Happy 7th Birthday Elena

My daughter turns 7 today.  Wow, 7 years.  It seems longer to me but overall it's just amazing that she's 7.  2001 was a crazy year considering 9/11 happened during it.  Luckily for Elena she was born in November and not on that day as it would be hard as a birthday.  I do remember going to birth school at OHSU that night.  Kindof surreal...as I'm sure most people remember what they did that day.  Onto to more happy things during that year...I competed in my 2nd marathon that October.  I was in awesome running shape probably close to the best ever in my life.  Earlier in that year I had to travel a ton due to my job but then with the pregnancy complications I stopped all travel after an epic trip in May to Europe.  A few friends got married that summer and we even had to leave one reception early and race back to the hospital.  We practically lived in OHSU during those months.  Elena was born after an epic 5 days of on/off labor for Amber who held on as long as possible but she was still 4 weeks early.  Luckily, the steroids worked and her lungs were fine.  She was super small but she's pretty normal right now.

Here's the latest picture I have from this September:

 

 I bought her Kung Fu Panda, 2 pairs of PJs, and makeup/hair Sleeping Beauty head.  The Sleeping Beauty make-up/hair head is one of the things she picked out when we were at the store.  She really likes to create so I'm sure she'll spend hours putting makeup and doing Sleeping Beauty's hair.

Elena has a half day at school due to parent conferences today and tomorrow.  Our conference is at 4pm so I'll get to hear how she's doing and if it's bad NO GIFTS.   Hehehe...I hope things are going well at school.  It looks like from a picture I saw that her classroom size is pretty small so I hope she's excelling so she can get a scholarship.  More money for my retirement!!

Winter has started here.  It's frickin freezing out right now with the temperature under freezing.  I'm all bundled up as I haven't turned on my heat...yet.  It's not too cold, 62 in house but the sun is out so the living room will be up to 70 easily by noon.  My coffee and my new fleece robe is keeping me warm.  My office/bedroom is cold all the time and my living room is warm all time.  I guess I should migrate like geese for the winter into my living room or just turn on the heat.  Hmmm...electricity expensive, 5 layers of clothes cheap.