Cheers

Another funny thing Tessa picked up over the Holidays was 'toasting'. As we had several nicer dinners where toasting was involved, she now knows how to clink glasses and say "cheers". She was even doing it with her little tea set.

Pretend

Something I've been meaning to post for a while and just keep forgetting. Tessa is really into playing "pretend". She loves playing with the little tea set my mom has (Tessa got one for Christmas) and will make tea. I almost start crying every time I see her slowly and carefully walking towards me with two cups and spoons sticking out. I don't know why, but she is just concentrating so hard on not letting the spoons fall out and just seems like such a big girl.

Then she will pretend eat off her plate and the funniest is when she shoves the spoon in one of the dogs faces and says "mmuuummmuuyyymmmyyymm". Now don't get me wrong, she is not very delicate with the tea set (thank god for plastic) and "filling" the cups looks more like she is on Junior's pit crew refilling a tank of gas, but she has the concept down.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Santa was good to us all this year. We are so very fortunate and blessed. I just want to take a small moment and hope that everyone keeps our troops in their thoughts and prayers over the holidays, especially those men and women who cannot be with their families. Thank you for serving our country!

I will post pictures, videos and funny stories of our wonderful Christmas later.

You reap what you sow

Tessa has a nad habit of biting when she doesn't get what she wants. I have done a lot of research trying to find the best way to address it and I have an idea of how to go about it now. Last night, while I was giving Tessa a bath I noticed this bruise on her arm by her elbow. It looks like she got bit, but I hadn't received a write up from her day-care. When kids bite each other in day care, they get a written notice that both parents have to sign. Rarely is Tessa the victim (napoleonic complex?).

I asked the teacher about it this morning. She said it definitely looked like a bite mark, but Tessa didn't cry or give any indication that she had been hurt. Apparently she rarely, if ever, cries in school so they usually know something is wrong right away. I guess some kid had had enough of Tessa bullying him or her.

On another side note that FREAKED Mike out, while I was talking to the teacher yesterday when I picked her up, Tessa was standing by the door hugging one of the older boys.........REPEATEDLY. She's cute, because when she hugs people or animals she says "Aaaaawwwwwww", and that's what she was saying. She's such a goober.

Changes

Please pardon the changes. I am playing around with new (different) layouts, so any feedback is welcome (come on Mom, I know you're just DYING to make a comment).

Colors and Counting

I think Tessa has finally mastered colors. She has this puzzle that has shapes in different colors and she now gets them all right. The funny thing, is that on the 1st round she will randomly pick them up, hold them high in the air and proudly proclaim "GREEN". Once she has gotten them all right, she'll start again but this time she'll say the wrong color and then when I say no she mumbles "blue, green, yellow, red". It's pretty funny.

The other thing that floored me this weekend was her trying to count. I actually stared at Mike with my jaw dropped while she was doing it to confirm that I wasn't just hearing want I wanted to hear. She was stacking blocks (the German ones from Aunt Aly - thanks Cat) and while she was stacking them she was counting, and actually got the number 'two', 'four' and 'five' correct. She hasn't gotten the true numbers right since then, but she is definitely trying to count. Once they topple over, she doesn't start from one again either, she just keeps going to ten. And she still can't get the order correct. But she is definitely trying. So now when we read her "Doggies" book instead of emphasizing the different dog barks we are trying to focus on the numbers and counting the dogs.

Christmas Tree

We spent the weekend up in the mountains again with Omi and Opa and Mike made it up for one night so that we could all go cut down our Christmas Tree together. My parents, Tessa and I rode up on Friday afternoon. It was FREEZING when we got up there and it took forever for the cabin (and me) to warm up. ALthough, my parents think I have some strange disease becasue I'm always cold and my parents joke that they are hanging out in thier bikinis because it's so hot. Then the mental image of my dad in a bikini made me barf. Anyway, we woke up the next morning to SNOW! It was so beautiful. It started off as wet sticky sleet and then turned into beautiful fluffy snow that dusted everything.

Tessa actually slept until 9:00am that morning (and Opa slept even longer). Mom and I enjoyed our hot beverages (coffee for Mom hot tea for moi), watching the snow and chatting about this and that. Once we got the rest of the troops roused and had breakfast, we bundled up and went outside to play in the snow and get some kindling for the fire. Tessa had so much fun playing in and eating the snow. She loved running down the road and then back towards us. As any mom does, I had a fleeting worry of a bobcat jumping down from the hillside and snatching her (because she looked so cute of course), but we had no bobcat encounters this time.

On a side note, one of my favorite cabin past times is locating all the different wild life. The coolest (and maybe stranges) was when I was up there the summer Tessa was born, we had gone for a short walk up the gravel road and actually saw a turtle laying eggs in the middle of the gravel road. What a strange (and uncomfortable place) to lay eggs.

Tessa took a nice long nap and I helped mom make enough goulash to feed an entire platoon. She browned eight pounds of meat and I peeled and chopped 10lbs of onion. I swear my hands still smell like onion. She wanted to freeze the extra and leave it up there. After Tessa woke up from her nap, Omi took her back outside and I made Engineer's Dip for the SEC and ACC Championship games and we spent the rest of the night watching football (GO JACKETS!).

We woke up Sunday morning and packed everything back up, bundled up and went to the tree farm to cut down our Christmas tree. It was sunny, but really cold. And we walked all over that damn hillside trying to find the right tree. It's a really great place, because they have this old fire-truck that they have fixed up and they use that to take you out to the fields of trees. WHen you get back, they take a picture by a tree and if you can find your picture from the previous year you get $5 off. They also have warm apple cider which Tessa LOVED. As she gets older it will definitely be a fun little family tradition.

Now to the bad part. I forgot my damn camera so I don;t have a single picture (except in my head) of our wonderful weekend in the snow and cutting down our tree. So, I am posting one from last year of when it snowed it Atlanta. At least that way you can feel a little essence of the snow.

More Signs????

In my quest to find every single, miniscule sign of potty training readiness, I see everything as a sign! Ok, so maybe her climbing on the giant Costco pack of TP is not REALLY a sign that she is ready and just because she can say Pee doesn't mean she knows when she is going, but hey, I can dream, can't I?

When I am at home with her by myself, I always take her into the bathroom with me when I have to go. I just don't like her roaming the house unsupervised. And I make sure I explain to her exactly what I am doing so she can learn all the words for going potty. Of course, she loves to play with the toilet paper and so to keep her from going crazy, I give her a little square to play with. On Sunday, she took the little square, wadded it up and "wiped" the inside of her thigh. Then she came up to me and wiped my leg. Then last night, while we were getting ready for bath time, she was completely naked and of course playing with the TP. So I gave her another square and she wadded it up and wiped her butt! HAHAHAHAHAHA She just cracks me up.