Fun things to do with chalk

I saw on my new favorite website a fun idea that I wanted to try with Esme.  I mixed pink sidewalk chalk with water and painted it on Esme's hair.

Wet

 

Dry

Super cute and it washed out easily!  We will be doing this quite a bit!

Ready to go!

If it were up to Esme, she'd have her driver's license already.  If it were up to me, she'd wait until she's 30.  At least she's having fun practicing! 

Playing with the camera

I've been trying to play with our camera more and more since taking our photographer Ali's class on how to take better pictures of your kids.  It's harder than I thought it would be because I'm shooting in manual and Esme moves pretty fast.  So as soon as I get the light and focus done (not to mention the white balance and a gazillion other things) she's gone.

I feel like I'm slowly getting better.  Here are a few of my practice pictures.

Halloween

Esme had a great time for Halloween.  She was much more aware of what was going on this year.  For weeks, every time we drove by a house with pumpkins on the front step, she would say "There's a Happy Halloween house!".

Early on we thought maybe she would be Handy Manny for Halloween because she loves him so much.  We had a giraffe costume (Annika and Laurel's hand-me-down) that I thought would be cute.  But when you asked Esme what she wanted to be for Halloween, she said "a witch".  And so she was.

With the neighbor boys

She was very cute as she went from house to house.  The only downside to the whole night is that she was scared of anyone dressed up like anything scary.  She once screamed (a blood curdling, horror movie scream) when we walked though a fog machine and her hat fell off.  She thought for sure that someone GOT her.

Her innocence is what made this year so much fun.  She was the cutest witch in St. Michael!

Crow Hassan

This is our family... 

...in motion.

Dreams

I'm not sure why, but I love that she's looking at Christmas catalogs.  :)

Annie

Today, Esme came up to me and said she was playing with Annie.  At first I thought she said "Ernie", Aaron's brother.  But nope, she clarified that Annie is what she meant.  A few minutes later she came over from playing and pointed beside herself and said "I'm playing with Annie".  Naturally, I said "Hi, Annie" and Esme giggled and said that she and Annie were picking flowers with Annie's mom.  Then she (Esme) pretended to pick a bunch of flowers.

Later we went to the grocery store and as I was getting Esme out of her car seat, she told me that Annie wanted to come a long.  And so she did.

I'm not sure what age kids have imaginary friends, but for Esme it's right now. :)

Thrill of the chase

Everything is a chasing game right now, we're forever running after Esme.  Time to get dressed?  She runs and hides.  Diaper change anyone?  Running.  Hiding.  And watch out if you bring out the camera - she's gone!  And she's not going to make getting pictures easy for anyone.

This is particularly fun difficult since I took a photography class and am trying my darnedest to take pictures in manual mode.  By the time I've figured out the light, there's no little girl in the frame anymore!

Here's a few of what I got today.

Bad lighting

love Cricket in focus and everything else (including vacuum) blurry

I had to bribe her to stand still long enough to get this picture of her "Happy Halloween Socks"

Better lighting, but kind of looks like she's going to eat the door handle

And now she's done...

Beautiful Hair

Everywhere we go, everyone always comments on Esme's hair and how beautiful and curly it is.  I have a feeling, sadly, that the curl is starting to go away a bit.  I'm holding out hope that it's losing a bit of its' curl just because her hair is getting longer.

At any rate, I love her hair.  It's perfect.

Playing with the neighbor boys

Every single day Esme asks to play with Darla, our neighbor.  Really what she wants is to go over to Darla's house and play.  Their toys are better, the boys are there and of course Darla's there too!  She even sort of likes Jeff. :)

Tonight they were all about playing video games on the driveway.  Esme loved it! :)

Love Nathan's expression :)

Esme Bakes

Last year around this time, I gave Esme an old purse of mine.  To fill it up with things, I scoured the dollar bins at Target.  One of the things that I found was a little cookbook.  It went in her purse and kind of disappeared.  Until today.  Esme pulled it out and sat in my lap and asked if we could "read" it.  Then she pointed to every single recipe (which all seemed pretty easy btw) and asked if we could make that for Daddy.  No time better than the present right?

