grandpa's birthday '13

we celebrated grandpa's birthday in tigard. it was a great dinner!

cutting the cake, serving the ice cream

los abuelos

aunt m

happy s!

concentrating on the important things in life

surprise party

hanging at the nines restaurant high above the city, waiting for the birthday boy

birthday boy! happy 40th, j!

color run

pre-race

one morning in september, i got up early and ran the color run with j & m. this was a really busy day! i had the race in the morning; we met up with some friends moving away for lunch at burgerville; i taught two group classes; a baby sitter came & got oriented with our house; we went to our friends' house warming party; and we showed up for a surprise 40th birthday party. whew! long day!

this is actually pre-race, too. 

post-race

what orange hair i have! happy, and at home. 

visit with grammy

s gets some love from abuela

dinner outside - it was delicious!

the kids eating

swinging & balloon fun

z and his balloons

vegas

while in vegas, j & i met up with my friend, bobby yang, and his wife, misti. bobby & i were roommates one year while i was doing graduate school at the university of michigan in ann arbor. he's a violinist with his own band, and also often performs in kevin costner's band. check bobby out at bobby yang.  after meeting for lunch, we went to play some mini golf.

the kiss golf place had a wedding chapel, where everyone was allowed to watch the weddings.

there were lots of black lights inside - classy joint!

here's a little video of our last hole. 

vegas

the only good thing about our stay at the westin in henderson was our dinner the first night. the food was delicious, and really beautiful!

our flight was late, so we arrived around 5:30, and didn't get to our hotel in henderson until around 7. the sun was setting as we drove. 

vegas

con cerveza 

 on labor day weekend, we finally used our plane tickets to vegas which we didn't get to use last december because s got me sick. we were supposed to go as a group for a friend's 30th birthday, but i caught the stomach flu the night before we were to leave. my mom got sick, too. so, we finally got to use the tickets. it was nice to get away.  

hurray for free time!

kids' crazy dance

robot

zane made a robot!!!! all by himself!!!

costumes

spiderman

ladybug costume

looking up at big brother

striking a pose

i didn't like the lady bug costume, so i returned it. it wasn't warm enough or big enough, and she really liked z's costume, so i got her her own spiderman costume. we will have big spiderman and mini spidergirl on halloween.

s drawing

z at dinner

first day of school

here s is dressed for her very first day of school! she is wearing the backpack for fun.

 s isn't going to school by herself. she's doing one day a week, and i go with her. it only lasts 2 hours. next week they will start taking the parents out for a parent talk for a small portion of that time. 

her brand new back pack, and it has a matching lunch box (which is the only part we really use).

s and big brother, z. she's wearing her little apple hat, which doesn't really fit with the pigtails. 

bad girl

someone was left alone on the toilet, and look at what she did!!!! the toilet paper roll used to be a full one. there was a PILE of toilet paper next to her. 

sigh. 

we did use up the toilet paper, little by little. 

fun

fun

i have no idea where he got this...

saturday night

closeup cutie

other closeup cutie

dinner craziness 

monkey see, monkey do

busy saturday

this was a busy saturday. luckily j chose this weekend to stain the new siding (from replacing our bedroom window in the spring), because it was nothing but torrential downpours for the next couple of weekends. j was busy with stuff outside, and i was busy baking cupcakes & roasting veggies inside.

i made j wear a harness, so he used the couch as an anchor.

it's a long way down!

busy bumblebee

super z with a banana cupcake

random silly video...

fun with markers

someone had a little too much fun with markers. luckily, they were dry erase markers, so they just wiped off easily. 

brotherly love

what a helper....

cabeza

z sings a new song he learned at school

violin luthier?

z is helping me make fake/beginning violins, which i'm not even sure i will end up using...

1st day of school 2013

1st day of z's school

grammy's visit 2013

breakfast before school

 los abuelos and grammy came to visit early one morning before z went to school so that he would get to see grammy. unfortunately traffic was awful, and they arrived later than they planned, but z still got to spend some time with everyone.

hugging grammy

i love this attention!

s likes grammy's cane

little piggies

sicky poo

i have been feeling sick to my stomach all day, so i cancelled my teaching for the day. the kids are playing well together (drawing at the moment), so i'm going to see how caught up on the blogging i can get. this weekend was busy - tons of little things to get done around the house; group class teaching on saturday; a pumpkin patch visit; church and a symphony kids concert yesterday. z totally infuriated me after our busy saturday by wiping his hot fudge drenched hands on my newly cleaned & ironed (and i never ever iron!!!) sweater as he brought me his ice cream bowl, right after i asked s to keep her hands away from me. i don't understand where that behavior comes from. i was sooo angry. it was such a long day - teaching group classes takes so much energy. his little bout of bad behavior sent me over the edge. i left the house & went for a walk in the dark, and called a friend. it was good to get some fresh air and exercise. i've been really stressed by work. too much to do, not enough time in which to do it, so it was bad timing on his part. he didn't get any dessert last night, and both j & i made it clear that his behavior was unacceptable. z was very well behaved for the kids concert, and stayed awake for the whole thing - a first! he said his favorite part was watching the dancers (there were kids in high school from a dance company called dance west performing for a few pieces), and he watched the trumpet players a lot.

i napped while s napped today - i was tired! hopefully i will still be able to sleep tonight.

cuteness

z came home, telling me that classmate s had fallen and hurt her head, and "had to go to the hospital." i'm not sure if the hospital part was true, but anyway, he was worried, and wanted to make something nice for her. i took a picture and emailed it to the mother of s. so sweet.