Joined a club...

I think Ojai has left an impact on Ben. He has found himself bonding with the drum circle crowd and taking to listening to reggae music.

confession

I secretly love spam (still). We ate it almost daily in the Marshall Islands and when we came home, we bought some for our "food storage". Did you know you can get like 8 cans in a pack at Costco!! When I replenish ours, I sheepishly pick up the pack and bury it between some fresh veggies or fruit. It's the same feeling you get when you let your toddler drink soda. You know you shouldn't and it makes you feel and look like like total trash, but you just can't help yourself. (and just so you don't worry, this is my 3rd time buying it since we have been home, so we've gone through like 12 cans in 6 years, that's only twice a year we dip into it. Not too shabby!!) We occasionally pop open a can to "rotate through" the stock, but we are totally kidding ourselves. That stuff expires like in 7 years from when it's made, and even then, it's probably fine to eat. We just occasionally need a little Spam. Spam stir fry, or Spam and pineapple "pizza" or just plain old Spam and rice with Sriracha sauce. Yum.

Sweetie

My kids play mommy and "sweetie". The sweetie is the kid. I think it is pretty cute to hear them call each other sweetie. Usually Ben is the sweetie and is happy to pretend to go take naps!! Have I mentioned how much this kid likes letting other people do stuff for him and how much he likes to sleep. I like this collage for 3 reasons. You can see how happy Amelia is being a "mommy" and how happy Ben is to be the "sweetie", and third, if you question how white Ben really is, look at the background color. That is the eye dropper color of his back!!!!!

Dollar bin at Target

Oh how I love you!! I find some good little things in there once in a while. Yesterday I got a bag of little green plastic army guys for Ben. They are bribery for potty training. Every time he goes with out us telling him or helping him, he gets an army guy. I wasn't sure how much this would matter to him because he is really hard to motivate, but he has played non stop with the 2 he has so far and this is him when he got to pick a new one. I think it was a dollar well spent!!! I also think it's hilarious that this pic shows his lips this way because this is his tough guy talking face. And, I am conducting a little experiment. I guess he doesn't know what a gun is. He knows that what they are holding shoot stuff, but I heard him refer to the huge grenade launcher one of them is holding as a "hammer"!!! I want to see how long it takes for him to ask us what they are or just figure it out.

Add on

I forgot the cutest part of the cupcake story. Later we asked the kids what their favorite part of the day was, Amelia's first response with no hesitation, "the cupcake with the frosting". We asked Ben what his cupcake tasted like and his response, "chocolate frosting!!" That's probably because he just ate the chocolate frosting with a hint of cupcake.

Anyone want to lend us $2 million???

Yesterday we spent the day in Santa Barbara eating, and hanging out at the zoo and eating some more. As you may or may not know, I have an addiction to cooking shows. I recently saw an episode of Cupcake Wars which featured the cupcakery (yep, that is what they call bakeries that only do cupcakes) Crush Cakes. I wanted to see what all the hubbub was about for these $3 cupcakes. Before we went in we had to prep Amelia that she may not be able to have one, but we would ask and if they didn't have something, we would get her a treat at home. She was very hopeful that, "we can just ask and maybe they will say they are safe for me!" Talk about torture for this kid. Take her to a bakery and not let her eat. I was already ridden with guilt and then she got a whiff of the smell from the street and said how good it smelled, more guilt. Well, I was happy to find they have a vegan cupcake option every day and this one had no nuts!!!! (vegans use a LOT of nuts, which is also a problem for her) So my little Amelia was able to get her very own, mile high frosted, totally safe, red velvet and vanilla bean butter cream topped with a vegan chocolate heart, delicious cupcake. Look at her little face. She dug right into the frosting. She said not one word until that cupcake was done. You know she was loving it if she was silent. She licked the paper, her fingers and the plate clean. Ben chose (with a lot of prodding from me) a chocolate chocolate cupcake. Me, a chocolate with peanut butter frosting and chocolate ganache drizzle with peanuts on top. Phil, a crumb cake. His was the least favorite. Mine, the best. Their frosting was awesome. Cupcakes decent. Would do it once in a while especially just to see Amelia's face!!

Now on to the $2 million dollars. A year or so ago I have found my dream house in SB. A cute little bungalow across from a park up on a ledge overlooking the ocean. The whole front of the house opens onto a porch lanai style and from my stalking abilities, the kitchen looked all professional grade appliances and tastefully decorated and bright and cheery. Well imagine my sheer giddiness to drive past it yesterday to find a for sale sign in front of it. Now I can finally see the inside and all the details. Check it out by clicking on the photo tour and see why I love it. It is even better than I imagined!!! Now, how do I go about getting a job for Phil in Santa Barbara that can afford the payments of a $2 million house!!!

Ben

I love this kid soo much. And I think the real reason is he is a mini Phil. All the things I found adorable in Phil, I find in him. But there are some that aren't so adorable like they both have ridiculous gag reflexes...which lead me to this story.
I took the kids on my bi-monthly all day errand trip to Ventura. As a reward, we went out to eat at their (really my) favorite place, the Habit. Now for any SoCal residents that have been in the Ventura county area can affirm that Oxnard has a funny smell. And sometimes that smell can permeate into Ventura. Yesterday it did and it may have been a raw sewage problem, I don't really know. But I do know it was strong and gross. I told the kids to quickly go inside so we didn't have to smell it. We walk the 50 steps to get just inside the front door and Ben starts dry heaving. I thought, "oh great here it comes, right inside here with all these people and I don't want to leave, I want to eat here!!!". His eyes were watering and he was being all loud about it and then he started coughing and then it subsided. I am so proud of him for taking some deep breathes and keeping it together. I think the only reason he didn't throw up was because he had no food in his stomach!!! He said to me once he had recovered, "whew.(yes, my 2 year old says whew) I thought I was going to throw up from that smell!!!" It was hilarious to me. And it's things like that that make me adore this kid.