bits & pieces

a couple of weeks ago, hazel noticed one of her teeth was loose. she happily wiggled it until grant told her that it would leave behind a bleeding hole when it came out. she left it alone after that and fretted anytime we mentioned it falling out. days passed and we noticed her new tooth had already broken through her gums behind the loose tooth. we tried to convince hazel to yank out the dangler (it was hanging by a thread) and she dissolved into tears and whimpers. today, it came out:

how? not by tying a string to it and a door knob, and slamming a door (though i may have suggested it). it came out because we are awesome parents who reward our children with tasty treats: 

hooray for chewy, sticky candy! it didn't hurt a bit and luckily hazel noticed her tooth before she swallowed it. here's her gappy smile: 

even more exciting than the loss of a tooth? the fact that the tooth fairy was pulling a day shift:

the tooth fairy seems to be a big spender but i have it on good authority that the first tooth gets the largest sum of money.

in other news, i had my hair chopped off yesterday (based on this photo): 

i wasn't really a fan of it at first but i'm starting to really like it. plus, it'll make summer here so much more bearable. 

other hairy news, grant shaved his beard off:

it looks good, right? too bad it only lasted 5 minutes.

that's the happenings. tomorrow we're taking off for sea world san antonio for a spur-of-the-moment vacation. i'm sure there will be a nice, big, juicy blog post when we get back.

3 flying owls

i'm pretty sure i start most of my running posts by saying how i get really anxious the night before, sleep fitfully, wake in a panic every  half-hour to check the clock, and have an unreasonably short fuse. this was all magnified friday night-saturday morning because we didn't have our car and i hadn't been able to pick up my race packet. we needed to get to the bus stop by 6:30 am. my panic and inability to sleep for more than 20 minute intervals saved us from sleeping in more than 5 minutes late (the alarm grant had set was on a weekday setting and didn't go off). we, and the groggy girls, got ready and headed out. as we waited at the bus stop, i tried my best to calm down but couldn't. i wasn't able to chill out until we had arrived at rice university and walked to the start/finish line. we were about an hour and a half early. yes. i have issues.

we sat around after picking up our packets. lucy and hazel practiced their running stances and game faces:

and looked super cute in their running numbers:

the 5k started at 9 am. the first mile was great. my legs were tight but not too painful and i thought that maybe i would meet my goal of a sub-30 time despite being a little sick. didn't happen. not far passed a mile and a half i started having a hard time breathing. i was feeling light headed and a bit nauseous. so i slowed down and finished in 33:30. not my best but also not my worst.

finally it was time for the real event to begin:

hazel and lucy took their places down the field with the other children:

they did some group stretches and then they took off:

the girls did great. lucy especially loved basking in the crowd's attention:

they each happily received goody bags with water bottles, bubbles, and candies:

as soon as all events were completed, grant called the mechanic to see if the car was finished. it wasn't. they were waiting on a part to arrive from a dealership. a big disappointment. so we trudged back to the bus stop. once again the bus came soon after we started waiting. we made it home, had lunch, and put the girls down for naps. at 1:20 the mechanic called to say the car was ready and could we pick it up before 2. grant hopped onto his bike and pedaled his heart out. it's really nice to have the car back.

buccaneers, birds, a bug, & a bike

early in march, hazel and lucy attended a birthday party for their friend. it was pirate themed and the girls came home with plenty of booty:

one sunday evening in mid-march, we invited some friends over. they arrived in style on their motorcycle and hazel and lucy insisted on wearing the helmets:

look at the bobble-heads!

our friends brought cookies and we provided the entertainment:

angry birds! some backstory: when grandma was here in february, she brought her super fancy smart phone and introduced the girls to video games (specifically, angry birds and an ant squashing game). much to grant's dismay, the girls took to it like ducks to water:

dun dun dunnnnnnnn.

once grandma left, taking the best form of entertainment the girls have ever experienced, we bought the board game (except there is no board, so what do you call it?) to assuage their disappointment. and it kind of worked. the first couple times hazel and lucy played they even provided the sound effects of the birds, pigs and included an emphatic "you lose!" when targets were missed.

back to that sunday evening in march, the adults played:

and played:

and played:

and after a few tantrums, allowed the wee ones to join in:

good times.

