Banana Phone and Palermo's to the Rescue

I had to make a rush-hour trip to the grocery store this afternoon with one toddler who did not nap and one baby who just seemed a bit frantic (teeth?). I knew it was a dicey situation, but I had to go. We are hosting the dinner portion of our Women's Club Progressive Dinner tomorrow night and I'm volunteering for Expanding Your Horizons tomorrow afternoon, so it was now or never. Things were going alright until I got into the vestibule and there were no car carts. That meant that Daniel was either free or thrown in the big part of the cart. I opted for the big part of the cart, but I knew that my groceries were likely to get pulverized.

We started in the produce department where Daniel asked to taste everything. I don't know how many times I had to tell him that we have to pay for the food before we eat it (this was particularly important for the produce as it is by weight!). Well I grabbed some bananas, and before I knew it, Daniel had one plucked from the bunch and was talking on it like a phone. I decided that this was a pretty good compromise. He continued to talk on his banana phone for half of the store very loudly. The fun was wearing off by the frozen foods, and I started to get worried.

I had no need to worry because we ran into the Palermo's Pizza sample lady. She was giving out slices of pizza, and Daniel loves pizza! Now these were not a taste of pizza. These were Happy Hour at the grocery store size slices. It was perfect. If you recall, I'm a big fan of Palermo's. I mentioned them in a earlier post about coupons. They have a .pdf $1 off coupon on their website. The pizza lasted until the dairy aisle when Matt called. Daniel had to ditch the pizza for the banana phone. It was hilarious. I was talking to Matt on the cell phone, and Daniel was talking to him on the banana phone.

We finally made it out of there with minimal outbursts. There was a mini-meltdown when the banana phone went into the bag instead of to Daniel. If you could have only seen the look on the bagger's face when Daniel asked him for his banana phone. The banana phone made a perfect snack for the ride home.

Thanks for reading! Try following! It's fun.

Photos, I Miss You

Some of you might be wondering why there have not been any pictures here since our trip to Virginia. I guess you might have to call it a casualty of good fun. Sunday morning was so hectic getting up and out of the hotel and to the airport. I was fine. It was just early for me, but Matt was, well, under the weather. Let's just say that being a groomsman in your college friend's wedding brings out the college in you.

So anyway, the camera never made it from the rental car to our bags. The part that ticks me off a bit is that I called Alamo before we even arrived at our house only to get a really sorry excuse for customer service. I am fairly certain that the person answering the phone that day has a nice Nikon Exlim now complete with pictures from Chris and Laura's wedding. At least we can see the Mariner's Museum and the Williamsburg Winery online, but there will never be a replacement for the beautiful bride or the green Focus. I've called back four more times, and their best excuse for helping has been that they sent an email. Thanks Alamo. I have zero confidence in their ability to find things as there were at least two other people's rental agreements in our glovebox. Despite the camera loss, the weekend was wonderful.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do about getting a new camera. I feel like we should wait until Christmas or upgrade to iPhones or something like that, but then I realized that Christoper will be turning 1 before then. I'm going to have to figure out something before then! I'm open to suggestions.

Happy Halloween

Here are a couple videos from Halloween. The boys had a great time. Christopher made it a couple houses, and Daniel made it almost the whole block. Much of our Trick-or-Treating involved redirecting Daniel from flowerbeds and other things like that. I particularly liked the house where Daniel found four treats - sand, a pinecone, berries, and leaves - before reaching the front door. He was a very cute duck, and got many compliments. Since then, we have been struggling with getting back into our non-treat routine ;)

October Videos

Here are some recent videos. Daniel and Christopher are full of life these days. If you get through the crying on the costume video, it gets cute. We are looking forward to Halloween now that Daniel is set on being a duck. For the longest time, he only wanted to be Daniel.

My Most Recent Definition of Fun

I feel like I'm becomming more and more of a Mom. Or maybe a better way to put it is that I'm starting to appreciate more and more what being a Mom really means. I tend to have daily epiphany's on this front, but I want to share with you a little about my most recent epiphany's. I'll start with yesterday's big event. I actually paid someone to watch my children and feed them the dinner I prepared while I went grocery shopping. Big deal right? Well, to me it was wonderful. I made it a super special event by going to the Super Target instead of the lame grocery store around the corner, and I left my phone in the car. I did return to about 5 missed calls from Matt who had gotten home to find a couple babysitters instead of me, but that's another story. It's amazing how much you can purchase with your whole brain focused on buying rather than 1/3 of it. I hate to admit it, but it was actually fun in a strange sort of way.

Tonight's fun might actually be described as fun by more than just Moms. Our neighborhood women's club had our monthly meeting tonight. Big deal right? Well, the meeting was yoga and chocolate tasting. Woo Hoo! We were led in a nice easy but slightly yoga class by the owner of a local yoga studio - Bliss Flow Yoga, and after we did the yoga, we got to taste some super yummy chocolates from Vosges Haut-Chocolat. I love the new trend of fusion chocolate. We had samples of sea salt chocolate, a curry chocolate, a mexican spicy chocolate, a super dark chocolate, and a sesame and wasabi truffle. Wow! I highly encourage you Chicago readers to stop by one of her stores in town. You travelers can stop by the store in O'Hare.

This kind of fun continues this weekend because Matt and I are headed to Williamsburg, Virginia, for a wedding and the kids are staying here with Grandma and Boppa. I can't remember two nights in a row without children. I'm sure it happened sometime in the brief spell between Daniel and Christopher, but I just can't remember it. I'm sure the time between now and then will be a bit hectic, but that's ok. What day is not hectic anymore?

Go Irish!

We got a wild hair and decided to go to ND with the Lee family last weekend. We had a wonderful time. The weather was great, the boys were great, and best of all, the Irish won! Here are some pictures from the weekend.

With Touchdown Jesus
Daniel and Boppa waking up the echoes in the stadium.

Daniel titled this one, "Daniel and Christopher being shy."

Not sure what silliness this was.

Christopher and Maggie.

The Pumpkin Pick

We went to the pumpking pick at our CSA this past weekend. It was great. Vermont Valley has provided us with some really awesome produce! Thank goodness we are splitting a share with a friend. Otherwise, we would be overwhelmed. Christopher has probably benefitted the most from this experiment. I've made tons of babyfood for him from our share. I've also really enjoyed seeing the food change as the seasons have passed. It makes me a little sad that we only have two more weeks left. I can't believe how soon winter will be here. For those of you who are curious some of the more interesting things I've made with our produce are homemade tomato soup and real pumpkin puree that I used in muffins. I'm thinking that we will be doing it again next year. Maybe Daniel will say, "Is today vegetable day?" instead of, "We get begetables today, Mommy?"

No, Daniel did not hit Christopher with that gourd.

Professional pictures coming soon.