(MarieFinds) Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. It's all about food, friends and family. There are no presents or other issues clouding the issue. This is a day to be grateful for everything and everyone in your life. And a day to eat and drink like crazy.

This year I am hosting Thanksgiving. I never get to do this. The Lawyer's sister and her family are coming out, so I bullied my mom into letting us host the combined family. Menu is as follows ...

Appetizers
- Marcona almonds / olives
- Crudite platter
- Spicy crab dip
- Deviled eggs
- chevre with chutney
- pate

Dinner
- Herb roasted turkey with sage stuffing
- Pumpernickel / cabbage dressing
- green beans with pancetta
- brussel sprouts
- roasted carrots and parsnips
- cider mashed yams
- mashed potatoes
- corn
- cranberry sauce
- cranberry relish

Desert
- Bourbon Pecan Pie
- Pumpkin Pie
- Sugar Free Apple
- chocolate cake (it is also Baby Boy's second birthday party)

(MarieFinds) Children's Programming

When Squirrel was a wee one, we limited her TV / other programming pretty dramatically. She was close to two before she found the joys of Sesame Street. With Baby Boy, video consumption started younger, because she was already watching.

Here's my thing: I don't mind the programming, I hate them watching commercials. So, no Nickelodeon, no Sprout. PBS, yes. DVDs yes. Netflix streaming is my freaking hero. We keep it somewhat limited, and try to find new creative things. Recently found Wonder Pets, which the Lawyer and I both like for the creativity.

Our list to date for the kids runs something like this: (+ and - are indicative of whether Lawyer and I like it) Sesame Street (+), Dora (loses creativity points every time they go to something or other mountain), Diego (-), Wonder Pets (+), Eloise, Kipper (+), Blues Clues (+), Mustard Pancakes (+) and Caillou (-).

So, my question to the room is, enjoyable programming for kids ... for when we all need to placate, chill them out and cook dinner. Suggestions for quality stuff that won't make my ears bleed, and hopefully not dull their brains too much.

In the words of Wonder Pets, "This is sewious."

(Marie Finds) Fall is in the air

Fal is my favorite season. I can begin planning Thanksgiving, which I will be hosting for the first time in about 10 years. I can switch back to red wine. Pull out the sweaters and realize I need new clothes. Squirrel has been boycotting pants in favor of dresses for the last year or so. I finally stopped buying them, and the other day realized she now only has two pair of pants that fit. Sigh.

Baby Boy has a bit of a wandering eye, so over his protestations, we are trying to get him to wear an eye patch for an hour a day. I'll get photos one day. In the mean time, here are some summer photos...

(MarieFinds) Things I love about motherhood

1. giggly morning babies
2. squirrel saying, "Mommy, I love you with all my heart."
3. baby boy saying "Ma-muh"
4. watching the kids try new food
5. hearing, "mom, i like this!"
6. sweet good night kisses
7. the scream of delight my girl gives after she gets scared.

(MarieFinds) About 30 Words

That's what Baby Boy is up to ... including:

Milkoo (milk)
nigh nigh (which is his favorite joke and cuddle clue. also said when he is actually tired).
apple
ball
bye-bye
more
cracker (unviersal for all food)
ka ka - I am unclear if he is trying to say chicken or quack quack, but either way it is universal for all barnyad type birds right now.

I have been neglectful in my posting duties. We have been felled by the Spring sickness fairy and overwork.

more soon, and more more.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Bam Bam

Baby Boy, hiding in the tall grass at the coast. He frequently gets called Bam Bam.

{MarieFinds} Of 3rd Birthdays and Sun

Oh, the differences between Jess and I are vast. And yet, she is one of my dearest dearest friends. One of my great sorrows is that our girls are growing up 3000 miles apart.

That being said, Squirrel also just celebrated a 3rd birthday. Rather than a lavish themed affair with other children, we went to the beach. With our grown up friends. With food. And wine. And Squirrel and Baby Boy. God smiled on our decision and gave us a sunny almost summery weekend.

For her birthday all she wanted was, "pasta and broccoli, and a kite and a shovel and bucket and a guitar." She got all of that, and then some. Auntie Feather supplied most amazing bubble wands. I'll post more photos once my new computer is up to date and I download the photos from the camera.

