Why?

Micah has officially hit the "why" stage. In the 1 hour time span of he and I cooking a single dessert today, I counted 72 why's. And I'm sure I missed a few. Here are just a few examples...

• "Why are you not using the whole stick of butter?"
• "Mom, why is that called vanilla?"
• After attempting to lick his fingers after getting egg all over them as I quickly yell "NO!" "But why mommy?"
• After sticking his finger in unsweetened cocoa powder, putting it in his mouth and nearly gagging, "MOM! Why do you put that yucky stuff in there?"
• After dumping M&M's on the ground for Abbey to eat as I attempt to frantically clean them up and at the same time calmly explain that chocolate will kill a dog, "Why? Is it okay for me to eat chocolate?"

Talk about exhausting. That doesn't even scratch the surface of all the questions he asked. I can appreciate the need for a child this age to ask these questions as part of development, but when you're in the midst of it, it's hard to not lose patience. Needless to say, we finished up that one dessert, I put him down for his nap and rushed to finish the other food before he woke up so I could avoid another 150 question why game. I should have figured he'd wake up and say "Why did you cook without me, mom?" :)

At the end of the day though, I always find myself reflecting that it's actually really funny and sweet to hear him asking these questions. I find a lot of his questions end up getting so far down the "why" tree that it often times leads to conversations about God and how much He loves us. When Micah prays at night now, it's hard for me not to tear up when I hear him say "God, thank you for the trees. Thank you for the sunshine. Thank you for the ducks. Thank you for mommy. Thank you for daddy. Thank you for Katie. Thank you for Abbey. Thank you for trains. Amen."

So all that to say, I suppose I can put up with this stage. I at least need to get used to it since Katie isn't far behind. When I put him to bed tonight, I told him thanks so much for helping me cook today. It was hard to contain my laughter when he responded, "No problem, Mom. Anytime."

What a great time of year!

Thanksgiving is just two days away and I am so excited! Micah and I sat down today to decide what we are going to cook and we went on a grocery shopping date tonight to get all the stuff. He is really into cooking lately. So much so that he wants to make scrambled eggs about every 5 minutes throughout the day. :) We decided we're going to make some of my infamous Strawberry-Kiwi Angel Food Cake dessert (Chris would be upset if we didn't make that), Macaroni and Cheese, Fruit Salad, M&M Brownies, bread rolls, and of course, sweet tea. Mmm. I can't wait.

Chris' family has a tradition of the whole extended family getting together Thanksgiving day. There are usually 75-100 people there. We're having it at his cousin's house out in the country, so there's lots of land for fun stuff. A bouncy house, horse rides, golf cart rides, horse shoes, our tradition of all the women looking through the sales ads for Friday shopping, and of course - TONS of food. That family sure can cook. We then come home for quick naps for the kids and then we head out to my sister's house for Thanksgiving dinner. Again, some great food - my mom's broccoli cheddar cheese casserole is always a must have. A full day of visiting with family, having fun, and lots of great food. It doesn't get much better than that!

One small problem - I've pledged to bring homemade macaroni and cheese to both family events. But, when Micah and I went shopping tonight, we found that the macaroni pasta was completely sold out. Even the generic brands. So, we'll be on a macaroni mission tomorrow for sure.

Churrascaria.

Yesterday was Chris' birthday! If you don't already know us, you'll find that one of our favorite things to do is eat. So, it was only natural that I plan a week full of good eating for him. I was super excited because I planned a babysitter for two nights this week. We don't get to go out by ourselves much anymore, so I figured two nights in one week would be a real treat (along with the new iPod he very subtley requested).

Another widely known fact about us is that we are very much creatures of habit. We generally eat at a few select places. Some of them an awful lot. But, on a whim... We decided to try something different last night. Everyone is going to think I'm a unsatisfiable patron or something. My past 2 posts have been about bad customer service experiences, and here I go again...

A couple years ago, we were on vacation in Dallas, TX and tried a Texas de Brazil Churrascaria restaurant. It was absolutely incredible. How often do you get to sit at a table while people come around and slice off pieces of perfectly cooked filet mignon, lamb, pork, etc. And they had the most incredible salad bar -- and I don't even eat salad! We recently found out about another Churrascaria restaurant in our area, so we decided to give it a go last night. $40 a plate later, we were very disappointed. It's a locally owned restaurant and it was no where near the caliber of Texas de Brazil. All the meats we received were extremely rare. Not a huge deal if you like rare cooked red meat. But, when even the bacon wrapped turkey is cold and uncooked in the middle, that's a little too rare. There were no vegetable side dishes, only rice and mashed potatoes. We had to wait forever for people to come to our table to bring us meats and it seemed they were running very short on most of the selections. In the end, it probably would have been a decent meal for $15 a plate.

Oh, well.. at least Friday night we'll go back to one of our tried and true favorites - The Melting Pot. Melted cheese, melted chocolate and cheesecake... Mmmm.