Back in the blogosphere

What a summer/fall it has been. First of all, I FINISHED MY GRAD SCHOOL PROGRAM. MS finally done, after 5 years of academic agony. Pre-kids I thought it would be a good idea to enroll in a free part-time MS program through my employer. I finished all but the last 2 classes before Eli was born. Once the classes were done I had to finish my thesis, "on my own time." Uh, yeah, right. Well, I worked on it in spurts and got serious about finishing before Lena was born, but was derailed by Justin's campaign schedule and pregnancy exhaustion. Then Lena was born and didn't sleep for 7 months unless she was in my arms (meaning I didn't sleep). In the middle of that I applied for a more demanding rotational job assignment in another lapse of judgement. Then Justin's father passed in June which added more family stress and travel. Then my credits expired in August and the new dean wasn't so sympathetic to "life excuses." My thesis advisor (and former dean) convinced him to grant me a 2 month extension based on the amount of time I spent on work travel, but he clearly did not have a sense of humor on the matter. Well, I turned it in today. All done. Don't officially graduate until the summer, but I've met all the requirements and officially earned the MS.
Meanwhile, the kids got somewhat neglected but managed to make do. The concept of dinner pretty much went out the window (not that it was well-established to begin with). And don't even get me started on how much housecleaning I need to do (already starting out from a pretty bad state.)
Well, to catch you up on the kids, Eli is working in DC as an executive chef and Lena is finishing her PhD program....oh wait, it hasn't been quite that long.
Lena celebrated her first birthday last month. We did the obligatory cake-face photo op with the fam (Eli helped me bake and decorate her cake). Size-wise she is still a little peanut, but she is at least (barely) on the charts which is fine. Her head, however, is around 75th percentile, but she hides it well in spite of her sparse hair. She is starting to grow a little more hair, but it will likely be another year before we can bother with the hair bows. She can walk alone for several steps but hasn't quite become a full-fledged biped. Finding walking shoes for her tiny feet has been a challenge. She is generally the size of an average 6 month old, so it is hard to find size 1-2 shoes that are good for walking. Her primary words are Mama and Cat, with the occasional dada, nana, and bye. She can make quite a conversation though.
Eli is getting ready to turn 4. He is quite a chatterbox too. He always has something to talk about, and it can be pretty funny to listen to his ideas, but learning to let others talk has been a challenge. He is still obsessed with trains as much as ever, including Thomas. He still likes to cook, although I haven't had time to cook much to begin with, and I'm not quite sure what to do with Lena if I do let Eli help me. He also loves reading books and watching PBS shows, which have become reasonably effective bribes...er, "incentives" to get him to hurry up and take a bath and finish eating.
Both kids had fun in the neighborhood Halloween Parade followed by a huge party at our friends' house and the trick or treating on our block on Halloween night. Eli decided he wanted to be a dragona and he wanted Lena to be a baby dragon, and miraculously I found 2 dragon costumes in their sizes.