I Heart Mrs Prindable's

Candy covered ball of deliciousness

My in-laws introduced us to Mrs Prindable's a couple of years ago and it has quickly become an obsession.  They sell amazing apples drenched in caramel and then topped with any kind of chocolate you can think of.  I had to ban myself from ordering them for us, but if we happen to get them as a gift it's fair game!  So I was super excited when a box of four minis arrived on our doorstep for Halloween.  Thanks G and Pops!!!  It definitely takes the sting out of being too old to trick-or-treat!  Here's a link to their website if you need a treat for yourself!  Mrs Prindable's

Monkey Is 2!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Breakfast of champions!  Passing up Belgian waffles for yogurt, applesauce and capri sun.

Wilson Fire House

Monkey hearts cupcakes!  Well, the icing at least.

Monkey turned the big 0-2 on the 4th!  He started his special day with a homemade breakfast of Belgian waffles and whipped cream, of which M ate none.  Apparently, he's more of a L'eggo man.  I thoroughly enjoyed them, though.  Then we took him to the playroom to show him his big gift.  After his teachers told me his favorite toy at school is the dollhouse, I researched boy houses and found him the cutest Fire Station.  It took H and I a couple of hours to put together, but I think it was worth it!  I have to say the biggest hit of the day were the Mylar balloons I had waiting for him at home after school.  M seriously cleaned up in the gift department this year, but I think the balloons were his absolute fav.  We had G, Pops, Aunt S and Gaga A over for his favorite meal of tacos, black beans, rice and cupcakes.  Yum!!
On Saturday we had a birthday party with all of M's (ok, really my) friends at the place where M and I take gymnastics class.  M loved all of the attention at both parties and had a bit of a hard time coming off of the birthday and sugar high once it was all over.  Luckily Christmas is right around the corner!

Monkey in his natural habitat - the gym!  He found a stuffed chihuaha that he called "Pea" and carried around the whole party.

Monkey plates and napkins

Sad Monkey!  Started crying during Happy Birthday song.



Can't be bothered to pose...



Pulling a Britney

Usually Britney Spears is not my go to parenting role model, but I was a little desperate today.  After rushing in to pick Monkey up from school five minutes late (shopping emergency), dragging him to the car and wrestling him into the car seat I realized too late that he had no water in his sippy cup.  This probably sounds like a small problem, but M will cry the entire way home if he doesn't have his after school drink.  I weighed my options, unhook him and pray for his cooperation (yeah right), leave him buckled in the car and run back to the water fountain (too afraid of child services) or give him the only fluids I had available, my watered down diet coke.  What would Britney do?  Yes, I gave my almost two year old diet coke in a sippy cup today...  Sure, it's not Mountain Dew, but still not one of my prouder moments.

Happy Halloween!!!

 



Monkey in his stroller at Boo Ha Ha

At the neighbor's visiting their pumpkins

We had the best Halloween!  This was really the first year that Monkey 'got' the concept.  Last year we had his birthday party on Halloween, and I think he was just a little overwhelmed by the whole thing.  This year I tried to prepare him a little better.  We read every Halloween book I could find, watched the Halloween episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse about a million times and talked about dressing up and trick-or-treating for the whole month of October.  We went also went to the Whiteside Carnival and Boo Ha Ha as dry runs for the big day.  So needless to say, I was pretty much over Halloween by the time it got here.  But luckily M was not sick of it!  My friend A invited us to her mom's house to get all the kids together before the dads took them trick-or-treating in the neighborhood.  M was very excited to see A's daughter dressed as Mickey Mouse.  After tugging on her ears and poking the belly of her costume, he spent the rest of his time chasing her around and 'talking' to A's mom's dogs.  Very exciting!  Finally, the dads took all of the little ones out to collect their treats.  Hubby said M was a trooper but finally just pooped out.  M started sitting down in the grass and eventually laying down for a rest in between houses.  He did admirably for his first time out, though! 





