I could get used to this!

Another great day with a good old friend! This time, it was Liz! Liz and I have been friends since junior high. Wow she was scary in junior high. Ha ha ha!
Liz took me out to lunch today and, as a thank you to her, I dragged her along with me to work to finish up a few things before heading back next week. Thanks!
Here is a picture of the two of us together. See, no conspiracy!

I can't leave the kids out of two posts in a row! Here is Lilly being "gorgeous" (a new word she learned at A's birthday party).

And Zac with Rob practicing his walking. Notice both kids are wearing brand new t-shirts that grandma and grandpa brought them from San Diego. Thanks!

And, finally, Zac with pasta in his hair. Cute cute cute!

After dinner, I headed out to a happy hour/Ragnar meeting. What is Ragnar? I'm glad you asked. It is probably what will be the death of me! ha! Actually, it's a team running event that a bunch of us from running club are doing in February. Long story short, it is a 202 mile relay race where each person runs 3 legs of it and sleeps in vans in between. Oh yeah, and we pay to do this. What are we getting ourselves into?!? It is actually going to be so fun, but very difficult - I'm excited and nervous at the same time!

On to another fun day! Gotta get all my fun in before it's back to work next week!

A friend as fine as aged meat!

lol! I had a GREAT day today!
First, I got to see my grandparents for the first time in months, since they just got back from Michigan. It was a short visit, but so good to see them. I'm glad they're home!
Then, I went to lunch with my good friend Jeannette! We decided that good friends are like aged meat. Then, we decided that that sounded gross! ha!
So Jeannette and I decided that we were going to have a lazy lying lunch. It was perfect. What does it mean you ask? Well, the part about it being "lazy" should be obvious. We were there for close to 2 hours. The "lying" part... well... let's just say that we are SAYING that we ate super healthy salads and drank water, skipped dessert, etc. The reality? Well, that's our little secret!
Here is Jeannette! See, there is definitely salad on her plate!

And, a famous BJ's pizookie. Weird that someone else let us take a picture of theirs, huh? It certainly can't be ours!

I also had a picture of myself eating my yummy salad/water combo, but I had a bra issue and it just wasn't blog-able. Sorry!

I'm hanging with another good friend tomorrow (Liz!) which I'm very excited about. I do enjoy our breaks from teaching, especially when I get to catch up with friends that sometimes get (unintentionally) neglected during hectic life.

Also, kisses to my sister, who gets her wisdom teeth taken out tomorrow. Good luck sis!!

Firsts & milestones...

With young kids, every day contains at least one first or one milestone. Here are a few of ours as of late...
1. Zac now stands on his own. He is a little excited about it!

He also walks if he can find anything to hold onto and push. Frequently, this means a dining room chair or, better, Lilly's princess chair. The funny thing is that it goes so fast that he ends up running, then it crashes into a wall and he falls. every. time. Ha!
2. Lilly had 4 and 1/2 completely dry, accident free days! She ended her steak with an accident today, but one that was pretty much expected, then more success after. She is on a roll! No pictures with this one though.

3. Lilly went to a birthday party for her friend today. Notice I said "her friend." Not a friend of mine who has a kid and we call them friends. Not even a friend of mine who has a kid and so they are friends. But a friend she made all by herself! This, in my book, is a milestone.

So has been looking forward to "A's" birthday party for 2 weeks. It was ALL she could talk about! I'm going to try to not use her name and black out her pic, just because (as I mentioned) I don't really know "A" or how her parents would feel about her being blogged. You just never know.
Anyhow, A was one of the first friends Lilly made at her school. We were SO excited to get the invitation!
Rob came over to babysit for Zac until Jeremy got home from work. Here, he is helping Lilly get ready.

And she is ready! She was so good about helping pick out and wrap A's birthday presents. I was wondering if she would think they were hers, but she really seemed to get it!
These two screamed and ran around and played for the entire time! It was SO cute to see Lilly with HER friend playing HER way. I really just sat back and watched. It was truly amazing. A is a very cool girl, and they are obviously very good friends! Does blacking out the eyes help? ha!

Ahhh the cake! I love that this pic looks like she is digging into the entire cake. I swear she's not - there is a small (well, smallER than the entire cake) piece hiding behind the big one!

A's birthday party is also where Lilly had her first accident since last Tuesday which, as I mentioned, didn't surprise me. She is still new at this and she was so distracted and having so much fun... needless to say I had come prepared with towels and clean panties/shorts, so we were good to go. She was bummed out just for about as long as it took us to clean her up and get changed, then she was just fine and ready to play! She had more successes this evening, so hopefully it wasn't a huge setback!

4. Zac can now participate in our dance parties! I swear he was having more fun than this picture looks like he was. Until now, he's pretty much just watched, but lately he's been getting into it. Lilly and daddy, of course, are professional dance partiers.

