Birthday Smiles
Here she is, on the morning of her second birthday. She knew it was her “happy day!” but didn’t quite know what that entailed.
Here she is, on the morning of her second birthday. She knew it was her “happy day!” but didn’t quite know what that entailed.
I took Ess for a little bite to eat while her mama was busy working at the dance competition in Wisconsin Dells. This is a super vacationy photo to me, because it is unusual for me to take a fill-flash picture with otherwise poor lighting… unless I’m in a new place and trying to document it. So here’s Ess in the most vacationy of vacation photos. A good tradition, I think.
Ess just called cotton “unk-unk”.
Which one’s NOT floating?
Essie liked my shipwreck boat!
Making boats on Fourth of July eve. Mykala found this origami boat-making kit at Target for $1 and we got waaay more than a dollar’s worth of fun out of it.
Our little family took a trip last weekend. Essie’s longest road trip thus far, to Wisconsin Dells, to the Kalahari Resort. Mykala had dance competition obligations, but since the hotel was connected to the convention center where the competition was held, we got to see her on each one of her breaks, and got to see Ess go to a waterpark for the first time. We expected a reaction from our nearly-two-year-old when she got in a giant kiddie pool full of swings, a miniature lazy river, giraffe sculptures, baby elephants squirting water out of their trunks, and colorful slides with water running down them. Ok, we thought, this could go one of two ways: she’s going to let loose and splash everywhere, analogous to her at home when she goes “run run run!” and then just runs around. Or, in contrast, she’d get really chatty, like she does when she’s sitting on the front of Mykala’s bike and watching the world go by. Hidden option C: Ess did neither of the things we guessed, instead going into some kind of Zen state of total focus and relaxation. Just staring out, happy but not gleeful, calm but not sad. We were taken aback. Then, Mykala took her down a slide. Did she like it? “MOE MOE” she said, and when I picked her up “NO-MAMA”, her favorite way to specify whom she would rather do the thing at hand with her. I think Ess had fun.
Mykala threw Christmas in June at the precise halfway point between Christmases for her family at our house. Lights, decorations, Christmas movies, egg bake, French toast bake, and of course, sugar cookies! This is Ess helping to cut them out the night before the festivities.
Preparations on the morning of Christmas in June.
Ess likes me to sit in the “bach” of the car with her sometimes.
If you ask Ess to say the word “carrot” she’ll say care-fiff. It makes us laugh every single time.
And for Ess, the word “straw” is pronounced ffraw.
It was Essie’s bedtime, and since she sleeps face down, that’s how she puts her stuffed animals to bed.
Yesterday, I received a funny update from Mykala about Ess:
We are playing with Mr. Potato Head, and she grabbed the purse and walked away saying, “Buh-bye hat, bye ear, bye tongue!”
Ess’s enunciation still isn’t great, so you have to imagine that ear sounds something like EEwuh.
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