Squirrel running in the surf with her Auntie Lala.

Baby Boy, enjoying the beach. Despite his expression. He continually bent over at the waist into downward dog, and licked the sand.

Squirrel doing what she loves best - painting on the deck of the rental house.


It was an amazing weekend ... and the sun is shining like crazy here today. I think we'll go to the zoo this weekend.

(MarieFinds) Christmas Lights

We are very proud of ourselves this year... we have actually managed to get the outdoor lights up, and the indoor decorations are done. We will get our tree and put it up next weekend I think. I still do a real tree, and so I like to wait a bit so it doesn't get too dry.



The Squirrel is SOOO excited for Christmas this year. She is way into it. I bought a nativity set last year after Christmas and all she wants to do is kiss the Baby Jesus. It is just about the cutest thing ever. The Lawyer put the outdoor lights up, and seeing her Daddy on the roof absolutely delighted her. She still totally cracks up when she talks about it.



We started what I really hope is a new holiday tradition for us on Tuesday night. We went to the Zoo Lights Festival, which was just a blast. It is so fun having the kids around this year. Baby Boy slept through that for the most part, but Squirrel was over the moon about all the lights and the elephants.

(MarieFinds) Adventures in Archaic French Cooking

First: Baby Boy loved his birthday party. He got trucks, and new crayons to chew on, and he got to eat all the fat drenched beans he wanted, and then there was cake! Sweet, sweet cake. Which he ate very daintily. I will post pictures when I have the pictures near me at a time I have time to post...

Now, for the cassoulet. That was a blast to cook. Seriously. A double batch was truly obnoxious, and I won't do THAT again, but a single batch? Sure. The Lawyer was all, we are doing a casserole for EVERY dinner party from now on! Seriously... it was in the oven, with nothing for us to do, and we actually got to hang out with our guests!

Auntie Lola and I cooked on Saturday, and cooked tons of pig fat, layered it all up, and called it yummy. Squirrel helped me bake cakes on Sunday morning, and then we drank wine with friends. My idea of a good party, anyway.

I will post pictures of cassoulets when they came out of the oven and the obnoxious amount of leftovers we had. As well as the cake eating.

Oh, and he started walking. On his birthday.

(MarieFinds) Ambitious Birthday Plans

Baby Boy's birthday is this weekend. And what fabulously kid-friendly menu do we have planned? Casssoulet and brussel sprouts. Hahahaha. Seriously. I think the kids will love it. Well, at least Baby Boy will. Squirrel will probably hate it. She doesn't like beans. But, she will groove on the bread and cheese. And I'll let her have juice. In a small wine glass. It will make her feel like big people.

This is the recipe at Saveur.com. And Jess, there is no vegetarian substitute for duck fat.

There will be family, and cassoulet, and wine. And cake. I am making two. It is also my dad's birthday, so there will be a sugar free applesauce cake for him, and chocolate cake for the boy. I will post an update as we go along... my sister is making the confit, and coming over tomorrow to help cook. Then we eat on Sunday. Mmmm... anything that takes three days to cook damned well better be good!

(MarieFinds) Where have I been?

Hello ... I have been leaving ALL of the blog work to Jess. Life has been in a bit of upheaval. Seriously, since the last time I posted: I came down with strep throat (BAH!), we have put the Squirrel full time in to big girl underpants, I quit my job (seriously!) and start a new one in 3 weeks, we've had a busy time of childrens birthday parties and weddings, the Lawyer has gotten awesomly sick again, and Baby Boy has Hand, Foot and Mouth disease. Ugh.

So, that is all the big news. I am excited to start my new job, but sad to leave where I have been working for the last five years. I have, to quote the awesome Auntie Feather, a shit-ton of work to do before I am out of here.

Anyway, my fall resolution? To be a better blogstress!

(MarieFinds) Wealth and Hellness, Part II

Ah... the non-stop glamour that is working motherhood. I had to spend a couple of days visiting a client in SoCal. A great couple of days of meetings, actually. Lots of good stuff that we will be able to use over the coming year.

Downside: I left The Lawyer at home with an ear infection. And two kids who were both rocking ear infections, as well. Nothing piles on the mommy guilt like that, except ... the call from the Lawyer on Wednesday night that they were headed to the ER. Squirrel had hurt her arm.

Now, in a former life, Lawyer was an Army medic. He's pretty non-reactive to childhood bumps an fevers. S this means something is up.

Diagnosis: Nursemaid's elbow, AKA dislocated. So I'm on and off the phone with him while he is juggling both kids in the hospital. Answering questions only mommy can answer during admit (shots? Primary docs name?) Listening to the doctor pop her arm back in place. Hearing my beautiful girl scream.

But then she got a race car bandaid and everything was OK. Yup, sent her home with a dose of ibuprofen, a dose of tylenol and a bandaid.

(MarieFinds) Wealth and Hellness

Heh. When I was in college everyone called the "Health and Wellness" or "Health lifestyle" floors Wealth and Hellness. I hadn't thought of that in a really long time.

That being said, it has been a slightly traumatic couple of weeks around here. My dad went into the hospital last week, and stayed for about a week. He has late stage COPD, and a mile case of pneumonia sent his already too high CO2 levels into overdrive, making him all sorts of crazy and non-responsive with the added bonus of random muscle spasms. After about 72 hours they ruled out stroke and heart attack, and then spent the next several days ruling out progressively stranger things and trying to get his oxygen levels stabilized. He's home now, and presuming he follows his doctor's instructions about staying on his oxygen and exercising, he'll be fine. I fear that this is the start of a long road, however.

It was a little hard on the Squirrel seeing her Papa in the hospital with the big freaky mask. She wasn't a fan of the medicine mask. Baby Boy on the other was too young to care. he spent quite a bit of time at the hospital with me, making friends with the nurses.

And then The Lawyer got sick. And then Papa went home. And then I got sick. And now Squirrel has a damned ear infection. No, the tubes didn't make those stop. They are less frequent, and easier to treat, however.

So, bah. Wealth and Hellness.

(MarieFinds) Beach Weekend

We did it. We escaped for the weekend to the Coast. This is something The Lawyer and I really suck at ... carving out time for just us and the kids. No work. No grand parents. No Aunts and Uncles, just us.

Lawyer's Dad left on Tuesday, and Saturday we packed up and went to the beach. We have had fulltime house guests since April, so it was kind of nice to get away.

Most of week was over 100 degrees here, so 65 and foggy felt brilliant. Squirrel built sand castles, Baby Boy ate sand. Squirrel ran like a mad girl around the Aquarium, Baby Boy got sad that he couldn't play. Kind of the theme to the weekend, but a good time was had by all.

(MarieFinds) Take me down to the water

(MarieFinds) it's been ages...

The Lawyer and I have had a very busy time of it. Baby Boy was baptized last weekend, and a great time was had by all. Lawyer roasted a whole pig for the party... I will post pictures soon. Lawyer's mother has been with us since Easter, and his for a week or so now. Mom leaves on Sunday. It will be good to have a little bit of space back (we only have one spare room, so Dad is on the fold out couch in the living room), but Squirrel is going to miss her horribly.

I like that my kids will know their grandparents in ways that I never did. My paternal grandparents both died before memory, and my maternal grandparents live in the Midwest. I saw them for a week once a year.

Squirrel grows so attached to people, and then is so sad when they are not around.

(MarieFinds) Sleep Patterns

We have moved Baby Boy to his own bed. He is sharing a room with the Squirrel. She seems perfectly OK with this turn of events, which is good. He's not really sleeping through the night, though. Some nights, yes, but not enough of them.

Part of me is sad about the move. Or will be when we all start sleeping better...

(MarieFinds) What happens in Vegas ...

This week has been like a long nightmare ... but I want to get the deets of my trip out there before it is just way too late to be relevant.

The Lawyer had his annual conference in Las Vegas last week, so we decided to plan a family trip around it. He has family there, so it is always a good excuse to go see them, and let Super Squirrel play with her cousins. That was definitely the best part. Lawyer's sister and her husband and son came out as well, so there was family every where, and we got to spend time just hanging out.

