last friday night

the bean's school regularly does movie night, usually as a fundraiser for one of the many groups that are movin' and shakin' on campus. the first one of the year happened to be "despicable me," and neither of us can resist the pull of those minions. 

we arrived at a great time, with lots of space still available on the gym floor. these things are a BYOC-type thing - bring your own chairs (or blankets and pillows).  one of her friends waved us over, and so we spread out our blanket and set up our chairs next to them. it was a good spot, not too close, not too far. 

she was really excited to see her friends. it's always funny to watch a bunch of 5-year-olds interact with each other, and you'd never have known that they'd just seen each other just a few hours before. but hey, who can resist a chance to play a little "duck, duck, goose"? 

i took a trip to the snack bar and loaded up on grub. 

yay for movie night!

the kids settled down somewhat for the movie. there was plenty of chatter and giggling through the whole thing, but nobody cared. it was just a fun friday night, and it went by pretty fast. the bean was clearly wiped out by the time it was all over, and it didn't take much to get her down for the night.

the best part for me was the surprise waiting for me at home, though. despite a busy week at work and at the cigar lounge, the hub managed to remember that it was 13 years ago that night that we went out on our first official date:

i truly have the best husband i could ever ask for. i love him so much. 

an apple a day

yesterday was johnny appleseed's birthday.  i'm not exactly sure why exactly, but the kindergarten classes at the bean's school are big on acknowledging this.  it was the first class party of the year, and since i'd signed up as one of the class photographers (and co-room mom), i got to go and hang out with the kiddies.  well, along with what seemed like half the kids' parents.  in a classroom of 24 kids that's already fairly crowded anyway, it was quite the cluster in there.

since i've been on a DIY hair bow kick lately, i decided that she absolutely had to have special clips for the occasion.

and made her fun sandwiches for lunch.

the teen thought it would be fun to come and help out too.

we roamed around the room, helping the kids as they cut, colored, and glued a couple of fun crafts.

they were all super excited to make their own caramel apples, too.  now, the easiest way to make those is to shove a stick in an apple and dip it into lovely hot melty caramel.  but these are 5- and 6-year olds we're talking about.  that'd be quite the recipe for disaster.  so instead, we had sheets of flattened caramel rounds that they wrapped around the apples.  except that they were rather cold, which made them hard to work with.  and so we distributed the wax paper-covered caramel sheets to everyone and had them sit on them to warm them up a little.  comedy.

there were also individual hot apple pies from mickey d's for each kid.  uh...yum?

yay for caramel apples!

there were so many people in that classroom, the teen and i kind of hung out on the sidelines and played with some of the stuff on the counters.

tell me this thing isn't creepy as all hell.  you'd be a damn liar.

when all the fun stuff was done, the kids were released for afternoon recess and the parents were dismissed.  we managed to catch the bean for a quick photo before we left:

the biggest bonus out of all this is that the bean has decided that she likes apples after all.  since she's like her mother and doesn't typically touch fruit with a 10-foot-pole, this is a fabulous breakthrough.  last week, she learned that ranch dressing is pretty tasty after all.  let's hope that this new adventurous streak continues, yes?

i want it all

in an effort to cut back a bit, i went through and cancelled my fun monthly subscription boxes. but when i logged into my stitch fix account, i...just couldn't. so i didn't. that notice that pops up to tell me that my shipment is on its way is seriously one of my most favorite  emails all month.

then the box magically appears on my doorstep, and i waste zero time in snatching that thing up and bringing it inside.

super lame confession: sometimes i put off cracking that thing open for a little while, just to make the fun last just that much longer. muahahahaha, i am such a dork. 

but not this month. as the bean looked on in amusement, i picked up her mickey mouse safety scissors and sliced through the shipping tape and yanked the flaps open. 

the first item was a definite winner. this cardigan is TOTALLY my style. 

please excuse the non-matching shorts i'm wearing here. i didn't feel like changing into something more suitable. just know that i know better than to actually pair them with any of this stuff.  either way, this sweater is awesome. 

i love both of the tops i got. 

this little dress is really comfy, made of lightweight knit sweater-y material. 

lastly, a necklace that i actually like. 

i think, though, that i'm gonna go in and change my profile to eliminate jewelry from my preferred items list. i have plenty of accessories due to my still-active stylist status with stella & dot, and i'd much rather receive one more piece of clothing anyway.

the carrot that stitch fix dangles in front of you is a 25%-off instant discount if you keep all five pieces from your box. this is actually the first time i've loved the whole shipment. and i have some birthday money i can use. hmmmmm.  what do you think?

i have two days to decide. help me out here. 

adding to the cookie-folio

it's funny, just when i'm thinking that it'd been forever since i'd last done cookies for anyone, an email will magically appear in my inbox. and before i know it, there's another. and another! and then all of a sudden my calendar is full of requests for all sorts of fun designs to work on.

like these mini baseballs, used as cupcake toppers for a fundraiser hosted by a player on the l.a. dodgers. so cool, right?

funny, right on the heels of that came a second request for baseballs...only slightly bigger.

next, some end-of-summer flip flops for a bridal shower.

last weekend, the hub hosted a charity fundraiser to benefit the city of hope. one of the cigar shop's regular customers was facing the first anniversary of the loss of his son to leukemia, and this was just a small way to show him and his family some support.  i decided to make a small contribution of my own and busted out several dozen mini cookies.

these were for a friend's bridal shower. the wedding venue is a vineyard, so...

the next couple of weeks have me doing some little mermaid-themed treats, plus some sparkly stars and crowns. and i'm still debating whether or not to do some for the bean's upcoming birthday party.  it's my little pony-themed this year, and the best part? it's at one of those jumpy playground type joints where there's a start and end time. no cleanup, no stress, no craziness. we have an hour in the party room, and it's gonna be all her friends from school and her gazillion extracurricular activities, plus a small group of her little friends who happen to have parents that are MY friends.

well, okay, this is still me. i'm still scouring pinterest and the google for fun decorating ideas and whatnot, but it's going to be on a MUCH smaller scale this time around. i'm super excited that we've reached the age where the bash really is about her and what she wants, instead of me trotting out my insane partyzilla tendencies.

yeah. we'll see.  heh.

girl on the go

the kids' 400-meter dash at the girls on the go run didn't start until a couple of hours after i crossed the finish line at the 5K. the girls found me as i was hanging out in my car having a snack, and we headed over to the playground to kill some time.

they had some pretty unique equipment to play on.  along with the standard swings and slides, there were spinny things to ride on that made crazy noises. 

the bean talked her sister into joining her on the seesaw. it's always such a crackup to watch these two play together. 

i mean, it's like they're the same age or something. 

then it was finally time to run. 

she looks ready, doesn't she?

one of us usually runs with her, but she was feeling pretty confident and decided she could go it alone. it was awesome to watch her take off with the rest of the kids. 

since she'd just done the 200-meter dash at the disneyland kids run last month, i had a good idea of how far she was going to go for this one. so i was pretty surprised to see her racing back towards the finish line in what seemed like no time at all. 

this kid had some serious swagger as she sashayed across the finish line. heh. 

the triumphant, obligatory post-race bling shot. 

and just for fun, i got one too. 

just another medal for her ever-growing collection. so awesome.

don't call it a comeback

so i've done my fair share of whining about this bronchitis and how it's kept me from being able to do...well, pretty much anything. with a half marathon looming in about a month, this was definitely not a good thing.  and not just any old half - the nike women's half in san francisco, one that i'd tried unsuccessfully to gain entry to several times in the past. i refuse to lose out on my chance to run it, dang it.

anyway, i'd registered for the girls on the go 5K months ago. the teen and i actually signed up as a mother-daughter team, and put the bean in the kids' 400-meter dash.  and even a couple of days prior, i was still having trouble catching my breath after putting laundry away. ugh.  but after a couple of nights of sleeping with a humidifier right under my nose and busting out that inhaler every four hours as prescribed, i found that i was feeling pretty damn good.  the cough was still there, but not as bad as before, and i no longer had trouble taking a deep breath.  and so the day before the run, i decided to head to the expo and pick up our bibs...just in case.

i checked out the course and the timeline for the day's events, and decided that maybe it was finally time to get out there and give it a shot.

not to mention, i wanted that pretty medal. i hadn't earned one for the month of september yet, and this was my chance. i promised the very concerned hub and teen that i'd take it slow and easy, and busted out a new running toy my friend delovely details picked up for me.

it's a little box that helps with interval training - so it beeps and vibrates every so often to tell you when to start running and when to slow down to a walk.  you can program it for your preferred intervals, and i decided to go with the 30/30 timing that we'd used at the run disney meetups.  nice and easy, just as i promised.

the teen was happy to sleep in and drive over with her sister later that morning for the kids' run, and so the next morning saw me up bright and early and in running clothes for the first time in three weeks. i can't lie, i was feeling pretty anxious. i hadn't felt like that before a race in forever, and i just hoped i could get through it without dying.

i got there just after the half marathoners took off, and my run was up next. i'd timed it well and only had about ten minutes to wait with e rest of the 5Kers.

i got my green box all ready, turned on my headphones, and gave myself a little pep talk as we were released onto the course.

the weather has been absolutely glorious over the last week, and with this being the first official day of fall, it was a perfect day for a run.

the course started off with a nice downhill stretch. this made my jogging intervals much easier to deal with, and i felt really good.  except that i knew it was an out-and-back loop, so i'd be paying for it on the way back to the finish.  no worries. i just tried to relax and enjoy the fact that i was finally out for a run.

as i huffed and puffed along, i passed a couple of girls - one who grinned at me and said "hey! i know you!"  i smiled and said "you do?" and felt bad because i didn't recognize her at all.  she said "i read your blog! hi, wan!"  so cool.  totally kept me smiling for the rest of the run. if you're reading this, i'm so sorry i didn't think to get your name and take a picture with you!  hopefully we'll run into each other at another local race. see what I did there? "run." i crack me up.

before i knew it, i was a third of the way done.

also, this was a welcome sight. 

to my left, i caught a glimpse of raging waters, our local water park.

i'd somehow forgotten to bring a piece of gum or even a mint, so i was more than ready for a little hydration.

just beyond that was the turnoff onto a dirt road for the half marathoners and 10K runners.

and then i was halfway done as i hit the u-turn and headed back the way i'd come.

there were a ton of costumes, but i only snapped a couple of them since i was too busy focusing on getting through it.

sure enough, the second half was mostly uphill. i managed to keep up with my running intervals for the most part, but my nike running app told me that my pace was definitely super slow compared to my usual.  i tried really hard not to let it get me down and instead reminded myself that i was coming off of a long break. and then there it was:

success!

as of right now, i don't have any other races on the calendar before the big half near the end of october. i suppose that's okay. i really need to ease my way back in and try to get in some long runs between now and then.  i'm just gonna have to resign myself to the fact that i won't be doing it for time but merely to finish without getting swept. bah! wish me luck.