Spinning Dizzy

Esperanza likes dresses again, at least for the moment. She went a little over a month refusing to wear dresses. Now, she not only will wear her normal every day casual dresses, she loves all the fun 'dress-up', not so casual and Mexican dresses that fill her tiny closet. So much she wants to wear them to bed and to school. Maybe school, but to bed, I don't think so. Last night she was wearing the skirt/top outfit Eva brought her back from Mexico like 3 years ago. She's worn it a lot since then but it actually fits her perfect right now. It's also perfect for twirling and spinning in, which she did a lot of last night.Ezra watched her with such awe! I think if he didn't have that darn binky in in his mouth, his jaw would have been dropped & drooling while watching her. He couldn't take his eyes off of her and that skirt!Here is a video of her about 20 or 30 minutes into her spinning frenzy. I had taken a couple videos with my phone which are actually cuter than this one, but I had the phone flipped the wrong way so the videos are sideways and I can't turn them (darn-it). By this time, in this video, she is super dizzy ~ I should have actually kept it going because a few seconds after I stopped she crashed into the wooden toy boxes because she was so dizzy. Silly girl.

Halloween Apples

I read somewhere that kids in Canada used to go door to door saying 'Halloween Apples' instead of 'Trick-or-Treat' and they'd get an apple. I'd trade in our tradition of candy giving/getting for apples in a heart beat! Until then, sugary treats it is. I told Esperanza from the beginning that any chocolate she collected that night was automatically mine.

During the day on Halloween, Esperanza got to dress up for school. We never did find a blue colored costume for Esperanza so we used costumes and dress up attire we already had around the house this year. Fortunately, she was in a happy fairy princess mood Halloween morning. So Fairy Princess she was for school.

Don't let that face fool you, she loved her outfit...just not sure if she should be Grumpy Fairy Princess...Or Happy Fairy Princess.Princess Fairy brushing her Brother Boo's hairMy BooLater in the day, we headed over to a friends house for dinner then some trick-or-treating adventures. Since being a princess isn't very warm, Esperanza wore a Carebear costume we dug out of a bin in the garage. I think Val gave it to me a couple of years ago, and this year it fit Esperanza perfect! There were a few other kids Esperanza's age that went out with us, as well as some older kids too.

Sunshine Bear wearing Daddy's hat, ready to go out on the town.

Pirate Gavn - AaRrrggKisses Ezra in his tiger costume...he wore it for about 5 minutes before he got too hot.
We tried to teach Sunshine proper trick-or-treating etiquette (don't run threw lawns, take only one piece of candy, no cutting in line, etc), but it might take a few years before we see any results.About an hour into our door to door adventures, Esperanza said she was done. Armando tried to convince her she wasn't done, there was still alot of candy to be had! He's a kid at heart with a sweet tooth. But if Esperanza says we're done, then I say we're done...so we we're done. We went back to our friends' house before all the others and relaxed for a bit. Esperanza was happy with her little pile of candy (which is still big, but nothing compared to the other kids').

Esperanza's First Hair Cut

We had to cut Esperanza's hair. The hair from the pigtail that got caught in the mixer the other night really got mixed up. I spent hours trying to untangle it. It was a massive swirl of tangles, dreaded basically. It was a small section of hair, but significant enough that I couldn't just cut it out and hope it blended in. After tons of conditioner, peanut butter, coconut oil, various different brushes, combs and techniques...not to mention a lot of tears shed from Esperanza, I gave up. As I've mentioned before, Esperanza has wanted her hair cut. I, on the other hand, couldn't bear to let go of her long ringlets of hair. I'd been defeated though. Over the past few weeks she has gotten gum and silly putty in her hair but I desperately managed and was able to avoid cutting it. The longer her hair got, the curlier it got, and I love it (loved...sigh). When I gave up and asked her if we should go get it cut, she said yes. I cried. Maybe not at that exact same moment, but I did cry. I wanted to be happy while we were at the salon getting her hair cut, so I got it out before we left. And, I'm seriously fighting back tears as I write this. When her teacher saw her hair for the first time after the hair cut, her mouth dropped, then she softly asked in a very sad voice, 'Whyyyy Mami'. I almost burst into tears again. I miss those locks so much. That whole mixer event is definately a lesson for me more than it is for Esperanza.

Before After

We went to a hair place just for little ones. She got to pick a car to sit in while she got her hair cut and chose the Barbi Jeep. She also could have picked her own movie to watch while getting her hair cut too, but she said she didn't want to watch one. She did however end up watching her neighbors Winnie The Pooh movie.

Snip, snip - snivel, snivelNo more long, beautiful ringlets They gave us a keepsake First Haircut Certificate as well as a lock of hair, and I requested to keep the big dreaded lock of hair too.Long day I guess...and look, there's one lil' ringlet left! The rest of it is pretty straight with a little bit of a curl on the bottom. Esperanza doesn't really have much to say about her hair being short now. She had no attachment to it like the rest of us did. Now she can easily run a brush threw it herself, and when I brush it, it takes seconds rather than forever. She looks so much older now too for some reason. I guess it fits her new big sister role.

