Author Archives: Tessa

Swimming

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Today was a beautiful, sunny winter day. Tons of snow, high temps (mid 20’s anyway!) and perfect. Guess what we did?! Went swimming, of course! The kids were bouncing off the walls and we have a new pool membership, so away we went! It was great. I am constantly amazed at the progress Lex and Eve are making in the pool. It seems like they somehow had a burst between last time and this time as well. When we first got there they were both jumping off the edge at the same time (despite my protest) and swimming everywhere! I thought for sure someone would be drowning today, but they were awesome little swimmers. Suddenly Eve has noticeable form and Lex is getting braver by the day. In the current pool, where he used to cling to me for dear life, he is now asking me to let go of him for short bursts. It’s great! I had a glimpse of what the future might hold… them swimming along and not even needing me! Sigh. Then at the end Eve swallowed a ton of water and threw up and Lex announced he was too tired and needed to go home. They still need me, for now :) Seriously though, they are amazing in the water. I wish I could take pictures or videos, but my camera is far from water proof!

KidCam

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Alan worked hard and got the pictures off the camera! Yay! He even set up a script so I can do it myself in the future. Good thing I have a live-in tech support!

Here is a sampling of the pictures from the camera. Many were just all black (hand over lens?) or all white (flash?) and many of the rest are completely blurry. They’ll have to practice their photography skills a bit longer. :)

SNOW Day!!

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We got our first real snow fall of the season! I think it’s about 18″ (though I didn’t really measure). We went to bed with nothing and woke to a winter wonderland. Awesome! After breakfast we all bundled up and headed out for shoveling, digging, sledding (attempts anyway) and general merriment.

Lex

Eve

The first thing she does is plop down in the snow and take her mitten off. Silly girl.

A casualty

Our mailbox, a casualty of the overnight snow plow. (That darn spot won't go away. The camera is no longer under warranty so I guess the spot will be there until I suck it up and buy a new camera :/ )

Our street

Our street

Our house

Our house

Lex found the mailbox

Lex unburied the mailbox. Later in the day the mail lady put our mail in it, while it was laying on the ground. I was happy just to get mail! :)

Kids watching

The kids watching me talk to the snow plow guy. He stopped on his way past when he saw we were outside. He apologized and said he would come by tomorrow and fix the mail box. He also said we weren't the only ones :) It was a dark and stormy night. Poor guy!

Eve rebundled

Eve got cold so I bundled her up a little more. Lex opted for a scarf shortly after. I like the look :)

Snow on siding

Snow on the siding makes for a beautiful wintery look.

Parrish sledding

The kids wanted to sled, but 18+ inches of powdery snow is just too deep, as Parrish quickly discovered!

Baby Eve

Eve looks so adorable in her new sweatshirt. I wanted to take a picture, but she wanted to cuddle in Alan's lap in peace. She looks like such a baby here, until you realize that there's another whole half of her in legs not in the picture!

Hiding Eve

No more mommy paparazzi!!

Eve and I went back out for a second round of shoveling in the afternoon. The snow had finally stopped coming down and most of the snow on the garage roof had slid off, so the driveway had a good covering again. No pictures that time though because it was getting dark and cold and I was in a hurry!

Photographer Eve

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I think Eve really likes the new camera. I often hear her saying, “Ok now, smile. Say cheese!” to random dolls and toys in the living room. I’ll see if I can get the pictures off that camera tonight. Should be interesting :)

Taking pictures of dolls

Eve brushed the dolls' hair and then got them set up for a photo shoot.

Teddy

Eve went shopping with Alan to JC Penny's yesterday and came home with a teddy bear. Daddy is a push over :) Just kidding. It's soft and she loves it (teddy and daddy!)

I’m trying to get pictures off the kid camera now and it’s not working. I’ll have to wait until Linux tech support (Alan) is available to help.

Merry Christmas – 2010

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Well, another Christmas has come and gone.  In the blink of an eye, or so it felt.  Joyce came to visit, then Barney, then mom and dad, and we all did our usual celebrating.  We missed Rosy and the Johnson side of the family this year.  Hopefully we can be a bigger crowd again next year!

Once again we did Christmas Eve at Grandpa and Grandma’s house.  Delicious soup, bread, salad, and pizza.  Yum, YUM!  Crazy kids, wild rides down the stairs, stories, giggles, fun.  Christmas morning Alan, Lex, and I were up at 6am, as usual.  We opened Lex’s stocking, ate breakfast, and eagerly awaited Eve’s waking.  She finally got up at 7:45, just in time for her stocking and a quick breakfast before we headed to church.  We went to a beautiful church with nice music, beautiful decorations, and lots to look at.  Lex got squirmy near the end, but overall I think they both did really well.  Eve seems to love church.  She talks about it a lot and loves the music.  Then back to our house for presents!  Fun, fun.  Lots of good stuff, candy, toys, socks, and super cool calendars.  Wrapping paper everywhere.  Then I kicked everyone out so I could nap the kids (ok, really because I needed a break!)  I did a little tidying and started prepping for dinner.  This year I made lasagna and Barney made the turkey.  It was a pretty delicious meal.  Of course.

Today we spent unwinding, digging out the living room, running many loads of dishes, and eating chocolate.  That will be “disappearing” soon!

I put all of the pictures up on my Picasa account.  Check it out!

Christmas 2010

Merry Christmas!

Construction

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There was a lot of construction going on around here today. Check it out!

Under the futon

They started by reading stories under the futon (where else?)...

Lex under the futon

Then decided to do some construction under the futon.

Eve toolbox

Did I tell you about this toolbox that Eve made (with help) at preschool? It's awesome. She loves it and often "works" on it.

curls

Love those curls!

Builder Eve

Builder Eve. Isn't she cute?!

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve… excitement is mounting!

New curtains in the kids room

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Check out my snazzy new curtains in the kids room. I’ve been thinking about it for awhile now and slowly, slowly finally got around to doing something about it. We used to (until about an hour ago!) have a dark blue fleece blanket nailed up over the window and hanging down weirdly, but now there is a nice smooth curtain covering the window and a nice smooth curtain covering the ugly brown and painted door into storage.

new curtains

A big thank you to Julie for making the window curtain. It has 100% light blocking material on the backside so hopefully it will keep their room dark when needed. I had no confidence in my ability to sew multiple pieces of fabric together, sew on velcro, and make it all straight and perfectly measured. Good thing Julie can do all that!! As it was, it took me nearly forever to make the door curtain. Measuring, pinning, sewing (mostly) straight lines… hard work!! But doesn’t it look awesome!? The colors look much better in person, so next time you’re around remind me to show off the kids room :)

While I was taking pictures of the curtains Lex wanted me to take pictures of him. OK! He did some “super hero poses” for me. I’m not sure what kind of super hero this is, but I love it anyway!

Crazy Lex

Crazy Lex posing for the camera. These are his super hero poses :)

The holidays are upon us.

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My children do not handle the holidays well. I like to think I’m not the only parent in this position. I don’t know if it’s the excitement, the anticipation of family visiting, Santa, chocolate before breakfast, ice cream sundaes at school… or just the the proliferation of sugar in the air. Probably all of the above. We live in a great area with tons of things to do and sometimes I feel bad that we don’t take advantage of hardly any of it, but my kids just get so easily overwhelmed. Lex has been fighting school lately and I’m sure it’s because of this holiday craziness. He went to bed in tears tonight because he was hungry, but wouldn’t eat dinner. Eve has also been a whiny ball of fussiness. She used to be my best buddy for errands, but these days she never wants to leave the house. Maybe because it’s cold. I’m not sure. She stays home with Alan when I bring Lex to school and she even fought with me this morning about going to the grocery store. She used to love the grocery store! Now whenever you ask what she wants to do, she just “nothing, just hang out.” :) Anyway, one more week(ish) and then back to boring life. Sigh.

Joyce came to visit yesterday. Yay! (Hi Joyce!) Barney got here tonight. The parents arrive tomorrow. I’m super excited. I can see why the anticipation gets to the kids. It sure gets to me!

Fun with Joyce

Fun with Joyce