Happy 5th Birthday, Lela!

Today we celebrate Lela's 5th birthday, if you can believe that!

We had a little family party at home yesterday. Resli loved reading the cards to Lela. 

She also made Lela a wonderful gift, which was a book, "An Alphabet about Lela," in which each page was dedicated to a letter of the alphabet, each with its own sentence about Lela and drawing to match.

Lela also enjoyed the Barbie doll she got from Grandma and Granddaddy,

which came with a birthday tiara for her to wear too.

This is how Mami celebrates... 

and, um, how Daddy celebrates?

Nana gave Lela this hysterical book, which we all giggled reading (but mostly Harvey and I!).

And Grandpa and Eleanor gave her a ballerina doll and tutu.

Some other presents are still, er, in transit.

But then today the celebration continued at school!

Ms. Quillan and Lela's friends sang 'Happy Birthday' to her in English, Chinese and Spanish. 

And she and all her friends shared the snack she brought in: apples, cheese sticks and little muffins.

All in all, we think it was a good day!

Game Day!

A few weeks ago ESPN's College GameDay came to Gainesville for the Gators v. Gamecocks game. We didn't go to the game, but it was really neat to be able to see our campus and our stadium on TV while cheering!

Sweet 16

Kennedy has been smiling her way through sixteen months of life!

Hold on, while she primps for her photo shoot....

Hello blog world, here she is, 16 months old!

And cuter every day, if I do say so myself.

Strategic thinking

Harvey is teaching the girls to play checkers and chess. I'm not good at either of these games, 

but I do admire their concentration and their strategic thinking. 

Game night treat

When the Gator game time interferes with our dinnertime, we sometimes allow a very special treat: eating in the living room so we can keep watching.

Not bad, huh?

(Pink) Gator Spirit

During fall here in Gainesville, we all try hard to show our Gator spirit, especially on Fridays and Saturdays. Because I'm a sucker, I got the girls new Gator gear for this season - a lovely combination of girly pink and Gator logos. (Harvey, for the record, thinks it's just wrong to have gator clothes in pink. The girls, obviously, all disagree.)

Kennedy has a great striped dress (a 2T that fits!), and is working on her gator chop.

Resli (who has perfected the chomp) and Lela have great pink shirts that say Gator LOVE, and some awesome hair feathers. 

Whether Harvey agrees or not, we're undefeated so far, so the pink may be working after all.

This and that

It's been a very busy few weeks around the Ward household. Add to that the fact that I misplaced the camera for several days, and, well, you'll understand the dearth of recent blog posts. Still not much to report, but here are a few snapshots of the cutest members of World Wide Wards.

Kennedy is still pretty much happiest whenever there is food around.

Sister l♥ve.

Sister power.

Kennedy reading up on the upcoming election. 

More soon, blog fans.

Impromptu photo shoot

A friend of ours, who has a son around Resli's age, has a photography business (Stacey Steinberg Photography). She was at the YMCA to take some pictures of her son and noticed Resli in the pool. She snapped a few candid shots which she was kind enough to share with us. Aren't they great? And they're soooo very Resli too!

Quince meses

It is unreal to me that Kennedy is already a year and a quarter! She seems surprised herself.

Let's touch it to make sure it's real...

Yep, it's real!

Yippee!

Sisters x 3

This is my new favorite picture.

Blocks and Polka Dots

No real commentary for this one, they're just some fun pictures.

Game day!

Kennedy was technically around for the Gator football season last year, but she wasn't really aware  of the joy that is game day. So this year she's going all out with dresses, pompoms, 

and her sisters trying to teach her to Tebow!

As I write this the Gators are down 7-0 (against Bowling Green... sheesh) but we're going to up our cheering and hope for some better results!

First day of school!

Public school started this week (although Lela and Kennedy went back to their school the week before.) 

 Resli was so excited I couldn't believe it. True, she was pretty happy about her new school clothes....But she was also really thrilled to start a new school year, meet a new teacher, and learn new things.

 

She's had a great first week, and already earned a prize for good behavior/good listening!

Baby needs a new pair of shoes

Because good walkers need good shoes! Check out these awesome new kicks.

Hey, did you see they have Dora on them??

(Kennedy kind of says "Dora" too, like [do-aa].)

 Yea, we're pretty pumped.