The Alleys

Wedding Pictures...

2012-01-28T11:11:00.000-07:00

Not all of the pictures Jaime took at the wedding were blurry. So, if you care to see them, I uploaded them into a Picasa album:

Click on the picture or the link:Dec 2012--Wedding

More from Christmas...

2012-01-28T10:02:00.001-07:00

We went to Lauren and William's wedding spectacular. After visiting Virginia for Thanksgiving, I had no plan on visiting that part of the country for Christmas. So, it was a dirty trick they played having the wedding in December just to see us again.

My parents got Tess a little kid camera for Christmas, and it is the best thing ever. If she doesn't make it in the NBA, I think she could have a career as a wedding photographer. And here is some proof:

Getting everyone lined up so she can take her picture:

This is the picture she was taking after getting them all lined up. It was fun to find this on the camera and see what she was seeing at that instance. She's not a big fan of straight forward portraits:

Here is proof of her skill and steady hand. This is a picture Jaime tried to take of the couple when they came out of the temple. Oh the blurry shame:

And then this is the same picture, but taken by a more skilled artist:

Although, going through her pictures, a good chunk of them look like this. When you're only 3 feet tall, you get a lot of pictures of crotches. At least I hope that is why there are so many of them on her camera:

These next two were the best. I don't know this guy's name, but he made a lot of faces for Tess to snap thinking it was just a toy camera. And then afterwards we told him it takes real pictures. It wasn't anything too embarassing, but I got a good laugh out of it, and Tess was a big fan of having a model:

And lastly, Tess is obsessed with all of her uncles. Even this guy for whatever reason:

So, she was super, super excited to get a new uncle for Christmas. And this picture kind of shows how much she was obsessed with him. Sorry Lauren.

Congrats!!! Tess has given you permission to print these images. She won't charge you anything.

No, Erin, it's not too late for Christmas pictures...

2012-01-24T21:32:00.001-07:00

...especially when they look like these.

Opening presents on Christmas Day with this lil' gal:

And this lil' guy:

I love making lefse. Probably my favorite family tradition.

We got to experience new restaurants that included giant pillars of fire:

Tess created her first drawings of recognizable things. This is our family. I almost cried, I was so proud. I think the ones with the super long legs are her parents:

And we got to play in the park:

And came home to a clean house. This is a painting I promised to paint for my sister many years ago. But I hate it, and so does my easel, which died after having to spend the whole Christmas break with it:

It was a good trip.

Phineas and Ferb...

2012-01-23T22:22:00.001-07:00

Tess: "Mom's at work, so we can watch Phineas and Ferb!"

Jaime, the intellectual tyrant, doesn't like us watching it because it's not educational enough. And I let Tess know that, so now we watch the show in secret. I'm pretty sure she learned the phrase, "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" from the cartoon.

Eventually I'll post pictures from the last month...

2012-01-23T22:17:00.000-07:00

Tess: "Dad, are you thinking what I'm thinking?"(asked while we were walking past the Kroger carts with the fake cars on the front for kids to ride in)

The (Lazy) Child's Prayer

2012-01-06T19:05:00.003-07:00

(while pointing)

"Thank you for this...
and thank you for that...
and thank you for this...
and thank you for that...

uhh.......thank you for everything we got here."

AMEN.

Dear Santa...

2011-12-20T16:07:00.002-07:00

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...

2011-12-12T20:26:00.003-07:00

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...

2011-12-06T11:40:00.003-07:00

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:

New Ultrasounds...

2011-11-22T18:06:00.003-07:00

It's a boy! And here is the proof. I apologize if male genitalia makes you blush:

I think this is the head, or the face, or jaime's spleen:

Good lookin kid. Can't wait to force him into playing basketball!

Still working on potty training with the girl. Just to give you an idea of how it's going now--she's banished to the bathroom while I type this for having an accident in the living room. One of the victims of this particular accident: her sticker chart where we document every time she goes on the potty. Yep, she just peed on it.

She's not a baby anymore cause she can talk...

2011-11-06T19:36:00.003-07:00

Tess celebrated her 3rd birthday today. We also participated minimally. After church, she made sure to tell every single person we walked past that it was her birthday. She's going to be as bad as her aunt Kellie--who celebrates her birth week.

For her birthday, she asked for candles. So, I got her some fancy ones that have the flame the same color of the candle. She thinks that we celebrate birthdays just so we have an excuse to light a stick on fire and blow on it. She LOVES it! So here are some pictures of our humble birthday bash.

Waiting patiently for the candles to be lit:

A couple of pictures of her blowing/spitting the candles out:

She won't admit to it, but in a pitiful attempt to turn back time, Jaime is sending Tess to bed in clothes that fit a much younger child. Looks like Jaime is having a hard time coping with her widdle baby being 3.

A couple of things...

2011-10-17T12:29:00.009-06:00

We went up to Kentucky this weekend for the wedding reception of our friend, Laura. It was a really nice reception and we got to see a bunch of friends we never get to see. Afterwards we drove down to my parents and spent the rest of the weekend at their place and had a fun visit with them. Anyhow, we came home last night, and I know I have a bad memory, but apparently so does Tess. We got inside and dropped our bags and then I had this conversation with her...
Me: I need to use the restroom and then I'll help you with blah blah blah
Tess (following me to the restroom): We have two potties in my bathroom
Me: I know.
Tess: There are two of them (shows me on her hands). One is a little potty for me.
Me: I know.
Tess: Two potties. (Looks at me as if to say "Stop interrupting, chump") The other is a white potty.
Me: I know.
Tess: The white potty is for you. (Apparently I really wasn't catching on, so she started talking very slow) It's big...and white. That potty is for you.

And now we've moved into the bathroom.
Tess (very excited): Look! There it is. That potty is for you.

...I just couldn't get over how determined she was to give me this refresher course on the bathroom. Fortunately, the conversation ended with her finding some other lost soul in the apartment to set straight and didn't end up like this:

You just can't get a few minutes to yourself when she's awake!

And another thing. If you bothered to check out our new banner, you'll have noticed a new ultrasound there. Perhaps you remember back to Tessa's ultrasound and how ultrasounds are just inkblot tests. Well here is the one we just had:

I sent the picture to my Dad and he said he was gonna need some help telling what he was looking at. So, I tried to help him out, and below is what I see. How about you? Jaime and my mom are really big fans of this picture:

Here is another of the little alien waving at us. I love ultrasounds:

And one more conversation with Tess dealing with the monster inside her mom. I had this one with her while Jaime was leaving the house:

Tess: Goodbye, Selvin inside Mommy's tummy. I'll miss you. (Then as an afterthought) See ya Mommy. (It's a long story--not really--but we have been calling the thing inside Jaime, Selvin. I know a Selvin, and I knew Jaime wouldn't like the name, so I started calling the baby that. And it's back-fired because Tess now calls it Selvin too.)
Me: You know, when the baby comes, we're going to give it a different name.
Tess: Nope. He has a name already.
Me: But we don't know if it's a boy. It might be a girl.
Tess: It's a boy in mommy's tummy.
Me: How do you know that?
Tess: Cause his name is Selvin. I believe it.
Me: But we don't know what it is. Don't you want a little sister?
Tess: No.
Me: Will you love the baby if it's a girl?
Tess: No.
Me: You want a little brother?
Tess: Yes. Selvin.
Me: Why do you want him to be a boy?
Tess: Cause he's not a girl.
Me: Should we name him Trimpi-nursher? (Tess made that name up a couple of weeks ago.)
Tess: Uh, that's a girl's name.

Obviously. She must think I'm some kind of moron when we talk. Sorry Tess and my old friend, Selvin. We won't be naming the baby that.

I updated our banner...

2011-10-15T10:10:00.001-06:00

That's all. I updated the banner.

Me: 1, Dora/Diego: 0

2011-10-12T13:31:00.001-06:00

What's happening now at the Alley home:

After 20 minutes of heated debate, arguing, and both sides showing their angry faces, Tess has finally accepted "muchas gracias" as the correct pronunciation of thank you very much. She was adamant it was "munas gracias", even claiming both Dora AND Diego had told her so.

And yes, I will argue with a 3 year old for 20 minutes.

Rita's in Atlanta...

2011-10-09T00:03:00.003-06:00

One of the things we were afraid we'd miss from philadelphia is now only a couple of miles from our home! this is from the date we all went on friday night. Tess paid so she got the first lick. after having kid, I understand much much better why my mom didn't like sharing drinks with us when we were growing up. I do remember her giving in from time to time. I don't know what she was thinking! The couple of times I've had a drink after tessa, I've felt like I needed a tetanus shot afterwards.

The next great thing...

2011-10-01T17:08:00.002-06:00

Tess showed some interest in the camera the other day...and by "interest", I mean that she demanded to be allowed to use it. I thought it would be interesting to see what happened, so I got out our older camera and showed her how to take a picture and sent her on her way. Her first photoshoot was pretty impressive.

