Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

As expected, this Christmas was very exciting. Tessie gets it that Santa comes to our house to leave toys for her. She was very calm and excited to see him and sit with him at the mall. What she doesn't understand yet is that it is only one night. She has been asking to open presents every AM since, is still requesting that I read her Christmas books, wants to watch Rudolph, and didn't want me to put away the Manger because she still wants to play with it. We compromised and decided to keep everything up until New Year's Day. We visited with friends for Christmas and New Year's parties and had some of our friends over for a cookie decorating party. We have been trying to go to the library's storytime and, with the holiday rush, we steered clear of our mall (which by the way is filmed in the new Kevin James movie "Paul Blart: Mall Cop"). Between shoppers and the snow, traffic was congested for a while around here. We spent a bit of time at the local YMCA. It has a mat room that is perfect for toddlers to just run their energy out. She is pretty good at somersaults now. Tessie was able to enjoy the snow a little. She couldn't make a snowman (Tessie:"Snow's not sticky enough"), so we made snow angels instead. We kept ourselves amused by doing Christmas crafts and other holiday traditions like cutting our own Christmas tree and decorating a gingerbread house. Tessie even helped put stamps on Christmas cards this year. She loves to help out with things like that. On Christmas Eve we attended church and both of the kids did spectacular, especially considering the size of the Christmas crowd. We baked gingerbread cookies with Auntie Kris and left some for Santa along with a glass of milk and carrots for the Reindeer. She also left her pacifier and some toys she doesn't use so Santa could bring them to children who need them. I was surprised at the amount of toys she was willing to part with. Tessie was happy to see that Santa left trains for her along with some other surprises like a tool belt. She was also happy to play with gifts for Caden from mommy and daddy- which were actually toys that we gave her 2 years ago, hid last Christmas, and rewrapped for Caden. Funny how that works. Tessie has been doing fantastic with potty training. She wears pull-ups only at night. She has even been dressing herself lately when she wears pull-on type clothes. Tessie says that she a a princess, so she insists on wearing dresses every day, preferably blue (her favorite color is aqua blue). She outright refuses to wear jeans despite the color. Whose child is this?! She is going to be transitioned from the toddler room to pre-school this month- such a smart girl. The Star Spangled Banner is still part of her bedtime repertoire. I actually taped her singing it just after I posted my last blog. I hope you enjoy it.

She is still a good big sister to Caden. Tessie can make him smile and giggle like nobody else. He loves her. Caden is a moose. At 4 1/2 months old, he is already 16 lbs! He weighed bigger at his 4 month Dr. visit than Tessie did at her 6 month check up. He has learned to roll over- and alternately learned to NOT roll over because he doesn't like to be on his tummy. He is perfectly content to swing in his swing- as long as he doesn't reach the weight limit on it first! He sleeps better there than in his own crib. I'm still holding out hope that he will sleep 6 hours at night at some point. He likes to be held up standing so he can look around. He is deliberately reaching for things and pulling them closer to him. We have even put him into Tessie's Baby Einstein (like a walker that doesn't move) and he loves that. It gets very messy because he loves to blow bubbly raspberries, too. The kids are growing so fast.
I hope you all are enjoying the updates. Best wishes for a happy and healthy 2009!

By the way- I just want to give a plug to a couple of businesses really quick.
1) Keepsafeco.com is a company some good friends of our are starting up. They sell all sorts of gear for families. They are nice, honest people offering some unique items to buy online.
2) Signingtime.com is the company that makes the DVDs that Tessie adores so much. I give them all the credit in the world for creating fun, educational videos that have allowed Tessie (and us) to learn ASL and we hope Caden will learn too. I have used them with my Special Education Students at school, too. Request them at your local library or buy some for yourself.
Both companies are trying to keep afloat in this tough economy so keep them in mind for your own family or for gifts.

Almost 20 months

Happy New Year! I hope that 2007 treated everyone well.
First off, I know that I am late with this update. I wanted to include photos from Christmas so I thought I would just put it off by a couple of weeks. November and December have been very busy. Tessie is learning more and more words, so I won’t be reporting on that anymore because I can’t keep up with her growing signing and speaking dictionary. She has gotten I lot more signs since we found these “Signing Time” videos that we rent from the local library.
She has developed some serious interests lately, too. One in a furry, red, Sesame Street Character…I think Elmo is growing on us, too. She has also become very passionate about her art. She loves coloring with crayons (and watching mommy and daddy doodle a bit) and painting which is fun on special occasions. She loves to wash her hands in the sink all by herself. I do standby to control soap and faucets.
She also has become a more “independent thinker” in the respect that we think something needs to happen (eat/sleep/clean-up), and she thinks something else. I guess that’s expected at this age. She has also been showing more interest in the potty. She is able to say and sign it, then pull down her pants and sit on the potty. Unfortunately, this usually happens when she is already finished and she is still wearing her diaper. It’s a good start though. Tessie has also learned jumping both feet at the same time, so she now has added that to her repertoire of ways to get around the house. She especially enjoys jumping off of things like her (kid’s) armchair and potty. Her new favorite song/dance is the hokey pokey and it’s very cute to watch her twirl around with her little pointer fingers in the air. She has also learned how to walk around on her tippy-toes like a little ballerina…also very cute to watch. It’s like she knows that she is entertaining us…Such a ham.
Since I have been sending these emails for a while I thought that, like many people in the world, I should just start a blog. I confess that this is a copycat idea from friends who have done the same for their children, namely Viola and (the newest) lovely Sophia. I will continue to email the Tessie Fan Club to let you know when I have updated the blog. I have posted the previous updates, so it’s pretty neat to take a step back and look at how Tessie has changed. With practice I hope to be able to learn how to add more photos and videos.
You’ll also get to see more photos here, too, like out-takes from our Christmas Card photo shoot. Thanks to Grampa, and the new camera he gave me for Christmas you will be overwhelmed with even more pictures. Hope you enjoyed the blog update. Let me know what you think.