Mall of America and more

First of all, let's talk about today. The boys are at Grammy and Papa's for the day and Abby and I are having a girl's day. It poured for most of the morning and otherwise has been dreary so we haven't gone anywhere, but we did have some quality time in the kitchen. I started making some squash bread with the abundance of yellow squash that I have while Abby was finishing her lunch. She takes a really long time to eat, so I was able to get it all mixed up and in the oven while she was still eating. About Abby's eating, she is quite a fan of protein--meat and cheese and the like. And veggies. What she doesn't care too much for is bread and cereal. She tolerates fruit, but give her some pork and peas and she's a happy girl. Now she doesn't shun every carb (pasta is a favorite) but she really couldn't care less for bread. Between her and Matthew, they could eat a whole sandwich. Funny how the kids have their eating preferences.

So after she ate she played in the cupboards for awhile and I got out the camera. There has to be a picture of every child playing with mixing bowls and utensils, right? It's that a requirement of passing childhood? Picture of child playing with kitchen utensils? check. Moving on. So here is a picture of her playing. She was quite shocked at one point when she discovered that the shelves can move (we have pull-outs). Then she meandered over to the sliding glass door and looked at the dreary outside. Sorry, babe, no playing outside right now. Maybe later.

Moving on to the MOA. We rarely go to the MOA, but Jason needed a very particular belt which he couldn't find at the stores around us, so we headed as a family to the MOA. Sam especially loves going to the mall and Matthew appears to be undecided at this point, but from Abby's last trip to the mall, it seems she hates it. We gave it a go anyways and hoped for the best. Regardless, it couldn't be any worse than the last time we went this past spring and Abby cried/screamed abundantly.

So we went to the mall, Jason shopped for his belt, unsuccessfully as he refused to lay down over $100 for a belt that fit the bill, and I got to browse around one store for about 5 minutes and therefore, didn't purchase anything. It's not that I couldn't find something to purchase, it's that I had Sam with me. When we were in Nordstrom's Rack, Jason asked me if I wanted to browse some and he would take the kids to the corridor. I said sure, and Sam said he'd like to stay with me. I browsed around for about 30 seconds before Sam said, "bye, Mommy, I'm going to find Daddy." Yeah right, Sam. I grabbed his hand before he headed off into oblivion of the MOA and wondered where on earth he thought he would find Daddy and how he would get to him. The store was rather crowded as was the hall, so I just don't know what he was thinking. I attempted to browse around some more while holding onto Sam as he kept saying he wanted to find Daddy and trying to run off. I abandoned my fruitless efforts to shop and reluctantly left the store after about 4 minutes. So much for shopping for me. While kids do come with considerable expense, they also are very good at helping one to keep to a budget by impeding any efforts to shop beyond the necessities.

Then we decided it was time to eat so we headed to the food court and got Burger King. After our meal, the kids wanted to wear the paper crowns that came with their meals, so we got them out and Sam proudly wore his like a king (or queen, as he was calling himself) and Matthew proceeded to wear his upside down and insisted that was the way it was supposed to go. We forgot our camera otherwise I could have pictures to show of our "queen" and upside-down king.

We hit a few more stores in search of a belt but to no avail. Then we left. All we had to show for our trip to the MOA were some paper crowns from Burger King. Who goes to the MOA and doesn't buy anything but Burger King? Seriously? It was still a fun outing and Abby didn't cry a peep. I think she's warming up to the mall. Maybe we will try it again some other time.