It started out with a portrait of her favorite Dad:

And her best girl. She really captures both our essence and personality.

At one point while Tess was running around with the camera, I heard Jaime say, "Um, my eyes are up here, weirdo!"

I submit to you the greatest self-portrait ever taken...by a 2 year old...who is a quarter Samoan...in Atlanta...and is deathly afraid of slides.

The rest of the shoot seemed to focus on things that are important to her. Or maybe me:

A portrait of her comfy star blanket. It's a great self-portrait:

Her name. Referencing the egotistical nature of society today best exemplified by Facebook, Twitter and Blogs:

Her diapers. A love-hate relationship:

The Southwest (it's pretty):

Finally, she got a little crazy. I'm not sure what this is at all, and that's when I knew she had made it as an artist. It might be my face.

***Before any Ansel Adams fans get really angry, Tessa didn't take that picture of the Southwest. I hope I insulted your intelligence by typing that. I also hope at least one of you is dumb enough to think a 2 year old took that photo!

30 and still friendless

2011-09-03T00:16:00.002-06:00

This happened to me a couple of days after my birthday:

*Tess inches her way closer to the cookies in bags on the couch
Jaime: Those aren't for you, Tess.
Tess: Not for me?
Jaime: No. They're for Daddy's friends.
Tess (not fooled for a minute): DADDY DON'T HAVE NO FRIENDS!

Apparently she is convinced of that and explained to Jaime yesterday that Tess has friends and mommy has friends, but daddy doesn't. Poor lonesome me.

And then to add insult to injury...after very loudly explaining to us that it was ludicrous that she not be allowed to have cookies based off of made up people, she cornered me when Jaime left the room. Then she looked me straight in the eyes with an intensity I've only seen in starving animals stalking what could be their last meal. And finally, in a hushed tone so Jaime couldn't hear, she calmly (yet in a very condescending manner) explained to me that she knew I didn't have any friends and would die friendless in a nursing home if I didn't give her those cookies!

I'd like to get inside her head at some point. When Jaime told her why she couldn't have the cookies, it really was like Jaime had just tried to pull one over on her. I imagine her thinking to herself: Okay morons. Nice try. Daddy's "friends" need cookies. Since when did we start feeding cookies to the Xbox and TV ?

Are your kids this crazy?..

2011-08-14T20:21:00.002-06:00

Tess: Jesus is not a baby anymore.
Me: Nope. He isn't.
Tess: He is a prophet.
Me: He is the Savior. He saves us.
Tess: He saves us?
Me: Yes. And he makes us happy.
Tess: Sometimes we have to be mad.
Me: Um...But we always try to be happy.
Tess: Sometimes there are two men and they come to fight us and we have to be mad.
Me: We shouldn't fight them. We should try to be nice.
Tess: You don't have to fight them, Dad.
Me: Thanks.
Tess: When the two come, I will get them with my sword. Yes.

First blog post from my phone...

2011-08-11T23:41:00.001-06:00

She is a smart one. She has learned to write the letter T, and we find her creating T's all over now. like on the fridge. And, big surprise...she knows how to spell her name now! We found her dumping out all the bananagrams letters when Jaime's family was here, and then she spelled her name. That was after she started picking up handfuls of the tiles and let them trickle through her fingers while exclaiming: "taxes! Taxes!" (she had watched disney's robin hood the day before)

Massage Colon...

2011-07-23T21:56:00.003-06:00

In honor of our pioneers, we went to eat at a Taiwanese restaurant today. We'd never been to one, and we'll probably go back despite the second picture. I ordered this pineapple fried rice, mainly for the presentation:

The menu made this item look amazing, and it was pretty tasty. But when they brought it to us, it had a generous helping of brown fur sprinkled on top. Or at least it seemed like fur. It might have been ground up spiders. Or ground up pineapple tree bark. If you can identify this, let us know what it was...unless it really was fur or spiders.

Speaking of presentation. I have been "cooking" a lot lately (one pudding pie on Sunday and chicken tacos on Wednesday). A lot. It's made me consider starting a cooking blog. I took pictures of my pie to get the blog rolling, but Jaime said my presentation is no good. I made sure to do the whole food bloggy thing of taking pictures at sort of strange angles:

and zooming in real close on the food and having super blurry backgrounds:

But no, it wasn't good enough for Top Chef Jaime. Apparently pudding isn't supposed to look like this:

Doesn't all pudding come out with a few strange bubbles in it? Jaime refused to eat it because of the looks. But I got her back. The main ingredient in my chicken tacos on Wednesday was days-old pudding pie. Choke on that, Jaime! You've got to see the above image large. It's pretty amazing how I messed up something as simple as combining powder with liquid and stirring!

