Holiday Programs

A week before Christmas, Tessa and Alyse participated in the daycare's annual caroling program. Alyse had a total ball in the baby buggy!

Hanging with Daddy afterwards!

Tessa wasn't much of a fan of caroling. I didn't get any good pictures of her, but here's one that I took afterwards with her wonderful teacher, Ms. Penka. We will miss Ms. Penka as Tessa begins transitioning into the 3 year old classroom. We look forward to Alyse someday being in her class!

Tessa had all of the parents in stitches as she tried to sneak away with a "lil bit" of the fake snow. She grabbed a little more than she intended, and ended up all tangled up!

Calder's school didn't do a holiday program, but he took drama as an after school activity this fall, and they put on a show at the end. He played an elf in their presentation of "The Shoemaker and the Elves". It was very cute, and he was so happy that Grandma and cousin Sandhya were also able to attend!

Here he is with his good buddy, Ethan.

Dr. Tessa

Jaya looks good...

Rohan looks good...

Hmmm...having trouble getting a good reading on Alyse!

10 Months

This post is a bit late...but our baby girl is already 10 months old!


At 10 months, she claps (especially in response to someone saying "yay!" or singing "If You're Happy And You Know It"), waves, and shimmies and rolls all over the room on her belly. She's starting to do some kind of backwards semi-crawling thing too.

Poor thing has had a rough fall/winter so far. She's had some type of cold or virus on and off for the last 2 months. She's currently suffering from RSV and her second double-ear infection in a row. :( She's a trooper though, and is still generally happy.

Here she is posing on the blanket that I made her.  Although I love how it turned out, I will never ever ever attempt to knit a blanket again!  It took me 2 years to finish that thing (not continuously, obviously).  I started it when Tessa was Alyse's age!! 

Tree Time!

The selection of our tree was a unanimous decision this year! Too bad we didn't realize that it is slightly crooked until after we got it home. Oh well...it's still pretty.

The kids had a lot of fun with the decorating.

With a little bit lot of goofing off mixed in...

Tessa came up with this idea all by herself. She waved goodbye and said she was going shopping!

And Calder decided that Tessa had a pretty good idea. :)

Dinosaurland

To surprise our wannabe paleontologist, we headed out to Front Royal a few weekends ago to visit Dinosaurland! We didn't tell the kids where we were going, and they did a good job of tolerating the long, suspenseful drive.  Tessa was actually the first to spot the giant dinosaurs out the window. Calder was SO excited, he could hardly contain himself.  Mr. Sweetness started thanking us profusely before we even got out of the car!

A friend had warned us that this place is pretty run down (he was right). But, to a 5-year old dinosaur obsessed little boy, it was heaven on earth.

Tessa was a fan too!

The replicas were meant to be life-sized.  This Giganotosaurus, as you would expect, was gigantic!

And this baby Triceratops was actually quite small.  Calder loved the baby dinosaurs the best and spent a lot of time petting and talking to them.

Tessa wanted to ride them, but no climbing was allowed.

This massive shark was pretty cool too -- especially since the kids could climb in and out.

Tickling the Brachiosaurus' belly!

Bigger Tricertaops

Alyse and I check out the Dimetrodon.

Giving me his scariest dinosaur ROAR!

Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving with Dave's family in Pittsburgh.  I didn't take many pictures, but it was fun catching up with the whole family, and all of the cousins had lots of fun playing together!

5 of the 7 cousins

A game of HedBanz for the big kids!

Tea Party for Sisters