Tutu

We have a girly girl, and I love it!

Esther's first braids

Esther's fashion sense

This is what happens when Esther decides to dress herself. The "water shirt", as she calls it, was handpicked by her from the hunting section of a sporting goods store. And needless to say, it is her absolute favorite shirt. And the bandanna and pants, I have to admit, I bought at a sale before she was even born. I wish I had known better. When this girl makes up her mind about what to wear, there is not much I can do, unless I want to take a screaming child grocery shopping with me. I have learned my lesson-never buy anything that I would not like seeing her wear and most of all stop taking her to clothing stores with me. I hope I remember this when she is a teenager too.

Give it up, please... or not

Samuel is still in denial that his Dalmatian Halloween costume from when he was two years old does not fit. What do you think? He is pretty happy wearing it around even if he can't button it in the back! We'll give this one up.

Seagulls

Two days ago the kids and I were coming home from our daily outing and saw hundreds of birds swarming in the sky near the entrance of our neighborhood. We (I) decided to get a closer look and drove toward the area where they kept circling. Luckily I had my camera and was able to take a few pictures. The kids were fascinated! The birds were seagulls. We hear and see them often in our neighborhood but rarely so many of them in one place. What is even more interesting is that we are about an hour away from the closest beach and the lake where they gathered is a man-made lake. On top of that we saw a rainbow in one of the fountains of the lake. Thanks to days like these suburbia does not look so bleak.

Here they are the pics:
The rainbow:




The kids:

Christmas Eve

We are still figuring out what our Christmas traditions will be. As of now we are borrowing one of Richard's family's traditions, which is opening pajamas on Christmas Eve sent from his Grandma Ivy Brown. It is a wonderful tradition. It seems that children everywhere have a special connection with their pajamas. At least mine do. They don't get excited much about clothing, at least not yet, but when it comes to pajamas, they have an opinion. This year's pajamas were the best yet. Samuel received "Superman" pajamas with a cape! He is crazy about heroes and identifies especially with the flying ones. Esther received giraffe printed pajamas which she calls"zebra". This was too cute for us to correct.

Thank you Great Grandma Brown! We love you and our pajamas! Here are some pics.







This is what the kids were to find when they woke up.

Christmas Morning

This might have been our most magical Christmas yet, since both children get so excited about Santa Clause ( best white lie we'll ever tell). Samuel, punctually at 7:00 am, came running to our bedroom, put his face an inch away from mine and said: "Mommy, Santa Clause came down through the chimney, filled up our stockings, tiptoed over to the Christmas tree, put our gifts down and then left through the chimney. Come!" And that was the beginning of wild unwrapping, performed by Samuel and Esther, and tenacious building performed by Richard. I performed my duties about a month ago. Then I just sat back and took pictures. :)


Accidentally captured expression
The child with a sweet tooth unwrapping a chocolate rain deer.
Best mess ever!Star Wars First EncountersThe "sweet tooth child" eating Bulgarian ChocolateThe only gun allowed-A marshmellow GunThe tenacious building which went on for about four hours...