Frostival

Last month we went to "Frostival", an indoor festival at a local expo center. Calder had a blast! Picture quality isn't great since we were using our point-and-shoot, and the lighting was poor inside the expo center.

One for the road...

One for the road from courtney on Vimeo.

Snow Day Game

With 25+" of snow outside, cabin fever is starting to set in. Luckily, Calder and Tessa made their own fun at lunch today...

Snow Day Game! from courtney on Vimeo.

New Lens

For my birthday, Dave got me a new lens for my camera. I've been having so much fun trying it out on my favorite subjects!

First Cookie

Tessa had her first cookie tonight. Needless to say, she's a fan.

More Birthday Highlights

On Tessa's actual birthday, we went out to dinner to celebrate. Tessa experienced her first waitress serenade, and received a huge piece of chocolate cake! She's a sweet girl and shared with the rest of the fam.

Yum! When my friend Mary delivered Tessa's birthday cake, she brought along her sweet daughters, Alison and Rachel. They are loyal blog followers and were happy to finally meet Calder and Tessa! :)

They even brought along some kids books that they had outgrown. Here's Ali reading to a Calder. He was thrilled!
Tessa serves up a home-cooked meal to Ali and Rachel!
John, Lauren, Madison and Olivia came into town to help us celebrate Tessa's birthday. It was really fun to watch the kids play together. Here, Tessa and Olivia share a balloon. We can't wait to help Olivia celebrate her birthday in March!

Hugs for Madison!

Checking out the birthday loot!

Tessa at Age 1

Can you believe she's one already? I can't. It's amazing how fast the last year went by. She's growing so fast now, I feel like she changes a little bit every day.

Here are her official 1 year stats:
Weight: 20 lbs, 14 oz. (48th percentile)

Height: 30 inches (80th percentile)

Teeth: On her birthday, she had 3 teeth. Two weeks later she was up to 5, and there are more on the way!

Words: Mama, Dada, cracker, bye bye, hi, baa baa, yeah, mine, dog, boo, uh-oh and...thank you!

She's crazy about the song Baa Baa Black Sheep. If you sing her something else, she'll listen to it...but as soon as you're done, she requests her fave by looking you straight in the eye and saying "Baa Baa." It's beyond cute. She's also a fan of The Itsy Bitsy Spider.

Other things she loves: Lucky, dancing, baths, pulling hair, pinching, making tunnels out of furniture, the dishwasher, utensils, being chased, climbing steps, "brushing" her teeth, waving hello and goodbye, giving high-fives.

She's finally starting to show an interest in books. She doesn't actually want you to read her a story though. She just wants to hold the book, open and close it, flip it over, open and close it, turn it upside down, open and close it again....you get the picture. She is particularly fond of small books and lift-the-flap books. Give her a small lift-the-flap book and you're golden!
She's starting to show a bit of a temper......and an independent streak! She loves yogurt, and has lately insisted on trying to feed it to herself. It's really the only food she does this with, although at every mealtime, she absolutely must have a spoon or fork in hand, if not one in each hand.

For a while she was eating pretty much anything I put in front of her, including fish, crab, and Indian food! Lately though, she hasn't been quite as adventurous. Her favorites, aside from yogurt, are cheese, soup, crackers, spaghetti, pancakes and waffles.

Oh yeah...and hide your Kleenex boxes from this one. After she completely empties the box, she'll shred them all to pieces and eat them.