because, to my knowledge, the leaves don't change on cactuses

or is it cacti?  who knows.  anyway, we wanted to take ella's 18 month/jill's birthday/christmas pictures with a backdrop of fall foliage - i will definitely miss my fave season.  it was such a beautiful day.  :-)

the final appearance of simba

yesterday, we helped nana celebrate her birthday.  she joined us for our christmas photo session at a local park.  pictures to come!!

then mimi took us out for a yummy dinner. 

today, ella was so excited to get dressed for halloween.  every time we said "costume" she pointed at it and smiled. 

littlest kid on the block.  the neighbors hosted a pre-trick-or-treating get together.

trick-or-treating at mimi's.  poor mimi had no candy so ella got 2 dimes and 5 pennies.  :-)

trick-or-treating at nana's.  

and after a few of our own neighbors, the final stop was home where ella was greeted by daddy handing out candy in the driveway in a witch's hat with 2 beers, his iPad and iPod.  

ella and her pumpkin purse

the outdoor shopping center near us hosted a pre-halloween trick-or-treating event last night.  it was so cute and ella had a ton of fun - her costume even remained in tact the entire time, gloves and all!!  probably because it was soo cold last night.  ok i guess not THAT cold, but apparently i'm ready for my arizona winter.

ella actually wanted to carry the pumpkin around all night.  and you can't see it, but there's a little timon stuffed animal in there.  :-)  it's really too bad roger has no idea who all of these characters are...  hey - where's pumbaa?  

we don't go many places that don't have balloon animals...

el was so proud of herself for picking out her own candy (with her glove on!) and carrying it with her.

we ended the night with dinner at red robin.  and another balloon.

strong like bull (not so much part 2)

alright, alright, i caved.  i decided that i have enough going on in my life right now.  i consulted roger - he was decidedly indifferent (he did not want me to come back and blame him for my lack of willpower).  i consulted ella - she nodded.  i consulted a magic eight ball - it said "yes, definitely."

so...it's a...BOY!

from simba (the lion king) to sumo wrestler with a tail

tonight was the gymboree halloween party - $15 admission for an extended, super crazy gymboree class.  and no food.  oh well, fun was had anyway.  :-)

pre-gymboree party we went to the park with ella's friends bianca and caeden.  caeden is moving to pennsylvania tomorrow and we'll miss him!  by the way, just found out last week that with one of my groups of friends all 4 of us are pregnant.  ha ha.  we will miss them all so much!

ella as simba from the lion king!!

the end of the hat

ella and bianca

ella and daddy

all you technically need is some water and to say a prayer...

why why why do we make things so difficult on ourselves?  this weekend was supposed to be a nice, simple baptism for our daughter (by the way, the title for this post came from roger's dad's suggestion to baptize ella in the bathroom before we decided to do it in the catholic church).  instead it went a little something like this:

thursday night: dinner with family and then rushing home to sign paperwork and frantically trying to get the house ready because we decided to put the house on the market friday morning.  made even more difficult due to the fact that the house was left in shambles after the painters and carpet installers.

friday:  with the help of michael and danielle we get the house ready and pictures are taken for the listing.  calls for showings start immediately - 4 for that afternoon.  yummy dinner with the family.  by 8pm we have an offer.  so begin the negotiations process which as you know i just love.

saturday: 6am roger and i are up and making dinner for after the baptism.  everything made and cleaned up, we leave with ella and george for another showing.  come home and meet up with my family who just drove to cinci.  hang out a bit, lose track of time and rush to get ready for the baptism.  continue to negotiate the offer throughout the day.  during mass, observe that ella has unfortunately picked up my neurotic tendency to organize and reorganize as i watch her carefully arrange and rearrange the pew booklets for the duration of mass.  baptism goes off pretty much without a hitch.  yay!  everyone comes over for dinner.  cannot tell you how much i enjoyed having our families here.  thank you everyone who came in and thank you to mike and jeanne for being ella's godparents.  we love you all.  the fun lasted til after 2am.  :-)

sunday: 7am wake-up call of roger's cousin jonathan standing over our bed to wake up roger for a ride home.   grrr...  i begin cleaning up after the previous night and making breakfast.  aka filling our entire house with the smell of burnt bacon.  oops.  regardless, a yummy breakfast of egg casserole and steve and breanna's delicious banana pancakes.  negotiations continue.  finish cleaning the house while roger tries to rid the house of the burnt bacon smell and rush everyone out for another showing.  head to jill's to relax and eat lunch before my family heads back to chicago.  we stay at jill's during our open house.  at 3:45 agent informs us of a 4:30 deadline on current offer - we request an extension given family in town - potential buyers deny.  at 4:25 we tell agent we will accept the offer.  at 4:33 agent calls us back - buyers backed out because we were "late."  B.  S.  um, mad.  very mad.  dinner with jeanne and jill.  decide to call buyers - they had sent a note on friday via facebook - we have mutual friends.  tell them our intentions were to accept the offer and if they are interested, to speak with their agent.  they try to negotiate directly with us over the phone by dropping the price of their offer by $5k.  um, hell no.  back to square one.

monday:  meet up with friends at bookstore.  ella takes horrible tumble and hits her head.  i feel beyond terrible, but she seems ok.  have lunch with jill and jeanne.  head to doctor's office to have ella looked at just in case - she's fine, thankfully.

i think i'm done for a while.  i need a few days to decompress, but overall had a fabulous weekend with our families.  love you and miss you all.  thank you everyone for coming in and jill for everything you have done for us.

ella loved pushing cousin isabelle in the stoller.

all ready for her baptism!!

ella looking into the baptismal pool.  she kept pointing at it and saying "wa-wa!"  i'm pretty sure she thought she was going to get to go swimming.

us and godmother jeanne and godfather mike

isabelle and ella playing in the ball pit.  a couple of house later, uncle mike would get stuck in here...

ella at the bookstore with her friends caeden and aidan, right before she fell.  :-(  

at bonbonerie for lunch with jeanne and jill.  is it that bad that i've eaten 3 of their huge sugar cookies already today?

here we go...again...

we've been busy as usual.  last weekend, we joined a few friends at 'hallZOOween' for trick-or-treating with the animals.  

as most of you know by now, roger was offered a job with raytheon in tucson, arizona.  after much consideration, he accepted.  i'm so so proud of my hubby - this is an amazing opportunity for him and he's worked hard for it.  we're so sad to leave family and new friends but this is also exciting for us.  

of course, most of you also know how we roll.  we don't do anything easily and without drama.  our timeline is tight and the goal is to get our house (which we have lived in for 5 months and have not finished unpacking or decorating) on the market.  on the market this weekend.  ella's baptism is this weekend.  so we also need to get it ready for guests.  after a week of painters, plumbers and carpet guys we are almost ready.  so a note to those of you who will be here: this will operate similarly to ella's birthday party.  clean and pack, people.  thanks, we look forward to seeing you!