Estelle's first wedding

Patrick's best friend James got married last weekend. James has been a friend of the family for a long time, and was even at the hospital when Estelle was born! (Photo below taken 8-18-05)

And on Saturday, 8-1-09...

So Estelle was pretty excited to see James get married to Miriam (or Mims, as she's more commonly known). The best part of the night for Estelle was the dancing (here with Patrick and Shannon)...

closely followed by the sparklers...

The next morning she woke up and said, "My legs hurt!" Dancing for 3 hours will do that to you every time...I know from experience. :)

Tubing with Annika

Wow! What a beautiful, fun day we spent at the lake with Estelle's friend, Annika, and her mom, Lindsey. Anni was a little nervous at first, but after a very short time, both girls were pumped about being on the tube. Here a few great shots from the day...

(yes, that's Bryan, chilling on the tube in the background)

Check out those brave girls!! By the end of the day, both girls were giving us the "thumbs-up" signal to "go faster!"

Rocky Mountain High

We recently returned from a great family vacation to Colorado. Bryan's family reunion was in Denver this year...the last reunion we attended was the one we hosted here, and Estelle was in the last throes of incubation (I was huge!). So we were very excited for her to meet the whole clan. She had a blast swimming and playing with her cousins and meeting aunties and uncles.

There was plenty of time for other activities in Denver -- we went to the zoo...

visited an enormous water park... and took some family photos at the Red Rock Park and Amphitheater.

We finished up our stay in the Mile High state with just a couple of days in the mountains, complete with a day long river rafting trip. The highlight was definitely Bryan and Patrick's jump from 30 ft. high Devil's Cliff. Estelle was disappointed we wouldn't let her jump from that height, so the guides let her jump from a shorter rock -- about 5 feet above the river. Here we are, getting ready for our day on the water...

July 4th festivities

We had a fabulous 4th, kicking off as usual with the local parade...

and then heading to Uncle Mike's for boating and tubing. Here she is on her very first tube ride with cousin, Delaney. My stomach was churning the entire time. After it was all said and done, she said, "But mommy, I wanted daddy to go fast so I would fall off!"

And finally, a boat trip to see the fireworks, courtesy of Uncle Mikey.

There were so many helpers, even mommy and daddy got a chance to kick back and enjoy the sunset.

Jedis in training

Estelle and Darien crack me up...they fight like brother and sister while simultaneously adoring each other. A few recent shots of the inseparable duo...



Playing "Star Wars" in their beach towel Jedi capes...


Splashing at the lake...

Hanging with Uncle Mike at the lake

Estelle LOOOOVES going to Uncle Mike's house at the lake and hanging out. A couple weekends ago, we had a gorgeous day on his boat and a lovely dinner after. Estelle and Mike provided the after-dinner entertainment...

Playdate in the backyard

We had a great lunch and playdate with Kim and Thomas last weekend. Estelle and Thomas were baking up a storm in the playhouse. Here they are stirring up their concoction (a mixture of sand, dirt, leaves and water) and eating apple slices. Remarkably, none of the apple slices ended up in the "batter" although I'm fairly certain dirt ended up on the apple slices.

Boat + nice weather = lots of fishing

Bryan and Estelle both want to get out to the lake as often as humanly possible lately. I grabbed a few shots...

Four Generations

We went to visit Bryan's grandma Mary a couple of weekends ago and got this cool picture of four generations...

Backlog

It's been way too long since I've posted, mostly due to a meltdown with my computer which has now been righted (shout out to Big Rob). I'll start with Easter...

Much to my chagrin, Estelle was a great deal more enthusiastic about candy from the Easter Bunny this year. Good thing he exercised restraint in how much he left in the basket...she also had loads of fun hunting for eggs.

(Notice she's still holding the chocolate bunny in her hand while hunting for eggs...)

On to spring break...we took a long road trip all the way to see Uncle Eddie, Aunt Angie, Heath, their 9 dogs and many more cows in Mississippi. Estelle SO did not want to leave. She spent every day, all day playing outside with Heath and the dogs, who followed the two of them around like protectors.

Heath took her for rides on his "Gator." She tried to drive it, but then decided she was more comfortable in the passenger seat, belting out songs while Heath took the wheel.

Another highlight was getting to feed the orphaned baby cow a bottle of milk. Shortly after this picture was taken, Estelle said, "Uncle Eddie, can you please not hold the bottle?" for she wanted to do it all by herself. The calf was quite slobbery, but she badgered Eddie every day to help feed it. Maybe I passed a little bit of farm girl DNA on to her...

Finally, we had a lovely visit from dear friends this weekend. In addition to the aforementioned computer/home electronics fixit guy extraordinaire, Rob, Tia and baby Siena came to visit. Estelle might have given Siena, Bryan's adorable god-daughter, a little too much love but her parents were very understanding. We can't wait to see them again!

Le mew? Le purrrrrrr...

"Ah, my little darling, it is love at first sight, is it not, no?"

Estelle is completely obsessed with Darwin, poor kitty. She wraps him up in blankets, carries him under the arms all over the house, and "pets" him, which in fact means she puts him in a virtual stranglehold on her lap. I keep telling her he's super stressed out since he sheds like crazy, his pupils dilate and he starts to pant like a dog. She's cheerfully oblivious to his discomfort, and pronounces, "Mommy, Darwin loves me SO much!" The other day, I caught her picking him up to place him in her doll cradle.

He keeps coming back for more though -- occasionally, she does pet him gently so I guess that's enough for him to assume the risk.

Late Feb UPDATE: Darwin finally had enough. I heard a scream followed by crying the other day...

Me: What happened?

E: (Wailing) Darwin bit me! He bit my hand.

(Inspecting, I see two tooth marks that didn't puncture the skin. I conclude it's a warning shot.)

Me: Oh honey. You know how when you have big feelings, you can talk to mommy and daddy about them? Darwin can't talk, so when he has big feelings, the only way he can tell us is by biting or scratching.

E: (More wailing -- clearly feeling rejected)

I felt for her little broken heart, but it was a good lesson learned. She's definintely toned down the treatment. Now she'll tell me, "Mommy, Darwin's real stretched [stressed] out right now. He's having huge, big feelings." I count it as a win.

Wow -- sledding is a lot easier when kids are big enough to walk up the hill by themselves! We went to the hill down the street after dinner the other night. She went down the hill a couple of times by herself, but preferred going with mommy or daddy.

Halloween - the witch and Darth Vadar

Estelle and Darien were about the cutest things I've ever seen, walking up hand in hand to the doors of the houses in my mom's neighborhood.

Estelle thought the pumpkins were pretty cool too -- I found her outside in her pajamas staring up at them the morning after we carved them. I think I had more fun carving mine though.

Weekend in LA

Last weekend Estelle and I tagged along to LA since Bryan had a conference there. Lucky us! We got to hang out with Frank and JC, and our friends Rob, Jennifer, Jaiya and Peyton. (I think we had way more fun than daddy did.) Below is a photo journal of our weekend...

Waiting for Rob to pick us up at the airport, Estelle struck a pose. She was very proud of her rolling backpack and would not let anyone else pull it.

We swam all day in the hotel pool on Saturday. Estelle made the same circle a thousand times...up the stairs, running leap into the pool, swim to the stairs, repeat.

Sunday we went to Manhattan Beach, where they were having a little Halloween celebration. It was a day of happiness and tears. Estelle checked out the beach and the waves...she seemed a little skeptical but then started to enjoy it.

I snapped this one just before an unfortunate wave knocked her over

So, she was a little wet...well, a lot wet. I had a change of pants, figuring her legs might get wet. I hadn't planned on the whole body. So we stopped at Sprout to pick up a new shirt. They also gave her a balloon, which she was pretty pumped about...until it flew away. Tears again. But we all had to laugh when she asked, "Mommy, maybe the eagles (seagulls) fly up and bring my balloon back." Always the optimist.

Things started to look up once Frank found an aquarium at the end of the pier, where she got to touch starfish and anemone, color a shark mask and frost a halloween cookie. She was pumped.

Finally, at the end of the weekend we had sushi and ice cream with Peyton and her family. We wish we got to see our family and friends in LA more often, but this was sure a fun trip!

In her shoes

I can't believe she didn't fall over in these...for some reason, she never picks my flats to walk around in. It's always the highest heel she can find.

A visit to the "Apple Order"

Estelle had a rough time saying "Orchard" so it promptly got renamed. Aside from the mad crush of people (apparently visiting the apple orchard was not an original idea last Saturday), we had a very nice time.

She had her first pony ride, made good friends with the animals at the petting zoo and fed a horse an apple -- she thought he was quite slobbery and didn't want to feed him again. Here are a few shots...

The alpaca was an extremely good sport...

Another lucky beneficiary of Estelle's hugs...

She sat down on the pumpkin and said, "Take my picture, mommy!"