Anyhow, back to our day. After leaving the restaurant, I had to stop and take this picture:

We joked before going in to the restaurant that we hoped we wouldn't have to visit that place after eating the food. But after eating ground up spider fur, it might not be a bad idea.

Later on, we decided to continue honoring the pioneers by seeing a soccer game. Jaime got some groupon tickets for the game. When we got there, they were going to make us pay $5 for parking, but we showed them. All we had in the form of cash was $2.25. And they didn't take it. Usually, I would ask Tess for the money. I took her with me to a shoe store the other day to find running shoes, and somehow (because I am one of THOSE dads) we ended up with no shoes but a Dora the Explorer backpack instead. When she brought it to me, she said, "Can we bring this home, Dada." (She calls me Dada when she wants something). So, I said to her, "Do you have money to pay for it?" And she said yes, reached in to her imaginary pocket, pulled out the exact imaginary change and then held her hand up to me. She pays for most of our expenses these days the same way.

Anyhow, I couldn't get her to pay for parking because she had fallen dead asleep in the car. For the first 30 minutes of the game, we played Weekend at Bernie's with her and she never woke up:

This last picture is when she finally did wake up. Cheering on the Atlanta Silverbacks. Or the Silbacks or Soda Babs or Braves as she called them.

Dedicated to Erin...

2011-07-13T21:27:00.002-06:00

I actually had this whole thing written up before your comment on my last post. Very good timing!

I love photoshop. It may seem strange or cheating (it's definitely cheating), but I sometimes take a picture, load it on to the computer and think, "Well, that's not the way I remembered that," or, "That's not how I want to remember that." For example, I was trying to get a picture one day of Tess catching bubbles. But I was taking the pictures on an old phone, and I couldn't get fast enough to get the bubbles in between her hands:

So, I went in to photoshop and made it the way I had intended...the way I wanted to remember it:

A few more examples. Like this one at the beach in Jersey. This image by itself doesn't do the beach justice:

But a simple stitching together of multiple images did the trick, and this is how I wanted to remember it:

Here's one of Tess showing us all the stickers she put on herself:

But this is how I remember it:

(I don't want to brag too much, but you can see in the original, Tess didn't have the top of her head. I really shouldn't brag about that actually, since it was a very easy fix...)

This is a really old one of Tess walking down our driveway at Easter in 2010:

But in my mind, it was much more like this:

Really the whole purpose of this post was for those last two photoshopped images.

Tseas or Saste

2011-07-08T20:48:00.003-06:00

We had the missionaries over for dinner on Wednesday, and while we were chatting before dinner, one of the missionaries asked Tess if she knew how to spell her name. It was a bizarre conversation:

Him: Tess, do you know how to spell your name?
Tess: It has an S!
Him: It sure does. Do you know how to spell the whole thing?
Tess: It has an A!
Me: You're right, but do you know how to spell it?
Tess: It has another S!
Me: What else?
Tess: A T!
Me: And...
Tess: E!

I thought it was really strange, but also pretty amazing that she knew all the letters. Although, I'm not entirely sure she does know how to actually spell her name. Here's a picture that had a similar result as the conversation above:

So, I thought, "She's either a mixed-up genius, a smart-aleck or a little dummy." But then I started going through her emails, and found this forwarded message from one of her co-workers that somewhat cleared things up:

Subject: From Cambridge University. Olny srmat poelpe can raed tihs.

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs psas it on !!"

We srue do lkie our sarmt ltilte Tssea. We mghit eevn lvoe her at tihs piont.

Delicious Frozen Dairy Delight...

2011-06-24T13:09:00.003-06:00

Did you see the episode of Modern Family where Manny's friend tells him to put salt in his chocolate milk to make it taste better? Well, Tess wasn't convinced the salt alone would do the trick. So she added pepper to her Frosty...when I wasn't looking. She's a little too fast for me. Guess which of us then had to eat the peppered bite. Tess refused.

How to jump...

2011-06-12T20:17:00.002-06:00

From Tessa's self-help sessions: How to jump towards a better you:

I was pretty excited a couple of days ago when I came home from work and Jaime showed me Tessa's new trick. Tess has done this weird one-legged jump/skip thing up to this point. But now she's a pro at jumping. Even teaching lessons!