We stayed at the Monte Carlo. In large part because our research had told us it had a very kid-friendly pool set up. Turned out to be true. Of course, this all depends on your definition of kid friendly. Yes, there is smoking and drinking pool side, a few folks getting VERY friendly with each other in the water. Lots of Kanye and Lady Gaga booming in the background. But, um, this is a hotel on the Vegas strip. What were you expecting? The hotel and pool overall was great. The smoke free room actually didn't smell like smoke, the food in the restaurants was very edible, the help friendly, and the poolside service was great.

Both kids were faboosh on the flights. Did really well overall with the complete destruction of their regular schedules.

I took Squirrel to see the lion at MGM (loved it!) an the fountains at the Bellagio (she's still talking about it) and one day a bunch of us took the kids to the Excalibur. Never again. Least kid-friendly venue on the strip I think. Smoky, dank, dirty, no place to sit down that isn't attached to a gaming machine, no changing tables. Gross.

I did no gambling. I think the Lawyer dropped $15 into the slots at the Venetian.

Baby Boy wasn't up to being left without me (i.e., didn't want to be that far away from the boob - he doesn't do straight formula yet and I didn't bring a breastpump), so we didn't really get any big people time to ourselves, but it was a nice trip.

I'd go back to Vegas with kids, and I would stay at the MC with them again. I think it would be a little better with the kids a little bit older. Lawyer was working a lot, and I couldn't take both kids to the pool myself because of their ages, need a 1:1 ratio of adults and kids in the water at this stage, but we were still able to get in the water a great deal. Aunt and Uncle have a pool, and there were lots of Aunties and Uncles around last week willing to play with Squirrel in the water while I sat or played with Baby Boy.

I might get a different travel stroller before we do that again. We have a broken down old cheap umbrella stroller that we used all over Cozumel last year, and the bearings are totally shot on it. Definitely need a stroller in Vegas because of the distances. Had Squirrel in that and Boy in the Wallaby a lot.

Again, it might not be everyone's kid-friendly idea, but I'm OK with my kids seeing some of that stuff, and I let them play in the dirt at home, so why not in Vegas?

(MarieFinds) A little dinged up

I failed to get pictures, but Squirrel has spent the last week spectacularly dinged up. Amazingly so, in fact. She was running like toddlers run ... gleefully, with hands in the air. And she tripped over her little too-big-for-a-two-year-old feet. And she fell. And bounced. On her face. Twice. It was sort of painful to watch. As a result she had ... a fat lip. a slightly blackened eye. a knot in the middle of her forehead. a cut under her nose. a scuffed up tip of her nose. a scrape running under her left eye and over her cheek bone. a small scuff over the knot on her forehead.

And a Hello Kitty Bandaid over a bruise, because we couldn't put it over the locations that were actually bleeding.

And so I endured the scorn of my Mother in Law, who thinks we allow her to do too much. And I stared at the still un marked face of Baby Boy, and realized that next year at this time, he will be a walking dinged up machine. And became slightly sad that I will likely never have another perfect-skinned gorgeous baby.

And I was once again grateful that no one called social services. Cause she really looked bad. That's what happens when you bounce. Twice.

But then, 5 days later when she fell at my sister's? She tried to catch herself. And instead of adding to the scratches on her face? She scuffed up two elbows and her rib cage. Good girl. She's learning.

(MarieFinds) It's been too long...

And now I have too much to say. So, let's talk about milestones.

I'm 35 now. WTF?? I'm not really wierded out about it. But it is one of those multiples of 5... is this what I thought 35 would look like? I don't know that I ever really thought about 35. I remember my Mom at 35. I feel older than I remember her being at this age. Huh.

I have more gray hair now than last year. But not a lot of it. I am sliding toward middle age in a profession that doesn't like old people. What am I going to do about that? Do I want to be a Project Manager in marketing agency when I'm 50? Hmmm...

Baby Boy is rolling over. And he has teeth (tooth). And he is just about grown out of his infant carseat.

Squirrel is riding a tricycle. And says things like, "I want to hang out mommy at library." She still gets syntax mixed up, but you get the gist. Unless you think she wants to hang me at the library. Not what she was trying to say.

Huh.

I go on vacation in a week. We are headed to Vegas. With the Lawyers family.

It's going to be hot.