Dear Santa...

I sat down with Tess this evening to write her letter to Santa Claus. Jaime already bought presents yesterday, so it's a good thing Tess hasn't changed her mind about what she wants. Cause she's all about tantrums these days, and Christmas morn could have been an ugly one.

The letter gets right down to business: "Now bring me a dress at Christmas." So, I asked if she thought she should maybe say please and thank you. And so she said to add that in to the letter. I live with this girl, so I'm used to sitting in the living room and hearing her rude yell from the bedroom while watching tv: "Daddy...Daddy...I'm hungry...Bring me something...Daddy...Popcorn..." But I don't think Santa has spent enough time around her to know that while rude, she does mean well.

And she proved that right with the rest of the letter: "Please go to my friends." Sounds like an easy task, but she has lots of them. Lots and lots and lots. Girl friends and boy friends. Plus he needs to go to my friends' houses. That's a much shorter list, fortunately for old Santa.

My favorite part of the letter is where she signed her name. You can make out the T. The E isn't so bad either. She couldn't really figure out the S, but I'm a big fan of the way she does the A.

And that's all. Merry Christmas to you.

Death to the Vizier...

We waited a REALLY long time but finally upgraded from a crib to a toddler bed for Tess. I picked the bed up at the store today and put it together while Tess was watching Toy Story 3 in our room. It may or may not have taken me the entire movie to put the thing together. Stupid wooden slats needing to be lined up between 2 boards and I've only got two hands and as soon as I get one slat lined up on one end, the slats on the other end start popping out, and then the pegs fall out and @#$%@!!! There was a little bit of swearing until I remembered that I was in Tessa's room with the monitor that sends a signal to the receptor in my room (where Tess was watching her movie). Anyhow, speaking of awesome kid movies, Tess and worrying about what she picks up...Jaime posted this on Facebook and it keeps making me laugh:

Here's my vignette for the day of life with a 3 year old: You think you're just letting your daughter watch a harmless innocent show like Care Bears version of the Nutcracker, and the next thing you know you're in the grocery store avoiding weird looks from strangers while she practices her ninja moves in the cart and shouts "THE VIZIER WILL DIE WHEN I PUNCH HIM, MOM!"

When this happens, your first reaction is: what the h*** is she talking about? 2nd reaction: Did she just say "vizier"? 3rd reaction (remembering that stupid Care Bears DVD) Ohhhh....

From previous posts (here) you'd think we're really into fighting in this house, but it's all Tess. I don't have the heart to tell her that putting your arms out in front of you while yelling "PUNCH" over and over isn't going to do any damage to any Vizier.

Back to the bed...I put it together in record time without making Tess aware, and when Jaime got home, I had them both close their eyes and come into the room for the big surprise.

It actually took Tess a minute to realize there was something different in her room, but when she noticed, she jumped onto the bed and exlaimed: "Now I can get out of bed...at night! This is just what I've always wanted!" Yeah! That's what we've always wanted too! We finally can't keep her caged in!

She was so excited about her bed, in fact, that she chose not to eat all of her dinner and act like a little monster just so she could go to bed early.

When I laid her down in the bed, I reminded her that we don't get out of bed until it's sunny. So far so good:

It's the season...

Jaime does joy school every now and then. And last week she made gingerbread cookies with the kiddos. There was a little leftover dough, and as you've seen from previous posts, I'm pretty handy in the kitchen. So, Tess and I decided to make gingerbread monsters:

Pre-baking


Post-baking masterpieces (I'm a little annoyed they turned into cute little chubby monsters)...Except for the snake which ended up looking like something that would be worse finding baked in the oven than a snake: