Esther, 3 1/2!

September 7th was Esther's 3 1/2 birthday, so here is the post in honor of that special occasion!
She was actually quite excited about her half birthday.  We attempted to explain the difference between a "whole" birthday and a half birthday, and I think it was mostly successful.  She requested a banana cake which I made using this recipe and it was delicious - even with all honey and no sugar.  I especially loved the cream cheese icing.  Enough about the cake - back to Esther!

She also requested a birthday tablecloth on the table (she knew it was in the kitchen drawer.  That request didn't come out of the blue).  And a sucker.  Pretty easy wishes to grant!  She received a couple of small gifts, including a Curious George video and an arts and crafts kit with pasting projects.  I had ordered a skirt for her for $1 from an online promotion, and it happened to come in on her half birthday.  So, Esther had mail to open too. Quite a good haul for not even a birthday, if I do say so myself!

Here is the latest on Esther:
- has grown a lot over the last few months.  She is mostly in 3T clothes, and even a few 4T items!
- loves to pick out her own clothes and pajamas
- has improved her jumping skills
- loves to ask "why" and "how come" about everything
- has started a more scheduled "preschool" routine
- loves to watch videos of any kind, but loves Curious George, Berenstein Bears, and Leap Frog
- enjoys arts and crafts activites, especially glue, stickers, and painting
- has still only had one hair cut, although a trim is needed
- can buckle her car seat by herself
- still throws fits when we ask her to do something she doesn't want to do, or if she had something else that she wanted instead
- still sucks her thumb

Okay, this needed a little more space so back to a paragraph ...
We have been spending time with the Hersey family recently.  Esther loves to play with Isabella (turning 3 soon) and they are very cute friends.  Even cuter, however, are Esther and Jacob Hersey.  Jacob is 5, and Esther announced several times the last time we saw their family that she wants to marry Jacob.  She also grabbed his hand last Sunday after church and pulled him around, saying "Come on, husband."  Super adorable!

And a few more...
- Esther loves to play pretend.  She is often a doggie or a kitty cat, and she will enlist anyone around to be her baby, her child, or to reenact a scene from a favorite movie
- Loves to be read to
- Super enjoys her "class" during church.  We have been told she is very enthusiastic about answering the teacher's questions.
- Tyler says her singing is improving, although I can't really tell!
- Loves to play at the park.
- Wants it to snow at Christmas time.
- Is doing much better at eating what we put on her plate.
-- Is growing up!!

Zoo and Puddles

A few fun pictures ...

We went to the zoo last weekend - again! - and had lots of fun.  Esther makes an adorable lion cub, especially her "mane."


They also have a petting zoo where you can pet and brush the goats.  Esther loved it, but Jesse didn't like being too near the goats and had to be persuaded to try to brush them.

And we enjoyed a family trip to Home Depot for some supplies for Tyler's job.  The kids had fun, even though it was late.  Esther was entertaining Jesse with "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and other songs.  It was so cute to watch them play together on the cart!




And playing in the puddles ... it has rained a lot lately, but usually with thunderstorms.  Esther was excited to get to go outside and enjoy jumping in the puddles, like we used to do frequently at the campground in Virginia.  It was barely sprinkling but she insisted on the raincoat.

 

Jesse Tyler, 18 Months!

A milestone ... One and a half years for our little guy. Both hard and easy to believe. It's difficult to recall life before him.

Here is a rundown of his accomplishments:
-started walking well on his own at 14 months
- is talking a lot! Especially in the last few weeks, he is really picking up words. A partial list includes: mama, papa, ball, balloon, banana, shoes, door, water, juice, book, Bible, truck, go, bye, please, thank you, milk, eat, that, belly, baby.
- he is also repeating a lot of words that he may not understand
- loves to look through books
- has started to play with toy cars and even says "vroom vroom"
-eats a banana every morning at breakfast, very enthusiastically
- forgot to mention he learned "no"!
- gets very excited to see Esther
- seems to get frustrated by not being able to communicate his desires
- loves to throw his diaper away after I change it
- is often pretty whiny when he wakes up from a nap
- is taking one afternoon nap now, usually about two hours
- but he can still fall asleep in the carseat in the mornings
- is wearing 18 month shirts and 12 month shorts and pants
- also can get very frustrated if he doesn't get his way and can throw quite a fit
- will sometimes take care of baby dolls like his sister does
- requests the song "this little light of mine" by waving his finger in the air
- is a great eater, although flatly refused beans and tuna salad
- is starting to sit still for a while if a a video is on
- still eats crayons if we try to color
- likes head butts!
- has recently gotten two molars. That's six teeth on top and only two on the bottom
- is very sweet and friendly with an amazing smile
- seems to really respond to music, including drumming on everything, clapping, and dancing

We sure love him!

The kids

Here are some latest pictures of the kids.  I am still trying to figure out Blogger from my phone so hopefully this will look ok ...

Here is Jesse just looking adorable playing outside.  This is after his latest haircut.  More on that later.


Here are Esther and Jesse playing in the carport.  This is one of their favorite things to do.  I take a big bowl of water outside and they play with little cups and toys.  Both of them love it - and end up soaked.


Tyler and Jesse reading some library books together.  I love this picture. 


Esther being cute.



Some sibling affection.  They both like to have their picture taken together like this.


Tyler and Esther having a moment...


Esther and Jesse in the little inflatable pool we put in the backyard.  It's not that big but Jesse still didn't like it!  Maybe it's the cold temperature because he sure loves bath time.  Or maybe it's just still too big.  Esther was trying to help him enjoy it but was not very successful.


And here is Jesse's haircut.  This is actually on our kitchen table and Tyler is cutting his hair!  I think he did a great job, especially considering this was his first attempt, he didn't have real hair-cutting scissors, and Jesse wouldn't sit still!  It was really short compared to how long it was, so it took a little time to get used to but now I think Jesse looks adorable.  And it's convenient since Jesse has developed a habit of rubbing food into is hair at most meals.




Our other news lately is that Tyler's brother Elika is now staying with us, and his wife and two little girls will arrive on Thursday.  It's about to be a houseful!  We are looking forward to meeting these members of the family and letting the kids play together.  Then their older son, Hezekiah, will arrive in a few weeks.  So hopefully pictures of the new additions will be up soon.

Also, I hit the halfway mark in the pregnancy a few days ago.  That is exciting although it still feels so far away.  That's ok, though, since we're really not ready and I'm sure Baby isn't ready either.  Esther talks to the baby and plays Christmas songs to my belly since I told her that the baby would be here at Christmas time.  And Jesse will even pat my belly and give it kisses.  But he then pulls up his shirt and pats his belly, so maybe he thinks he has a baby too.  ;)  I'm voting for a Thanksgiving birth so we have plenty of time to enjoy the Christmas season with the new little one.  We'll see!

Chattanooga trip

So a couple weekends ago, we woke up and decided we had to get out of town! Kind of silly but really exciting to have a couple of days of family vacation. We picked Chattanooga because it was close and had a bunch of fun things to do. We went to the aquarium, the Imax theater, the children's hands-on museum, walked by the river to look at the boats, swam at the hotel, rode an old trolley, and visited an organic farm. So fun!

Esther looking at stingrays at the Tennessee Aquarium.  You were supposed to be able to touch them, but they didn't come close enough for her to reach.

 Discovered that Jesse became very unhappy when he was left in the stroller while we all looked at something exciting. So we took him out to see a lot more than we had planned ...

We got to see a lot of fun exhibits.  I think the penguins were my favorite.  They had a baby penguin and some mother/father pairs sitting on nests of eggs.

But maybe the coolest was the butterfly garden.  It was a greenhouse type room full of beautiful flowers and butterflies!  One finally landed on us, and Esther got to hold it.  She was so excited. I have to admit, I was excited to hold a butterfly too.

Then we went to the Children's Museum.  Esther enjoyed pretending she was a doctor in the doll "clinic" and playing in the giant bee hive/honeycomb.  Jesse enjoyed the water tables and driving the toddler sized car.  Then there's me and Jesse playing with tinker toys, which Tyler enjoyed most of all.

We stayed the second night at the Chattanooga Choo Choo hotel.  We used Hotwire, so we didn't actually get to pick but it turned out to be a fun experience.  The lobby area was the original train station and we slept in a room on the actual train.  Odd, but fun.  Esther is playing with an old phone booth and standing on one of the train cars.

There were also beautiful grounds to explore, and a huge model train display that Tyler loved.  And this is where we rode the old trolley, but no pictures of that.

Then we stopped at a small organic farm.  We saw baby chickens, baby cows, and lots of pigs.  The older cows and sheep were off in a pasture so we missed them.  We explored the milking station and and berry garden.  Very inspiring.  Maybe one day we will have something like this!

Oh, a few more details with no pictures ... at the Imax theater, while we were waiting to be seated, Esther tried to befriend a little girl.  The girl dismissed her, but then her brother came over and said Esther could play with him.  Well, from that moment, he was absolutely taken with Esther.  He stayed with her until time to go into the theater, and then he wanted her to sit with him.  Parents declined, but he waved to her when he got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the movie and then found her after the movie.  Wow.  If we lived near each other, I'd have them over for a play date ... or maybe not.  ;)

Also, while we were looking at the boats a family of ducks swam right over to us.  There was a father, mother, and six ducklings.  This was especially fun because we had just read the book "Make Way for Ducklings" so Esther called them Mr. and Mrs. Mallard!  I loved it, and Esther was excited to see the book come to life.

That was our trip ... a nice mini-vacation.  : )