The comings and goings of August

I know, I know, I know,  I've been really slacking off when it comes to this whole blog thing.  I'm AM going to do better.  But I guess since I forgot to post during the month of August, it's time for another summary.  

The month was filled with birthday and anniversary celebrations, good bye's with lots of loved ones in OKC, LOTS and LOTS of cleaning and organizing, driving to and from Houston a few times for house hunting, reuniting with friends from our past, first days of work and first days of school.  

On the way down to Houston, we made a little stop at the perfect destination for a little R&R and escape from reality-- Rough Creek.  In addition to the usual activities Mr. E decided to add zip lining to his repertoire (yes the same zip line I did the walk of shame after I chickened out at the top a year ago) Miss A cried and cried that she was just slightest bit too small for the harness.  I have no idea where these thrill-seekers came from. 

We had a week in H-town to recoup a little before E's first day of Kindergarten and our first experience being on a very regimented early (for us) daily schedule.  The day finally came and surprisingly he sprang from his bed and was ready to go.  

 

He still had the smile of his face when Miss A and I came to pick him up.  

 

I burst his bubble a little that night when I told him he needed to go to bed because we had to get up early again for school.  E- "I have to go again?  I thought you said it was the only day of school?"  Me-"I said first, not only". E- "Ahhhhh".  Despite the reluctance to return, he had a good first week.  He only went to time out once.  I asked him why and he said "well it's kind of daddy's fault.  He told me to count my friends and so I was counting my friends and the teacher told me to stop talking but I wasn't done counting so I didn't stop and so I had to go to time out."  Definitely daddy's fault.

Miss A and I kept busy doing this and that, discovering things to do around our new home.  We went swimming, went to Vegas for toddlers (A.K.A Chuck-E-Cheese), did a little shopping, toured our soon to be new house (fingers crossed), and shopped around for a new gym.  Shhhhh, don't tell E that we have fun without him. 

And lastly, my favorite line from this month was from Miss A as she was watching a Goofy cartoon and Goofy literally got his socks knocked off (or knocked out of them):
Miss A--"Hey, he's a dog.  Dogs don't wear socks!"

And now to attempt to FINALLY post about our summer vacation.

The comings and goings of July

Things have recently gotten very stirred up here in the Melton pot.  At the tail end of our 3-week road adventure (which I started to blog about but got sidetracked for reasons I'm about to explain) a head hunter made Br aware of a position in Houston that would provide some great career opportunities.  Ironically right before I left on my trip Br was thinking about interviewing for a few positions in DFW but decided that it was time to resolve to stay in OKC and embrace the opportunities we've been given there.  Over the past few years, every 4 to 6 months Br would interview for a position with various companies in Texas. The interview would go fabulously and while we'd wait for the official offer we'd start to make preparations for the move.  We'd get really excited about things because it would always seem like it was a perfect choice.  But after prayer to confirm what we wanted we'd get the answer over and over that we were meant to stay where we were.  It was quite an emotional roller coaster.  In any event, we had just resolved to stop the nonsense and bloom where we were planted.  When the head hunter called, Br was initially going to say no because of our new resolve, but something made him say that at least he'd interview.  He spent some time before meeting with them to reexamine his career goals and for the first time ever when he explained them to me I thought, "Hey, that actually sounds like you".  Fast forward a little (only maybe a month) to me typing this in a hotel room on a house-hunting trip to Houston.  I could explain more everything that went down, but what it really boils down to is that when we prayed about this opportunity, even though it doesn't make any more sense than the other opportunities that have arisen in the past, the Lord made it clear that this is right.  So we're diving right into this new adventure.  Wish us luck. 

And now to my favorite lines of July.

We were getting ice cream cones.  E heard Br order 4 ice cream cones and got really concerned.  E-"why you not ask for ice cream? You just asked for the cone."  Br-"I did order ice cream" E- "Oh they just know to ice cream in the cone?"

E-"Mommy, do you pay daddy."  Me-"No, why would I?"  E-"Because of all the great things daddy does."

I got into the car with the kids. As usual, E was trying to convince me that I needed to buckle him.  I told him he was capable and needed to do it himself.  He also needed to put his shoes on.  Then he complained about having to do that by himself and gave me a list of reasons why I needed to do that for him as well.  A few minutes down the road E started to be a little bossy with Miss A telling her she was too little to do certain things so he could do it but she couldn't because he was older.  He said he had to teach her how to do this or that because he was older and wiser.  Miss A paused for a second and then responded, "yeah, but I can put my own shoes on".  -- well played little girl.

A golden royal celebration

Once Upon a Time, Miss A sent out a royal decree that all the knights and ladies of the kingdom should come to help her celebrate her GOLDEN birthday. Like always, the "princess helper" (a.k.a mommy) used a little magic created by her favorite scribe and artisan-- the fabulous Loralee Lewis-- to transform the royal garden into a party suitable for her highness. 

 

Princess A dressed in her newly made golden gown and matching crown and anxiously awaited the arrival of her guests.

 

The first carriage to arrive belonged to none other then Miss A's soon to be best friend Belle. 

 

It wasn't long before the rest of the guests enter through the castle gates where makeovers awaited them.  Our young knaves were adorned in shining armor and knighted by our king and then sent to the jousting fields where they bravely battled for their lady's honor.

 

The princesses wore their finest gowns, and with Belle's help, they readied themselves for the festivities with a tiara, sparkly nails, jewels, purse, wand, and a coat of lip gloss.  

 

Even the tiniest princess was ready for the ball. 

 

While the boys continued to battle, the little princesses worked on crafting fine golden bracelets.  

Her royal highness's first request was that the celebration begins with some dancing, and so dance they did.  

It's hard not to work up an appetite with all the dancing and so it was finally time to feast. 

 

The knights sat down at their round table 

 

and the ladies sat down for "tea".   

They daintily nibbled on tiara cookies, Tiana's chocolate frogs, Snow White's apples and dip, Aurora's spinning wheels, Rapunzel's twisted and tangled pretzels, treats from under the sea, Jasmin's pita chips, and bibbidi bobbidi berries.

 While they dinned, the beautiful Belle sang a couple tunes and told of her adventures with the Beast. 

 

While waiting for dessert, the knights added their crests to shields and the princesses made crowns for the day they would become queens.

 

Every one finished glittering and engraving just in time for cake.

 

 

  Who knows what the little princess wished for since she was already living a dream.  

 

Before the guests departed, we saved the kingdom by slaying the golden dragon and were rewarded with treasure that fell from his belly.

 And although this little tale had to come to an end, every one returned to their castles and manors to continue their adventure in their own little way.  And we all know little Miss Princess A is living happily ever after.

I can't believe I forgot about this one

My actual favorite conversation was one night when we were sitting out in a park with my sister.  She was making little flower rings and necklaces for Miss A and my niece.  She uncrossed her legs revealing a long crease on her leg from being crossed.  E came up and was very concerned about her "ouchie". She assured him it was just an indentation. 
E- "Indentation, what's an indentation?"
Jess tried to explain what an indentation was when he excitedly exclaimed, "Ohhhh.  You mean like when my underwear is too tight?"

Lyrics to songs sung around here:
"I stopped the sheriff but mmmm the deputy mmmm uh-huh"
"Old McDonald had a farm, Eli Eli Ho"
From Grim Grinning Ghosts (the song played in the Haunted Mansion) "... they begin to tear your eyes. Grim grinning ghosts come out to socialize" (really "they begin to terrorize").
From Splash Mountain "Slippery Do Da, Slippery Nay"
"It's a small world, after all, it's a life it's a gift it's a life is a gift, it's a small world after all."
"yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me, da da da da da da da da me hardies yo ho, da da da da da me hardies yo ho"
"Rumor has it ???????"

The coming and goings of June

The beginning of June was busy with plans for Miss A's birthday. Auntie Beth arrived to stay with us for a while. Our mornings were filled with a couple swimming lesson classes I volunteered to teach. In our afternoons we found some sort of adventure to keep us busy.  We went to the drive-in, children's museum, science museum, zoo, had some play dates, went swimming,  won tickets at Chuck-E-Cheese, celebrated daddy's birthday, dug for crystals at the salt plains, and then headed out on a road trip to remember. (I misplaced my camera for most of our adventures so this is all I have to show for it)

Here are my favorite conversations from the month:

At the zoo eating an Icee E said-"My head is so cold it's on fire"

We were walking up to our car in the parking lot of the Dr's office and I was standing a little closer to the car next to ours as I fumbled for my keys.  Miss A looked at the car and said: "Is this our car?" I said, "You know it's not" and she said, "Yes because this car is clean and our car is dirty."

At swimming lessons, E said, "Mommy you teach good swimming lessons. I wish I was a big daddy so that I can teach swimming lessons like you"

Aunt Elizabeth asked E about something my dad gave him: "Did your grandfather get that for you?"

E responded-"He's not my grandfather. He's Pappy.  He's not an old man!"

When anticipating his doctor's appointment to get his staph infection checked out E said "Mommy feel my heart.  It's beating really fast.  I think it's a little bit scared to go to the doctor but the rest of my body isn't scared but my heart is nervous."

E explained to a friend of mine where you get chicken. "It comes from horses. You shoot the horse. You pull off the skin and squeeze the blood out.  Then you take the bones out and cook it." 

The friend asked, "So chicken comes from horses".  

E-"Yes, and sometimes chicken comes from turkeys" 

Friend-" Does chicken ever come from chickens?" 

E-"No! that would be disgusting!"

When I asked him about it he said "sometimes chicken comes from horses, and sometimes from cows, and sometimes from turkeys, and sometimes from pigs, and sometimes from sheeps (pronounced "sheep" "es"). 

When we are getting ready to swim Miss A askes "Where is my baby soup?"(bathing suit) and "Where are my gobbles?"(goggles)

E-"My daddy's got skills!!!"

Miss A has turned into a little ferret.  If something is missing guarantee she's found it and stashed it away somewhere.  The other day I was looking for my goggles and fins to go to my boot camp and they weren't in my bag.  I was frantically looking for them and asked her if she knew where they were. She said, "hmm, I can't know?" After a while, she went outside and came back in so proud of herself for finding my fins.  Apparently "I" left then wedged between the abandoned dog house and the fence.  Silly me, how could I forget that is where I keep them?

Hi Ya

 If you've met E you know he has a lot of energy.  We've tried multiple sports as a positive outlet for his energy but none of them have really clicked for him. The one thing he has stuck with is his gymnastic class. (maybe someday I'll actually dig up the cute pics from last year when he and Miss A both participated).  After we took a break last summer, E started back up in a karate gymnastics combination class.  At the end of May, he showed us his moves during the M&M Olympics.  

Kansas City

Since I'm currently in the middle of another road trip I should probably hurry and get some posts up about our past few road adventures. Way way back (in April) we joined up with a handful of other families and headed to MO to go to the open house for the new Kansas City temple.

 Click here for more information on LDS temples. 

 

Since the kids aren't old enough to attend the temple with us once it's been dedicated we thought we'd take the opportunity for them to be able to see what one looks like on the inside.  It was wonderful to share the experience with them (even if Miss A managed to make a little scene by knocking a panel off the wall-- so much for the "don't touch anything" rule) 

 

 

as well as the 6 other families (14 adults, 26 kids)

 

While we were in the area we headed over to Liberty to check out some church historical sites.  It was crazy to think of the men, including the prophet Joseph Smith being unjustly imprisoned in the tiny jail during the cold of winter.

We also spent a little time seeing the sites in the city--visiting the crown center, eating BBQ, driving around lots of pretty neighborhoods (code for getting lost A LOT) and swimming. The most memorable part of our adventures around the city (aside from the sodeepi we won't talk about during the aforementioned getting lost in the neighborhoods) was probably eating at Fritz's where your waiter is a little electric train. 

Even with all it's ups and downs, I'm glad we went on our little adventure.

The comings and goings of May

So it's probably pretty obvious that I'm a little behind on my posting.  May kept us busy with end of the school year stuff, teacher gifts, and prep for Miss A's 3rd birthday (to come as soon as I get some pictures). We had some adventures like finding handfuls of Miss A's hair in her closet which lead to me wanting to rearrange her room, leading to finally painting the walls, followed closely with the opportunity to clean dark teal paint out of the light cream carpet.  I've spent the first 10 days of June catching up on everything I ignored trying to prep for Miss A's party. So in short, here is the long-awaited and really poorly recorded comings and goings of May.

While watching a commercial E announced--"I hate car insurance.  They just take all your money!" Amen to that little dude!

After his hair cut E commented, "My hair looks like daddy's except that he has more black and gray." 

E's Sunday School teacher was telling the story about how Christ called to his disciples and they immediately dropped their nets and followed him.  She tried to liken it to them by saying, "If you are doing something and your mommy asks you to do something else, what should you do?" Of course, most kids said, "Stop what you are doing and do what she is asking". E's response was "Yeah but my mom is so annoying.  She's always telling me to stop playing Legos because it's time to go to school.  She is trying to annoy me so I don't do it." 

E's teacher this year has been teaching for many many many years and has had many many students (40 of them this year alone). She usually has funny stories to tell me about his antics at school such as trying to lead her in an aerobics class at recess or randomly calling her out, saying "I'm watching you" with an appropriate gesture pointing with two fingers to his eyes than to her.  In any event, this sweet woman with A LOT of teaching experience reported to me one day that "All kids are different, but I can say that I've never taught a kid quite like E before.  Sometimes I am at home and think about him and just start laughing." Heaven help his next teacher. 

I obviously need to step up my blogging game. 

The comings and goings of April

This month's reflection is dedicated to my parents.  I have a feeling they are really going to enjoy it.

E has met the love of his life.  She is the older sister of a girl in his pre-K class.  He hopped in the car after getting a hug from her in the carpool line and she says. "I love her so much."

Me-"You don't even know her name" 

He and his teacher in unison-"But I (he) love(s) her" 

E-"I want to get her a special prize.  I want to get her a ring" 

Me-What kind of ring "A sparkly ring"

I told him that he'd have to learn her name before we could discuss buying her "special prize"

The older girl who has no name is not his only love.  One day, while we were waiting for our order at Sonic, E told me that he loved popcorn so much he was going to marry it.  Then he described the whole marriage ceremony and how he'd probably eat her after. Then he said, "This story gives me the giggles."

On another day after school, our conversation was about his order for his ice cream sundae for the class party the following day. 

Me-"what did you ask for on your ice cream?" 

E-"Just vanilla and cherries. I didn't want to get a tummy ache."

Me-" Oh so you wanted to make sure you had fun and didn't get sick."

E-"yeah and my friends who are getting candy and stuff are going to throw up and that's going to be sad."

Indeed it would be sad

Then one day after school I was helping him build a little Lego car.

E--"I love you so much. You're the best mommy ever because you are the best builder in the whole world."

Me-"Would you still love me if I couldn't build Legos."

E- "mmmm probably not"

I guess getting degrees in engineering has helped me in the mothering department.

Out of the blue-

E--"Daddy loves me too much.  He takes up all of my heart. But I want a little bit of my hearts for my friends."

Randomly-

E--"Mommy, how did you get best friends?"

Me-"I guess I just make friends with people"

E-"Oh, I just make up friends."

I'm not sure exactly what I did to deserve this but Miss A came into the living room nearly crying and said-"Mommy you took my special heart and you broke it." 

Yesterday I turned the TV to Babe--one of my favorite movies.  Miss A sat and watched it for a second and said. "Hey.  This not make sense. Ducks don't talk.  They say 'quack quack'".  Then a few minutes later when the sheep was talking. "Hey. He's supposed to say "Maaaaaa".  Apparently, she doesn't appreciate the timeless story of a selfless and nonjudgmental talking pig. 

Then at church, I took her to the bathroom right before her class.  She headed into a stall then demanded I go into one as well and "go potty". As I was washing my hand I heard a little Miss A voice singing "I did it, uhuh, I did it, Oh yeah!!!"

I think my parents have gotten what I can imagine they always wished for me. When I was a kid I always thought I was smarter than my parents because I felt like my justification when disagreeing with them was always very rational. I didn't get why they didn't get it.  Well, I finally get it. I have a daughter who must ALWAYS be right and comes up with a very valid reason why she is right.  I think she thinks I'm an idiot.  Cases in point.

• Miss A came out with thick fleece footie pjs when it was getting a little warm and I told her that she should change since those jammies were probably going to be too hot.  Her response "I'll just unzip it a little"
• We got out of the car on a crisp morning and she wasn't wearing a jacket. "Oh I'm not cold" " I love being warm"
• We were at Braums eating ice cream and she insisted on shaking salt into her ice cream.  After putting quite a bit I took it from her and told her that was enough. She took a big bite with a smile on her face and said: "Mmmm I love it".  On an unrelated note, she didn't eat anymore. 
• When I was changing for my aquatic bootcamp Miss A came in and pleaded to go with me (like usual). When I told her it was swimming for exercise not for playing she said. "It's okay.  I swim fast".
• We've been changing Miss A's room from a baby room into a princess room.  Immediately after I showed her the new vanity she said, "Okay now we paint my room".  I told her we couldn't because we didn't have paint. "Let's go buy paint". I told her we had to get E from school first. "Then let's go get E". I told her school wasn't over yet. So she yelled at me for the 20 minutes we had left before carpool time about how we needed to go get E so we could go buy paint so we could paint her room.  On the way home, she fell asleep.  The second she woke up she came out and said, "we need to go buy paint now so we can paint my room".  Unfortunately in the meantime, a storm had rolled in that was expected to have large hail.  Not wanting to risk dimpling my car I told her we couldn't go out because it was raining. "That's okay, we have jackets". When I tried to explain that the rain was more than jacket weather, she said: "Then we'll wear hats".

I can't wait til she hits the teen years. 

I find myself trying to figure out where in the world this little girly girl came from.  I know it's weird, but I sometimes think of her as Br's daughter and forget she's mine too.  But then there are days like today where I hear the door chime that tells me she's let herself out of the house again and then look out the window and see her just hanging out on the bench outside by herself and flashback to my memories as a kids escaping to the backyard hiding in the bushes, looking for bugs, imagining little adventures.  Aside from the all-pink outfit, including the skirt with "tights" (leggings) she demanded and sparkly shoes I would have never been caught dead in, it could have just as easily been me out there on the bench.  Then when she came back into the house, went to the silverware drawer, grabbed a spoon, and when I said those don't belong outside, and she assured me it was okay because "I'm not taking them all" so she could ladle water into her pretend lawnmower because "it was out of gas", I couldn't deny that she is me mine.

Somedays...

... you wake up feeling a little super.

You spend the morning being a superhero who uses his hammer to fix things. Or being a supervillain that is really sticky and goes by the name Super Yucky. 

Other days you wake up feeling royal.

So head downtown with another little princess where your carriage awaits to take you through town and you can wave and blow kisses to your adoring public.

Eggstravaganza?

Last week was filled with a playgroup party, chocolate egg topiary, Easter-themed desserts, community Easter party, 2000 eggs being collected by masses of kids in under 1 minute, and WAY too much candy.  To be honest, I really really enjoyed spending some great time with friends and family but didn't really get into it like I usually do. 

I did however really appreciate the opportunity to reflect on the sacrifice and Atonement of Jesus Christ and the blessings that come from His Gospel. I'm grateful for His plan for me that includes the fun times I get to spend with the precious gifts I call E and A. I'm so grateful for the true reasons for Easter.