And, Lilly making a funny face is not a first, nor a milestone, but it's cute!

My grandparents are back from Michigan now (yippie yippie horray!) and I am so looking forward to seeing them tomorrow! That, plus running in the am with my sis and lunch with my good friend Jeannette mean that I am looking very forward to an awesome day tomorrow!

One happy mommy!

I'm sitting here reflecting on my life and how lucky I am. The kids are happy and healthy and changing every day in such wonderful ways.
Lilly is absolutely rocking her potty training! She has had accidents, certainly, but has had two completely dry days in a row now. Even better, she has started telling us ahead of time that she needs to go, and really taking the responsibility on herself to go to the bathroom. We help her get undressed and redressed and wash hands, etc., but she is doing just great. She also had dry naps and refuses to wear a pull-up during that time, even though my intention was to have her wear one for naps and bedtime. At night, she is fine putting one on, and she goes potty very quickly after waking up.
Mario (who works with my mom) and his beautiful little girls gave Lilly this princess chair. She loves it! Thanks Mario!
Zac is doing awesome as well. Actually, he was kinda sick at daycare yesterday, so I kept him home with me today. It didn't take long for me to decide that he had faked being sick so he could stay home. Where does a 9 month old learn this?!? Ha ha... the point is that he felt so much better today, so we got to have some mother-son bonding time, which was awesome. We went to the zoo first. The weather was great, and I even had him in a little jacket. He was loving it!

This is my attempt at a shot of both of us with the elephant. Not bad!

And here he is looking for the tiger. Roar!

After the zoo, we went to the mall. Zac talked me out of buying a much needed but too expensive pair of pants, then it was play time! Again, he loved it! Seriously... does he look sick to you?

After the mall he took a very long nap, then was happy and playing all evening as well. It was great to have some time with just my little man!

Finally, a picture of my beautiful neice Shyla. Isn't she getting big too?!? Simply amazing....

3...3...3 posts in one!

Wow! 3 posts in one day!
POST #1 - Potty training! Lilly has officially begun potty training. Like, the serious kind. Where she is wearing pull-ups only to sleep. Otherwise, panties only. Let's let that sink in a little.... yeah.
We have had accidents and successes, but all in all she is doing great. Here she is, loading up on juice wearing her potty princess tiara.
And don't cha just hate it when this happens?

Wish us luck as potty training continues!

POST #2 - Scavenger Dash!

Ever seen the "Amazing Race"? Well, Kendra and I did what was basically the "Amazing Race, Tucson" yesterday. It was called Scavenger Dash, and it incorporated running and solving clues, taking pictures to prove it and racing to the next stop. I think we did great, and we had an absolute blast!

Here we are, getting ready to go! Do you notice that we match? I only ask because the guy at McDonalds thought that he should point it out, in case we had overlooked that fact.

This was, I think, our second clue. Cool!

At one point we had a "detour" where we had to choose between two tasks. We picked the one where we each had to eat 15 saltines. Without water. After running for probably 30-40 minutes at this point. Let me tell you folks, not fun!

The crocodile hunter tribute or something.

There were so many more, but I just picked a few to share. We started on 4th avenue, had clues up and down 4th, then a couple at University. One on the mall at Campbell, one at Tucson High, the rattlesnake bridge, and some downtown. Then we headed back to 4th only to realize that we missed one and had to go BACK downtown. Oh boy! It was so much fun though, and I am sore today! Thanks Sister for a super fun afternoon! And thanks also to friends Karen, Kristen, Kim and Brian who were there as well as 2 other teams.

*Update/revision - I neglected to mention that Stevie was our "phone-a-friend" in the "command center" and was, seriously, very helpful and imperative to our success. He was "Jonny on the spot" when we needed info and even ended each communication with "over!" Thanks Stevie!!!!! Oh, and there were 33 teams I think. Not just us plus two others. What can I say, I have not yet mastered this language we call English. Thanks sister for pointing that out!
Next up, POST #3 - after the scavenger dash, we had dinner at Laura and Josh's house! So fun, because Karen and Natalie and their families were there as well. The four of us girls haven't been together in ages, and now we all have families and kids and everything! We had a blast!

Here are my girls!

And here is the whole gang! This pic definitely could have been better, but 4 couples + 5 children + a camera timer + an obstacle course for Jer to get into the picture = good enough!

Oh, and also POST #3.5 - Jen P. came over for coffee this morning! She is another dear friend from high school, who I haven't seen in years. I'm not sure how we ever lost touch, but I'm so glad we are back in contact again. She lives in San Diego now, but I already can't wait to see her again. Naturally, I was so caught up in, well, catching up that I forgot to take a picture of her and I, as I had planned. Next time for sure! Thanks for coming over Jen!!

Ok... hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Nothin' but trouble!

Uh oh... I think my kids are starting a band!

More fun with the fam!

On Sunday we decided to go to the zoo! First, we had to get all covered in sunscreen. Here is Lilly slathering Allie with "Special Sunscreen" (aka water in a bowl).

While she was busy doing that, I was noticing that my son is a hippie! Look at how his hair goes over his ears! I'm pretty sure I've seen a picture of my dad in the 70's with that same hair. Looks like Zac will be getting his first haircut before Lilly does!

So off to the zoo we went! The kids, Jeremy, Marv, Margaret, Rob, Nana and me (behind the camera). Oh yeah, and the Christmas Reindeer. Weird. He must have heard what Stevie said about him the day before. He looks mad.

We saw animals, fed the giraffes, and even ran into my good friend Suzanne and her family. Here are Nana and Marv enjoying a little break.
And Zac enjoying his sippie. He likes to kick it with his feet up in the stroller. What can I say, it's that relaxed, laid back hippie lifestyle of his.

Lilly enjoyed all the animals of course!

That afternoon, we rested for a bit (Lilly did not nap for the second day in a row. yikes.). Then, the whole crew came over for hot dogs (except Jer - he had to go to work).

Here is Zac showing off his new move. He goes from sitting, to standing, to tackling whatever is in front of him. In this case, the floor. Then he laughs and laughs.

Ahhh time for his first hot dog. Uh oh... I think he is a fan! He went crazy, then would get mad when he accidentally ate a carrot instead. Oh boy!

That's my girl with the Starbucks! Don't worry folks, I had refilled it with water. Pretty sunset...

And then it was bathtime. After this picture, Zac went to bed, the fam left, then it was Lilly's turn for a bath. After bath she likes to be carried "like a baby," then we sat and had girl talk before going to bed. What a doll!

What fun! We are having a great time with Margaret and Nana, and wish they could stay way longer!!

You can't roll a reindeer!

They're here!! Margaret and Nana are here to visit!! We are so happy and so blessed that they are here! I can't wait to have so much fun with them both!!
Don't they look great?
Me and Auntie Margie!

Here is Zac, looking very proud of himself after realizing that he can use our dining room chair as a "walker." He pushed it and walked through the entire kitchen until the got stuck on the carpet in our bedroom. 9 months old. He will be walking in no time.

Stevie likes to kick young children. Nice.

I know there will be so many pictures and so many stories from Marg and Nana's visit... stay tuned!!

Oh, and the title refers to a quote from Stevie from this evening. He is weird.

Our morning routine.

Lilly is such a good big sister. I've said it before and I'll say it again.
At night, it is her job to help put Zac to bed. Specifically, this requires turning off the light and closing the door quietly while whispering "nite nite Zacky... I wove you... close your eyes." Sweetest thing ever.
In the morning, she helps me wake him up too. Yesterday I took a couple snapshots of the deed.
First, she crouches down by his head and says "morning Zacky... time wake up." This picture looks like she is yelling, but she isn't. She whispers and is quite gentle.

Finally he picks up his head and looks around. Not sure what is going on with Lilly's face here.

Then he sits up and finds his blankie and his thumb for a minute. Lilly stays nearby in case she is needed.

Finally, Mr. Bed-head himself stands up and is ready to start the day. Lilly can sip on her juice knowing that she has successfully completed her job once again.

Have a great day! It's time for me to get this very routine started again....

Busy week - just some pictures!

Whew! Is it only Thursday??
First up... poor Ginger! I don't say that very often because, frankly, Ginger makes it quite clear that she hates me, puts up with the kids, and loves Jeremy. Still, no one deserves to be consistently hunted and tracked down in their own home.
There she is!

Hmmm maybe from this angle...

Look mom! She's all mine now!!

Unfortunately (for Ginger... muhha ha ha) this scene is recreated freqently these days, with just a change in setting. Could be Lilly's room, as seen above. Could be the kitchen table. Could be mom and dads's closet... but the characters and theme stay the same.

Next up, Lilly and mom goofing around. I hate this pic of me, but think it's hysterical that Lilly put her hand up on the camera like I do when we're doing self portraits!
Zac and daddy goofing around as well!

Lilly brushing her teeth. Kinda a bad picture. Not really sure why I'm including it. But I am. Because I can.
And, this last one is of Nicole on the news the other night! Our school gets a pretty good amount of press, being that we're new, have cool technology (that we're USING), and that we just rock in general. Nicole got to be interviewed and show off a really innovative tool that we are using district wide. Pretty much, she's famous now. Go Nicole!

Happy Friday to you all!

Oh... wait.... it's not... darn it! Have a great Thursday anyway :)