E, G, and a Wooly Bear

Rainy Day Drawing

Birthday Roundup

Someone's SIX!

...and someone else pulled off a Hello Kitty Birthday Cake,

 which may have been my accomplishment of the month...

Mira and I got to stop by her school and read to her class.  It was strangely intimidating, but awesome.

And the whole gang at the party!  Hi, Uncle Todd!

Ch..ch...ch...changes!

I've noticed the blog goes dark whenever we're dealing with some emotional issues over here.  Moving out of the city?  I barely posted for months.  Going back to work?  Crickets on the blog.  Leaving work and staying home again?  We've been dark for almost three weeks.  Wait, what's that?  Yep, I left my job.  After all the upheaval of getting a job, finding a nanny, and working for seven months, we came to the decision that it just wasn't working for our family.  Financially it was a wash - "hello!  politicians!  let's do something about the cost of childcare!" - which would have been okay if the job had made me happy, or I had felt like it was furthering my career.  But ultimately neither of those things was happening, so I chose not to continue.  I have mixed feelings about it, really.  I am THRILLED to be back with the kids, but disappointed that a position I thought would be a good thing for our family didn't work out that way.  Who knows, hopefully in the future I'll find something I like better, maybe it will be a little closer, maybe it will be part-time, maybe it won't happen until M is in school and we don't have to hand over my entire salary to pay someone else to watch her.  But for right now, I'm back home and loving it.

So here's to re-commencing regular blog posts!

Let's start with this...Ellie's first race!  I am so proud of her, she ran a whole mile with only a couple walking breaks.  I really hope this is the first of many races together.  This also may be one of my favorite pictures ever.  Just look at her.  She's so proud of herself.

The Gang

Hitting the mean streets.