no more paci

On Saturday, September 4, 2010, Esther said goodbye to her beloved paci.  We'd been preparing her that once she turned 3, she would be a big girl and not need it anymore.  I was planning a somewhat elaborate way of getting rid of her one and only paci and then it happened... she lost it... not exactly how I'd planned things!  After turning the house upside with still no paci, Woody proceeded to put Arden and Esther down for the night.  What came from their room was not at all what I was expecting... instead of crying I heard giggling, and lots of it!  I must say Woody did a fantastic job of distracting Esther and even after he left the room, we heard giggling and then the silence of two little girls sleeping peacefully.  Wasn't this too easy??  What happened to the little girl from a year ago who could not function without her paci?  Apparently she is all grown up.  We did actually find the one and only paci later that night, but decided to keep it and see how things would go.  Esther has really astonished us... she has not once cried for her paci.  A few nights later, I was holding her and she put her head on my shoulder and said in a very sweet, but sad voice, "Mommy, I need a new paci."  I don't even remember how I responded, but that was all she ever said about wanting another one.  She did go through a couple of weeks where she just didn't seem herself, almost like she was silently mourning the loss of her dear companion.  And the other major change since not having a paci is that she no longer sleeps during naptime.  She went from taking 2-3 hour naps and still sleeping 12 hours at night to not sleeping at all during the day.  At first it was okay, but a week or two into it, her little body could no longer keep up and she started having melt down after melt down.  This part has NOT BEEN FUN, but she seems to be adjusting better now and even though I try and get her to sleep in the afternoons, it's just not happening.  So our little girl is growing up and we are officially a paci free household (since Chloe doesn't take one)-woo hoo!

Here's a quick look back at Esther and her love of paci...

   

oh blog how i miss thee

I promise i haven't forgotten about this blog even though this is probably the longest I've ever gone without posting!  We are still here, still going strong and I have plenty to catch you up on, including a little one's FIRST birthday!  So hopefully that will happen soon, considering she is 13 months old today-eek!!  

Arden's first day of school. ever.

growing up

(I'm a little bit behind...I wrote this almost 2 weeks ago and realized I never finished it or posted it!)


Sometimes I wish that I could hit a pause or even a stop button on life.  The girls are growing up so fast before our eyes.  It really hit me last Sunday when Chloe started walking and we were preparing for Arden to start school the next morning... and with that the realization that Esther will start school next fall!  Needless to say, I was a little "emotional" this last week.  


I thought about the milestones Arden reached this summer... she lost her first two teeth. We were totally not prepared for this-she's four! In July, she began reading! I'm so proud of her.  And even though it's been a couple of months, I'm still so surprised when she reads something aloud to me and I think, "how did you do that?"  The other day she came home from school with a book from the library and sat down and read the entire thing by herself.  I asked if her teacher read it to her or the class, thinking she'd memorized some of it by chance, but no, she'd never heard it before.  It was so neat teaching my students to read and being excited for them when it clicked.  Being a mommy now and watching it "click" for Arden and seeing her excitement is a-mazing!  
  
We also watched old home videos last weekend to show Arden and Esther video from when they first started walking.  Watching Esther learning to walk also meant we heard Arden learning how to talk.  I don't think we've actually looked at these since we took them and so it was really eye opening to hear Arden barely speaking.  (If you have no idea what I'm talking about, this  might help a little bit.)  The Lord has done such a wonderful work in her life and to think that just two years ago she could only say a few words and now she's reading and in preschool is just amazing-praise Him!! 

And the big event... Arden started VPK (K4) on Monday.  She is going 5 days a week from 9 to noon.  I'm sure some of you are thinking, what's the big deal??, so I will tell you.  Beyond Sunday mornings at church and a once a week, 45 min. ballet class she started last year, Arden has always been at home with me.  She's never been in a mother's morning out program or any type of preschool program until now.  I was really hoping for a 2 or 3 day program to ease her (and me) in, but VPK where we live requires 4-5 days.  So our life has taken quite the change this week.  I'm happy to report though, that Arden LOVES school and  was sad when she learned she couldn't go on Saturday.  Being our social one, I knew she would thrive and it has been really fun seeing her so excited.  I also think it has helped me not be so sad.  It's hard to cry when your little girl is so happy!  I will admit to shedding some tears the first day of school.  Woody prayed for Arden before she got out of the car...that started it!  And then I walked her in, helped her find her cubby and seat and she got right to coloring, as happy as can be.  I found myself lingering at the door, not wanting to say goodbye... my little girl was all grown up!  On my way back to the car there were a few more tears shed and that was that.  I did great the rest of the week until Friday morning when I dropped her off in the carline for the first time instead of walking her in.  She was so proud to walk in by herself and I shed a few more tears pulling out of the school.  

I'm not the only one though that had an emotional week.  Life for sweet Esther has also changed.  Her best friend is dropped off at school every day and now she gets more time with Mommy.  I've been looking forward to this time with Esther and I've seen glimpses of how much she is also enjoying it, but for most of the week, she seemed to long for her sister.  I think she was also just confused for most of the week about what was going on.  On the days she went with either me or Woody to take Arden, she took her backpack and said she was going to school too.  It was really sweet, but also made my heart really sad!  I'm thankful that A and E are so close and it has been really neat to watch them go straight into playing together when we come home after school.


So if you're still reading this and wondering where all my emotional rambling is going... I guess it really struck me this week how fast our girls are growing and how life is changing.  I'm so grateful that the Lord has blessed our lives with each of them and provided the opportunity for me to stay at home with them.  I want to make sure I'm making the most of each day to love and nurture them, train them according to His Word, and of course be silly and have dance parties and tea parties too!  I know they're all still very young, but I just want to savor as much of life as I can right now.  

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!