Today is my wonderful mom's birthday!

So, to celebrate we got together with Hil and Levi and made a little video of our celebration for this awesome woman in our lives!
I am so grateful for my mother. She is one of my best friends and always there to offer advice about anything that plagues me. I'd rather ask her for help than anyone else because she is a treasure trove of inspiration and such a great example. I hope to some day be as good a mother and person as she is!
Happy birthday, MOMMY! I love you!!

Noises

This is a series of interesting noises for your entertainment!
First, we have Esther-loo:

Now Eve:

Isaac's turn:

Dancing Fools

Two dancing monkies- do you think there's a future for them in ballroom dancing?
Perhaps Isaac could learn not to lead so forcefully. . . .

Fun With Photo Booth

I adore Photo Booth. The day we got our laptop, I played with this particular feature for over an hour. Yep, it's that fun. I don't know what it is about the gruesome faces you can make or the horribly disfigured view of yourself- there's just something really entertaining about it all! SO, Estherloo and I were playing with it earlier and we had Daddy/Paddy come and join us- so here are some fun shots to share!


Freaky X-ray setting- we only took one of these because it scared Esther.


Retro.


Superheros or Supervillians???

Aren't we a handsome family?


Like mother. . . .

Like daughter.

The Eyes

This is Eve practicing her "pout face". She likes to pull this out every once in a while while attempting to wheedle something from you. So now you've been warned- beware of the eyes!

A sleeping Esther is a thing of beauty!

Our darling youngest is a small bundle of never-ending energy. She goes and goes and goes all day without stop! Well, that's not entirely true- she is forced to take a nap every day, so maybe that is the source of her power or something. . . This picture was taken one night when I got home from rehearsal late and she was passed out in the hallway. It's just a rare sighting to see her asleep, so I captured the moment for posterity!

Bye Bye Navy, HELLO SCHOOL!

The Darby family has undergone quite a change since the last blog I started and then neglected- and since I can no longer access the old blog anyways, I thought it would be a great idea to start a new one to go along with our crazy new life!
So, here it is. . .
As you can tell from the title, we've gone from being a Navy family to being poor college students. Patrick's enlistment was up in April and we decided not to re-enlist for various reasons of which I will not elaborate at this time. Now the goal is to pursue higher education.
SO, we said goodbye to the Navy and hauled the kids and the cat across the country to Utah!
And here we are.

Patrick is going to BYU, majoring in geology. He loves rocks and science, so it's a perfect fit! He has been taking classes here and there when he could and he is in his junior year. Two-ish years to go until graduation and then he plans to finish his master's degree here as well. The plan is for him to continue on to a doctorate program somewhere- but where that will be is up in the air. Until then, we are happily settled here!

As for me, I am working on a double-major of music with an emphasis on vocal performance and movement studies with an emphasis on ballroom dance at UVSC. I am right on the brink of being a sophomore so we've got a few more years until my graduation. I was originally planning to transfer to BYU when I had enough credits but I am really enjoying the less-stressful environment of UVSC and so I think I will stay.

Isaac, too, has gone on to educational pursuits. He started Kindergarten last week! My baby! I can't believe he is so old. He has been ready for Kindergarten for a while and was soooo excited to begin ever since we registered him back in May. His school has a wonderful program of Spanish Immersion that begins at Kindergarten-level so we signed him up for it. He is so excited to learn Spanish! I taught him how to count to 5 on the way home from registration and he still remembers like a good little parrot. He had a great first week of school, singing songs that he learned and showing papers he worked on.

Eve and Esther-loo-who, however, are enjoying thier time outside of the educational system. Eve enjoys wearing her Princess clothes and playing with animals and snuggling her blanket. Ether loves to follow Eve in whatever she is doing. They both love to jump on the trampoline, swing on the swing set, play in the pool, play in the mud, pick flowers from the garden, and watch movies.
Eve actually fractured her elbow last week while playing "Crack the Egg" on the trampoline. She has a splint attached to her arm with bandages. I am kind of relieved that the days of casts for everything have passed. We can take the splint off for bath time, wash the bandages- it's very nice! She's got about two more weeks with the splint then they'll take more x-rays and see how things are going. She has taken this all in stride. She's carefull with her arm with the "boo boo" but she doesn't whine about it.
Esther is learning of the joys of potty training and we remembering the harrowing experiences. She has figured out that she can take off her diaper and we've had few interesting experiences with her running around in the buff with a questionably-clean bottom half. Ahh the joys of parenthood!

Well, that sums up the life for now. Stay in tune for updates!