Monday, September 28, 2009

5 years... and counting!

Troy and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary Friday night. Boy, it's amazing how much we're survived, and accomplished in our short time together!

We met in December 2002, got engaged and bought a house in 2003, married in 2004, had Ella in 2005, (2006 must have been a year off???) then had Alex in 2007!!!! We've lost 3 grandma's, Troy's brother Nick, and seen a good friend go off to war.

Through it all, we've had each other. I can barely remember my life before Troy, and I don't want to imagine a day without him. I love my man! Isn't he handsome in this picture?

Just the two of us....


Alex and I are solo today, for the first time, in a long time!

I've been taking care of another almost 2 year-old boy, Liam for the past several months. They just relocated last week, so Alex and I are on our own for the 3 days when Ella is off to pre-K.

Today, he seems a little lost. It's chilly and windy outside, but he asked for Kung Fu Panda, so we're watching that and getting ready to share some lunch. We've already made a trip to the unemployment office, saw at least a dozen school buses, and 2 trains.

Not a bad first morning, but I hope to spice it up for him! We're gonna try Deanna Rose Children's Farmstead this week, and maybe the park, so he can enjoy the fact that he gets playtime while Ella's at school, with Mommy, all to himself!

Back 2 School

Ella is officially a pre-kindergartener. It's hard for me to believe!


We decided to keep Alex home for one more year. He'll start preschool next fall, when he's 3, just as Ella did. That lets us put in just one kid at a time, which is a huge tuition savings, and gets Mommy some quality time with my boy before he goes off to school next year.





Ella was a little nervous. We have two sets of teachers this year. Her T/Th class in the Rainbow Room was all new kids, except for Ella's best friend Sophia. But the teachers, Mrs. Dick and Mrs. Pantalleria are wonderful and Ella is already hugging them every morning at the door!





Monday is an enrichment class which provides a little extra Language Arts, Math and Science focus. We're paying extra for this, but hope it will help since she's going to be one of the youngest in her kindergarten class. Her August 20th birthday means she only makes the age cut-off by 11 days! She's doing great so far, but does learn some things a few months later than her friends who are almost a year older... so we wanted to give her every advantage we could.




This is Ella's first year to pack her lunch for school and that's been a learning experience for both of us! The school is nut free and dairy free, so no PBJ allowed. Luckily, Ella likes hummus and beans and pasta, so we've been pretty creative in what goes into that Hello Kitty lunchbox.


She's pretty proud of herself so far, and we are too! (These are just a few photos from her meet-the-teacher sessions, and her first week of class.)