off to the races

told you it was about to get crazy here...  :-)

wednesday, my mom came over to take els to school, while roger and i took max for a speech evaluation.  bottom line - he's intelligent, comprehends what is being said to him and understands how to use language.  however, he's not pronouncing his words very clearly and the recommendation was to begin speech therapy to help him out in that regard.  a little emotionally exhaustive, but we are thankful to have such supportive and helpful people around us and max is such a smart, sweet, happy kid!!  once we return from our cinci/madison trip, a private therapist will start working with him at home for an hour a week.

wednesday night, it was the kids' fave: breakfast-for-dinner!  aka, the only perishable food we have in the entire house is a carton of eggs.

on thursday morning, roger and i joined max halfway through his preschool class for their 'i am special day.'  poor roger, missed a meeting and ran across town for what i thought was going to be a 45 minute presentation.  um, no.  2 little songs, predominantly sung by the two teachers, accompanied by random and sporadic hand gestures by max and one other kid.  oh well...it was cute.

'wheels on the bus go round and round...'

my favorite chair in the house.  the one that nobody wants to sit in unless someone else is already in it.

friday, we went to ballet and then roger brought home a pizza to eat out on the back patio to celebrate her half birthday.

she wanted her half-birthday-cake to be half purple and half pink:

els, we can't believe you're 4 and a half!!!!!

today was just fantabulous!!!  we woke up early and got the kids out of the house by 6:15 (!!).  we drove up to sabino canyon for their 1 mile kids classic.  it was just adorable and so much fun!  i asked her several weeks ago if she wanted to run.  she said yes.  i got ecstatic.  i asked who she wanted to run with.  she said daddy.  :-(

roger pinning on her bib!!

she ran with her friends - eric and evelyn

her first timing chip.  :-)

doing warm-ups with the group:

she crossed the start line with daddy and ready to go!!

at about the quarter-mile mark, she took a pretty big tumble and scraped her knee, so daddy carried her for a minute or two.  by the time they got to the turnaround point, she was running around in circles and smiling and screaming - back to her normal self!

almost to the finish line!

with her finisher ribbon.  congrats, ella!!!!!  we are so incredibly proud of you - you ran your first mile.  even more than that, you fell and got up and kept on running.  you did a fabulous job - we love you!!!!

then a celebratory well-earned breakfast, followed by grocery shopping and football, then dinner with poppie and gigi.  tomorrow, in advance of his being gone all next week on business, roger is granting me with a mommy-morning: long run, then brunch and pedicures.  i'm so so so lucky and happy.  :-)

trip and fall

relatively low key weekend, getting stuff done around the house.  roger took a mini trip to spend the weekend in phoenix training with master chen.

on saturday night, we ordered pizza and watched a movie with jenny, jack and josie.

max is so my little cuddle bug and i LOVE it!!

on sunday, we hung out with my parents - celebrated my dad's birthday by watching football all day.  i celebrated by going on a shopping spree ahead of our trip to cincinnati - we have no 'winter' clothes.    haha, my, how spoiled i've become as a desert dweller.  :-)  and roger came home in time for a yummy dinner together.

yesterday, after school/kindermusik and naps, jenny, jack and josie came over for dinner.

adorable little puppet show by jack!!

today, i was able to go to yoga while the kiddos were at school - so thankful i can get it back in my schedule now!!  

glad roger is back - for the next few days, anyway, and officially the start to our crazy, crazy fall!

calm before the storm

really delinquent blogger here!  so one week in to having a normalized schedule and we're going to mix it up pretty much from now until mid-november.  and then come the holidays...  but back to this week.

last weekend, we laid pretty low.  school went well this week for both kids.  ella's teachers have been posting a ton of pics on their class website:

LOVE this shot of her from her first day of school!!  she's been coming home with great projects (a dinosaur diorama and a fossil of a 'wacko-dackle') and worksheets that she's been doing a fantastic job on.

on wednesday, we had a playdate with josie while els was at school.  man, these two love each other!

after preschool, we headed home to meet up with roger - work sent all employees home because of an impending storm of apocalyptic proportions.  seeing the sun peeking out during the 'height' of the storm, i grabbed my phone (just in case) and went out for a run.  i felt exactly 3 drops of rain.  the projected 6-9" of rain was eventually (and officially) downgraded to "wet at times."  haha.  

thursday night, we joined all of our friends for a st. pauls' fundraiser at peter piper.  the "big one."  with the roller coaster.  that makes me sick.  what does a good preschool director do to get you to show up at the fundraiser?  ride said roller coaster with your kid.  twice!

everett and max on the carousel

her idea.  i swear...

