerized as he flew through Neverland on his Pixie dusted flying ship. Miss A also rode in a little car through her costume's inspiration's "scary adventure".
We had a fantastic time.

While I'm talking about it, A few other highlights of our trip included the international food and wine festival at Epcot where I went to a food demo and tasting by Keegan Gerhard (the dude that hosts the food network challenges), watching E trying to be sly as he slowly tried to get into this fountain, meeting lots of characters, and more important having lots of family time.

The only downside was the weather that felt like it was over 100 degrees. Florida, let me introduce you to the concept of seasons. Fall should feel brisk or at least cool enough not to be dripping in sweat seconds after walking outside. To give the state credit, it was experiencing record highs as opposed to the record lows it was experiencing in March when we froze our little booties off. On the plus side it didn't rain!

31 Days of Halloween- It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas um I mean Halloween

Upon returning home E (with help from free templates from marthastewart.com) helped me transform our house for Halloween. Our kitchen was infested with mice. Our living rooms, front porch and bathroom were taken over by spiders and a family of bats moved into our entry way (thank you Kelly for the bat template). And of course per E's request we had to have some pumpkins, a witch and bones.

31 Days of Halloween - A pumpkin party of his very own

I made good on my promise to E to have a pumpkin party when playgroup was at our house one Wed. I got a lot of inspiration for it from No Fuss Fabulous. For snack I made these and these as well as decorated some rice crispy treats to look Halloweenie. We drank spooky apple juice (I put dry ice in the bowl), played bobbing for donuts and Halloween bingo. (A little tip for making a bunch of different bingo cards without using lots of printer ink like I normally do-- I bought a package of little Halloween stickers and everyone just picked out the pictures they wanted and put them in a square. voila, bingo cards without the hassle.) It was a really really fun time.

31 Days of Halloween- the gathering of Witches

A few days after the playgroup party was my turn to host our culinary group with my friend Candice. The theme was a witches gathering. We had a bubbling cauldron of cheese fondue and bat wings and guano (blue tortilla chips and guacamole) for hors d'œuvres . That was followed by butternut squash spider soup and wilted greens with pumpkin remains (pepitas). The main course was an anti-vampire stake (skirt steak) with garlic chimichurri sauce (I made poor Br cook this for me. He did a fantastic job and I rewarded him by sticking him in the back room during the dinner with the kids), shrunken potatoes, and eye of newt (quinoa-Thanks Pfister for the idea) with poison mushrooms. We washed it down with bibbidy bubbly boo potion for everlasting beauty (orange soda with a fun label on the bottle -- a spin off of this). Our sweet ending was sweet potato cheese cake, poison caramel and chocolate dipped apples and ghost pears. And on the way out everyone got to trick or treat from our assortment of orange colored candies.

Oh and here is my favorite tip I picked up in all my internet perusing for this party. Make paper plates look fancier by taking two colors that look good together. Cut around the edge of one of them with the scrapbooking scissors (i don't know the real name) that make a pattern and glue that plate on top of another plate of the other color. It was nice to have cheap (from the $1 store) but fancy looking plates that I didn't have to wash at the end of the night). I had such a good time but I was kidding myself with weight loss goals this month. (More pictures of this later too).

31 days of Halloween continues

On day 24 of Halloween we went to the church "Pumpkin Party" as Eli likes to call them. I had a lapse in judgment and decided after cleaning my kitchen from the dinner the night before to make a treat to take to the party. Don't worry, I was not crazy enough to bake. The "cake" is actually just rice crispy treats.

On day 27 I took both kids to the movies by myself. No It wasn't a Halloween movie but I did think it was one of the scarier endeavors I've undertaken in a while. Luckily aside from spilling our popcorn all over the floor and being shushed by the usher once (come on dude, it was a kid's movie in the middle of the day for a dollar and we were three of only 6 people in the theater), the trip went really well.

On day 28 we went to Daddy's work for the company Halloween party and trick or treating.
I've already posted about day 29 and our unsuccessful trip to the sing-a-long.

31 days of Halloween- All Hallows Eve Eve

Day 30 we went to our neighborhood party. We decorated a pumpkin, bowled with pumpkins, played bean bag toss, and other similar games.

31 days of Halloween- the end

You would have thought by the time we made it to Day 31 we would be all Halloweened out. We'll we weren't. My mom came up to spend the weekend with us. We made pumpkin cookies, went to a carnival at Dillards where we played games (E was a pro at cake walks after all the parties he's been to), trick or treated, and even entered the costume contest (my sad scraps of fabric and cut up Walmart polo had already gotten a lot of use by this point). After hitting the mall which we played in the leaves. I have a confession. Instead of taking the kids trick-or-treating that night we took my mom up on her offer to watch the kids and Br and I went to dinner. I guess the other 4 times we took them this month would just have to suffice. I think next year E is going to be very disappointed when he finds out Halloween is only a day and not actually an entire month. I hope all of you had as much fun as we did this month!

A Pirate's life for him

A store at the mall had a Halloween sing-a-long this morning. I thought, "hey won't that be fun. E love Halloween and he loves singing. This will be great!" Silly me. Of course the free event was strategically placed at the back of the store. I immediately knew the fate of our outing when the first display to our right was a pirate ship. No, I didn't get to sing-a-long to a single song. I watched E play with the pirate ship display, then the castle, then a truck and then a doll house before he grabbed yet a different boat and tried to open it. That's when I had a very dramatic exit pushing a stroller with a two year old under my arm kicking and screaming "Booooooooat!". That exclamation continued all the way home. I should have known better.

You know why I should have known better?... I live through these scenes all the time. Just to demonstrate why I should have just avoided the whole thing, here is a picture of E as excited as can be in one of his favorite places-- the gift shop you get dumped in right after the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.

This is the "before" picture. After this we passed many, many, many bins of swords, hooks, and guns strategically placed along the exit path. We didn't need an "after" picture because the memory of E screaming "swoooooooooooooooord" for hours through the Magic Kingdom is forever engraved in my mind. It doesn't take a marketing genius to get my son to want to buy something.