A Busy Halloween

Happy Halloween everyone!! We had quite a busy halloween. This morning Chris carved 2 pumpkins. I shamelessly stole the kids hands idea from Young House Love. I think it turned out pretty well:Penelope's holding her doll wearing the hand knitted Halloween sweater from Great Grandma. Yup, even her dolls are spoiled!

Penelope and I had to leave the house so The Great Pumpkin could visit our house with an extra special surprise. I dressed her up in her costume, and we went off to the Cake Eater costume party where we met up with lots of other kids.

Next it was off to the park.

Then it was home for the big surprise!!!

The "I got a bed!!" went on for about an hour. Yes, a big girl bed. I wasn't ready for it, but Chris and I both witnessed her trying to get out of the crib. Rather then deal with a head injury, we decided we quickly needed to get a big girl bed. I had planned to just get a twin bed because the toddler bed seemed kind of silly and unnecessary, but I think I want to get a nice loft twin bed. She's too little for that now. So I browsed Craigslist for about 5 minutes when I found this very Dr. Seuss looking car-bed. Best part is that her crib mattress fits in it, and we got a great deal. It even has a sunroof:Penelope wanted all of us to get in the bed at the same time.
"Bye mommy! See you later!"
Here's the important part...she napped in it!

We are wary about the night though. We often wake up at 3 am to "Mama, I get down". We ignore it and she goes back to sleep in a few minutes. That is truly the beauty of a crib. We'll see how it goes this week. Chris is sure we are going to have the entire family in our bed at some point tonight.

Anyways, back to Halloween. We went trick or treating with our neighbors. Penelope loved it. She didn't really get the words Trick or Treat down pat, but she said thank you about a dozen times at every house, sometimes when they answered the door.

She had a packet of M&Ms right before heading off to the dreamland highway in her Thingamajigger (that's the name of the cat in the hat's car in case you don't watch the cartoon :)

Our ABC rock star

I'm not sure where Penelope learned to use a microphone, but she loves to do it. Here she is singing the ABCs in english and spanish and a few other songs (sort of).

Wordless Wednesday: Leaves

Dana and Meeenie

Let me introduce you to Penny and our neighbor Brenna. Or as Penelope says "Dana and Meeenie"

Penelope is very into turns right now. If we are playing with the ball she points to who gets it next "A daddy" "A Mommy" "A Mi!" Well, every time I'd throw it to her I'd say "To Penny". Now she has decided to put the two words together. Any time when she used to say Me or Mine, she now says "Meenie!". So in the morning it is "meenie's oatmeal" , which I will agree that usually in the morning she earns the nickname, but most times she is so sweet that I'd rather she didn't tell her new friend at the playground her name is Meenie. Sheesh...we adopted a dog from a shelter named Sissy and changed her name because we thought that was such a sad name for a dog even if she was scared of everything. Now our daughter calls herself Meenie. I guess it could be worse...Chris has called her Pooper enough times that it's pretty amazing she hasn't started introducing herself as Pooper P.

Pumpkins and apples

September and the beginning of October was unseasonably warm for Minnesota. Like 85 degrees when it should have been 60 degrees. I was raking piles of leaves in a tank top and shorts. Although, I enjoyed it, I kept postponing our apple orchard visit because I wanted Penelope to wear a cute fall outfit. Well, last weekend it dipped to the high 60s and off we went to Minnetonka Orchards. In life's ironic way, I pulled out the camera, snapped two photos, saw the battery light blink, say "Oh No!" and the camera was dead! Here are the two adorable pictures...isn't it a cute fall outfit?
I'm pretty sure Chris thought I was going to hyperventilate. All the picture perfect moments and no camera! I took a deep breath and told him "You know what, I'll just enjoy myself and not worry about pictures." And we did have a great time. There were all sorts of barnyard animals, a folk band, a great hay ride through the woods and yummy apple and pumpkin treats. Penelope kept gravitating towards the little kid train that went around the corn maze. It was about a 8 minute ride and almost the entire time she would not be able to see us. Chris was sure the moment the train turned the corner she would scream her head off. I decided he was probably right, but she wanted to go on it so bad. I bought the ticket, put her in the little seat, showed her how to honk the horn and off she went with a huge smile on her face. She was definitely the youngest on the train. Chris and I walked around with worried looks as if we just sent her over the pond to go to school at Cambridge. It's pretty silly since we drop her off at daycare every morning, but she knows all those people. Soon enough we heard the train coming around the other side of the corn maze. Lo and behold, there was Penny honking her horn. She saw me and Chris and started waving and blowing kisses. Chris shook his head and said "that kid is all you!" I gave her a huge high five when she got off the train and she said "Mama, mas train!!" and promptly threw a tantrum when she couldn't go around again... definitely just like mommy.

Halloween Part 1: Como Zoo Boo

I love Halloween! I especially love going to many Halloween events so you really get to show off your costume. I remember having various homemade costumes in one year: one for school, one for gymnastics class, one for trick or treating. So much fun. Now that I'm a mom I love making cute costumes....errr...I mean picking a costume from a big box store with a red bullseye as its logo. And I will say I had a tad bit of guilt when Penelope shrieked with glee over the Elmo costume. I promise I'll let her start picking next year...well, unless I find a unique cute costume that I can't pass up. You've gotta admit there was no way an Elmo costume would be this adorable:

Where's Penelope the gnome?
Oh there she is!!

I should have gotten her a Miss Piggy costume because she can be such a ham! :) (Dad, I know you laughed at that one)

Hiding behind the tree with daddy
I'm so much cuter than him.
The Como Zoo Boo was a great night! We will definitely go again. It was so cute to see her figure out how to trick or treat and say thank you to all the dressed up volunteers. By the end of the path she was running up to everyone giving high fives.

An evening with dad

I had to work late tonight so it was just Daddy and Penelope. I got the update when I got home. They went to the park, got cupcakes, read lots of books, sang songs...a great night with Daddy."Yeah!! Cupcakes!"
Woo hoo! Frosting!

Chris also told me "Oh, and she thinks poo poo is the funniest word now." Hmmm....I wonder who taught her it was funny?

(For those of you who didn't ever come to my dorm room, Chris was notorious for drawing a steaming pile of poop on my dorm whiteboard and writing POOP above it. He thought it was so funny. My roommates got a little tired of it)

"What you doing?"

Penelope has 3 full sentences that she loves to repeat: "I do it" "Don't do that" and as of this past weekend "What you doing?" I guess we are headed to the why stage. In the morning she asked me "what you doing?" about a dozen times in one minute. I said "I'm cooking your oatmeal" about 6 times before I got a little creative:

Penny: What you doing?

Me: Using electromagnetic waves to heat your breakfast.

Penny: What you doing?

Me: Providing you with a nutritious wholesome breakfast that you love and would eat for every meal if I let you.

Penny: What you doing?

Me: Cooking for your highness.

Penny: What you doing?

Me: Making my favorite breakfast that my mom made me when I was little, which makes me nostalgic.

(Ding ding removes oatmeal from the microwave)

Penny: Ohhhhhhh....mmmm otmal! Yummy

It's called preserving my sanity, while also exposing her to a ton of vocabulary!

Mmm...mmm...Hidden veggies

Okay, I have to admit I have somewhat of a cookbook addiction. I don't know when it started. Years ago I guess, which is odd since it wasn't until the past couple of years that I've started cooking. I can sit in bed and read a cookbook cover to cover. I love it. But my very limited space for books and my wallet are not to in love with this habit so I've started checking them out from the library to see if I really really want the cookbook or if I can get away with making a few copies.

This week we tried Deceptively Delicious, by Jessica Seinfeld (wife of Jerry Seinfeld)
I heard about this book when it was published because she was being sued for plagiarism of another cookbook. The whole idea of the cookbook is to hide fruits and veggies in foods your kids like. I remember thinking "ummm...how is that plagiarism? Isn't that in the Mom Job Description List?!" But now that I have the book I see it is more than just chopping up something very small or drenching veggies in ranch dressing. Her method is to puree a bunch of fruits and veggies and freeze them. You only do this a couple times a month and then go to her quick and easy recipes that incorporate the purees. We tried quite a few of her recipes last week:

• Scrambled eggs hidden ingredient: 1/2 cup of cauliflower--you get 1/2 of your vitamin C requirement in this recipe and you can't even taste the cauliflower!
• Tuna fish hidden ingredient: 1/2 cup of cauliflower--also very good. I'm looking forward to having this for lunch this week
• Pumpkin french toast--this one is extremely easy because all you need is canned pumpkin. This is the closest my french toast has ever gotten to restaurant french toast. Usually it is more like an egg fried on a piece of bread.
• Pumpkin oatmeal--also really easy because of the canned pumpkin. Penelope LOVED this.
• Chicken nuggets--Hidden ingredient: 1 cup spinach Penelope loved these as well. She has only had restaurant chicken nuggets 3 or 4 times so I can't say all kids will like these, but they were a hit here. We made sweet potato fries and it was a great fast food-like dinner.
• Green eggs--Hidden ingredient: spinach puree This one was also a hit. Penelope and I devoured these
• Oatmeal blueberry bars--Hidden ingredient: spinach puree. Seinfeld warns that you have to let the baked goods cool or else the veggie test will be strong. She was right! But the moment they cooled down I couldn't taste the spinach at all. Penelope didn't like this but she didn't like my blueberry apple crumble and it is very similar.

Besides the plagiarism thing, this book has had some criticism about hiding all the fruits and veggies and not getting your kids' palate used to them. I think this is unfounded. She has great tips to get kids to eat veggies, and she recommends serving them as they are as well as hiding them. I for one am happy to get Penelope to eat something green besides a cup of peas. Plus, bonus for us to get more veggies! The purees aren't too annoying to make, especially if you've made baby food. Same thing. I'm not sure if I'll buy the cookbook. There's a large number of pasta recipes. Tomato sauce hides the other veggie tastes really well and she says "what kid doesn't like tomato sauce or ketchup?" Ummm...mine! She won't touch the stuff and has started to cry if a french fry has ketchup on it. Overall I'd say it is a good cookbook. I felt like Super Mom feeding her all those veggies!

A flurry of energy

During the fall you could probably confuse me for a squirrel. I'm not sure why I get so much energy in the fall. It's like "oh, shoot! Winter will be here soon. I better go crazy before I hibernate." In the summer and winter I have no problem taking 2 hour naps every Saturday and Sunday, but in the fall I rarely take a nap. In the 6 days after my brother's wedding here was the schedule:

• Participated in a consignment sale--for those mom's that want a deal, check out Just Between Friends to see if there is one in your area. Great quality stuff at amazing prices! I went to the half price sale and bought Penelope piles of clothes and a tricycle (shh...that's really from santa). If you want to consign, it is a bit more work than a garage sale, but totally worth it. Since quite a bit of my stuff sold during the full price days I ended up making a profit even after everything I bought. Score!
• Hosted book club--Why in the world did I say I could have book club here 2 days after we came back from a trip?! It was a cleaning frenzy. Eight book club ladies came, so it was nice and cozy in our living room. Penelope sat with us for a half hour before bedtime and loved being one of the girls. I selected F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night. I remember I loved it during college. Not so much this time, but we had a pretty good discussion. There was enough alcoholism, relationship problems, and schizophrenia to be sort of like A Real Housewives discussion.
• Cooked 7 Rachel Ray recipes. I couldn't resist the $10 year subscription. I love her recipes, even though 4 servings always makes enough for 12. It is usually too much even when we cut it in half, but the canteloupe bacon wrap, corn and pepper salad, and easy apple chunk pie worked out great for book club. Then Chris and I made other recipes all weekend long. The spicy shepard's pie is guest worthy!
• Continued my couch to 5K--I'm on week 5 which meant one 20 minute run. It wasn't too bad since I've been running during my lunch time on a really hilly course. On Sunday I ran in an area without hills and thought "Oh this is so easy. I'll do a half marathon by next year." On Tuesday I was back to the hills and was panting and wondering if I will be able to complete that 5K.
• Joined my work's new knitting club. I told them I was tentatively joining. During college I taught myself very basic knitting via YouTube and books. I knitted a scarf and checked "Knitting" off my bucket list with no desire to move onto other projects. I decided to try it again and look what I did over the weekend:

Yes, I made a whole hat for Penelope! There are a few mistakes and I did have to rip it out twice, but for the most part it was fun and not frustrating or boring. I'm excited about this new hobby. We tried to get Penelope to model her hat:

After half a dozen tries she told Chris very clearly "DON'T DO THAT!" He said "Whoa! That is your voice, Laura. If I've learned anything don't push once you use that tone." Hopefully I'll be able to get a picture soon.

Phew! I'm pretty tired...I think I may relax with a book for a little bit...

A perfect match

On September 25th my brother Christopher married his beautiful bride, Jenn. (We won't linger on the fact that Henry children can only marry people with their sibling's names who also have siblings with their same names. My husband Chris has a sister Laura, and Jenn has a brother Chris.)

Last year we were playing a Q&A game at work and my question was "Who is your hero?" I automatically said "My brother." He is the most hard-working, inspiring, disciplined person I know. In fact, he earned the nickname "Christoofar" because he sometimes goes so overboard it can make us roll our eyes. For my birthday he wrote on a card "Laura, always burn your candle at both ends." I called him laughing that he wrote a negative saying on my card. He said "No, I didn't. Don't you know the Edna St Vincent Millay poem? (he then recited it to me...what landscape architect can rattle off poetry?! ) You give off more light if you burn them on both ends. Here's the poem:

I burn my candle at both ends, It will not last the night.
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends,
It gives a lovely light.

— Edna St. Vincent Millay

Yet he's perfectly honest about everything he does. He rarely watches TV. He says "I'm not one of those people that looks down on people who watch TV. I LOVE TV. I'd watch hours and hours, but then I feel so lazy and unproductive so I figured out stuff I like to do just as much." You know what he does? Rosetta Stone to learn spanish and piano keyboard lessons hooked up through his computer. During college he decided to focus his landscape architecture projects on helping people with autism and other sensory perception disorders by building safe outdoor spaces for them to learn and explore. He is now writing a book that already has interest from some publishers. Rather than "sell out to the man" after college by building pools, he and Jenn went and lived on a farm in Ohio helping teams of adults with autism that worked and lived there. Oh, and he does all this while running over 30 miles a week.

To Christopher it is great to create a huge light and a feeling of exhaustion once he reaches a goal. Me? Not so much! Do you have a little tinge of hate for him now? Problem is he's one of the nicest and funniest people ever. Plus, he's very positive despite inheriting the "What IF?" worry gene.

Who does such an intense person find to marry? Well, someone who has more creativity and eye for detail in her pinky toenail than 99% of the world. Jenn does wood carvings, screen printing, fixes cars, can build anything. Oh, and she's beautiful too...but once again so nice and thoughtful that you feel guilty at that itsy bit of jealousy that creeps up.

The thing about both of them is that they are persistent and hard working. I wouldn't say that smarts came to my brother naturally. He worked hard all through school and that has given him more discipline than I'll ever have. Although, I think back to when we were little and he always had that intense discipline.

Their personalities came through in every part of the wedding. Instead of going to some reception hall that does everything, they had their wedding on farmland near the Sheanandoah mountains. Everything had to be trucked in since there were no buildings. The amazing details were everywhere. I walked around with my jaw hanging down the entire time. My wedding looked totally boring, and we served breakfast for dinner for goodness sakes!

I'm excited to hear about Jenn and Christopher's next adventures. They are off to Chile in January to teach English...and from there, who knows...

Here are a few photos from the wedding:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=233998&id=571700851&l=79fdde38ca