good-bye ridiculously-expensive-gymboree-substitute

so yesterday was our day with max (not saying he had a particularly fun day, but still...) and today was our day with ella.  and her last mygym class.  :-(  it may have been over-priced but i was thankful for our thursday morning activity.  

don't feel bad, max.  it looked like ella had a ton of fun on her day with us, but she was also dragged to a consignment shop and 2 baby resale shops (trying to sell left-over garage sale items) and ceiling fan and cabinet hardware shopping...

in the home stretch

hey, chicago, whadda you say?  cubs are gonna win today!

welcome back to tucson, gigi!!  thanks, mom, for coming out to help us out with the move!

max is thisclose to rolling over.  he was just about there yesterday in his activity gym when ella decided it would be a great photo op and she rolled him back.  :-(  

thanks everyone for the birthday wishes!!  

my birthday was off to a bit of a rough start - within 10 minutes of waking up i spotted a scorpion on the ceiling (eek!  sooo excited to get out of our rental house.  thank god roger was home!) and nordstrom bank called me to inform me i hadn't yet paid my bill (oops).  

but the day turned around quickly.  we had max's four month check-up today - he's doing great!  he weighs 14 pounds, 4 ounces (25th percentile) and is in the 95th percentile for height.  we ran a few errands and had lunch then went to our final walk-through at the house.  we also signed all of the closing documents (hmm...this feels familiar...).  

ella spent the day with gigi - she had a blast and had a few art projects.  thanks for the b-day decorations ladies! 

we had a yummy sushi dinner.  ella had chicken fingers.  but she officially learned how to use chopsticks before i did.  ha. 

tough day for max with 3 shots and then being lugged all over the place.  but he's a smiley trooper!

exhausted now.  long couple of days still ahead.  bring on the margaritas!

'four' the love of it all

ella has all four of us with a little cold now.  :-(  but we're on the mend and gearing up for the move.  

max is just cool beans

LOVE my gummy-grinned-FOUR-month old!!

can i get an amen?!!

i've been looking for new activities to do with ella since we are literally moving to the complete opposite side of tucson.  so yesterday we went to our first kindermusik class and ella loved it!!

she played with instruments, danced and played with sand.

even max woke up to participate  :-)

my little chunk-a-monk

oh and move update: T minus 10 days.  today ella saw me packing a box and we had the following convo:

ella:  mommy, move now!

me: no, ella, not yet.  besides daddy isn't home right now.

ella [thinking]: no.  wait, daddy.  and need shoes.

we have been saying our prayers before bedtime each night and roger also taught her the sign of the cross.  today when we were skyping with jill, ella said "god bless nana."  aww...  so i said "in the name of the father..."  ella finished it by saying "and the son and the ho.  amen."  seriously.  LOL!

and skype is my favorite invention of all time - it is so fabulous to be able to see family and friends when we feel like we live a world away.  

REALLYsuperdaddy

happy father's day roger!!

wearing the tie that ella made at the learning garden.

we stopped at the zoo for a bit this morning.  

we had a relaxing afternoon - getting some things ready for our move and then out for ella and daddy's fave dinner: pizza!

when we were eating dessert, ella screeched something about cake and her fork, growled, threw her head back laughing while covering her mouth and then looked around at roger and i and said "yaya funny!!"  :-)

air conditioning in the fake desert; thunderstorm in the real desert

when i was in elementary school, i remember learning about a group of scientists who were effectively 'sealed' in a self-contained man-made habitat for several years at a time to conduct ecosystem experiments.  so today we headed out to biosphere 2 - about 30 miles north of tucson.  they had 5 different indoor ecosystems, including a desert, a rainforest and a mini ocean.  ella was excited because we told her she was going to a science center, just like sid the science kid.  

the "ocean."  

ella in the desert.  hmm...looks familiar...  except this one was nice and cool.

quite frankly, it was boring.  and ella lost interest pretty quickly too after realizing sid was nowhere to be found...

we survived our first mini monsoon!!  you can kind of see the hail.

tonight we headed to roger's co-worker's house for her 2 year anniversary of living in tucson.  ha ha - any excuse to have a party.  :-) 

ella had her first real tea party with another little girl.  sooo cute.  it's so crazy to think how fast she is growing up...to see her playing on her own with a peer and the fact that she can communicate effectively with her.  

please do not disturb

ella had a blast at mygym yesterday - she loved swinging from the little handle bars.

at one point she came up to me and said "mommy, mountain airplane!"  i realized she was talking about the zipline - it's her fave!

yesterday afternoon, max, who has been absolutely refusing to take his afternoon naps all week, blissfully fell asleep on the couch.  yay for my 45 minutes of quiet!!

we checked out our house today - 2 weeks to go until closing!!

so excited!  by the way, roger's boss told him about an opportunity about an hour and a half south of here (aka bienvenidos a mexico).  

dear raytheon - um, hell no.  we have a strict policy of living in a house for 2 months prior to considering another move.  wait.  2 months from now if something opens up near a nordstrom or a gymboree class or a green tree in a field of grass that is not experiencing 110+ degree weather, we may consider it.  

thank you to my lovely family and friends who continue to read my blog.  LOVE your comments and love you and miss you all!!

and just a note to steve (and breanna) - it does not matter to me if it is a skink, a skank, or a skunk that is sitting on my patio.  not a fan.

look, ma! i have hands!!

still packing.  very slowly.  multiple interruptions to tend to ella and max.  :-(  

max spent half an hour the other night looking at his hands before falling asleep.  ;-)

eew!  roger found a lizard in our garage...  steve and alan will be happy to know that he rescued it and set it free.  

ella painting with a balloon today at the learning garden.  love that they encourage the kids to use alternatives to brushes.

self portrait of an ella

one of my most favorite memories from my childhood was curling up with my mom and steve in steve's bed and having my mom read us bedtime stories.  we have been reading at least 2 bedtime stories to ella each night (and she'll call you on it if you try to get away with 1).  the other night, we started having max join us and we curled up in ella's new bed.  LOVE!

when ella face-planted the other day at the airport, she also got a scratch on her forehead.  she didn't want me to put a band-aid on it, but was okay when i called it a sticker.  :-)

max not so much a fan of storytime last night.  and then i forgot the camera in ella's room after we tucked her in bed...

i found the camera this morning on her dresser and was impressed that she had left it alone.  or so i thought...

i found the following shots when i went to import my pictures onto my computer:

and so it begins - countdown T minus 3 weeks until our move.  it's nearly impossible to pack and watch 2 high maintenance kids.  today i managed to pack 1 box and make a huge mess of the dining room and our closet (meanwhile ella destroyed her playroom).  :-(