Where's the Face?

This is one of three planned posts for the Halloween season, and we're kicking things off right with a little Hallows' Eve humor (courtesy of Porter Burt, of course).

Keeping with our long-standing one-year tradition of taking the kiddo to pick his Halloween pumpkin at the pumpkin patch, we joined some friends on a combined Family Home Evening adveture (ok, this was two weeks ago, but I'm a little slow on the posting).

During dinner and before the trip to the patch that evening, I tried to get Porter excited (mostly just so he'd eat his dinner so we could actually go) by talking about all the big pumpkins he could choose from. He looked at me very matter-of-factly, and said, "No, Mommy. I want a little baby pumpkin."

After trudging through the dirt and weeds (a southern Utah pumpkin patch is generally much less groomed than you big city folks get...we still pick the pumpkins off the vines ourselves), and sifting with frozen fingers through some sludgy remains, Porter found the perfect pumpkin.

Before capturing this triumphant smile, I did have to repeatedly explain the pumpkin carving process, as with each rejected pumpkin, Porter would ask, "Where are the ones with the eyes and noses?"

Yes, that is last year's too-small winter hat - the cold snap caught us a little off-guard, as the week before, we were still hanging out in shorts.

Afterwards, we headed home for some hot chocolate with our pals (one of winter's only one-ups on the more temperate seasons), and I used the eating-for-two excuse to justify two sprinkle doughnuts. Hooray for being pregnant during the Holidays.

Turns out pastries and hot chocolate don't go so well with bedtime, and we were left with one spirited (ok, tired-but-hyper) little guy to calm down at the night's end. At least it made for a cute picture.

Explanation:

The white basket is Porter's race car, the Mardi Gras beads are his keys and the pumpkin bucket is his "scary mask." Apparently the best race car drivers rely upon fear tactics to win the big race?

Coming Soon: Grandma's Halloween bash and Trick or Treating. In the meantime, hope you're enjoying the week-long sugar rush as much as I am.

Never Sleep with a Two-Year-Old (and other Porterisms)

Porter and I are staying at my sister's in Salt Lake this weekend and we're sharing the guest room...and bed. So with no further ado, here's my Saturday morning wake-up call.

Me: (peacefully sleeping)

Porter: (wiping his nose back and forth on my elbow)...giggle..."I am rubbing my nose on your shoulder."

Me: "Sshhh, Porter. It's still nighttime." (Ok, it was 6:30, but it was still dark out so I was hoping to postpone the morning just a little longer.) "No talking. Go back to sleep."

Porter: "Ok, I'll talk to baby sister." (moving his head down to my belly) "I will tell her two stories because I'm two."

Me: (Mumble. Yawn.)

Porter: (with his lips on my belly) "One-tupon a time. There was a little boy named Porter. And he had a friend named Porter. And he and Mommy and Daddy and Mariah (my brother's wife) and Crystal (Andy's brother's wife) went for a ride on an airplane. And they went (waving his stuffed duck in the air) QUACK QUACK!"

Immediately following the story, Porter climbed onto my side and started bouncing up and down, giggling, "You are a mommy-horse. Say 'NEEEEE-IGH! NEEEE-IGH!'."

After lots of talk about airplanes (he heard one fly by overhead) and his "baby duckie," we rolled out of bed for some cartoons (and groggy blogging).

I've been Tagged

More shocking than that, I'm responding. An uber-productive morning necessitates a little time-wasting every now and then, right?

Ok, on to The Eight Things Tag

8 TV shows I watch:
And yes, I know this makes me sound like I'm 19. I don't care.
1. Real World/Road Rules Challenge (only the challenges)
2. The Hills (I want my MTV)
3. America's Next Top Model
4. Gray's Anatomy
5. Project Runway
6. Brothers & Sisters
7. The Office
8. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
Weird, those are the only shows I watch...looks like there is a method to this 8-things madness.

8 things that happened yesterday:
1. Baked blueberry muffins with Porter
2. Reorganized Porter's closet
3. Debated nursery design with my oh-so-patient husband
4. Hit Home Depot for the zillionth time in the past two months
5. Didn't shower until 3:30 p.m. (I love lazy cleaning days)
6. Washed baby girl clothes until I dropped (I know, it's early, but I wanted it off my list)
7. Went to Grandee's Ice Cream for family night
8. Ate candy corn until I was sick

8 Favorite places to eat:
1. Cafe Rio
2. Su Casa (ah, the memories)
3. Cheesecake Factory
And that's where my list ends. If they've got a good salad and it's not one of the five restaurants in Cedar City, I'm happy.

8 Things I'm looking forward to:
1. The end of potty training (more specifically, the end of the beginning...Porter's too stubborn for his own good)
2. Some much-needed home & baby shopping in the big city
3. Little girl Burt
4. Playing at the park with Porter tonight
5. Maternity leave
6. Our next ultrasound (two more weeks)
7. A haircut (still need to make an appointment though)
8. A landscaped backyard (nothing in the works before winter, but a gal can dream)

8 Things on my wishlist (see above)
1. To get Porter potty trained before December (stop laughing)
2. A backyard
3. A second car
4. A good haircut (the kind that requires me to have no ideas...I just want someone to say "this would look great on you," then to do it, AND have it actually look great)
5. To find someone who can sew and who would be willing to help me recover cushion covers for our nursery glider (any takers?)
6. To learn to sew...and be good at it (stop laughing)
7. A long autumn (I'm fine with no snow until Dec. 24)
8. To someday ditch work and stay at home with my kids (more for me than for them...Andy is more creative in one pinkie than I could ever dream to be with kiddie projects, games, etc.)

8 People I tag:
Anyone who has a few minutes to kill on self-reflection

Think Pink

Just a little shamless self-promotion (by proxy for Coach Burt) for a good cause.

SUU's Women's Soccer Team is going pink this Saturday for its annual Breast Cancer Awareness Game. In addition to coming decked out in pink uniforms, painting a giant pink ribbon on the field and providing loads of info on breast cancer detection and research to T-Bird fans, the team is also working on a fundraiser through the Susan G. Komen Foundation. A bulk of the money they raise will come from the pink SUU uniforms each player is selling.

Should you know of anyone looking for some pink soccer duds, give me a holler and I'll get you all the pertinent info. In the meantime, in case pink is not your color, you can still contribute to this worthy cause by visiting www.komendonations.org/goto/suusoccer.

Go pink this October. It's hip AND tax-deductible.

Conference with a Two Year-Old

So conference with a two year-old went much as you might expect: lots of bribery with snacks and lots of toys strewn about the room by the time it was over.

Actually, Porter was pretty good both Saturday and Sunday (a huge surprise to us). He especially liked the music, and kept asking me which was "Heavenly Father's favorite song." But even funnier than that, on Sunday, during one of the talks, a picture of Joseph Smith was flashed on the screen. I asked him if he knew who Joseph Smith was, and he replied, "Does he live at the Smith's store?" (For our non-Western friends, Smith's is a grocery store, much like Kroger.) He didn't believe me when I told him no, and insisted that Joseph Smith lived in our grocery store.


Other than that, not much new from the Burt family weekend report. 99 days to baby and counting, and I made the three-page baby countdown to-do list this weekend to prove it. If you know of anyone who's up for some yard work or shelf building, send 'em our way. In the meantime, happy Monday to you all.

Boogie Nights

Last night was an evening just like any other in the Burt home:
Soccer for Andy
The dinner rush
(complete with spilled juice...hence, no pants in the video you're about to see)
and, of course, play time.

While the evening's adventures oftentimes include dancing, I can never catch it on film because Porter generally stops when he sees the camera (he also loves taking pictures). Last night, however, I finally outwitted my two year-old (which explains why I'm filming from the back).

We were so excited to finally get footage of Porter's smooth moves (the squat-point is his latest addition to the repertoire), that Andy tried to egg him on. Hope round two is just as enjoyable as the first clip.