MOA Celebration

Esme and I had a super fun day today.  I took her out of school early for two reasons.  Number one, Esme got a wristband to Nickelodeon Universe from Uncle Ernie for Christmas that we had to use up.  Second, Esme was chosen to be in a book club at her school.  This is a pilot program and only the top 6 readers at her school Albertville Primary were selected (there are about 400 kids there).  Esme was one of them!!!  That warrants a celebration I'd say!

I picked her up at lunch time and let her pick where we would eat.  It doesn't take much imagination to guess where she picked.  

After that, MOA here we come!  I had heard that Friday afternoons were really slow and a great time to go to the park.  Wow, was that ever true!  We hardly ever had to wait in line.  We did whatever rides we wanted and went back on them over and over again.

 Dancin' on the Ferris Wheel!

On a sad note, one of Esme's favorite rides at the mall has always been the hot air balloon ride.  We found out today that it will be not be there much longer.  They are going to replace it with a Bubble Guppies themed ride.  I'm sure that will be fun, but we will sure miss the hot air balloons.  Esme got a little weepy about it, so we had to ride it a few extra times.

Another big thing for Esme was that she got brave and did the Log Ride and the Rollercoaster.  Before she was always afraid of them but for whatever reason, she decided that today was the day to overcome the fear and go for it.  She loved them both!  

The only thing we did that wasn't really fun for her was to go to the Verizon store.  Aaron bumped up to my iPhone 5 and I got the iPhone 6+.  It's funny because if you look at the pictures from today, some of them are much fuzzier than others.  The 6+ definitely has a better camera!  It took about an hour total to get everything switched over but Esme was very patient and a real trooper.

We just had such a fun day.  I can't wait to take her again sometime very soon!  Love you Esme!

Welcome Jingles!

Today began as an ordinary Sunday.  Little did we know what changes were in for.  We got up and went to swimming lessons.  Esme has had a terrible cold with a fever all week so swimming was hard and slow for her.  But she did her best!  FYI - I did ask her if she would like to stay home from swimming lessons and she said no, she wanted to go.

There is an Elf on the Shelf that lives at Foss and his name is Freddie.  After her lesson, Esme was very excited to look for him.  She had a hard time finding him today, he was hiding in the vending machine!  Sneaky Freddie!

As we left Foss to run to Target, I heard from Esme that every single girl in her class and some of the boys have Elves living at their house.  She is the only one who doesn't.  How can that be?  I felt so bad for her! ;-)

The funny thing is, Santa must have heard her because when we got out to the car after shopping, there was an Elf on the Shelf laying under the book she had been reading on the way to swimming lessons!  What the heck?

Esme decided to name her Jingles and we are very excited to announce her arrival!

Esme and Jingles

Help Hide Tom!

Esme was given the assignment to help disguise Tom the Turkey.

We thought of bunch of ideas, but ultimately Esme thought that her turkey should be a Rockstar.  I thought that was a great idea!

Here is what we started with.  A piece of cardboard to make the stage.

 And plain Tom.

Esme thought that our Tom Turkey should be a girl.  So a girl rock star it was.  

Notice the polka dotted stage curtains, the microphone stand, the many spotlights, the long purple pink hair, the pink crazy dress and the blinged out guitar.

What do you think?  Will anyone be able to find him?  I hope not!  Great job Esme!  It was super fun to work on this project with you!

First Snow 2014

Today we got a bunch of snow!  The first snow fall of the year and it was enough that Esme didn't have school.  I don't work on Mondays so it was nice that I was able to stay home with her.

We started the day off by going to Crossfit.  There was a little snow on the ground and by the time the WOD was done I had an inch or so of snow on my car.  Do you think I put my scraper in my car ahead of time?  Nope!  Oh well.  Eventually with the wipers and the sleeve of my coat my windows were clear!

When we got home, I went out to shovel.  I got about a third of the driveway done before I took a break.  The snow was heavy and wet and sticking to my shovel the whole time.  Needless to say after kettlebell swings and rowing my arms were tired.  So I went in for about 45 minutes.  I got my coat back on to go outside and start again but when I got out there it had snowed so much more that you couldn't even tell where I had already shoveled!  I decided then and there that #1: I was going to wait for Aaron to get home to help.  And #2: I needed to learn how to use the snowblower.

Aaron took off of work early to miss the afternoon commute and when he got home we shoveled and he showed me how to turn on the snowblower.  There are like 6 steps so I hope I can remember if I need it again.  Esme helped for a little while, but mostly she just ate the snow.  Then when the neighbor boys came out she went and played with them.

They ended up in the house after awhile.  They played Guitar Hero and the boys drank hot chocolate (Esme doesn't like hot chocolate).  Overall a pretty fun day.  And at the end of it all we had about 10 inches of snow!

Rainy Morning Beauty

My beautiful girl waiting at the bus stop on a rainy morning.

Halloween 2014

Esme is all about pirates right now.  She loves them almost as much as princesses.  Which is why she decided that she wanted to be a pirate princess for Halloween this year.

We went to Disney World in May and Esme got a Merida costume.  Because it was rather a lot expensive, she was told that she would have to be Merida for Halloween and she was fine with that.  But then a couple of months ago she asked if she could be a pirate princess instead.  I asked her if she thought she could wear her Merida dress for that and she thought she could.

Also while she was at Disney she asked for and got a pirate sword and a hook.  All we needed to get was a pirate hat, preferably one that had a pink sparkly skull and crossbones on it (easy right?).  I found a plain brown hat at Target and went to Michael's to get some bling.  Aaron drew Esme a perfectly wonderful skull and crossbones on pink sparkly sticky foam, Esme drew one too!  She looked at both and thought she would like to use hers.  Then she put jewels all over the hat and boom!  She was a pirate princess.

Notice the fabulous Jeweled Jolly Roger!

She had a great time going door to door and getting candy. 

Afterwards, we took her to my parents and Aaron and I went to a Halloween party at Crossfit.  She stayed in her costume all night and would not lay in a bed for fear it would turn into a sleep over.  

We picked her up after midnight and she was still in her costume, minus the hat!

Quite a successful Halloween!

Esme's Tree

Normally around Esme's birthday we take a picture with her tree.  We planted an oak tree in our back yard on her first birthday.  This year time got away from us and just now we are getting the picture taken.  Oops!

Here's a little blast from the past.

Age 1 -

 Age 2 -

 Age 3 -

Age 4 -

And finally Age 5 - 

It's funny because the tree is growing too, but not as quick as Esme!