three is a wonderful number

i'm going to vancouver this week, my last plane trip for quite some time. i'm feeling big and tired and really just want to stay home with my feet up but am staying busy taking thea to all kinds of lessons and activities on top of working full time. i've become acutely aware that ourime as a family of three is almost over so i'm trying to take every opportunity i can to do fun things with her. and while i'm excited to meet nuggie numero dos, i also feel some sadness that this chapter of our lives is ending. during just about every dinner over the last week thea has looked up from eating with a big smile on her face and said, "zack and sarah," like she couldn't be more pleased with how things are in this very moment and it gets me a little choked up each time.

every monday morning she and i go to music class, which she loves. her teacher, miss crystal, has risen up the popularity charts in our household and gets at least a few mentions a day. this morning zack surprised us and met us out front. thea was so excited to see him that she grabbed his hand and we walked in holding hands as a threesome. i wish someone had taken a photo.

in honor of the holiday, all the kids were encouraged to dress up in their costumes so here are a few pre-halloween pics. more to come when we go trick-or-treating on sunday!





ps: i've been a terrible blogger over the last two months. we had not one but TWO milestone birthdays in our family last week. i won't mention numbers but would like to say a belated and very HAPPY BIRTHDAY to grama and papa!!

looney bin

thea has been coming up with some doozies lately. i'm not sure where she picks up these things but she said this to zack last weekend, totally unpromted and it was a completely appropriate response for the way he was acting!

nine ten ten

so, it's the just about the last day of september, exactly one month since i posted, and thea turned 22 months today. as the boss said, "vacation's over" and i need to get back to posting. i'll keep this one short though a longer one about the last month is coming soon.

we had an AMAZING time at our wedding and want to thank everyone who joined us and also those who couldn't make it but were there with us in spirit. it was a weekend we will remember and treasure forever. thank you to our families, our friends and especially our parents for making all our dreams come true.

we don't have the photo files from our photographer yet so i'm including a link to a few on his blog. he does have a website where you can view all the photos, so if you're interested, please email me and i'll send you the username and password.

rocky rock star

andre took an amazing photo of thea and zack this weekend while we were up in palo alto. it was a quick trip, we arrived early friday afternoon and left first thing this morning, and except for the wedding, all of our time was spent at the pool.



in fact, thea spent much of the last 12 weeks in a pool with her beloved swim teacher, rocky. three lessons per week [a summer requirement of her swim school] really started to pay off and she's now doing the crawl all by herself!





also, i just realized that thea is 21 months today!!! WOW!

uno, dos, tres

the work of la la:

many of you know but some of you don't

early in 2010, we decided that we didn't have enough going on this year and why not keep things interesting? actually that's not quite how it went down but nevermind the semantics; we have another nugget cooking the oven. estimated date of arrival is december 5, 2010.

we had our lengthy, in-depth ultrasound just over a month ago. this was the one that, in the weeks leading up to it, we were trying not to think about it but were both thinking about it quite a lot. it was the same ultrasound, the same week in july, two years earlier that we found out about thea's cleft.

turns out everything looks good this time around!!



i have been craving bacon with this pregnancy as i did with the last. last weekend zack made pancakes and bacon for breakfast.

random sidenote: thea often wakes up with food on the brain [definitely my daughter]. one morning last week we were lying in bed at 5am and she said, "zucchini." she repeated it a few times and then said, "chicken." i said, "zucchini? chicken? are you hungry?" she responded "zucchini, chicken, rice" and then moved on to the next unrelated thought that popped into her mind. a few days later, around the same ungodly hour of the morning while lying in bed, she said "cucumber." maybe she was pondering the differences between these very similar looking vegetables?

anyway, i brought the bacon over to the table and broke off a very tiny piece for thea. she put it in her mouth and before she could even chew it, she raved, "MMMMM. this is YUMMY." i responded, half under my breath, "i know. it's like crack." thea was silent for a moment as she finished chewing and then yelled, "CRACK PLEASE. MORE CRACK PLEASE!"

much to her father's chagrin

thea loves cats. we can't get through a book without her skipping ahead to the pages with kitties on them and hugging every picture. she also likes to lick things and then look up happily and say, "like a kitty."

we took a trip to the pet store on sunday morning with the intention of getting thea a fish. the highlight of the trip for two-out-of-three-of-us, however, was checking out the kitties. thea had the biggest smile plastered on her face as she watched them and they clearly wanted to play with her. they came up to the bars of their cages and stared right at her, meowing much to her delight.

thea was so overcome with emotion being in the presence of those kittens that she kept turning to me and kissing my face. it was pretty adorable. poor dada is trying his hardest to get her on the dog-train but so far, kitties are clearly her favorite.

after looking at the guinea pigs, mice, birds, turtles and snakes, we picked out a fish to take home. without further ado, i introduce the latest addition to our family, curtis bloop mendelson randel [plus thea showering him with kisses]:

salutation nation

thea, zack and i all did yoga together this morning at a huge outdoor lululemon class in point loma. actually, let me re-phrase that: i did yoga. thea did a bunch of downward dogs and almost-headstands and then wandered around talking in a loud whisper. zack followed her around stuffing her with apples to keep quiet.

here's the only photo we got: