I should be working

But...

Christmas is in ten days and at long last, the sky looks like it might just deliver on a white Christmas.

And after a teaser Thanksgiving storm that marked Nora's first snowball fight (followed by weeks of unseasonably warm weather that had us riding bikes and playing with the last few shards of summer's sidewalk chalk), I am ready for a white Christmas. You would be too if you had our little snow bunny.

Maybe it's just the sentimental schmuckiness that rests in my heart over the holidays, but I am so looking forward to more of this -- watching "porterbeary" (Nora's name for her big brother) and  "little missy" (Porter's label for Nora) play together (or at least contentedly alongside one another) in the snow.

And, in ten days (I keep saying it to remind myself that there is still much to be done by this blogging elf), watching them rip open presents that, I hope, will bring lots of jubilee.

I think we've gone a little overboard this year, but I'm pretty sure nothing will ever be as magical as these young, innocent years.

The perfect excuse to go whole hog.

Meanwhile, I keep glancing out the window. Waiting for snow (and wondering what I'm going to make for dinner tonight).

Now I really must get back to work. Because I hear rumblings of an office coup to head south tomorrow on "business" (our annual office shopping trip for all the last-minute holiday garb that we can't find in our one Wal Mart town).

Ten days and, if I'm lucky, snow!

Baby it's Cold Outside (so I'd better get caught up)

The problem with procrastination?

It leaves you sifting through sunny fall photos while bundled under two blankets and cursing the 8-degree windchill and 13 inches of snow outside (and high-temped hacking husband who has once again left me to the couch and my laptop in the wee morning hours).

Anyone else feeling like autumn was too short-lived?

How about now?

This little gal did not get nearly enough wear out of her cute pink jacket. And even though December is just one day away, I was surprised when I went to dig out snow gear only to find that our only options for little miss Burt were rain boots and double socks.

But back to fall and its sunshiney fun. It was magic (which might explain my disappointment with winter).

We picked pumpkins.

Went to football games.

In addition to being Porter's BFF, this little guy may just be Nora's future beau.

Tried to squeeze in one last trip to the mountains.

We dressed up.

Watched hot air balloons rise with the sun.

Grandma and cousin Cohen join in the fun

Spent our traditional Spaghetti Annual weekend in Park City (it's a family gathering that drives us all to the mountains for massive amounts of pasta, shopping, fall leaves and family fun).

Carved pumpkins.

And played outside in the "cold" (oh, what I would give for a 55-degree evening right about now).

Best fall ever. Period.

That's not normal?

In reference to Saturday evening's victory dance on the ol' blog, a friend of mine has suggested that wall washing is, well, not normal. In my defense:

1) I only wash walls once a year and only because I was raised doing it once a year. I know no other way. It's as natural as assigning chair leg and banister dusting to my kids as chores. Blame it on my mom.

2) I kind of have a thing about dirty baseboards. Also my mom's fault. (I can trace the obsession back to an off-handed comment in my youth about how you can tell how clean people really are by looking at their baseboards). That was, of course, delivered while I was being forced to wash the baseboards.

3) Porter's latest trick is to pick his nose and then wipe his finger on the wall. It is disgusting and I am considering corporal punishment to break this weird habit. If my brother is reading this, he probably feels oh so vindicated, considering I used to tease him endlessly about the same gross habit when he was a little guy not much older than Porter. Mariah, I hope for your sake that this habit has since been broken.

And since I'm feeling all nostalgic about family oddities in preparation of the upcoming turkey gathering, let me just put this one out there:

Mom and Dad, how in the world did you make a bigger deal out of my nail biting than Chris' picking and wiping?

Oh the fun to be had when the McAfees gather. Can't wait!

To-do To-done

Thanksgiving is in five days.

Correction: Thanksgiving that I am hosting at my house is in five days. Oh the to-dos to be done.

Lucky me, Andy was out of town this weekend (I do my best work when he isn't milling around bogging up my work process with critiques and interruptions) and my kids were content to play on their own without much hands-on momming (minus the fights over Buzz Lightyear, a bag of straws and a cardboard box).

This girl loves her dollies.

So after  an easy Fruity Cheerios breakfast and one "Peep" (best cartoon on TV), I threw on some background music for the munchkins and ... (drumroll and fanfare) ... washed my walls. No, I don't have pics, but my house smells like Murphy's Oil Soap, AKA heaven.

And I washed sheets and cleaned bathtubs.

And made the grocery list of all grocery lists (the actual shopping will happen Tuesday; I hate grocery shopping on Saturdays). And piled recipe cards.

And did not feel the least bit guilty about giving my kids crackers and peanut butter and Go-gurt for lunch because I threw in clementines and craisins.

Today was a big deal, friends. My number two complaint about being a working mom (number one is that I miss my kids) is that there is no way to squeeze all the homey work into one day, which generally means  stuff goes undone from one week to the next. But not today. Huzzah!

And now, at 9:03 p.m., the only two things on the day's to-do list that have yet to be conquered are:
1) Sign Porter up for spring soccer (why is it that I always forget the things with deadlines or appointments?), and 2) Get Halloween on the blog. Because my mom loves Halloween and may disown me if she doesn't get to see her grandbabies on a sugar high.

That was a whole lot of build-up.
Without further ado...

The prelude (Porter's preschool parade).

The beginning. After the first two sets of trick or treaters had already rung our doorbell. Far too anxious to smile or hold still.

The middle.

The sugar-dazed end.

And the reason I am glad my mom forced me to do a practice run with the costumes and the camera since I would be solo parenting on Halloween weekend (Andy's boss has since promised that she will not make him travel over kid-oriented holidays again).

He's flexing his muscles. He LOVED the muscles.

At long last: Halloween, check.

It is now 9:32 p.m., and I only got five of my ten toenails painted during naptime this afternoon.

Gobble, Gobble

To add on to the previous post:
No, we are not theose people who skip right by Thanksgiving (in fact, we're hosting it this year). So in the spirit of the sometimes forgotten season, behold, the art that graces all open wall space in the Burt home ever since our nanny taught Porter how to draw turkeys.

The Countdown is On

I am well aware I owe a few anxious grandparents and one thoughtful co-worker pics of the kids dressed as "supa-man" & "leggybug" (our girl is chatting up a storm). But the holiday spirit is sneaking in and, should you too wish to have all your holiday shopping finished by the month's end (never gonna happen, but a gal can dream), Porter has thoughtfully prepared his Christmas list.

Since it's pretty hard to read unless you have you have an invisible ink detector (the kid's favorite Crayolas these days are silver and gold and white), I will translate. I assume the eye strain is a calculated risk only the grandparents may attempt.

Porter would like, and I quote:
Stuff & Jewelry (for Mommy)
iPad (for Daddy)
Beanbag (interesting, we already have a mountain of a Love Sac in the playroom)
Cart (???)
Mega Crane
Arsnip
Law (your guess is as good as mine)
Umbrellas
Work Truck


Fortunately, since we are just as lost when it comes to arsnips and laws as you may be, Porter thought it prudent to also draw his list...

Basically, he'll be happy with anything as long as it's got wheels.

And yes, the all green thing on the top row is a hotel luggage cart.

Where to begin?

Rather than start at the beginning or the end of what has turned out to be one jam-packed autumn, I'm taking the easy route and throwing up a few new family pics, thereby buying me a few more days to sift through all the photos that have yet to be downloaded from the camera. Because yes, our fall has been that good. Loads of stuff to share and no time to share it.

I think I can safely say that this has been the Burt family's best autumn yet (I go back and forth on fall and autumn because I can never decide which name I like more). If only because at the tail end of it, I finally coerced Mr. Burt into throwing on something with a collar and smiling for a professional photographer. (This is the man who, with a straight face, suggested Wal Mart when I first mentioned that I wanted to get family pictures. I guess that could have worked though, as we have several times run out of milk amidst our adventurous autumn.)

And they turned out so great and the photographer was so nice (and amazing with kids), that my fingers are crossed that our next chat about family pics will not include a produce section.

Some of my favorites.

Lately (and usually after he's just gotten a treat or done something new and exciting), Porter has been telling me, "Mom, I wish that everything could just stay the same."

That makes two of us.

This little guy is growing up entirely too fast. I find myself trying to memorize all his innocent little kid moments, like when he wants me to walk down the hallway with him to his bedroom because he's afraid of the dark or when he sees the first star of the night and wishes for nothing more than "a good day at school tomorrow", because I know they'll be gone all too soon.

This is the Nora standard. A little mischievous, a little bemused, and a mouth full of candy (more on that when I get to the Halloween post). What is wholly out of character for this photo, is that we somehow managed to schedule picture day on the one day of the year thus far when our wildly clumsy toddler did not have a bruise or scratch or bump or dent on her noggin. Christmas miracle.

This man swore he never wanted daughters up until the moment the ultrasound tech announced "it's a girl." She's had a hold on him ever since.

 Andy forbade me from ordering this one because, as he put it, "We're not engaged; we're already married."

To which I replied something sappy about marrying him all over again.

Because I kinda like this guy, wrinkled eyes and all (I told him to go to bed early... and also offered cucumbers the next morning. If you know Andy, you know how both those conversations ended).

I'm telling you, this fall has been so festively splendid that I just might say yes, we are this loving and idyllic. But really, we just lucked into picking a good photographer on a beautiful day (and had a pocket full of first-of-the-season candy corn as back-up).

Cute Enough to Share

My more cynical and musically snobbish other half may roll his eyes, but I think this Sesame Street song with will.i.am is adorable. And I'm not one for kiddie rock. I blame it on the bee boppin' puppets that have owned a smidgen my heart since the early eighties -- particularly Ernie, whose head jivin' here made me smile like a kid.

The Burt clan will be pre-dinner dancing to this one tonight.

Happily Normal

Yes, the Burt blog is back, to the excited cheers of our three fans (my mom, Andy's mom and maybe one of my sisters). And though I would love to say that the lack of posting has something to do with extended vacations spent lollygagging alongside beaches and pools, it doesn't, so I won't. The truth, though much less glamorous, is that we have been busy with absolutely nothing new. Amidst the same ol', we've really just been enjoying our family and friends and home sweet home.

And slowing things down has really helped me see just how much Andy and I have to be grateful for. But with  a whole summer's worth of pics to prove it, I'll have to recap the Burt's 2010 summer in a few different posts over the next week or so. Because there is still warm sunshine to be had, because I already hunch over a computer all day, and mostly just because I've no clue how to organize all the randomness into one cohesive post that will mean something to me once I tackle that longstanding-yet-unfulfilled goal of turning all this rambling nonsense into a family keepsake.

So for today, I'll just say that my very favorite moments of summer have come through the two littlest Burts. They are so different.

Where Porter is cautious and particular,

Nora is wild and impulsive.

And though I know some of this has to do with age, again and again, I am taken back at how very different these two little spirits are. And I'm even more surprised at how they have each transformed our family. In the haze of nighttime feedings and potty training, I have a hard time remembering what life before Nora was like.

I know it was much more quiet. Much. But I keep wondering how we ever felt whole without this tiny little minx who loves to dance, run naked, yell and tease (relentlessly).

And I don't think I would really appreciate this wild little gal and all the bruises and tantrums that come with her without having first met her big brother, who is the first to remind you that he needs his bike helmet or that you forgot to say the prayer before dinner. He's still a four-year-old and enjoys his fare share of timeouts, but in between, he is much more consistent. Give the kid a matchbox car or an art project, and he's set.

 

She likes messes and spinning in circles (which she does every time I try to do her hair).

And he likes coloring and building railways using every piece of track we own (which are then promptly trounced by our baby Godzilla).

He greets her every morning with a kiss and a "Hi little missy" in a squeaky whisper as she yells "Maaa-Maaaaaa! Are you?!" at the top of her lungs.

 

But in between the clash of wills, these two are just so. darn. cute. together.

And if that weren't enough to melt your heart, try ending your day with a little of this.

Same ol', same ol' is looking pretty good these days.