Esther turned 21 years old this September! For her birthday, she requested some homemade chocolate, cream-filled cupcakes.
We naturally couldn't ruin them with store frosting, so Mom made some delicious chocolate frosting as well!
Time for a little family celebration. :)
Happy Birthday, Esther!!!
She wanted to try to blow out all 21 candles..what a line-up!
Tweny-one candles take a while to light, as well as many hands!
While the candles were busy melting, we, of course, sang her Happy birthday!
To get the suspense out of the way, Esther decided to open her presents before dessert.
Her main gift will be the canoe trip we're taking next weekend, but Mom wanted to give her a little something the day of that she could call her own.
Inside the bag was her favorite candy--Swedish fish. Also inside were a few nail care items.
Next came Laurisa's curious--and surprisingly weightless--gift..
The box was filled with packing peanuts and this handwritten note..
Esther spent a few times re-reading it..before what she was supposed to do finally hit her.
She got up and headed over to our pantry, pulled out the honeycomb cereal box, and reached inside....
To find this!
When cereal companies weren't so stinkin' stingy and actually included free toys in the boxes, Laurisa and Esther had decided who would get which of the two toys from The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Esther had gotten the short one, Laurisa--the blonde..However, over the years they ended up missing. Laurisa was in our room a week before Esther's birthday, playfully "sobbing" that she wanted all her childhood toys back. So, she recreated the memory of them by getting the cereal toys again.
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This past Saturday, we all went to Orange Beach for the day!
The weather was awesome, the sand white, and the beach beautiful!
Even though we live closer to a beach than most people, we hadn't gone in just about two years..
So, it was a bit of a treat for us.
There's just something about running on a beach that seems nicer than running anywhere else...
Laurisa found a really nice log that was perfect to watch the waves on. Every once in a while, the waves would wrap around the log, which was nice since more than your feet got wet.
Esther being buried in the sand..
Here we were about to really have some fun near the shore. The waves were on the rough side that day, so we had fun being carried closer to shore whenever one hit us.
Mom and dad went on walks along the beach or just lay in the sun...while we all kinda got smacked by a wave... ;)
I proposed Esther and I build a sand pig instead of a boring ol' sand castle..so that's just what we did.
A piggy in swim trunks!
Piggy and Esther chillin' together with their "cups"...
And the sand art and me. ;)
It didn't feel like we stayed long enough at the beach, but counting in the drive time back as well as stopping somewhere to eat, I guess we left just in time to make it back before dark.
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Going back just a tad before Esther's birthday, Mom picked up this Flix sucker for Gabriel.
We had never seen them before, but if you look up the company they have a number of different "faces," such as lips, and even angry birds.
I also got my driver's license! Yayyy me! It was a rather interesting test. My sisters were only made to drive in a subdivision, but I had a different person testing me.. so he had me drive around other places and go through different intersections, and all the while he was asking me math questions! So I basically was doing a math quiz/driver's test all at once. Maybe he wanted to see how well I could concentrate on driving with distractions...I don't know, but I'm glad I passed!
It'll be much more convenient for Mom to not have to be with me whenever I need to go somewhere.
That pretty much sums up what has been going on with us the past week...There are posts to follow so keep checking back!
