Dress Up & Dance

We've arrived at that point in the summer where it's been either mid-90s and/or thunderstorming every afternoon for approximately the last 900 days.  Sometimes it can be a challenge to keep everyone sane and happy in the infamous naptime-to-dinnertime stretch without being able to go outside.  We've already done a ton of super-fun Pinterest-projects (look for those in a future post), but I'm starting to run out of ideas.  The idea that made our afternoon one of the most fun of the summer actually came from Molly.  She started picking through the dress-up box, which got the ball rolling.  Then when she asked to turn the iPod on, it just completed the package and made today one for the record books.  Check out all the fun we had:

When Ian first saw the tutus flying out of the dress-up box, he gave them one look, climbed up into the chair, and grabbed a book to read.  I guess dress-up is not a man's game.

Molly started out as a "kitty fairy".

She was pretending to be Princess Presto from Super Why by using her scepter to make the letter A.  I love to watch her blossoming imagination.  She made all the other "A"s during our preschool time that we do each day.

"Ahoy, mateys!"  It's not a tutu, so I guess I won him over to our little game.

This scurvy scalawag made quick work of destroying poor Molly's letters :-(

Declaring mutiny against the hat.

Princess P snatched the abandoned hat up pretty quickly.

With a new set of butterfly wings and a mix of Frank Sinatra, Ace of Base, and Whitney Houston (thank you Shuffle), Molly was ready to rock and roll.  Captain Ian wasn't so keen on keeping his pirate get-up on, but he still had a good time dancing, as you can see in the videos.

So, next time you're feeling down, frustrated, fed-up, or blue, get dressed up, put your dancing shoes on, and blast the tunes.  You'll be glad you did.

Best Christmas Present EVER!

This past Christmas, we received the gift of a yearlong membership to the North Carolina Museum of Life and Science in Durham from Eric's parents (better known as GG & Pop).  It has turned out to be the best gift, truly the "gift that keeps on giving".  The Museum of Life and Science is an amazing place and has so many great exhibits, but, as is true of most museums, the admission price for non-members is pretty steep and, with 2 young kids, it's impossible to see everything in one visit.  The kids have a fantastic time for a few hours, but eventually the crankies set in, naptimes grow nearer, and the time to leave arrives sooner than you wanted.  There are so many great things about being members.  First, you get to start your visit an hour earlier than the regular opening time, which allows you to, not only beat the crowds, but the kids get to enjoy the exhibits at their happiest time of day.  If we get tired or hungry, we can leave to return another day without feeling like we've wasted our admission price.  We can spend hours in one exhibit if the kids are fascinated with it because we can always come back another day to see more.  Plus, through their museum Passport Program, you can use your membership at tons of other museums across the country (a perk we're going to take advantage of at the Baltimore Science Center on our upcoming drive to NY)!  Here are some of the fun times we've had at the museum over the last few months:

Making polymerization worms.

Mixing up some pink slime...no, not the nasty "meat" served at McD's...ACTUAL pink slime ;-)

"WOW!  SLIME!!"

Me and Ian catching grains of "sand" on our shadows.

One of their favorite exhibits: hands-on investigation of geometric shapes and volume.

They really could spend all morning at this table.  Fill. Dump. Fill. Dump...

The Mist Garden.  A brand-new exhibit this summer and an instant favorite.

Hydro-station.

The Butterfly House.  I adore this picture.  I just love the way she studies the world with quiet curiosity.

Making some noise in the music garden.

Digging for fossils with Daddy and the cousins.

Ian wants to join in the paleontology fun.

Big cousin Corbin was savvy enough with the camera joystick to find the black bears.

The boys have some fun at the erosion table while Molly takes a break in the shade.

Daddy gets in on the fun too.  I think Eric and I have just as much fun as the kids every time we visit.

Cousins Corbin and Isaiah try their hand at making smoke rings.

Pounding on the air cannon.

Our taps on the air cannon make the sequins move on the boards.  Pretty neat cause-and-effect demo, even for toddlers.

The fog table, always a favorite.  Plus, it sends Molly's curls into complete Shirley-Temple-mode.

Ian's always a fan of the animals, a huge rat snake in this case.

 So many thanks to GG & Pop for our museum membership.  We are thoroughly enjoying it!

From the Mouth of Molly

 In the last few months, Molly's vocabulary has really blossomed.  She has gone from the parrot stage, where most of her phrases were verbatim repeats of things she heard us say, to using her own words to express her own thoughts.  It has been a lot of fun to hear her share what's going on inside that little head.  At times it can also be quite hilarious.  What makes it even funnier is that her little voice is SO expressive.  She speaks with an enthusiasm that's difficult to express in words on a page, but I'll try with some capital letters to capture the spirit of her speech.  Here's a sampling of a few of the things that she's said lately:

"Time for sleepiness.  Sleepiness time."
Not really sure how she came up with this one, but she only says it when she's really tired and knows that she needs a nap or needs to go to bed.  I don't hear it often enough (she's usually very reluctant to go to bed), but when she does say it, it's quite precious.

"I'm a lettuce sign"
Translation: "I'm gonna let it shine."  Her absolute favorite bedtime song is "This Little Light of Mine".  One night I asked her what song she wanted to sing before bed and this is what she said.  It took me a minute to figure out what she wanted.

"No M&Ms for Ian.  He's TOO little.  He'll choke and die!"
No idea where she came up with this one, but she makes a good point.  Truthfully, I just think she doesn't fancy sharing her potty prizes with her little brother.

"Not now.  I'm TOO busy _____________."
Shamefully, I think she may have picked this one up from me.  The first time she said it, I asked her to come to the table to eat dinner.  She responded with, "Not now.  I'm TOO busy picking up toys.  You'll JUST have to wait."  Thankfully, she has dropped that last part, but whenever we ask her to do something (eat dinner, use the potty, brush her teeth, get her shoes on), the standard response has become, "Not now.  I'm TOO busy playing blocks/holding my babies/watching Ponyo/etc.".  Now, I can understand where she's coming from.  What 2-year-old wants to leave a fun activity to do something as boring as eating dinner?  But the one that totally cracked me up was the other day when I asked Molly to step up to the sink to brush her teeth.  She had been standing in the bathroom watching me get ready at the mirror.  She stuck both her hands in her pockets, leaned against the wall, and said, "Not now.  I'm TOO busy standing in the bathroom."

"Got to get up.  Get changed.  I'm ALL sweaty."
This has become her go-to excuse for getting out of bed when she should be going to sleep.  At bedtime she runs through her normal litany of 'one more book', 'one more song', 'one more drink', 'Mommy give my babies a kiss', 'Mommy give my babies a drink'.  Once she's finally settled into bed, she then tries to find excuses to get out of bed, which hasn't worked out well for her.  That all changed a few weeks ago when she had a little virus that gave her a fever.  She woke up all sweaty and, of course, I changed her pajamas and gave her some cuddles before putting her back to bed.  "Ah-ha" said her little brain.  "If I'm sweaty, Mommy will have to change my PJs and I'll get out of bed for a bit."  For a while, she just tried to tell me she was sweaty.  When the evidence didn't match the claim, she kicked her game up a notch.  Three times this week, she has gotten out her bed crying "all sweaty" and she actually was soaking wet.  It took me the first two nights to realize what was going on; she was using the water bottle by her bed to dampen her head and shirt!  If you're looking for proof that small children have a sinful nature, there it is.  Clever little girl!

"See ya next week."
I think this one was picked up at church when she says goodbye to her Sunday School teachers, but Molly uses it in all situations.  Daddy's going into his office for work..."See ya next week."  Ian's going to bed..."See ya next week."  Mommy's going into the kitchen to start dinner..."See ya next week."

And because I can't possibly publish a post without a picture of sweetness, here's my squishy with me and her babies (named "Molly" and, you guessed it, "Molly"):

Our Wild Man

I've always known Ian was going to be our wild child, even before he was born and I felt him doing his in-utero calisthenics.  But I didn't truly understand the scope of his wildness until the last few weeks.  During the school year, he spreads his crazy antics out amongst his three caregivers: Daddy in the morning, our nanny in the afternoon, and Mommy in the evening.  Now that I've been out of school for the summer, I'm starting to experience the full spectrum of this wild child's ways from morning until night.  To watch him (and keep him safe) throughout the day is both exhausting and hilarious.  Here's just a sampling from the last few weeks:

At the playground, he is never shy about climbing everything on his own.  He scurries up to the top of any structure as fast as he can.  And he has no fear about coming back down on his own either.  I constantly keep a close eye on him because he has no healthy fear of heights and would walk off the edge of a cliff without blinking.

Ian hates to be slowed down, which means he especially hates to have his diaper changed because it means he's out of the action for at least 30 seconds, much too long in his opinion.  When I have all three kids outside (we occasionally watch another little girl), I can't really haul them all back inside to change a diaper, so I sometimes change him on a blanket in the yard.  When my diaper houdini escapes my grasp, this is the result.  Fortunately for him, he was wearing a onesie that day, so his future girlfriend won't see his full moon running down the driveway when we share family photos.

I know what you're thinking: "Aww, what a sweet boy, helping Mommy with the gardening."  Well, unfortunately, I didn't grab a photo of the next event because I was too upset.  A few minutes later, I turned around for a moment only to turn back and find that Ian had ripped every last blossom off of my newly planted marigold.  There he was sitting in a pile of orange flowers, pleased as punch by his accomplishment.  My gardening woes didn't end with my marigolds.  Ian has also taken a liking to all the fruit being produced by our garden.  This was his first offense:

No, that's not a jalapeno.  It's supposed to be a bell pepper, but it's life was cut short.  Since then, we've had two more tomato casualties at the hands of this mischievous little boy.