Heading out to trick-or-treat with dad



Sleepy Monkey going home













Brownie's

Hubby, Monkey and I made the most wonderful discovery - Brownie's!!  Apparently this is a Tulsa institution, but it took us a whole nine months of living here before we ventured in.  It looks a little, how shall I put this nicely, unkempt from the outside.  But we were feeling quite adventurous after our trip to the Whiteside Halloween Carnival, and a little desperate for somewhere close and quick since it was already past bedtime, so we thought we would give it a shot.  Boy, am I glad we did!  For starters, we had the nicest waiter ever.  The menu only has about five items on it, but he went to great lengths to make sure we were well informed before we all ordered, you guessed it, cheeseburgers.  We also tried the fries, coleslaw and chili, of which Monkey was a super fan!  Luckily the food was served fast because we were only there about twenty minutes before M reached his breaking point and we had to go home to put him down.  Before leaving H and I got a slice of the banana cream pie to go and enjoyed it while catching up on DVR after M was in bed.  The perfect end to a perfect night! 

Halloween Happenings

Monkey is all set for Halloween.  This year he's paying homage to G and Pop's dogs and going as a dalmation.  I got the cutest costume at Pottery Barn Kids.  We bought ours a while ago, but they still have the treat bags online, so you get the idea.  At first M wouldn't try it on for me, but I finally wrangled the hat over his head and took him to the mirror to see how cute he looked.  He slowly began to swing the ears back and forth, "woof, woof"ed and gave his reflections a few kisses.  We have no self esteem problems in this house!  Since he's still a little young for full out trick-or-treating I've been looking for some other opportunities to show off his outfit.  Tonight we're going to Whiteside Recreation Center for their Halloween Carnival.  I just found out about this one today - thanks B!  On Saturday we're going to the Boo Ha Ha festivities on Brookside.  I don't think we'll be up early enough for the pancake breakfast but it should be fun!  And Monkey will be happy to have another chance to check himself out in costume!

A Lady Who Lunches

When I first enrolled Monkey in Mother's Day Out I had elaborate visions of how I would spend all my new found free time.  The most frequent day dream was that I would morph into a 'lady who lunches'.  I'm sure you've seen them around town.  Invariably she's the most fashionably dressed woman in the restaurant.  The one you know has three kids and a full time job but still manages to have nary a chipped nail or hair out of place.  I just knew it, this would be me!  Minus the additional kids and job of course.  All the better because I would have time to get a manicure and go to the gym let alone wash and dry my hair.  Sadly, this has not been the case.  Most of the time I'm lucky to get a solo trip into Target in between all of the other day to day errands I try to squeeze into my days 'off'.  But today was different!  My friend B and I were meeting for lunch as we both had a few precious kid free hours.  Of course, said lunch had been rescheduled a few times already due to Monkey's ear infections, but today he was healthy and we were on!  The plan, meet at 11:30 at Wolfgang Puck Bistro.  Small problem, Wolfgang isn't open for lunch yet (sign on the locked door says lunch to begin Jan 2011).  After a brief call, we met down the street at Sonoma Bistro & Wine Bar.  Back on track, we enjoyed a delicious meal, great conversation and best of all, no spills, tantrums or dirty looks from other eaters!  I may not be able to go out for a long, leisurely lunch every week (or even every month), but it sure is worth it when I do!  Chipped nails, messy hair and all...

Timeout - Not as Easy as it Sounds!

Yesterday we went for a quick trip to the mailbox with Sweet Pea.  Once outside, Monkey decided to visit the neighbors' pumpkins (as we've had to do at least once a day since they got them in September), say hello to the other neighbors' dog, look over every flower in the yard and talk to our favorite tree.  Finally, I attempted to pull rank and go back in the house; M would have none of it.  I tried negotiating, bribing and brute force, but with a chihuahua and a pile of mail in my arms it was a challenge.  I was able to muscle him in, but not before the threat of timeout had been voiced repeatedly.  Back inside I decided I had to follow through, so as not to show weakness.  The only problem is that he wouldn't stay put.  After several rounds of me putting him on the chair, him getting off, me putting him back on, I had a rolling sweat and had completely forgotten what the timeout was for in the first place.  As I found myself physically holding M onto his seat thinking "please don't let any of my neighbors see this and call child services", Monkey decided the whole thing was pretty hilarious and started laughing, playing with my hair and petting my face.  Now how can you punish that???

