Happy 3rd Birthday Esther

Today is Esther's 3rd birthday! It is hard to believe she is already 3, it seems like we just brought her home. She is smart, funny, and strong willed little girl. It has been fun watching her imagination develop. She makes up games, stories, songs, names for us, etc. all the time. She is becoming more independent--picks out her clothes and dresses herself, can open the car door and get in her car seat, pours her own milk. She is learning to write her letters and numbers and can almost spell her name. She wants to know what letter every word/thing starts with. She has started the "why" phase. She says some super funny stuff at times that has us laughing really hard. She can definitely be a hand full at this age also but it is like Arkansas weather....just wait a little bit and it will change.  She can be super sweet to her sister (and mean to her at times also).  We love her so much and can't imagine life without her.

We had a fun day today. She told me she wanted cheese for breakfast, thankfully she settled for scrambled eggs with cheese on them. She said she wanted a burrito for lunch, so we picked up Taco Bell and went and ate lunch with daddy at work. We had pizza for dinner (her request) and then played with her birthday gifts. She has been asking for several days to shoot off fireworks for her birthday, so we went outside and did some sparklers.

We had a little birthday party for her last night. We had most of our friends/Esther's friends and family over for a cookout and cupcakes and ice cream. The kids played and the adults talked, good fun was had by all. It rained yesterday afternoon and cooled off. There is always a breeze blowing at our house and the yard was mostly shady. It was perfect weather to be outside. Esther will probably never have that nice of weather on her birthday again!

B-day party kid's table.

B-day party adult table

Esther's face while everyone is singing Happy Birthday to her. 

She got an antique doll bed and doll high chair for her b-day from us.  It was very popular with both girls.

Lunch with dad at his work.

First Fireworks

This year we were not able to have a big 4th on the Farm celebration.  With us moving in a couple weeks and some other stuff going on we were just way to busy to do anything big.  But we were able to have a few friends over and have a good time. The biggest event of the night as usual was shooting fireworks. But this year it was not because of how big or amazing they were. In fact this year is the least I have spent on fireworks in a long time and did not get anything big or amazing. And we were done shooting fireworks by 8pm, long before it got dark. What made this year's fireworks one of the best was that our girls got to participate. Fireworks are one of my favorite things so it is a big deal to me for our girls to enjoy them and get to have fun with me shooting them. They are not able to do much yet but they enjoyed what they were able to do. I was secretly worried that they would hate fireworks and cry and not want any part of them but that was not the case.  Esther did lots of sparklers mostly by herself and she helped me hold and shoot some roman candles.  Clara is still a little small to do to much on her own but she enjoyed watching all of them and she held a sparkler with me a couple times.

Here are some pics of Esther doing some sparklers and a roman candle

 

And here is a collection of Clara reactions from the night.  She has always made the best faces.