Winter Fun

Last weekend we got slightly more than a dusting of snow, but it was enough to let the kids go out and play for a bit. They were so excited to pile on all of their snow gear and head outside!

Tessa was most interested in taste-testing the snow.

 

Calder loved digging in the snow with his construction trucks!

Tessa's attempt at a snow angel wasn't very successful.  It wasn't the right kind of snow!

He was so proud of his idea to stake the flag in the snow!

Sibling Love

I was taking a video of my earliest riser one Sunday morning when our other early riser awoke and came down to join us.  Alyse adores her big brother, and it really shows in this video.  So happy that I was able to capture it!

Building Bears

We celebrated Tessa's birthday at Build-a-Bear Workshop.  What a super fun place for a party!  An overwhelming number of friends from daycare came and we had a whopping 17 kids!!  The staff at Build-a-Bear was really great though and everything went smoothly. Tessa was pretty shy and wasn't crazy about being the center of attention, but she did have a fun time building her new doggy!

The best shot I could get of her and her sweet friend Sydney.

Bath time for bears!

So happy with his ninja bear!

Before they sewed up all of the bears, they did a really cute 'heart ceremony'.  The party leader threw out handfuls of hearts into the crowd, and each child was told to select 2 hearts. 

Then the kids had to rub the hearts all over their bodies - for example, on their ears so the bear would be a good listener..

and on their muscles so the bear would be strong!  When they were done, each child kept one heart for their own bear and gave one heart to Tessa's dog.  It was sooo cute to see all the little ones bringing their hearts to Tessa.  Her doggie has a LOT of hearts!

Not so successful attempt at a group photo!

Afterwards, we headed down to the food court for pizza and cake.  We were so thankful for Zaidy, the pizza man!

Cake time!  Tessa was so shy when everyone sang Happy Birthday.  She closed her eyes the entire time and sunk into Dave's lap. 

Hugs from daddy after the trauma!

Who likes presents?

Supercleaning

For Tessa's birthday, I made her a superhero cape. I'm really happy with how it came out, and I'm in the process of making one for Calder too so they can run around and save the world together!

Since she actually likes to clean, we also got her a cute little broom and dustpan set. 

Supercleaning!

The cape is actually reversible, but she's not such a superfan of the batgirl side.

THREE

Tessa turned three last week and I'm still trying to comprehend how she went from this cute little girl...

...to this beautiful "big" girl in just one short year.
 

I won't lie.  It was a rough year with this one.  But, you can hardly blame her.  Two is not an easy age for little ones, and her world was rocked with the arrival of her baby sister just 2 weeks after her 2nd birthday.
She has quite a stubborn streak, and while we haven't exactly cleared the "terrible twos" quite yet...I think we're starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel.  The other evening when she started into some not-so-desirable behavior after a particularly good day, I asked her "What happened to the nice girl that was here earlier?"  She replied with "All gone. Out."  I guess she had already used up all of her 'nice' for the day!

Despite the adjustment to being the middle child...she loves her little sister SO much. 

 And hopefully it's not just because she can boss her around...

If there ever was a bossy little girl, it's Tessa.  Calder surely agrees.  Last week, when Nonna asked him if he thought Tessa would make a good teacher someday, he said "Yeah. Or a boss. She bosses me all the time." But at least she knows who the real boss is -- she often greets me with "Hi Mommy Boss". :)

Some recent quotable quotes from our girl:

"I have a bottom.  Calder has a butt."

"I want a wreck-a-saurus."  (While playing dinosaurs with Calder.)

Tessa: "Mommy, my face! my face!"
Mommy: "What happened to your face?" 
Tessa: "I cried on it."

Tessa:  "Lucky, you want to try some chocolate?"
Mommy: "Honey, Lucky can't have chocolate, it would hurt his belly."
Tessa:  "He doesn't have a belly!"
Mommy:  "Yes he does, where do you think his food goes?"
Tessa:  "In his tail."



Her favorite things right now are Caillou, her stuffed piggy and her baby dolls.  She's accumulated quite the collection of baby dolls over the last year, although her favorites are still Jaya (left) and Rohan (right).  Poor Rohan needs to get some boy clothes.  She takes very good care of them all, making sure to change their diapers and clothes frequently.

She loves prunes and grapefruit.
She prefers snacks to a meal.
Trying to brush her hair is a living nightmare.
She loves to help.
She loves to sing and listen to music.  
She keeps a huge stack of books in her bed.  She lines them all up and calls them her "class".  Each night a different book gets to be the "line leader".

A few funny things that she says that I can't bring myself to correct...

She likes to go to "resta-haunts".

She misplaces the word "all".  As in, "I drank my milk all."

She says "tree" instead of "three".  She recently moved up to the 3 year old classroom at school and I did a double take when she came home and announced "Mommy, I went potty in the trees today!"

Happy Three to our sweet, spunky, shy, sassy, sensitive, stubborn little girl!

We love you!

Funnyman

11 months

At 11 months, Alyse

• Shakes her head 'no'
• Eats anything and everything you put in front of her
• Really tries to do all kinds of talking. Until today, she was pretty much only saying "dada" and "baba".  But today, she said......."Tessa"! Twice! Unfortunately, I missed it both times.
• Can get up on all fours and rock back and forth, but is not quite crawling yet.  But, this doesn't stop her from getting where she wants to go -- she rolls and scoots all over the room!
• Is totally, 100%, positively in love with Tessa's baby dolls!

Happy New Year!