outside in early april, lucy found a bug:

and it made her really happy:

she and hazel were outside helping grant clean his bike, which had become increasingly filthy after each ride:

i wish they were this enthusiastic about cleaning their room.

a very important post

i'll start with the less important stuffs. here are a couple cell phone pictures that i put on facebook recently. this first one i took a week before christmas, when houston finally showed some semblance of autumn: 

i took this one at the arboretum the day after christmas:

i just tried to pull the other pictures off of my phone but i can't figure it out and i don't want to send them all through facebook to get them. we wandered down through a tunnel and along one of grant's new bike paths.

yesterday it rained. when mother nature sends houston rain, she's not messing around (1.6 inches in 10 minutes). the sky was throwing buckets of water down. several friends ended up stranded when the roads began flooding. i was lucky enough to decide last minute not to go to my yoga class. a good decision since i definitely would have gotten stuck along the way.

i tried to get to a store around 4 in the afternoon and several roads were still flooded and blocked. it took grant's bus 2 hours to get him home (it's usually 30-40 minutes). i took this picture of the bayou that i run along:

here's a better before and after of a bayou on my friends blog. another friend's garage flooded. it was crazy.

***now for the really important part of this post: in 4 days 13 hours 49 minutes until the marathon! i'm pretty nervous even though i've prepared. my goal is to finish and still have working legs. grant will be running the half. you can recieve text message updates for both of us. my bib number is 12064. grant's is 26028. cheer us on in spirit!

falling into autumn

houston decided to end summer this week . . . at least for a couple of days. to celebrate the onset of chilly weather, the girls and i decorated our front window (i even cleaned it for the first time in the two years we've lived here):

we put leaves blowing in the wind:

i thought it was pretty clever. hazel and lucy decorated their window (free from my ocd directions) with the extra leaves:

the best part of this 60 degree weather? it coincided with the girls' final swim lesson:

they still had some fun:

and even learned life jacket safety:

once again i'll point out what a thoughtful mommy i am: i brought along two towels for each of them. a hooded one for during the lesson and one for after: 

eventually, despite the towels, the kids were turning purple so the teacher had them hang onto the wall in the water (thank goodness for heated pools, right?). hazel was sneaky and didn't hold on to the wall: 

good thing she's tall. for the final event (jumping in), the teacher carted the kids in the water to a different spot on the wall: 

she was such a fantastic teacher (i wish i had learned her name) and presented the girls with their certificates saying they had passed the first level. to celebrate, we had a dinner of noodle soup and hot chocolate:

they were a lot happier about it than this picture shows. i promise.

the cooler weather also reminded me that halloween is around the corner. hazel decided to be a butterfly ages ago. i had a great idea for her wings. i bent two wire hangers into the basic shape of wings and wrapped them in tulle. it was pretty much a disaster. they were passable as fairy wings but nothing close to butterfly wings. grant and i brainstormed that night and i came up with another idea that grant executed to perfection: foam board cut into wings with fabric glued to it. bingo. i had several yards of ikea fabric that i'd bought with the intention of making more pillows for the couch but the oranges clashed. are you ready to see it?????? 'cause it's awesome:

grant cut four slits into the middle and we threaded some ribbon though to make a harness. lucy's was a little more involved. she wanted to be batman first. then a ladybug. then a bee. then batman again. once i'd told her to make up her mind already, she settled for batmangirl. not batgirl. again i had a vision. it seemed easy enough. i figured the hardest part would be re-learning to use my sewing machine. ha. ha. heh. *sigh* summary: wrong fabric, @#%&^! sleeves, small hems, velcro malfunction, etc. in the end, the easiest part was the insignia which makes the costume:

don't look too closely and definitely don't look at the back. i'll probably try to fix it later but i was in a hurry to finish so we could go to the gym's trunk-or-treat:

here's the back of hazel's wings:

that fabric worked so well for this costume. lucy's cape fell off so i used the safety pin that was holding the back closed (don't ask) and a hair clip to keep it attached. anyway, as soon as we arrived we ran into our friends. rebekah and her baby sister (who's not in the picture) were beautiful peacocks:

what followed next?

candy:

cow attacks:

crafts (put on by the lovely ladies that run the child care at the ymca. love them):

camel riding (no pictures since the girls didn't want to do that one). crowds:

and hula hooping: