Party Time

What is your favorite color?

The kids have developed a clear preference for particular colors, they know their favorites and they know each other's favorites.

Evan has claimed the color red, Memo is loyal to green, and Lily is fond of purple. Holden is yet to be decided but he is showing some early indications of a preference for orange.

Lily also has dominion of anything pink, the boys will shout, no that's lily's! if I try to hand them a pink or purple cup or bowl.

Happy 3rd Birthday Little Loves

7am New Toys (Einstein's Rocket for Will, Handy Manny Fix It Radio for Evan, Beauty & Beast Tea Set for Lily and Dragon for Holden)

8am Waffles and fruit breakfast

8:30am Mark off heights on wall. All were very proud of how much they had grown....wish I had photos of their beaming faces. (Evan 38 inches, Will 36.5 inches, and Lily 36 inches)

9am Jog, with stop at Turtle Bridge

10am Park play time

11am Breakfast tacos at Taco Shack

noon Each selected a cupcake from Upper Crust, we ate on the bleachers across from our house.

1pm Grammy and Papa's house

2pm Swimming

3pm Football in the yard

4pm More cake

7pm UT Football on TV

8pm New story books

9pm Sweet Dreams for our kiddos

11pm Bedtime for momma and daddy

Boots

Temps are dropping, it is starting to feel like fall. 85 degrees means cool weather in Austin. Absolutely delighted to have the hot hot weather behind us. We had 20 days straight of 100 degree temps this summer breaking all records.


Get your boots out...

New York, NY

Just got back from a whirlwind trip to New York. David convinced me to tag along on a business trip with him for a extended weekend getaway. We headed up Saturday to spend some time in the city before the work week. We almost didn't make it, the kids were hit hard with a bad stomach bug on Friday night and we were up all night. I came down with it as soon as we touched down in NY. Thankfully I made it through the flight feeling well and even had a chance to read a book, Into the Wild (great book by the way, incredibly moving, couldn't put it down).

By Sunday I had mostly recovered. In the morning, David ran while I walked through Central Park enjoying the cool weather. That night we went out to a lovely dinner at Bella Blue in the Upper East side, with my Aunt Sol, Uncle Bill and cousin Paul. Paul is a bright and charming freshman at NYU in fabulous program that sends him to London for his second year.

Monday we spent the day at the US Open.

We watched Serena and Venus easily capture the women's doubles title and spied a handful of celebrities including Gwen and Gavin. Then we experienced the riveting four hour men's finals where ultimately 20 year old Juan Martin Del Potro (ranked number 6 in the world) overtook the dashing Rodger Federer, winner of the past five US opens. The rallies were incredible, I've never seen anything like it. And the crowd was wild, especially so for the dignified US Open. It felt like the crowd started to get behind the underdog Potro in the second set when it became apparent he was going to put up a good fight. He rode the wave to victory fighting for each and every point, surviving a five set marathon that included two tiebreakers.


We celebrated with a late dinner at Macao in SoHo.


And finally back home yesterday with our crew, here donning US Open hats. A special thanks to Grammy, Papa and Carmen who took great care of them while we were away.

This morning I managed to get everyone dressed, lunches packed and at school on time on my own. David returns tomorrow.

And also tomorrow, soccer starts and I will officially be a soccer mom. So it begins...

And gosh, the trips will be three in just over 48 hours.

First Day of School

Today was our first day of school. I had to bribe Evan to pose for the photo. I love the tradition of the first day of school pic, standing by the front door . Memo is showing off his typical cute grin and Evan has a mischevious twinkle in his eye. Lily was really excited, she was just a bit weary after standing there waiting for me to capture and coax Evan back into the photo.

Here is a better capture of Lily, my sweet baby girl, on her first day of school, proud of her new back pack with water bottle and lunch box.

Class was only 45 minutes today, part of a graduated schedule plan to acclimate the kids. My kids didn't want to leave of course. They won't have any problem with the transition. I am really impressed with both their teacher Mrs. Nooshi and her assistant Mrs. Bonnie. Everyone raves about Mrs. Nooshi, her assistant is new so I had not heard anything but I thought she was adorable. They both instantly had a connection with the kids. I feel really good about this school and expect it to be a great year.

Grammy Clare was so nice to come down early today and help us get ready for school. Since the class day was so short Grammy and I took Holden along with all the kids and went to class, followed by a picnic on the school grounds and a special celebration trip to Yogurt Planet for yogurt of their choice and all the toppings they wanted.

Fall Wardrobe

I've just discoverd Polyvore, an application that let's you create outfits from a variety of well known brands. It is a handy way to select your fall purchases. What's really cool is that if you find something you like, say a shirt from j. crew, you can click on it and see outfits others have created with that shirt. Here are few of my creations for fall...mostly compiled from J. Crew's fabulous fall lineup. I'll take one of each please.

Winter 09