walking!

It's official, Chloe is walking!  When I picked her up from the nursery at church last Sunday, I learned that she'd taken 4-5 steps all by herself.  Although she had gotten great at walking holding onto one of our hands, she had not taken any steps on her own that I'm aware of until then!  I'm sad I missed out on her first steps, but was glad that Amberly and Brittany got to witness them!  And sure enough when we got home that afternoon, Woody put Chloe down and she took 6-7 steps across the living room to me.  It is crazy and sweet at the same time to watch her walking around.  I can't get enough of it!  She's really progressed this last week and initiates walking on her own.  I'm trying to savor these moments because I know not long from now she'll be running alongside her big sisters.

a very happy brown birthday

Our sweet little E is three!!!  

Esther is such a sweet blessing to our family.  She has a contagious smile and laugh.  She's our quiet and sensitive one, and she amazes me by how thoughtful and generous she is (most of the time). She loves doing whatever her big sis does, but she also definitely has her own take on life.  She has the funniest expressions and talks with her hands, which is just really cute.  And she surprises us daily it seems with her vocabulary.  She's also proving to be the animal lover in the family.  

Well for several months now, Esther's favorite color has been brown... mostly because she loves chocolate, but also she says because she has brown hair, like Belle has brown hair.  Since I think it's pretty rare for your typical 2 year old to love the color brown, I got a crazy idea and decided to make her birthday all about brown!  So her she is starting her big day... don't you love her wild brown hair!? 

Sporting her new rain boots with a brown monkey on them, "Now I have some of my own."

 Getting ready to enjoy her brown (chocolate) waffle for breakfast!

We spent part of the morning at one of Esther's favorite places, the carousel park.

Riding on, you guessed it, a brown carousel horse.

The second part of the morning was spent making brown banana pops~frozen bananas covered in chocolate and sprinkles!  I didn't get a good shot of the bananas, but I did get one of the two little chefs before we started.  Here they are decked out in their hats and aprons from Publix preschool pals.  

For lunch we had Esther's favorite meal, which happens to be somewhat brown... peanut butter and honey sandwiches.  For dinner, we had her second favorite meal, which also happens to be somewhat brown... chicken nuggets from Chick-fil-A... yum!

Back at home on the deck with the brown and pink balloons Daddy came home with for his little E.

Arden took this shot for us!

And the highly anticipated brown cake with a brown horsey and brown ice... I spent the afternoon shaping and decorating the cake with Arden by my side while E and C napped.  Arden gave the horsey 3 names throughout the process...first Thunder, then Lightning and finally, Isabella.  So here's Isabella, the horse!  My favorite part is her mane, which is made out of chocolate twizzlers!  (I got the basic shape and the twizzlers idea from Family Fun and Parenting Magazines online.)  I tried to put Isabella up out of sight, but as soon as Esther woke up from her nap, Arden ran and took Esther to show her the cake saying, "See the beautiful cake we made you!"  So the rest of the afternoon Esther kept reminding me that we would have cake after dinner. :)

Even though you could tell Esther was ready to dig into her cake after she blew out the candles, she took a twizzler off the cake and gave one to each of us before eating one herself. 

besides a brown horsey cake, she also asked for a brown puppy (stuffed of course!) ...her reaction when Woody handed it to her...

Looking at her card from Nonie and Dagan that had a mirror on the front, she says, "Oh, I have chocolate on my face!"

thank you Nonie and Dagan for my new Cinderella dress and duffle bag!

thanks Aunt Hannah, Uncle Michael and Kai!

I'm not sure if it was because of all the sugar and caffeine Esther had that day or if she just didn't want her birthday to end... maybe a combination of both, but when we went to check on her around 9:45 and then again at 10:30 that night, she was lying in bed awake with the biggest grin on her face!  

And probably my favorite part of the day was half way through the day, Esther looked up at me and said, "umm, I think my favorite color is pink!"  Well, she is 3 now, so I guess she can change her mind.

Happy 3rd Birthday Esther, we love you!!!

swimming lessons

We spent the majority of July at the pool.  It was kind of a nice change from going to the beach.  I did not miss having sand in everything AT ALL!!  All the girls took swimming lessons... Arden was in a preschool class and Esther and Chloe were in parent/child classes.  All 3 love the water and had the best time in their classes... 


Arden jumping in...  on the 3rd day of class, right before class ended, Arden actually jumped ON her instructor's head!!  I witnessed the whole thing b/c I was trying to get her picture.  It was her turn to jump, but Miss Mary Catherine was helping the child before Arden to the ladder and had not given Arden the go ahead to jump.  I asked Arden why she didn't wait her turn and she said, "I was just so excited Mama!"  Thankfully Miss MC was fine, but Arden did puncture her bottom lip with her top teeth... since blood was involved we had to fill out an incident report and everything... lovely.  Arden recovered pretty well, but was terribly sad that I wouldn't let her back in the pool that day.  This is a picture of a successful jump! :)

The last day of Arden's class was all about water safety.  To end the class, the kids put on life jackets and were put in a raft in groups of 2 and 3 and were tipped over!  They showed the kids how to grab hold of the raft and climb back in and how to help others get safely back in.  I didn't get any pics of Arden being tipped over because I got the whole thing on video.  (oh yeah, and I was trying to keep 2 other little munchkins out of the water!) 

talking with the kids before getting on the life jackets.

swimming to the ladder after completing the raft drill.

holding her progress report and princess silly band she got for completing the session.

Woody and I took turns taking classes with Esther and Chloe.  Having the one-on-one time with them was great!   It was also really neat being in class with each of them since they were on opposite ends age/skill wise in the class.  Chloe was one of the youngest in her class and it was fun getting to do the basic things with her.  She loved chasing after toys in the water and splashing to songs.  Esther was one of the oldest and mastered pretty much everything we did in the class.  It was nice because the instructors gave us additional things to do with her.  (as a side note, if we'd waited to the end of August, Esther could have taken a preschool class like Arden, but since she's still 2, we could only do the parent/child class for now.) 

playing "Humpty Dumpty" with Daddy

kick and dig...

Chloe learning to kick on her back.  She usually ended up with her toes in her mouth though!