The good life

This week Hrishi had to travel to Omaha again for work. He was really needed there and will still be needed back there in November. We managed well although we missed him dearly. With me having to take on all of the household chores, including everything that goes with taking care of Ella, I gained a deeper appreciation for all the help that I get when he's around. And even more respect and admiration for you mothers of many children out there, or single mothers, or just very busy women!!

Althought it was busy, I was able to reflect at the end of each day on how blessed I am and feel for all the work that is mine to do: the work of a mother, the work of a wife, the work of a  woman in the church, the work of an analyst, the work of person passionate about fitness, etc. Because only through work we grow and shine, and reach whatever destination we set out to. And work makes life good, doesn't it?

And here is some of the things that make my life good, in fact great and wonderful:

(Ok, this really deserves a caption as there is a pretty cute story behind it: Ella comes home with this cute bunch of little dalmatians. I ask her where she got them from. She tells me she traded them with a friend. I ask her what she traded them for, she said "nothing." I'm a little perplexed and I ask if she had to return this to her friend. She said, "why, of course! I have to retun them on Monday." I thought it was very funny and I'm glad that I get to play with them too, until Monday! :-))

My very handsome man.

Today I got to volunteer and get my hands dirty with pumpkin along side this lovely bunch! I'm getting to love some of these kids and Ms. Brininstool, they wonderful teacher!

Today in honor of the Red Ribbon week, everyone dressed-up in Western attire! It was such a treat to see everyone's outfits (including teachers, staff, and principal!)

I'll make a conscious effort to be better at treasuring every moment because it is there, in the small, daily details that we get to experience life at its best. And trying to find the extraordinary in the ordinary day makes (my) heart happy.

Fun craft

Isn't this just lovely?

Family Fall craft/homework. It was such a fun project. Ella made the jack-o-latern eyes, mouth, nose, decorated and wrote her name on the label, drew and cut off the leaves and the stem. Daddy put it all together, while I painted the paper bag and gave a lot of instructions...!!! :)

I love fall!

Texas State Fair

First time to the Texas State Fair did not dissapoint: there was a little bit of everything for every one but mostly tons of fried (and I'm sure yummy) food!!! We would not know anything about that though since fair food is out of question when you have food allergies. But you know what? That's actually a good thing in this instance! :) We did make our own dairy-free version of the infamous funnel cake (three of them in fact) before leaving home and it was delish!!

(For a moment I thought of sprinkling some flax seeds in there but then changed my mind... with the amount of sugar and oil that went into that thing, my flax seeds wouldn't have made a difference! lol ;))

The fair is a major Fall attraction here in TX. It's always in the Arts District and pulls a huge crowd every time, from what we heard. The nice thing about it is that since it's so spread out, even with lots of people walking around, it still doesn't feel crowded.

Ella won her first prize at the "Fish the ducky" game and enjoyed quite a few rides.

I did the paddle boats and the huge slide with her while Hrishi conveniently watched from the side lines! :) The paddle boats ride was really harmless in and of itself but after running my first 5K yesterday (on the treadmill), it turned out to be quite a task for my poor legs. Now the slide is a different story: with my fear of heights, climbing up about 100 ft or so and then letting go on a piece of thick felt with my baby on my lap, turned out to be pretty scary. Lucky me that Ella was sitting in front and I got to "hide" behind her. Laying on my back helped get us some momentum going down but also alleviated some of my fear! Haha! He's really using my recent motto that "it's good for me to do hard things each and every day" on me. :)

Gigantic crab with really nice table setting at the Children's Aquarium! :)

The slide... you can't probably tell how tall this thing was!