jack and ella

today, we hung around and got stuff done around the house.  cartoon before ballet:

how the heck is shimmying under the bed with your chin resting on a metal dump truck comfortable??

buckle your seatbelt kids (and roger).  let our crazy fall begin.  and you know i'll love every minute!  :-)

losing track of my days

man, what a long week.

monday - els started her soaring classes (a 4th day of preschool each week - an enrichment program that delves into a book each week).  and max started his kindermusik classes.  crazy monsoon all day, but we had fun when we got home:

tuesday - major.  drop-off.  fail.  so, on mondays and wednesdays, i drop els off at 9.  on tuesdays and thursdays, i drop els off early at 8:30 and then take max to school at 9.  thoughts that went through my head as i pulled into ella's school parking lot:
hmm...there are a lot of people here already.
why are so many people here already?  there are some of my friends' cars...
seriously, why are they here so early?  
is there something going on i forgot about?  
oh, ella just pointed out their cars.  
is it wednesday?  
oh crap.  it's 2 minutes to 9:00 on tuesday.  i'm supposed to be at max's school right now...
thankful for jenny who met me at my car at that moment and took els into school so i could race max to be a little less late than he would have been otherwise.  :-)  oops.  at least i screwed up drop-off and not pick-up!  and then my parents made dinner for us - yum!

wednesday - playing at jenny's parents' house before story time at the library:

these two are so so cute together!!  they had more playtime with the big kiddos after school - we picked up pizza and played at jenny's house.  

thursday - after dropping off both kids at preschool (at the correct times!), went for a run in the sweltering heat (boo) and then for a blood draw (for my allergy panels).  

friday - ballet and tap!!

we spent the rest of the day hanging out together and then watched frozen.  

love love love these two.  but so ready for roger to get home!!!

childhood friends

such a FUN and AMAZING few days!!  

wednesday morning cartoon while i was getting breakfast ready:

 
while els was at preschool, we met up with some of max's friends for a playdate.  they had so much fun!

meanwhile, roger went to the airport to pick up our friends, candice and jarek and their 1 year old daughter, ani.  candice and i have been friends, literally, since we were 6.  we were so so so excited they came all the way from chicago to visit!!  we relaxed on wednesday and roger grilled chicken for fajitas and made a delicious salad.  i did have to run out briefly for 'parent night' at ella's preschool.  i'm so beyond excited for her new teacher and all that she is going to learn this year!!  i came back home, and, kids in bed, we enjoyed an adults-only dinner on the patio.  just lovely!

thursday morning, my parents came over to take the kiddos to preschool, while we headed to tombstone.

ani and rog ready to see the old west! 

touring the birdcage theatre.  glad we could pick some wholesome activities for little ani's first trip!

and more fun (and a super relaxing lunch - the perfect "i-drank-too-many-margaritas-last-night" cure) at big nose kate's saloon.

despite this picture, the guys really like hanging out together...  roger and jarek saw a gunfight, while candice and i went into little shops and i became obsessed with finding a sarsaparilla float.  by the way, i don't like root beer.  but, when in rome...

after tombstone, we stopped at a winery in sonoita!

and then home for playing in the backyard .  ella is pumping her legs on her own on the swing!!!

thanks, mom and dad, for watching the kids!!  and then we all had a great dinner together.

on friday morning, we headed to sabino canyon.  we walked a mile to the first tram stop, took the tram up to the top, and then back halfway down to a beautiful picnic area.  we had brought tamales, quesadillas and empanadas for lunch!!  and, max drank his salsa:

after lunch, we played for a bit on a mini beach.

candice made a great observation about max: that he really likes to experience things fully.  so he didn't just dip his feet in.  nope.  he sat down in the creek.  

back home for pedicures, then a yummy dinner and s'mores over the fire pit.

yesterday, we went to the arizona-sonoran desert museum.  

 we only stayed for about an hour, then left our friends so we could drive roger to the airport.  :-(  he will be in boston for this week - we miss you already and are super proud of you!!  but i'm so so happy that candice, jarek and ani loved the desert museum - they stayed until the afternoon - and then we all met up at la encantada for some shopping and then dinner at blanco (max seriously ate only salsa and ketchup - the waitress was quite fascinated with his eating habits) and gelato for desert.
 
this morning, we ate breakfast together and then had to say good-bye (for now) to our friends.  it's truly an amazing feeling to have such a wonderful friend in my life since we were little girls.  and, in many ways, well, except for conversations being interrupted to tend to screaming and demanding children (mostly mine), felt like not much changed.  and i'm beyond grateful for that.

for dinner, we went to my friend, steph's, house, for a playdate with alora and charlotte and yummy pizza.  thankful my friends take care of me when i'm roger-less!