ada's birthday. part I

i know, i know. ada's birthday isn't until july 6th, but we wanted to celebrate with her friends she has made in shreveport. so, we decided to have a combined party with ada's best friend, evian (who happens to have the exact same birthday), before we both moved away! here is what the party looked like!

elias had some unmonitored time with some markers as we prepared for the big day!

time to make cupcakes!

testing the pre-birthday cupcakes! yum yum yum!

katie and i
the birthday girls! sooooo excited!

a three year old's version of slip and slide.

just like his daddy.

happy birthday!

present time!

cinderella!
the after party. trying out all the new toys!

my main squeeze, sporting his new, beloved mustache.

summer

can i say it again? WE ARE BUSY! that said, we are still having fun!

here is a taste:

ada's first lemonade stand (at our yard sale!) she raked it $5.75 and headed straight to the toy store to buy a fairy barbie. it smells like delicious grape popsicles and she has slept with it every night since!
our landlord stopped by to ask me to stop putting the pool in the yard since it might kill the grass in this heat. are you kidding me (i was furious)?!?! sprinkler time, here we come!

can you see elias' barrette? every morning when i fix ada's hair, lias bring me a barrette and asks me to put it in his hair.

lias' remnants of his third black eye (and pizza lunch!)

i wish pizza made me this happy. isn't he just adorable. cutest.thing.ever.

i love this picture. this is what ada looks like 80% of the day. coaxing, persuading, arguing, imagining. wide eyed, and never quiet.

happy father's day!

happy father's day to two amazing dads!

you are such a wonderful father reza, compassionate, patient, and oh-so-much fun! the kids adore you, almost as much as i do. how did i get so lucky?

dad, thanks for everything you have done for me, every baseball card show you took me too, and every time you played troll under the bridge. have i mentioned my kids love that game?

i hope your day is perfect.

xoxo

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a glimpse at our summer (so far!)

our summer is off to a busy start (and it is only going to get busier!) we are getting ready for our BIG move in three weeks. yes! only three weeks until we drive half way across country with our two kids and mr. dagger in our little outback wagon. boy is that going to be fun! we are sooo super excited to finally settle into our new home. in the past four years we have moved three times (and not to mention had two children!) we are ready to buckle down for a little while!

here is a glimpse of what we have been up to lately in shreveport.

hangin' at the fire station.

hangin' at the bayou. yep, classy.

miscellaneous

we've been busy. what can i say. we had a visit from my parents which was wonderful (thanks nande and poppi!). i will do a full post about that later. school is officially out, and summer is in session! ada had her first, last day of school. and a pool party to celebrate!

ada and elias playing with bubbles at her class's year-end party.

the waterslide. goggles were absolutely necessary!

pizza lunch at the girls' table.

last day of school at first baptist church school!

this is too cute not to post. lias was really sick for a while. whenever he is sick, his pictures look so grown up! my little man.

this is what elias usually looks like. this was at our hotel in dallas. we tagged along with reza to conference, just to have a change of scenery. sleeping was an absolute disaster. ada wet the bed both night, and cried soooo much about it! the crying would in turn wake elias up, then we would have two crying kids. then reza would leave super early to head to meetings and elias would bawl that baba was leaving. then ada would bawl that elias woke her up. then they would both cry for milk. NEVER. AGAIN. (unless they get their own room!)

elias' self-entertainment at 6:15am.

a dallas park. for some reason i thought i would be shopping the entire time i was in dallas. a little anthropologie action, you know? no way. after an hour, we were done for good. luckily we found some fantastic parks and hung out there for two straight days!

when i say smile, ada says kissie face.

awesome.

how was your week? mine was awesome. i mean, really, how many people can say they pried their kid's foot out of the toilet canal?

it WAS great though. we are so anxious and excited about our pending move that reza and i spend lots of time daydreaming, imagining life in a real "home". OUR home. we can't wait. ever since we moved into our first house together everyday feels as if we are playing house. almost five years (and two children) later we still are playing our little game, and so happy doing it. we giggle about it. how lucky are we?

still there is loads going on here. bugs, toilets, bruises, picnics, playgrounds, playdates, popsicles, nightmares, just to get the day started. the kids are growing up so fast, and they are so incredibly different, i can't even grasp that they are related sometimes. it is wonderful and amazing to watch them, especially together. they have so much love for each other. they even hold hands in the backseat when i drive around in the car. on wagon rides i overhear their conversations:

ada-- "lias, do you want to cut your head off and put in on your foot?"

lias-- enthusiastic "yes!"

ada-- "li do you want to put your stinky toes in your mouth"

lias-- enthusiastic "yes!"

love. it goes on and on as i pull them around the neighborhood, popsicles in hand. lias talks mostly about motorized vehicles and stating the names of obvious tangible objects. ada, well, ada doesn't stop talking and it is often inappropriate, although she doesn't have any idea. she does not watch spongebob, she just has a unique sense of humor. i wonder where she gets it?

i hope your week was as uneventful and lovely as mine! i've said it before, but the one thing that shreveport has given us is a little domesticity. we enjoy the simple things here.

ps- can you tell i can see the light at the end of the tunnel! june 30th baby!

pps- can you also tell that i am blogging on a friday night? does that make me some sort of loser? maybe. well, probably. but reza is in minneapolis and i am a single parent. that didn't keep me from watching my first grown up show with ada this evening. we totally vegged out and watched house hunters together and she loved every minute of it. what can i say, i wanted company.