Laking It Up

This past Friday Landon's after school program was closed for an in-service and JP's pool (housed in an after-school program facility) was closed for the same. Taking this as a sign from the divine, we piled everyone in the car at 3 p.m. and drove to my parents' lake house to enjoy one last hurrah with weather warm enough to swim. And for the first time all summer, JP got to come too!

Everything is better when JP and his shoulders get to come to the lake.

As always, we had a marvelous time. As I told JP when I was driving him around on the jetski (he's not allowed to drive when I'm on it because he is a CRAZY PERSON who takes it over 60 mph on choppy days and I try to avoid situations where I will be forced to be furious with him; also, I like my bones and internal organs to stay mostly in one place inside my body), I'm so glad my parents have a lake house with a rope swing and boat and jet ski and all the fun things we would otherwise have to burn money and vacation days to allow our kids to enjoy.

off to the beach!

in the old VW tent/L&C's "house"

And enjoy it they do! Even Cora got into the spirit of things this time around.

lake baby!

She learned that sand does not taste as delicious as it looks.

And she was a very concerned lifeguard in her pack 'n play on the dock.

Landon picked up right where he left off, rope swinging up a storm and getting stronger and more daring each time we come. This trip he was able to hang on long enough to swing out, spin around, come back to the dock, push off with his feet, and do it again. That is at least a 10-year-old skill.

And even little Bear did the rope swing this time! Doesn't she look tiny getting all lined up to go?

But she hung on longer than Landon did last summer and was quite tickled with herself.

After my jetski ride, I decided I might as well break out my very rusty rope swinging skills.

The kids were almost even impressed.

I can't tell if I'm sore from Thursday's barre, Friday's power yoga, or Saturday's hanging upside down by a rope, but my arms are a bit tender. Landon and Claire expressed no such concerns, so apparently soreness is a post-7-year-old thing.

My Aunty K drove over from the Woodlands to hang out Saturday afternoon. She was my jetski buddy and then held Cora for about 3 hours. Both of them thought that was quite excellent.

And amidst all the swimming and rope swinging and boating and tent-building and jetskiing and eating (so much eating), there's also just a lot of time that the kids get to spend with their Papa and Gigi and that is great too.

We got home to yard work, laundry, an empty pantry, and other realities of a weekend away, but we divided and conquered and put the kids to bed nearly an hour early and never heard a peep from either room. The novelty of sitting down on the couch together at 7:15 p.m. without any children awake in the house was well worth any efforts expended in traveling, even if laking it up wasn't already the best way to spend a weekend. Now I'm just setting my morning alarm and waging an internal war of "so tired, so sore, so tiiiired" v. "you love 6:15 barre class and you always feel so happy when you go!".

While that battle rages on, I'll probably fall asleep, having set no alarms at all, reliving the glories of being an upside down swinging big kid again. I may not be able to life my arms above my shoulders, but it was really really fun to get that way. Till next summer, lake house!

Food Forts and Other Fun

JP's headlights just flashed up the driveway, home from his first "fight knight" at the Krav Maga studio since he took his summer break. He broke two fingers quite badly during a Spring fight night, and they are still quite broken, so I didn't understand why on earth he needed to go play fight, kick, and block people when he still can't get his wedding ring over his crushed knuckle, but I would also never in one thousand years sign up for something like Krav Maga and look forward to each class like Christmas morning. So, to each his own, though if he breaks any more bones or more permanently hurts his already crushed fingers I swear I'm canceling his membership, but the point of this little interlude is that it must be after 9:30 p.m. and we've both promised each other we'll go to bed before 11 tonight, so I need to write quickly. 6:15 barre class is only a few hours away!

bedtime story selfie

This past weekend was lovely- both our use of it and the days themselves. It was in the 60's. The 60's! In mid-September in Texas! I wore leggings and a tank and a drapey long top with riding boots and it was so glorious I wore the exact same outfit on day 2. I bought the season's first candy corn- bringing the one and only food I CANNOT control myself around into the house and then immediately failed to control myself around it. I made two loaves of pumpkin bread. I made the greatest beef stew ever (more below). I got to dress the kids in their shiny new unstained fall clothing. Claire and Cora wore matching shirts (Cora with purple polka dot skinny jeans!) and everyone was delighted. Claire took full advantage of all the accessorizing cold weather allows and dug out many outfit add-ons from last year's clothing bins.