Pork - It's What's for Dinner

I am one of those lucky girls married to a boy who actually LIKES to cook.  In fact, Hubby really LOVES to cook!  I know, how weird is that?  Anyways, in our pre-baby, pre-Okie days H worked from home and would happily do not only the cooking but also a lot of the grocery shopping as a brief respite from his office.  Now that we're in Tulsa and he has a real office to go to, I thought it was time for me to embrace my homemaker status and start cooking dinner for us.  I'm not going to lie, the first few months were rough.  My mother's idea of cooking was takeout, so I didn't have a lot of old family favorites to fall back on as far as meal selections.  Gradually, I am finding some meals that will please a picky two year old, a foodie husband and me - a veggie hater from way back.  I'm even discovering that there are some veggies I can not only stomach, but enjoy as well!  Last night's attempt was from my new favorite magazine, America's Test Kitchen 30-Minute Suppers.  I tried the Crispy Pepper and Parmesan Pork Cutlets with Pear and Arugula Salad and it was quite yummy if I do say so myself!  The only change I made was subbing some Canola Oil in for Olive Oil as I realized too late that we were almost out.  And I added some shaved parm to the salad because, really, can you ever go wrong with more cheese??? 

Here's the final product, and I promise to work on my food photographing skills before my next post!

Tulsa State Fair

Hubby, Monkey and I checked out the Tulsa State Fair a couple of weeks ago.  Since this is our first fall in Oklahoma, it seemed like the perfect thing to do!  Also, I was lacking in state fair trips as a child because my parents hated to go, so I'm dragging H and M with me every year from now on!  Since M is not yet two, this probably wasn't the most exciting field trip for him.  But he did LOVE the petting zoo.  That was about as far as he made it, though.  He stayed up just long enough to snack on a few chicken nuggets before promptly passing out on our walk through the Midway.  That gave H and I lots of time to choose between turkey legs, root beer floats and fried versions of anything and everything imaginable.  Once again the clear winner for me was the funnel cake.  There's not much you can do to mess up fried dough topped with powdered sugar!  I'll be dreaming of it until next year's fair!!!

Monkey and I with our new friend Camel.  Camel is quite the poser!!! 

Hubby and Monkey feeding the animals

All gone...  There were some hungry animals at the petting zoo!

M passed out in his stroller.  Luckily this gave H and I plenty of time to peruse the fried food selections!  My fav - the funnel cake.  YUM!!!

Sweet face!!!

What am I doing?

So, here goes, my first blog...  Apparently I'm a little behind the times on this whole thing as I rarely even read blogs.  But since my main connections to the outside world these days are Sprout TV and People & US Weekly mags, I figured I'd better start.  After an hour of sifting through friends' favorite blogs, the main thing I've decided is that my house, wardrobe, and hair are all in major need of makeovers!  Sadly, we just remodeled the house in February.  Not sure if I can talk Hubby into another one so soon.  Maybe we should just move?  Although I think that might be an even harder sell...  I'll probably just settle for a couple of new pillows and maybe shop the sale items at J Crew or Anthropologie.  I also need to figure out just how this whole blogging thing works because my current blog is very unexciting visually. 

As for the rest of my day, Hubby and I took Monkey to see Veggie Tales Live and he loved it!  I think he was in shell shock for most of the show as he sat staring, open mouthed at the stage, but during intermission he danced around and he almost lost it when we got to meet Bob and Larry for the photo op!  (Thanks Hubby for shelling out the extra $$ for VIP tix!)  We also came home with new Bob and Larry stuffed toys and two new DVDs.  Not a bad haul for a morning's work, Monkey!  Oh, and this is just a week before his second birthday.  Can you tell we just have the one child?