Octobers Kitchen

I spend a lot of my time in the kitchen regardless of the time of year, but when Fall comes around, even more time is spent there. The preperation and cooking time for cold weather meals are not the same as it is for foods we eat when it's warm. The fixins and process of simmering soups & rising breads keeps a cook lingering around in the kitchen much longer than a salad or sandwich does. And with the smell & sampling of these Fall foods, who wants to leave the kitchen anyways? The weather and our diets began it's change around the beginning of October. The leaves began changing color, the days were noticeably shorter, evenings began to cool down quite a bit and the wind picked up. At that same time, and with Esperanza's help & Ezra's watch, we've been cookin up lots of soups, breads, muffins, hot cereals & stews in the kitchen.

Rainbow Soup

A delicious veggie soup with a yummy spice combination of paprika and tumeric

It had been awhile since the last time we made bread in the bread machine (mothers day I think) and when I went to make a loaf recently I discovered I was missing an essential part to the bread machine. I was determined to have home made bread rolls to go with the crock pot stew that had been cooking all day. So, Esperanza and I made some bread the good ol' fashioned way, with our hands.Esperanza loved kneading her little bit of dough. She was very quiet and mesmerized by the process of making bread. It was very therapeutic for both of us. We did a 'quick' recipe so it only had to rise once then cook. Great for little ones that want things now.

Aaaaand then there was yesterday, the day we made pumpkin muffins (I call them cupcakes which makes it more appealing to Esperanza). This pumpkin cupcake making day is particularly memorable. This was the first time I let her help me add ingredients into the electric mixer and watch it swirl around and around.
Here's Esperanza 'reading' the recipe from the book

Here she is getting ready to add ingredients into the mixer bowl. As we began to mix the honey and butter together she was so excited about what the mixer does. She looked at me and said, 'Mama, I LOVE this'. It was cute. I turned my back to grab another egg out of the fridge. In that split second I wasn't watching her, she had leaned in to get a closer look and one of her pigtails fell into the mixer. It was quickly swooped up and swirled tightly around the spinner. Stopped it completely and the machine just hummed. She didn't make a peep. When I turned back around, her head was tilted sideways, head and machine touching. I quickly turned the mixer off, called Armando out to the kitchen to come help and we eventually were able to unwind her hair from the mixer. It took awhile. I almost just grabbed the scissors, but I couldn't. She was scared a little but not hurt a bit. Her hair is pretty thick and the fact that it was the whole pigtail and not smaller sections of hair probably helped in that department. Either way, it was scary and could have been a lot worse. I had failed to warn her to keep her distance. I hadn't even explained that there was any reason to be safe around the mixer and I had allowed her to stand much too close. I'm thankful nothing serious happened, things could have turned out really bad. Amazingly, the whole incident only set us back a few moments before we were back to making the muffins...only this time, with a whip and a plastic bowl - back to basics.

Putting pumpkin themed muffin cups in the mini-muffin pan. She really is a great helper!

After they baked, we made a healthy frosting to top the 'cupcakes' with. They were delicious, even with the few hairs and part of an egg shell we found in them.

While all this excitement does on in the kitchen, Ezra is usually sitting back, watching us from his high chair with a grin on his face. A friend gave me her sons old high chair recently and it has been so nice to have 2 arms free to cook & still have a happy baby close to me in the kitchen. He often has a chew toy or binky in his mouth. Recently, he pulls on his socks, stretching them all the way up to his mouth to suck on. Silly kid.

Today, I made this yummy Egyptian Red Lentil Soup. Mmmm. It's color and consistency very closely resembles the contents of the diaper I just changed - sorry.

Happy Fall/Festive/Seasonal/Holiday baking and cooking! Be safe with those kids while you cook.

Today, Which Was Yesterday

Today was Esperanza's first day back to school after being sick for the past week. She caught a really bad bug and for a minute, I actually thought she had Pertussis. Funny how as moms we sometimes worry too much and do some serious research that convinces us our child has the symptoms of something much worse than what really is. A friend of mine convinced herself last week that her 2 year old had a brain tumor, but it was just a bad flu bug. Before I got too worked up over the Pertussis thing, Catherine convinced me otherwise and then finally Esperanza got better. She went to school dressed in jeans, her light up princess shoes, her favorite blue hat and her favorite red t-shirt with the blue horse. This t-shirt will fit her for several years, so you'll be seeing it often. One of the very few benefits of her being sick and having to stay home for the past week was that I didn't have to wake up Ezra from his nap to drop off/pick up Esperanza. He's kind of starting to settle into a routine...I say that with hesitation, seems as though the minute I open my mouth or put something in writting, it changes. Hoping for the best. Armando was home today during the time I take Esperanza to school so I was able to let Ezra stay asleep one more school day.

While Esperanza was at school, I hung out with Ezra and had some one-on-one time. We nursed, changed diapers, played with some toys, chewed on some toys, cried a lil and laughed a lil. We also discovered that Ezra can sit up comfortabley in the Bumbo by sister Cyndi loaned us.

Tummy time doesn't last long these days...

He rolls right over onto his back

After I picked up Esperanza, we came home and played Candyland. Esperanza has her own rules for board games. Sometimes I let her have fun with it her way, and other times I try to teach her the correct way to play.Eventuallly, it became nap time again for Ezra so we decided to go for a walk so he could crash in the Ergo while Esperanza cruised the neighborhood on her trycicle.When we got home, I laid Ezra down to finish his nap, started cooking dinner & daddy came home early. Yay. Now, I'm up late, transfering files and programs from one computer to the other (and blogging in between). One of my kids will surely wake up as soon as I lay my head on my pillow, so why even try?