August and Esme's Birthday

We had a pretty mild August here, though September so far is turning out to be hot and muggy already. We ate lunch on the deck a few times and one afternoon this lovely cardinal serenaded us while we ate. He had a very pretty song!

We celebrated Esme's eighth birthday on August 27, instead of on the REAL day, August 31, because that way her daddy could be here to celebrate with us! She started the morning with homemade blueberry waffles, and then got right to the important stuff - presents.

Esme received an outfit, a horse and a bed for her American Girl doll, Mary Annabelle. She received a couple of Tangled playsets, complete with Rapunzel and Flynn, some books and a couple of outfits from Justice, the current girls' popular clothes store. (insert eye rolling here)

Of course she wore one of her new outfits for her birthday celebration! Here's our birthday girl with her "It's My B-Day" ribbon and her bumblebee birthday cake.

The cake says "happy 'bee' day". Get it? :)

Enjoying some Mediterranean Orzo, her favorite meal.

Getting ready to blow out those candles!

Got them all!

There's a really truly smile. :)

Happiest of birthdays to our super-special girl!

Kids' Portraits 2011

In a departure from our usual procedure, I took pictures of the children together in addition to just separately this year. I worried a little about how they were going to behave while this was taking place, since they usually don't get along terribly well for very long, but they did well and I think they even had a good time. :)

Here's to the kids: they may not be best friends now, but we'll  hope that day comes someday!

Esme at 8

Our dear girl is eight years old, just beautiful and extremely smart. We hope she lives up to her potential in the years to come. :)