Five to end the week

1.  Great quote from one of my favorite blogs, The Happiness Project.
 Look, Papa.”
“It’s a rhinoceros beetle,” he tells her.
“Mama!” she cries. “Look! A rhinoceros beetle!”
She is nine. Danny is seven. These years are endless, but they cannot be remembered.
–James Salter, Light Years


One of my goals for this blog is to document all of the little, ordinary elements of this season of our lives so they are not forgotten.  So here goes:

2) Mali and Brinn thoroughly enjoyed their field trip at the zoo yesterday.  Brinn's favorite part was the fact she was able to stay all day at school for the first time.  When she skipped off the afternoon bus in her way-too-big RLS t-shirt (cinched at the waist with a purple hair-tie.  So eighties!) and her Hello Kitty jeans she looked so grown-up to me.  I reached for the camera to find the battery exhausted.  Problem being fixed right now.

3)  Is there any better baby book than Pat the Bunny?  Delaney loves it as much as Mali did.  That author is brilliant at capturing the inquisitive mind of little ones.  I remember Mali pumping her arms up and down in anticipation of it.  I had to take it away from Laney at naptime the other day.  It was distracting her too much to sleep!  (Don't worry--we read it later.)

4) Jonathan and I have been using late summer/early fall weather as running time. We ran the best race in Pittsburgh, the 10K Great Race on September 30th.  Both of us PR'd with times of 42:31 for him and 51:50 for me.  Following a training plan (and running the hills in our neighborhood) made a difference.  I'm thinking bigger races may be on the horizon.

5)  Amalia continues to be enamored by her first-grade teacher.  She's copying her hairstyle and now wants to polish her shoes to be like hers. (I currently do not spend much time polishing footwear). It's pretty sweet. We are blessed by that place.