Highlights of Today

Max:  I am frazzled trying to get Josh out the door for soccer. (He told me he'd found all his soccer stuff but really he'd grabbed cleats two sizes too big because he didn't want to look for the ones that actually fit him...)  Max: "Mom!"
me: "what love"
Max:  "I love you"  and just burrows into me.  so so darling!

Anna.  We have great conversations on our dates.  Keep in mind that she has been talking like a teenager lately in tone of voice and mannerisms.  If you watch Sophia the First she sounds just like Amber.... I give her a kiss and say randomly without thinking, "every date should end with a kiss"  Then I have a vision of her remembering that statement in high school and amend it to, "Every date with your mom should end with a kiss.  No kissing boys until you are at least 16."
"Why no kissing boys?"
"It's just not good to do until your older" (neither of us is ready for that talk yet...)
"But can I tell them they are cute?"
"ummmm, sure, but no kissing.  Is there a boy you think is cute."
"not really, except Max he is really really cute.  So what should I do if a boy tries to kiss me?"
"You just say.  I don't kiss boys yet."
"Ok or I could just run away because I am really really fast."

thank heavens for that my love.  and thank heavens for the fact that you only have two boys in your preschool class.

Josh:  At breakfast.  Josh is a really really slow eater and super chatty while he is eating.
"Mom some boys started being mean to me again."
"oh no. what happened?"
"well I came out after lunch and they threw balls at me and called me a pea head."
"Bud I'm so sorry did any of your friends stand up for you?"
"I didn't know where most of them were" (slow eater he is always the last one out to recess after lunch)
"So what did you do?"
"Well I told my teacher and she said she would talk to them.  They were doing it to a couple of kids, so I went over to one of the other boys and told him he could come play with me and he did and we had fun. and then I went to the last kid they were doing it to and asked him if he wanted to play with us too.  He told me that I didn't really want to play with him, and I said I did and he said that he would just play by himself I don't think he believed me."

Sweet sweet boy, so much more mature confident and brave than I was.  I love him.  and I swear if any more kids are mean to them I will beat them.......

The End....

Adam leaving Part 2

Before Adam left we had an awesome week/weekend as a family, which may or may not have included multiple people throwing up....but I digress.  We got some great family pictures taken too.  These aren't the professional ones, just the candids that were the best.

 These kids love their uncle.  We make Max look at pictures of him a lot so he doesn't forget.

 the candids are a little Anna heavy.  She was the one in the best mood.

 I especially love the natural smiles.

 Looking at potato bugs.

 Dad also left for Saudi today.  I am sad.  It's been so fun to have him around for so long, and these two definitely have something special.  I told my Dad that I would take a picture a day for him while he was gone, so there's a chance this blog might not be so neglected.

Adam Leaving Part 1

 I got to talk to this guy this morning while he was at the airport waiting for his flight.  He sounds so happy and so excited and I thought of a million things I wanted to ask him after he hung up.  There's always letters:)

This is his graduation.  Josh begged to go and LOVED it.  He kept saying, "Mom I don't know why you thought it would be boring..."

 With the parents.  They don't look too bad for being empty nesters now:)

 After going through the temple.  Our whole immediate family was there as well as a lot of extended family.  It was wonderful.  With grandma and grandpa esplin.

 With "the sisters" as he refers to us.  Jessie ran into a old seminary teacher and asked him to take a couple of pictures outside the temple.  He noticed she was obviously pregnant and was teasing her about her old high school boyfriend whom he referred to as "Dixie Boy"   Then he asked where her husband was.  She pointed him out and said, "By the way that's Dixie Boy."
"Wait you actually married him?!"  Apparently high school sweethearts don't end up together too often these days:)  It was awesome.

Brady, Adam and Justin.  We missed Patrick.

Water!

 Our pool has been a hit this summer.... well for the time it's been up at least.  We got it up in June, then the pump broke and it was out until the week before school started, but it has been great.  Deep enough to have fun, not deep enough to drown.

 Becca and Anna loved it so much they couldn't be bothered with swim suits.

And I try and think of ways to keep Max happy if he sees the bigger kids swimming because it is too deep for him.  Buckets of water and "mean guys" so far have done the trick.

Belly Blowing

 I found these random photos mixed in with all the family reunion pictures:)  We love to blow on bellies and cuddle in our jammies around here.

Annas Birthday Party - The Princess and the Pea Pajama Party

Anna loves all things princess and had some definite opinions about her party this year.  Not to mention the sheer number of people she wanted to invite.  We tried to limit it a little bit.  I love Anna's face in the first pic.

We started with making princess hats and doing makeup.  My Mom and Justin were amazing enough to help me manage all these cute little girls.  Anna has loved having the make up set around ever since a little too much.  

What could be better than sparkly pink eye shadow?

So many excited helpers to open presents.  Has anyone else noticed that people seem to be giving nicer and nicer gifts?  One girl gave her a Disney princess doll and we don't even know her that well.  I can't decide if I need to step up my game or not....

We told the story of the princess and the pea,  I get excited when telling stories, and played a couple of games...

Josh was a good sport and figured out how to make himself a wizard hat all by himself because I was busy elsewhere...

 Everyone loved their place mats and wanted to take them home....

 Easiest cake ever, just put a crown on top and let Anna and Josh go at it with M and Ms...

As always I ran out of things to do too early and they ended up running around like crazy people and playing hide and seek..... Even an hour and a half can be too long for a party.

Hawaii continued

 So we got upgraded to a black convertible rather than the compact car for $20/day that we signed up for.  It was slightly more in gas, but so so fun!

 One day it rained a lot of the day and the waves were huge!  We drove out to pipeline to watch the surfers.  Justin was in awe, and I admit it was pretty awesome to watch them.  It was hilarious.  They would pull up, get out and RUN to the water, like they were just so excited they could hardly stand it.

 Justin made me passion fruit juice that morning and he neglected to tell me that the seeds in passion fruit make you super sleepy.  I felt like I was drugged and conked out on the beach while he practiced his photography skills.....He will want me to mention that he hasn't edited any of these pictures yet, and will probably be mad at me for posting them...

 Some of these pictures turned out pretty good, I think I want to print some out for Josh's room.

 picture of the other people taking pictures.

 The beach right behind our apartment was chock full of sea turtles.  You can see one of their heads to the back right of the pipe.  We had fun snorkling with them.

We ate at shrimp trucks every. single. day.  They were so soo good.  This was our favorite.  They also had sticky rice with coconut ice cream for dessert.  Good vacations always have good food....