The kids made a gigantic fort. We took multiple family walks, including one audacious one in the MIDDLE of the afternoon just because it was only 72 degrees. I'm smiling just thinking about it. It's like Fort Worth knew I was missing Chicago.

But on to the food. I made the most amazing beef stew. I have made many a beef stew- we don't eat a lot of beef and when we do it is always in ground beef or stew meat form; it's cheap and versatile and goes a long way. (Side note: when I write things like that I can tell that I started cooking "real" dinners when we were in Chicago and lived on 1/5 of what we do now; I still think of chicken breasts as a once a week treat.) So I've made many stews, but this recipe from Jacques Pepin resulted in by far the best finished product- tender, falling apart bits of meat, vegetables that weren't mushy or overcooked and still retained some of their own flavor thanks to the brilliant idea of cooking them separately, and the braising liquid, oh my lord, the rich, thick, flavor filled gravy at the end... the best way to capture it is to note that JP and I both scraped every little bit of it out of our bowls and the kids' bowls and then I found him licking the dutch oven I cooked it in as if it were a bowl of brownie batter.

So now that I've built it way up too much, the recipe is below. I must admit I doubted the full bottle of red wine called for in the recipe, concerned that the meat would boil rather than braise, but as JP and I fought over every last teaspoon of liquid at the end, I regretted reserving that last half-cup, so don't be like me. Don't doubt Jacques Pepin or his mother, dump in the whole bottle. I also skipped the pancetta step because I didn't have any and JP frowns in the face of bacon, but I'm sure it makes everything even more delicious. This week's menu:

Saturday: Beef Stew in Red Wine, mashed potatoes (to soak up the wine), country wheat bread, glass of red wine, candy corn. You need all of these things.

Sunday: Black bean and spinach enchiladas, cilantro lime rice (couple cups jasmine rice, the rest of the bunch of cilantro that I didn't use in the enchiladas, juice of 1.5 limes leftover from my margarita-filled girls weekend, dash of cumin, salt, pepper, garlic). SO GOOD. I freaking love that enchilada recipe.

Monday: Creamy Chicken and Wild Rice soup, crusty wheat bread, sliced sharp cheddar cheese.

Tuesday: Penne with Vodka Cream Sauce (use less chicken broth and/or simmer it longer than the recipe suggests), garlic bread.

Wednesday: Mexican Quinoa Salad, tortilla chips, salsa.

Thursday: Corn dog bites, as sampled at Trader Joe's on Sunday and so delicious and magical, I actually put hot dogs on our dinner menu for the first time maybe ever. According to the sample person, you slice up a few nice Kosher hot dogs, place them in mini muffin tins, top them with corn bread batter, and bake for 15 minutes. Maybe I was just hungry at the time, but they were delicious. There will be sides too, probably a vegetable and then something else starchy and terrible like baked beans or mac and cheese. We're already having hot dogs, so a blue box seems right. And beer. It's going to be great.

Friday: At my parents' lake house, so something I didn't cook, though I am bringing pumpkin bread, brownies, and maybe this too (schedule permitting) along for the ride.

The fort making has continued. I believe it is now a small apartment complex.

There are multiple rooms, pets, babies, and flashlight lamps involved.

Tonight I let Landon read his bedtime book to Claire in there and it was adorable. I did find a rather disturbing image of the baby and all the animals in some sort of jail cell, but the kids assured me it was just a pet shop and the baby worked there and they were all VERY happy there.

As long as Cora doesn't end up in there the first time she exuberantly attacks their fort, I suppose I'll buy the "pet shop" story.

And now I'm just sliding in under my 11 p.m. bedtime deadline. JP is home safe and unbroken, though exhausted because a marine took over their class tonight and there was a lot of long and complicated boot camp like drills going on between the sparring and I kind of stopped paying attention because it all sounded awful, but he was wearing a huge grin along with his sweat and bruises, so I suppose he had a good time. I head to my nice calm barre class in the morning where no one will touch me and I'll move up and down to the stylings of all my new favorite songs. To each his own (but my workout is better). Night all! And go make some beef stew! (Or black bean enchiladas, if you're a non meat-eater, and even if you are a meat eater, you should also make the enchiladas, and then you should have some candy corn.)

Dear Cora, 10 months

Tonight Claire picked her "Claire's 1st Year" photo book as her bedtime story. And as I read over the little vignettes and longer letters I included in that book I realized I couldn't remember the last time I wrote to Cora. Part of this is that I'm busier at night now- JP runs his business after 8 p.m. and I help, I can't blog during the day anymore, I exercise 3-4 nights a week... but most of it is that I seriously just can't put these months with Cora into words and the thought of trying overwhelms me so much that I push it away. And I love words, and I never push anything away! But I spend so much of each day so full of JOY that she's here and so DELIGHTED with every single thing she does that I have to at least try to write it down, if anything because in 10 years I'm not going to believe she was really this easy or awesome, so here goes:

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Dear Cora,

You turned 10 months old a few days ago and I'm overdue on writing to you. Part of this is because it's impossible to capture you, and what our family feels for you, into something as simple as words. You are our family mascot, CoraBunny. You are joy personified. You love all four of us with your whole heart and your whole smile and I'm not really joking when I laughingly tell people that you are everyone's favorite person in our house.

You are the easiest happiest baby that ever could be. When you're tired, you don't fuss, you just get a little slumpy, like your backbone can't hold you up anymore. If we're late putting you to bed, and Cora you've had special occasion bedtimes ranging from 9 p.m. to midnight, you let out a sigh and fall asleep before the sigh is even over. And then, miracle of all baby miracles, you SLEEP IN. You sleep in! You sleep until you've gotten enough sleep to be happy all day and then you wake up with smiles and squeals of delight, ready to smile your way through another wonderful day.

You are as flexible about mealtimes as you are about bedtime. You eat very well with your fingers, you have loved every big people food we've given you- I can't even pick a favorite because you love it all, and you are thrilled to get to use a sippy cup during meals. In fact, when we first let you try a sippy cup, you decided to refuse your bottles because you were so excited to drink out of a cup like a big kid. Any time you do anything big-kiddish, your smile is extra huge. If I wasn't so determined to keep you a baby for as long as possible, I'd let you do every big kid thing I could think of just to see your whole face light up with pride. You know, you know when you're doing something your big brother and sister do and you clearly keep track of it. But slow down, because as Landon and Claire lamented this afternoon after helping your dad with about 3 hours of yardwork- being a baby is very awesome and yardwork-free.

Speaking of Landon and Claire, they adore you Corabear. They are as delighted with you as the day we brought you home. They are your biggest cheerleaders and applaud your every little advancement. They both like to walk you to bed and give you kisses and hugs and toys and whatever else you could possibly need. When you go on walks in the pram at school, your teacher always takes you by Claire's class and apparently your screams of joy are deafening. When you see Landon- whether it's been 5 seconds for 5 hours, you flap your hands so hard you fall over, and when you see me you make these awful gasping noises because you are so excited you're maybe forgetting to breathe. But your dad gets your biggest reaction- if it's a noise you can make or move you can do, you do it all whenever you see him. You're also oddly obsessed with his sunglasses and you scream in delight every time he puts them on in the morning. He's like your personal rock star.

You are super tall, averagely chubby, and small headed. You've had a few colds and two ear infections (oh, and pink eye, that was fun), but in general, we only see the doctor for your check-ups. You crawled absurdly early, are very steady on your feet but strangely uninterested in walking, and transitioned yourself to one 3-hour nap a day around 9 months old. Water is your favorite thing and anytime we can't find you, there's a 90% chance you're in our master shower. In fact, anytime anyone in our house takes a shower, we usually strip you down and let you crawl in to join just because you love it so much, so you are the very cleanest of babies. This morning when I turned off the water, you blinked the droplets free from your eyes (you like to sit on the drain and stare right up at the spray), saw it was off, and burst into tears. We can't even let you in the bath because you dive under water so fast and so often you nearly drown even though I'm 6 inches away.

Your other favorite things include: your feet, everything chewy, your pink walker, your dad's sunglasses, music, the play kitchen and all of its food, anything your big siblings have touched or are touching, and the big kid playroom in our house. You aren't allowed in the playroom unsupervised, but there's a whole other level of joy anytime you're in the vicinity because you know it's a sacred big kid space and you want to do big kid things SO BAD.

Before you were born I worried a little that you would be a bit on the outside. Landon and Claire are so close and the age gap between you seems so big right now, and we had such a good thing going as a family of four. It was so good it made us want more while also being a little wary of messing it up. But oh Cora, you ARE our family, just as much as any other member. At only 10 months old you are utterly irreplaceable and I cannot believe we almost let ourselves think that we were done at four. Not that something was missing, because it wasn't, but now we are more. More of everything good and fun and smiley and there is so much love it almost overwhelms me. It's in the little things- like playing games tonight on the floor with the big kids and you crawling around in circles wanting to join in so badly and all of us laughing at your ingenuity in crawling under elbows and over legs; you squealing in delight when you wake up, and then patiently waiting until someone comes to say hi to you and then squealing even louder when they do; our family dinners with you diligently attacking your food and randomly looking up and smiling at us like you're just so delighted to be here; the way you always look thrilled to be part of whatever we're doing. And the joy you bring to us is quadrupled and turned back on you. It's amazing you can even contain it.

We love you so much Corabear. The highest compliment I can give you is that I truly do wish you could stay a baby for the next five years or so, but I know we've only scratched the surface on the fun we're going to have with you and I look forward to your squeals and screams and big belly laughs every day along the way.

Love, mama

Dancing Shoes and Kitchen Pants

1. I am obsessed with this song right now.

The video is odd, but the song is awesome. Like all my good songs lately, I discovered it when my teacher played it in barre class, and I am powerless not to start dancing at the 1:17 mark (or really, from the beginning) and I have boogied around my office and house for the last two days. Tonight, in a fit of particularly exuberant dancing, I made Cora cry. When I asked her what was wrong, Claire said "It's not good when you move like that Mommy."

2. Do we like these shoes?

I need some casual weekend boots to wear this fall/winter with skinny jeans and leggings and I am flummoxed by the varieties before me. Every winter I wonder what I put on my feet the winter before and every winter I somehow muddle through with a bunch of dressy boots, sandals that make my feet cold, and casual ugly shoes from the Chicago snow days. No more! I will find a pair of weekend shoes no matter how many pinterest slide shows I have to look at (casual wear confuses me and I have to make sure I'm doing it right; I'm just not naturally fluent in the language of layering) or how many pairs of booties I have to order and return to DSW, I will figure this out and 2014-2015 will be a time of comfort and cuteness and layers.

3. Has anyone tried fabletics? A woman in my barre class got something from there and said it was great quality and the prices are excellent. They sell things individually or in "outfits" and each 2-3 piece ensemble is about $50, which is pretty great if the quality is good. I'm definitely intrigued. I think I need a reward for going to all the 6:15 a.m. barre classes and I adore this top:

I'm a sucker for criss-crossing in the back and they have lots of other great tops and pants as well. I'm currently obsessed with a pair of herringbone pants at Lululemon that fit like a dream and took all my strength to leave in the dressing room, so I need a reason to divert my exercise treat dollars elsewhere because they are way too expensive and technically everything about that company annoys me. I hate that their Wunder Under Pants are basically my exercise soul mates. Nothing has ever fit me better, but at $92 a pop, I'm always looking to cheat on them. 

4. We picked out the granite for our kitchen today! Very fun. It's actually marble, but it's beautiful. Now we have appliances ordered, cabinets designed, granite to-be-cut, a faucet, sink, and pendant lights already stacked in my living room- this is HAPPENING! I just need to pick out our flooring and backsplash once I have a granite sample in my hand. We stopped at the tile store and while I narrowed my 8,000 options (no exaggeration, overwhelming), I can't pick one until I can hold my counter top sample up to it. But still, so excited! I really can't wait to cook and see the kids at the same time. Kitchen renovations- I'm doing it for the children. Updated pictures of our choices soon!

5. My girls weekend + morning barre class + mother f-ing SUPERMOON that kept my bedroom lit up like daytime all Tuesday night finally added up to an unconscious me for 8 hours last night. Like maybe actually unconscious. I have no memory of falling asleep and I woke up at 8:05 a.m., a full hour after I had planned to leave for work, to an empty house and no understanding of what day it was. JP had left with the kids for school and it took many viewings of my cell phone to convince myself it was Thursday and I very much needed to be OUT of bed. When JP got back I asked him why he didn't wake me up and he said he tried, and each kid hugged me, and after making sure I was breathing they gave up and left. Turns out, I do have a wall when it comes to too little sleep and I hit it last night. Those skylights seem like such a fun architectural detail until the moon grows 10 sizes and beams itself into your bedroom and you fall asleep 2 hours before your exercise class is going to start.

And now it's 7.25 hours before my class is going to start tomorrow, so I should probably head to bed to dream strange things about granite and casual booties.

Howdy

Interwebs! It's been a week again and I'm not sure why this keeps happening. Summer is admittedly rough- I work and do all the things until JP comes home about 7:15, run off to barre or help get everyone in bed, get home at 8:45, try to answer a few emails, straighten up the house, prep for the next day, help JP with his emails and business work, sometimes watch a little TV or read some of my book and then it's 11:45 p.m. and I'm mad we're going to bed so late AGAIN and then the next day it starts over. But the winds, they are a-changing. The big pool is drained and JP's pool manager and board member duties are on hold until April! He has mornings free to do swim school work! Everything is SO MUCH EASIER when fall comes. As a swim school wife, it's my new favorite season.

Flowers and my favorite donut hand-delivered byJP on our anniversary; he really gets me

Also helping to free up my evenings- my yoga studio has created three new 6:15 a.m. barre classes because I kept asking for them and I am going! I don't know that anything sums up the change in me over the last 6 months quite like that sentence. "My yoga studio" - oh yes, I have one - "6:15 a.m. barre class" - YES! - "I kept asking for them" - early enough to be done before work and won't interrupt our family evenings and post-parental-duty glass of wine - "and I am going!" - I haven't missed one yet! Even though I haven't been getting any sleep and my eyes hurt and I get flashbacks to morning swim practice, I am there, in the studio by 6:15 and I LOVE IT. I love it. We always end with some power yoga, stretching, and a moment where you're standing on your mat in mountain pose, watching the sun rise through the studio windows, floating your arms down to prayer, thumbs to heart-center, with "a first big step forward into your day, letting go of all that does not serve you." It probably sounds cheesy reading it here, but I leave feeling lighter. And on a more superficial note, I am actually lighter. The lightest I've ever weighed and suddenly a full pants size smaller. Peace is found at the barre, even if you suddenly don't have any pants.

Speaking of good stuff- two of my best friends from law school visited me in fort worth this weekend! Allison, previously of NYC and currently in Hong Kong, and K, previously of Chicago and currently in Los Angeles. Visiting me, in exotic Fort Worth. And we had SO much fun. Or I did, anyway, but I think I can speak for them too.