Pumpkin Cranberry Muffins according to Esme

(and Betty Crocker)

first get your recipe and a bowl

gather ingredients

open ingredients

put everything into a bowl

mix

and viola!

Yummy muffins for Daddy!

Yaayyy Gophers!

Not only is Esme learning to spell, she's learning to be a true Gopher fan!  Enthusiasm is key!

Blogging is hard these days

Ok, ok.  I hereby solemnly PROMISE to blog soon.  Two things have happened recently that make blogging a lot harder. 

First, Esme is all about the computer.  If I'm on it she wants to be on it.  I sit down to work on something and she yells "me help!" and jumps in my lap.  Then she types and clicks and puts her sticky beautiful fingers all over the screen. 

Second, Esme's transitioning from afternoon naps to no naps.  When there's no naps, there's no blogging.  Also, on the days she does nap her bedtime is later.  She was a solid 7:30pm for the first two years of her life and now bedtime is usually between 8-9pm.  This means less computer time also. 

Overall, blogging right now is tough!  At some point, I will do some catch-up posts but until then, here's a cute story.

Yesterday Esme didn't get a nap and at about 5pm she wanted to eat.  So I put her in her high chair in front of the TV (yes, we all eat in front of the TV most of the time) and I gave her a snack while I worked on dinner.  About 5:30 I looked over and she was out, sleeping with a piece of cheese in her hand. 

I let her sit there for awhile and then we tried to wake her up, but she was not interested.  It didn't help that it was lightening and thundering really loud outside.  She just clung to me.  So I rocked her and put her to bed.

She has had nights like this before where she slept through the night but I didn't really feel like that was going to happen.  Sure enough, at 8:30 she woke up and wanted "play time!".  So we let her play for awhile, but by 9:30pm Aaron and I were both tired.  So we went to bed and took her with us.  This is the first time she has ever slept with us at home.  Once in a hotel and once at my parent's house, but never at home.  She played for awhile and sang for awhile and finally fell asleep.  At 10:30pm I picked her up and took her to her crib.  She woke up for just a minute and said "playtime?" and then she wanted me to "sit" because I usually sit with her for a few minutes after she lays down.  But I was too tired so I just told her that I had to go to bed.  She was fine with that.  After a quick "nigh night Mommy", she was off to sleep and so was I.

On our way to ND

Heading to North Dakota for the All School Reunion and Papa Rex's birthday party.

We usually leave pretty early in the morning thinking that little Miss Esme will sleep a bit.  I don't know why we hope for this because it never happens.  We left home around 5:30am.  By the time we got to Fargo, Esme needed to get out of the car so we stopped at the mall in Fargo.  It wasn't open yet, but the little play area for kids was open and no one else was there!  I took a few pictures of the play area because I think it's very cool!

After we left there we went to Starbucks for me and to the empty lot behind Starbucks for the dogs to run around a bit.  Then we were back on the road to NE.

Esme did really great the entire trip.  She never slept though, that is until we had about 10 minutes left of our almost 9 hour drive.  Right by the Dickinson Airport she finally fell asleep.

Oh well, some sleep is better than none, right?

Minnehaha Falls

Today we had lunch with Aaron in Minneapolis.  Esme and I had to run an errand and decided to meet Aaron at Minnehaha Falls to eat at Sea Salt.  They have such good food and it's a perfect place to spend a summer day.

After we got done eating we walked over and looked at the Falls.

Then we said goodbye to Daddy and went back to our car for the ride home.  Daddy went back to work.

Lunch in Minneapolis is fun!

Thirsty 4th

I'm not sure why, but I didn't take a lot of pictures on the 4th of July.  My parents were here and we went over to Dan and Barb's house.

The girls had fun with a slip and slide.  Esme figured out that you could drink the water and after that there was no stopping her.

        

       

She thought Annika and Laurel looked thirsty too!

New utensils

Esme's been doing great with a spoon for a long time now.  But recently she's been working with a fork.

And trying her hand at a glass instead of a sippy cup.

Sometimes she has to wipe up her messes.

And sometimes she just has to make funny faces.