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.

Another sign

Last night when we were getting ready for bath-time, Tessa pointed to the Toilet and said Potty!!!!! It's definitely a sign. They say to look for signs that she is ready. Or maybe I'm the one that's ready and she's not. I actually just ordered her little potty, so hopefully she will find that fun and useful.

Two nights ago, when we got home Tessa ran into the den and grabbed an apple I had left on the coffee table and just took a big bite out of it and walked around and kept biting off chunks of apple and eating it. I was so surprised, because I always cut up her apple into bite size pieces. How did she know that's how you eat an apple? I didn't even have to take a "starter bite" for her. Maybe it's not that amazing, but I was surprised. She looked like such a little big girl eating her whole apple.

Jealousy

I am TOTALLY jealous of my friends kids who give them kisses. Penny gives her mommy and daddy 50 kisses at night and I can't get one. She knows how to do it, but if I ask she just says no! She will give hugs and those are sweet and precious. As long as she is this stingy with the kises when it comes to boys later on life, I guess I can suffer through the early years.

I guess when an Ellis-Hartley woman knows what she wants and what she doesn't, she's not afraid to let you know.

Goober

We had a low key weekend this past weekend. Tessa and I both have Sinus Infections, so we just hung out around the house, took our antibiotics, and napped. Tessa is growing so fast and learning so much I can't keep up sometimes. Her new favorite questions is "Where'd it go?" She will use this with a person or an object and ask non-stop until you give her some kind of answer. Most of the time it has a sweet sing-songy melody and sounds so sweet. I have also noticed that she understands a lot more than what she can say. You can ask her to go get something and bring it to Daddy and she will actually go get that item and give it to Mike, eventhough she can't say that word yet. It's amazing how fast thier little brains learn.

She can sing several different songs and is actually quite good at holding a note. She gets the melody right more often than the words. Right now her favorite is 'Baa Baa Black Sheep'. She also likes 'Row, Row, Row your boat', but she gets stuck in a never ending loop of 'row, row, row, row, row, row, .......' and has to be prompted to row THE BOAT.

She can do some many animal sounds now, sometimes she surprises me with new ones she learned in school. The funniest discovery was that with all of the rain we've had lately, I have been using an umbrella a lot. And everytime I say the word umbrella she beats her chest and goes 'AAAAAAAA'. I finally realized that they had learned 'Gorilla' in school and the words just sound a lot alike. I was so amazed. Below is a list of all the animal sounds she can do right now (that I know of)

Cat
Dog
Cow
Horse
Frog
Bear
Lion
Tiger
Owl
Seal
Gorilla
Monkey
Chicken
Pig
Sheep
Fish

Flashback

I found this picture of Tessa looking through some old files on my computer. She was only one day old.

Twisted Sister

So, for some reason my dad totally looks like he could be a Twisted Sister Band member in his Halloween costume.......FREAKY. One more reason men should not sport long, blond locks.

Tessa loves dancing in the car, after every song ends she always says "Yeah" and claps her hands. She particularly LOVES Raffi, but every now and then Mommy just can't handle "Down by the bay" anymore and we listen to the regular radio. She's is totally jamming to T.I.'s "Whatever you Like" (the clean version - the dirty version is even too much for me).