Alli flew in on Thursday night and I took her to barre with me on Friday morning, where my super fit yogi friend confirmed that, "this is really hard!", and then we morphed into ladies who lunch. To show I meant business, I even blew out my hair before leaving the house. We ate amongst many other ladies of leisure and then I suggested we stop in a store or two in our outdoor fancy shopping village next to the lunch place. Three hours later we were heading into our fourth store and I was holding three bags and making Alli swear not to let me buy anything else. It's just, everything fit so well! And I would say I wanted some specific thing and it would appear in the next store. On sale. Miracles like that need to be seized.

We picked K up at the airport in the evening and then headed to the home of my favorite margarita in Fort Worth- Yucatan Taco Stand. Don't be fooled, it's an actual restaurant, and its margaritas and nachos cannot be beat. Then we walked to Live Oak Music Lounge and sat on the roof of a building under a giant tree with little white lights and listened to music, drank more tequila, and talked until we were hoarse. It was law school without the school and with more money, wisdom, and moderation in drinking. God I've missed them.

On Saturday I woke up early to Cora screaming in joy from my closet (my friends were staying in her room), so I got up and baked them poppyseed bread. We're basically a bed and breakfast. There was a trip to the Fort Worth Botanic Gardens, lunch at my favorite lunch place (Lili's Bistro; get the gorgonzola fries), and we got bikinis on, lounge floats blown up, and a pitcher of margaritas ready a whole five minutes before a giant thunderstorm blew in and sent us all inside to drink the margaritas on the couch. The trials we bear.

It continued pouring up to dinner, so we switched plans to an indoor place near Sundance Square, hoping the rain would end when we finished. It did not, so, tequila'd out for the first time in my life, I googled "Fort Worth wine bar" and we found our way to Times Ten in the W. 7th district and it was awesome. Fellow Fort Worthians, you must go. We have a winery! In Fort Worth! And they buy their grapes from Napa, so it's actually really good!

We tasted many, chatted more, and left late. I crawled in bed at 12:45 and Cora woke me up at 6 with her happy screams (we had her pack 'n play in the closet and I think she really likes shoes), so it was another throwback to the law school with Landon. So special, but made better with fancy buffet brunch, mimosas, the Fort Worth Water Gardens, a non-stormy swim in the pool.

I drove them to the airport Sunday afternoon, the kids nearly as sad to see them go as I was. Claire was particularly delighted with all the grown-up girls in the house and anytime I asked JP to get a picture of "the ladies," Claire would race across the pool to get in it. Because, duh, I meant her too.

So now it's just the five of us in our house and it feels so small and margarita-less. I was so blessed in my law school classmates and friends. I wouldn't have survived 3L year without every one of them and beyond the true and deep friendship I share with my close set, there's just a wonderful camaraderie and openness that exists between us. We're all smart, ambitious women in demanding, high-paying jobs (well, not so much me these days) and we can talk about the unique challenges and joys that come along with that. They are a blessing to me, and though I always miss them, thanks to blogs, facebook, email, texting, and their willingness to take transcontinental (and transpacific!) flights, the distance doesn't feel as far as it could, and anytime we get together, it's like no time has passed at all. We're spread out between LA, San Francisco, Chicago, Washington DC, NYC, and Hong Kong, but Alli is generously giving us a big reunion by arranging to get married in NYC next year and then we'll have to plan to go somewhere awesome in 2016. Though it's going to be hard to be The Fort. It comes with poppyseed bread.

In other things you've missed, Cora is THISCLOSE to walking. She's taken a few steps, but is too distracted by her newfound ability to scream happy screams in different octaves and she tried waffles for the first time on Sunday and I think she's STILL celebrating that.

Landon and Claire are doing great, JP is 50% more available to me on nights and weekends, and we're meeting with the cabinetmaker in the morning to plan out the final details of our kitchen project before walls come tumbling down in two weeks. So, more adventures are coming and I plan to be much better about blogging them. At the very least, there will be some creative menu posts while our kitchen is under construction.

3 days, 9 years

This has been my favorite kind of 3-day weekend. Nothing on the schedule, no reason we have to leave the house, but plenty of opportunity to do it anyway. I went to barre every day, we had people over to swim every day, the kids built forts, JP caught up completely (maybe) on swim school emails, and I read all the reviews of every kitchen faucet on wayfair.com.

And on Saturday night, after having a bunch of first grade boys over to swim, JP and I went out for a fancy dinner to celebrate our 9th wedding anniversary (on the 13th anniversary of our first date!) at our favorite Fort Worth restaurant- and increasingly possibly our favorite restaurant ever- Grace. We had an 8:00 reservation so Cora would be asleep and the big kids would almost be down for our new babysitter (the younger sister of our previous babysitter who dared to go off to college on a national merit scholarship) and I wore the dress I'd bought online at Express for $18 the week before. It's reversible, in case I want to wear it again without anyone knowing. Cora picked that one night to have a hard time going down, so in the midst of me reassuring our poor new sitter that Cora will totally fall asleep right after we leave and Landon and Claire trying to tell her ALL OF THE THINGS going on in their lives at once and JP looking at his watch and noting its similarity to our reservation time, I tossed my big camera at the sitter and asked for one picture pretty please.

One picture!

And then I got one at the restaurant while we sampled our complimentary champagne. The bosc pear martini I'd already ordered was waiting on the side. A bottle of Bordeaux was involved later on. Grace makes me such a lush.

Our meal was, as always, incredible. It's not just better than anything I could ever make, it's food I wouldn't even think of putting together and making. And the company, of course, was even better. I read some article on the way over about a psychologist who said he could predict with 91% accuracy whether a couple would divorce or not after listening to them converse for a few minutes. The article, though interesting, wasn't really the point, it just made me think about divorce- friends we know who've already gone through one and some of the difficult things JP and I have gone through together- and I tried to find the words to explain to JP that no matter what the future holds, I just can't imagine a version of the universe where he exists in it and he is not my husband. I can imagine so very many things, but my mind breaks at that. It's not even that this life and family we're building would be fighting for, though they are, it's him. He's my person.

But enough of that. The meal was awesome and I look forward to our next reason to celebrate something fancy.

Sunday dawned bright and breezy and the boys headed out for their traditional Sunday run/bike.

I love this tradition and hope they do it forever. I also love JP's new running shorts. Why did men stop wearing short shorts? His legs are squandered in the cargos of today.

They went 6.5 miles in 49:19 minutes- a new record!

They were both very sweaty and pleased with themselves and jumped in the pool with their clothes on to celebrate. Then we all went to Lowe's and Target and Costco together, because we know how to have a good time. We had friends over for wine and swimming that night- we provided the swimming and they provided the wine, and that was great fun. They have 2.5 year old and a 10-day-old and I held the tiny brand new wombat baby and the second I made eye contact with JP he said, "No." It seems unfair I became a baby person with my own last baby.

eats like a badger; not invited to fancy restaurants

Today began with a meandering family walk way off JP and Landon's Sunday pace.

Claire and I went to Target and tried on all the fall clothes, none of which I liked on me at all, and then Kroger where she kept asking where the "changing station" (aka dressing room) was. She really likes when I try on clothes in dressing rooms and she can tell me I look beautiful while she dances and sings in front of the full-length mirror. Love her.

JP had to go to the pool for the final evening of the summer- they're shutting it down so there was a ton of work to do and I was on my own with a teething angry baby and two big kids who were honestly being really good, it was just the last night of a 3-day-weekend and I was feeling the solo parenting status a little more intensely than usual. I had planned to do yoga once everyone was in bed, but by the time Cora finally passed out and the big kids were in bed a half hour late, I skipped yoga for a scalding hot bath and very large glass of wine. And then I ordered our sink, faucet, and pendant lights for the kitchen so JP wouldn't have to look at any more online pictures when he got home and now I'm blogging and wondering how long it takes to drain an Olympic sized pool. But it was a fun, relaxing, long and lovely weekend and I hope yours was the same!