getting ready

for some reason, these past few days seemed to fly right by. i can't believe that we're at the end of september...it's 2!!! days away from fall (of course, you'd never know it with as HOT as it's been here in jacksonville)...aaaand our yearly "summer" vacation is only ONE WEEK AWAY!!! we've been keeping pretty busy with natalie being in school, and russell's new activities, all the while trying to sqeeze in much-needed [and much-MISSED] playdates (you know, mommy needs these playdates just as much as the kiddos do, if not more...). natalie is on to her second head cold since she started school, and all i can do is laugh about it. it was bound to happen, right?!

despite her cold, we all managed to have a productive and fun-filled weekend:

on friday, i took the kids to "free-play" at MyGym, the gym that natalie used to attend, but since she started school, russell took her place; then we headed over to our traditional friday night dinner with grandma and grandpa at brooklyn pizza; natalie spent the night with them that night while russell got to ride his bike in the neighborhood and watch Kung Fu Panda (a very cute and funny DreamWorks movie) with mommy and daddy; Russ worked ALLLLLL DAAAAY saturday (9-7) while i cleaned-cleaned-cleaned the house til my back almost gave out, but since life doesn't stop when you want to, i went to run some errands (good ol' Publix, the supermarket i spend at least 2 days of every week frequenting...), then natalie returned home and i took the kids to the park to spend a few minutes of fun outside; i cooked an amaaazing dinner (if i do say so myself), something new that i threw together, which happened to turn out very delish; on sunday we attended the 12:00 mass (which we haven't been able to do as a family lately because of one thing or another); after church, natalie had a birthday party to attend -- her first classmates birthday party! they had a huge waterslide set up, a playground, hotdogs, cake, ice cream... needless to say it was a lot of fun!; when we got back home, nana and papa, and daddy's friend james came over for last minute dinner arrangements (leftovers from yesterday plus some extra goodies; and lastly before bedtime, i helped natalie with her homework. every weekend she has to work on finding and cutting out pictures that begin with the following week's "letter of the week." This week's letter was "C".

WOW, i'm tired just typing all that out! as i sat here waiting for russ to return home from his run, i decided it would be a good time to update this blog since i've been slacking lately!

oh, so do you want to know what we are "getting ready" for??? our vacation! -- which as i mentioned is only ONE WEEK AWAY! we cannot be any more excited! next saturday russ will be running in the Ronald McDonald House Children's Way 5k and immediately following, we will come home and load up the car to head down to Orlando! looking forward to all the fun and relaxation to follow :) so THAT'S what I'M getting ready for!