Drumroll please

I loved reading all of your suggestions. I have decided to go with a combination if a couple of entries (and since there is no prize, there is no reason I can't have multiple winners). Drumroll please.... The new blog title is "The Time of My Life: Musings of a Mommy-at-Law." Thanks Cheryl and Sandy!

Some of my favorite runners up were "Mo Carthy Than You Can Handle", "Elvis Don't Live Here No More", and of course, the crowd favorite, "Emergency Pants and Other Necessities.". I just couldn't bring myself to use that one since I am supremely hopeful (please, Lord) that the part of my child-rearing that involves emergency pants is drawing to a close. Amen.

This and that

Here are some of the highlights of my last 24 hours...

First - Evan has been telling us since last spring when soccer season ended that he wanted to play basketball. Insisted really. Basketball was totally going to be his thing. So. Yesterday was basketball registration at church. When I told Evan we were getting ready to go to register for basketball, he looked up at me and said, "I don't want to play basketball." WHAT?? Long story short: I think I figured out that he thought he was going to actually play basketball last night. And he was very tired and pretty grumpy. Left over from his super fun camping trip with Corin (more on that later). Anyway, after a few phone calls to friends' moms to make sure he'd have buddies playing, we got him registered without further incident. And now he's excited.

Next - I do NOT understand how such big poo can come out of such little people. TMI, I know. But I had to plunge TWO potties last night. Back to back. And the second one overflowed all over the tile floor while the peanut gallery stood on stools brushing their teeth and
making aggravating comments. And it continued to overflow even after I shut off the water. Seriously, I do not know why these things only happen when Corin is traveling or working late. Arrrghhh.

Finally - when I took Evan to school this morning, it was raining which always guarantees a long, slow moving carpool line. After Evan got out of the car, Pressley looks up and says, "Come ON, people!" in this very exasperated tone. Oh, wow. I wanted to fuss at her and tell her that was no way to talk, but when I realized that I was hearing myself repeated back to me, what could I say? I've just realized I need to be a bit more careful what I say out of frustration in the car.

Luckily, I've had some much needed down time today and I'm ready to go back to doing my best to be a good mommy instead of a grumpy mess.

A winner (almost...)

I was very nearly ready to declare a winner (or two) in my contest, but I am in quite the ugly little place right now. My kids have...worn...me...down...today and I don't know that I should be picking a permanent blog name in such a state of mind. It might not be all rosy tonight. But, boy, you guys are creative. I've seen so many that I like, it is going to be hard to choose for sure. Stay tuned...

Must. Go. Unwind.

A bloggy contest

After much thought and prayer, I've decided (in the last 5 minutes) that I am going to host a contest. This is remarkable for a couple of reasons: a) I have never hosted a contest and b) I have about 6 readers as far as I am aware. (Maybe 7). But I got to thinking that my blog name (McCarthy Family Happenings) is just kinda boring and I need a new, catchy name. Most of the other blogs I follow have catchy little titles.

My favorite (and the one that inspired me to jump on the bloggy bandwagon), is Shay's My Other Blog is a Hybrid. I'm not really even sure what it means, but it amuses me. Her good friend Molly (whom I've never met, but I'm pretty sure we'd hit it off if we ever did) calls hers Southern Spunk - and has a super cute pic of her daughter running around in front of some azaleas to punctuate the southern. And then there's Thoughts and Inklings of an Artist (who rarely updates anymore, but still has a clever name), Confessions of a Rambling Mind... And of course, BooMama, BigMama, and MckMama (whose children all have McDonald's inspired bloggy code names to ensure their relative anonymity. Clearly she has more than six readers. As an aside, do click on over to MckMama's blog if you have a sec. She has a very ill little boy who may be having heart surgery in the next few days and could use all the additional prayers he can get. I am definitely praying for Stellen. Are you?)

Yes, I follow a lot of blogs. It is a sickness. But in my defense, I keep up with them on my iPhone so as not to spend an inordinate amount of time away from my family.

Anyhoo. I am very interested in all suggestions for a clever new name for my blog. Please don't leave me hanging by not posting any comments. It would be ever so embarrassing to host a contest with no entries. My feelings might get hurt. So, if you are one of my 6 readers, think hard, be creative, and post a suggestion. I'll leave the contest open for as long as it takes to get enough entries to make it interesting. Or until I see one I love. Or until it becomes painfully obvious that no one is going to participate. Whichever comes first.

Have a great Friday. We're off to dinner with friends followed by a puppet show. Later gators.

Happy Halloween

Better late than never, right? Actually, I haven't felt too bad since I posted pictures of the kids in their costumes from Friday night. But, here are some of the official Halloween night pictures. Despite the rainy drizzle, we had a really good time trick-or-treating. And, Pressley totally made a liar out of me. Good thing I'm not a betting woman. Not only did Pressley make it longer than 90 seconds, but she outlasted her brother. I never would have predicted that.

One of the neighbors, who always has a post-trick-or-treating bash, suggested this year that we meet on her porch at 5:30 for a pre-trick-or-treating neighborhood photo of the kids. I thought it was a great idea, but we got there at about 5:40 (last minute Ninja sword malfunction had to be repaired) and everyone had already dispersed. But, they came back together (some grudgingly) and took another photo. Still, this was only about 10-20% of the kids in the neighborhood. Oh, well...maybe next year.

After the photo was done, we separated and set about trick-or-treating. Now, I have always thought the concept of trick-or-treating was pretty intuitive and straight forward, but this year, it was like herding cats to get our kids oriented. Every time they came down some front steps, it took a good 30 seconds to get them facing the right direction to head on down/up the street. Then, at the next house, it was like they had never heard of the concept of walking up some steps and ringing a doorbell and asking for some candy by saying "trick-or-treat." They were like some deer in headlights. Like, "What is this foreign thing you ask of me?" Seriously! We had to give blow-by-blow instructions all over again -I kid you not- at EVERY house. I guess no gifted classes in these kids' future. (Don't get all bent out of shape. That was a joke.)

A bunch of our neighbors go all out. This was the lawn inflatable in one neighbor's yard:

Finally, what would a Halloween re-cap be without a little rant from me about the demise of our society as evidenced by the lack of manners of some children begging for, ney, grabbing for some free candy? Again I say, SERIOUSLY?! Who is raising these children who come to my door with some pillowcases, no costumes, no manners and expect me to give them candy? Don't even get me started on the hooligans that emptied out our 1st supply of candy, left unattended on the porch for approximately 20 minutes while Corin and I were together with the kids down the street. Dear Parents: If you are too busy to teach your children that it is wrong to empty someone's entire bucket of candy, at least have the courtesy of supervising the little thugs on Halloween night. Oh, yeah, that's right. If you are too busy to raise them properly, I guess you are too busy to take time out to walk around with them for 2 hours on Halloween night. What is this world coming to??

I wish, I wish I would not let these people steal my joy, but it just makes me so mad and sad!

Trick or Treat - Kilpatrick style

Yesterday afteroon, Pressley and I picked Evan up from karate as we do every Friday afternoon. Only yesterday, instead of going straight home, we went to daddy's office for trick or treating. Evan had worn his karate Gi all day at school. The children had been invited to dress like their favorite book character at school on Friday. I was all, Evan likes Kung Fu Panda. We even have a Kung Fu Panda book. And, Evan has karate on Friday. Hey, Evan... Do you want to go to school dressed like Kung Fu Panda on Friday? You can wear your Gi ALL day. And he went for it. Easiest book character costume ever. A little lazy, yes. Mother of the year award, no. (I will have you know, though, that none of the other moms exactly went all out either. If I actually had gone to Michael's-as I contemplated-to get felt to make panda ears and face paint to make a panda spot around his eye, he would have been remarkably over-dressed. Whew! Glad we dodged that bullet!)

So, we headed on over to Kilpatrick. Evan still had on his Gi, but I had the teenage mutant ninja turtle costume in the bag just in case. He decided he wanted to be "karate guy" which turned into "ninja karate guy" because he did indeed want to wear his ninja swords that I bought to wear with the ninja turtle costume. Pressley agreed reluctantly to wear the Ariel costume she insisted on having but then decided she didn't like because it was itchy. We remedied the itchiness by putting her j'nastics leotard under it. (Though tonight, we'll also need to put some leggings under there since the sequins on the skirt rubbed a rash on the tops of her thighs.)

After all was said and done, they had a delightful time. They got more bang for their buck this year than ever before. We covered about 5 floors, which I'm thinking is a record for us. They racked up on candy, charmed and delighted some attorneys, paralegals and secretaries, took in some spooky displays (e.g., a "haunted office" and a pretty impressive set-up created by the ladies in word processing) and then were thrilled to find that the conference room that had the post-trick-or-treating snacks and drinks was also showing a scooby doo halloween special on two giant projector tv screens. The perfect end to the perfect trick or treating experience. Given today's forcast for rain, rain, and more rain, that might be the best we can do. I predict that Pressley will last exactly 90 seconds trick or treating in the rain.

Here are the little munchkins before they got started:

Here they are posing with a Cinderella we met along the way. The two princesses were very impressed with each other's costumes. It was quite the mutual admiration society....

This bowl of candy had a skeletal hand that clasped down over the candy triggered by a motion sensor. Pressley liked to taunt it. Also note the giant spider on the wall that dropped down when it sensed motion and had red beady eyes that lit up. Our Lil' P from last year's Halloween would have run screaming away in terror.

Finally, a shot of the fam in the KS lobby on our way out after a fun-filled afternoon.

There are more pictures in the October 2009 album. Stay tuned for a photo recap of tonight's rainy adventure.

The cupcake eating, I mean, pumpkin carving party

Warning: I am under the influence of some cold medicine, so this one is a bit rambly and stream of conscious. I realize this, but am too lazy - and currently mentally incapable - of going back and editing it to make it less so.

Last night was the neighborhood pumpkin carving party, though you may have figured out from the title above or the photos below, my kids were much more interested in eating Halloween cupcakes than any kind of pumpkin-related activities.

Just so you know, in addition to single-handedly polishing off about a half dozen cupcakes, my children also jumped a marathon on the trampoline in one of the adjoining backyards where the party took place. Oh, and Evan.... Evan somehow climbed to the top of one of the swingsets, and out onto the brace that holds the swing. As Corin and I yelled helplessly from a distance too great to do anything about it, the entire neighborhood watched as he moved out away from the platform he had used to access the brace, shimmied across and halfway down one of the swing chains to drop safely to the ground below. ER visit averted. But, sheesh. I heard one of the neighborhood dads exclaim, "Brave kid!" Really? Not so much brave as, well, not the most brilliant idea he's ever had.

I've been feeling kinda miserable these last couple of days (just a cold - no flu; swine or otherwise), so if I had it to do over again, I may have done a few things differently. We were invited to bring an appetizer or sweet to go with the couple-of-crock-pots-of-chili-type-dishes and drinks that were being provided. I would normally sign up for a sweet so that in the event of a busy week, I could just swing by the Publix and buy some cupcakes. I'm apparently not the only one who thinks this way because there were lots of cupcakes at this bash - at least until my children were unleashed on them.

Anyhoo, this time I signed up for an app instead. And decided that I would try to come up with something other than a dip and a chip to take. So I researched. I looked first at the Weight Watchers website because they have some surprisingly good recipes most of the time. I found a recipe for an artichoke tart that I found intriguing, so I printed it and then moved on to Rachel Ray's website. There were MANY many recipes there that involved something with some kind of "dipper" on the side. RR apparently loves her some dippers. And everything seemed pretty complicated.

So, I decided to go with the artichoke tarts and just not tell anybody they were from WW. I bought all the ingredients earlier in the week before The Cold hit, so I was kinda stuck with following through. Seriously, they were awesome. They were the hit of the party. Well, not with the kids. Even in my organic-buying, baby-wearing, CSA-belonging, hippie neighborhood, apparently the children will not experiment with an artichoke tart. My own child told me in no uncertain terms before we left the house that though she thought my tarts were pretty, she'd be having none of that. And she stuck to her guns.

But the moms and dads were fans. One mom said to me, "Oooh. These are incredible. I feel so fancy. Have you tried one of these?" To which I got to reply, "Oh, yeah, I brought those." Doesn't happen to me all that often. I even admitted in a separate conversation with some other moms that the tarts were a WW recipe that I had slightly modified since I was making it for a crowd (because, you know, Corin tells me that there is really never any good excuse to served fat-free anything to people you want to continue to call friends).

Sometime in the evening, after darkness fell, some of the dads did actually carve pumpkins. Let me tell you though, that was no place for a protective parent to be. Darkness, knives lying about, children running amuck. It's all fun and games until a toddler starts running around with a carving knife. I'm just sayin'.... I had to get out of there just for my own sanity. Plus, by then it was too late and dark to get any really good pictures, and that was really the only reason I dragged my sick self over there. That and to accept the compliments on the artichoke tarts.

Here's Matt - on of the party hosts - scooping the guts out of his pumpkin. Ick.

Here's Corin working on ours. Which turned out really cute. I'll try to get pics of the finished product tonight or tomorrow night. By the time Corin and the kids were back home with the finished product, I was in my jammies moaning about the fact that my sinuses just might explode. So, I didn't remember to go get the camera.

Just in case any of you want to try the Artichoke Tarts after all that build-up, I've provided the recipe below:

Artichoke Tarts:

Ingredients
6 spray(s) cooking spray
16 pieces wonton wrapper(s)
1/4 cup(s) low-fat shredded cheddar cheese (I used the real stuff)
4 oz fat-free cream cheese, softened (I used 1/3 less fat rather than FF)
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 Tbsp Dijon mustard
2 Tbsp sweet red pepper(s), chopped
7 oz canned artichoke hearts, without oil, drained and chopped
1/4 cup(s) parsley, fresh, sprigs (I omitted, because, who am I? Martha Stewart?)

Instructions
Preheat oven to 350°F. Coat a 16-hole miniature muffin pan with cooking spray.
Gently press 1 wonton wrapper into each muffin hole, allowing ends to extend above cups. Coat edges of wrappers with cooking spray and set aside.

Combine cheeses, cayenne pepper and mustard in a medium bowl; mix well. Stir in red pepper and artichoke hearts; spoon about 1 teaspoon of cheese mixture into each muffin cup.

Bake until cheese mixture is set and edges of wrappers are lightly browned, about 15 minutes. Garnish with parsley and serve. Yields 2 tarts per serving.

I doubled the recipe and the filling from the double recipe ended up filling 42 wontons. So, it filled up a pretty large platter. And, just so you know, it was pretty rich, so I'm thinking that the fat free cream cheese and 2% cheddar cheese would have worked just fine.