 

 Ian's new favorite activity is climbing...kitchen chairs, the couch, the coffee table...it's all fair game.  He's starting to get very sneaky too.  He's figured out that if he pushes chairs and stools around the house, he can use them to get to all the forbidden places he's never been allowed to go.  In this case, the music table was the perfect tool for reaching his beloved "nonnies" while Mommy was trying to wrangle freshly bathed kiddos for PJs and bedtime.

Along with "nonnies", Ian also has a strange love affair with vaseline.  The child is obsessed with the stuff!  The only time in my life that I've ever had to call poison control was a few months ago when he grabbed a tub of the stuff, took it behind the T.V. and started to chow down.  Since that day, he has done everything in his power to get at the tub of vaseline.  I'm usually on high alert when Ian's not in the room, but the other night I was busy with laundry when I heard Molly yell, "Ian, Ian, Ian!!!  NO! NO! NO!".  I ran into the bathroom to find this:

He was covered from head to toe.  At least he wasn't eating it.  After a second bath, I still put a very greasy boy to bed and it showed the next morning.  He woke up looking like this:

 Because I'm allergic to most skin-care products and chapsticks, vaseline is one of the only things I can use.  Therefore, I have a few containers around the house in, what I thought were, unreachable places.  Guess I'll have to start locking it up with the cleaning products!

 Another new favorite game is what I call "Stuck in the Bed".  We've never used a changing table with Ian, but instead just change him on a towel on our bed.  Lately, he has found that this is a great time to run away from Mommy or Daddy and slide himself feet-first into the crack between the mattress and the headboard. (Are you noticing a theme?  Diaper change = BAD.  Getting into trouble = GOOD :-)

 For some reason, he LOVES being in that little crevice.  Once he has himself good and stuck, he likes to duck behind the pillows and play peek-a-boo.  Check out the video of this silly little boy.

But despite all his antics and occasionally making me want to pull my hair out, he has the biggest, sweetest heart.  He loves to snuggle with his Mommy, wrestle with his Daddy, and gives hugs to his big sister.  This little boy has stolen my heart...even if he sometimes makes it skip a beat.

My New Favorite Sidedish

I have a terrible habit.  I LOVE to cook, but once I make a new recipe, I tend to forget about it completely and usually only end up making it once.  It's the problem with cooking in the internet age.  I remember as a kid seeing my mom mark recipes in her trusty Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook so she'd remember that we liked them and we'd have it again.  Since I usually only cook from memory or an internet search, I never mark anything down and don't have anything to refer back to.  I'm hoping that between my Pinterest pinboards and this blog, I can start to keep track of our family favorites so we can enjoy them again and again. 

We'll start with my new favorite sidedish: Summer Vegetable Tian.  A tian, I learned tonight, is a French dish made of layered fresh vegetables that are then baked to concentrate the flavors.  Well, I'm not French and I don't cook with wine often (I prefer to drink it), so I put my own little Italian spin on it.  You can find the original French recipe here.  But mine took on a little more of the spirit found in the budget-friendly version found here.  I was trying to work mostly with vegetables ready to harvest from our potted garden on our deck, so my basic ingredients were chopped garlic and onions, EVOO, a can of Italian-seasoned diced tomatoes, sliced rounds of summer squash/zucchini, potatoes, onion, and tomato, grated parmesan cheese,  S&P and chopped fresh herbs.  Our porch garden provided me with parsley, rosemary, chives, basil, and thyme, which all worked perfectly, but you could use anything along those lines that's available to you.

The preparation was so simple and fast.  Saute the chopped garlic and onion in EVOO and spread in the bottom of an 8x8 baking dish.  Top with the can of diced tomatoes.  The original recipes didn't call for this, but I was feeling creative and our poor tomato plant on the porch isn't turning out a lot of fruit, so I improvised.  If you have an abundance of fresh, juicy tomatoes on hand, you could eliminate the canned stuff and follow the original recipe.  Create vertical layers of all the sliced vegetable rounds.  (I know I already have onions chopped in the bottom of the dish (1/2 an onion), but I sliced the rest into half-moons and layered them too because I love some big slices of tender baked onions.)  Top with a drizzle of EVOO, a sprinkle of S&P, and a smattering of whatever fresh herbs you have on hand.  Cover with foil and bake for 30 min. at 400 degrees.  Remove the foil, sprinkle with cheese and bake another 15 minutes or until the cheese is browned and the vegetables are tender.

Yummy!  Everyone in our family loved it.  Ian was shoveling it in by the handfuls and reaching for more.  I love when a recipe makes vegetables appealing to my kiddos.