Also this week, I came home one day and Jaime says to Tess, she says: "Let's show Daddy what you learned today!" I was expecting something like spelling a word or solving a quadratic equation. But then Tess proceeded to roll on the ground--just one roll. Yep. Jaime taught our daughter this week how to roll over. I wasn't weirded out until Jaime gave her a biscuit, patted her on the head and said, "That's a good boy!"

Also this week, we were eating some Ramen noodles. It was a combination of a chicken packet mixed with a spicy one. After taking a couple of bites, Tess says to me, she says: "Mmmmmm Spicy! Yummy yum yum!"
To which I responded: "That's what I like to hear!"
To which she said very matter-of-factly: "I like to hear the birds go tweet, tweet, tweet."

Body Art...

2011-06-06T21:34:00.004-06:00

Tess has become obsessed with stickers lately. It's pretty cute, except after seeing the girl in this photo, it made me fear how much she likes body art:

But it's just stickers. So, I said, "No big deal. She's a kid."

And then she got home from her vacation in Virginia. Never again, Virginia. Never again.

What it's like taking pictures of Tess...

2011-05-07T20:16:00.005-06:00

You gotta be quick with the camera trigger. It's very hard to get her to pose and look at the camera at the same time. If we're lucky, we get one picture out of 73 where those two factors work out:

The other 72 pictures fall into one of the other categories below. Paying attention to something completely different, but pretending like she is still participating in the photo shoot:

Fed up with the camera's flash and completely ignoring everything but whatever is currently on the TV screen--even if it's just a reflection of herself:

And finally, giving not so subtle hints it's time to pack up the camera and move on:

She thinks she's so sneaky.

Moustache Tuesday...

2011-05-03T19:14:00.004-06:00

That's what we call Tuesdays at our house. I think we got these from Kellie for Christmas or my birthday. I love them, and I hope to receive more some day...mainly because my real face can't grow facial hair very well. The right side of my face actually does alright for itself, but the left side of my face forgot to go through puberty. It's weird. But so is your face.

Anyhow, the pictures. Tess was adamant that she also have a moustache, but didn't want her picture taken. She tried on 3, but it was hard to get a picture of her.

Handlebar's are the way to go:

This is Jaime. Hard to tell with the disguise. Moustaches make her angry, but I'll never start shaving more than once a week. Where does it end? If I start shaving my face regularly, then she'll get crazy ideas about me tweezing my eyebrows and shaving my back hair. Disgusting, I know.

I don't really have back hair. At least that I've seen. It's hard to see my back. Doesn't Tess look adorable with a Super Mario style moustache?

We got one picture of us together before Tess finally ruined all the fun. Do I look like a creepy version of my dad?

Professorizing...

2011-04-23T23:19:00.000-06:00

So many posts in a one day span. That should cover us for six months or so!

A new quarter just started for me, and I am teaching a class now that a number of my students from last quarter are taking. Apparently, I helped them catch up on their sleep, so they've signed up for this class as well. I actually got along really well with these students, including one student who was very upset with me on the first day of class this quarter. She had had trouble emailing me the written portion of her final project, and I never got it from her. So, her grade could have been in the B range but ended up being in the C range. This is the conversation I had with her about that:

Her: Mr. Alley, I'm very upset with you and your email?
Me: Oh? It wasn't my email's fault. I just never got your paper.
Her: I sent it like six times. I'm so angry with your yahoo account.
Me: I just never got it. I'm really sorr... Wait...What? Yahoo? I don't use a yahoo email account with students
Her: I sent it over and over to jalley at a yahoo account
Me: Nope. That's not me. I only use my school email.
Her: Then who the hell was that?! I was emailing them things all quarter, and they kept responding telling me I'm a good student and "Nice work"!
Me: ***just laughing
Her: Well, I guess I'm not mad at you anymore.

and... Scene___________________________________________

Here's another fun one. I've already told many of you this story. Last quarter I had to sit down with the Dean to go over my student reviews--where my students fill out a scantron rating my performance. Things were going well as we were reading over the comments on the back of the sheets where students can actually write things in. They were saying nice things like: "Mr. Alley made a class I dreaded taking into a good one." or "I loved this class!" Very nice things. And then the Dean comes to one and she can't make out the writing very well, so she reads, "Thanks for keeping your..." And she asks me to finish cause she can't make the rest out. So I start reading it, "Thanks for keeping your...clothes on!"

So, then of course, the Dean is a little concerned about why my students have to thank me for keeping my clothes on. I had to think about it for a minute, and then I remembered that during that quarter there was a professor at another school in the Atlanta area who had gotten naked in front of his class. So, it had been big news and we had even talked about it in class. But then I remembered, I had dug my own grave because while I was passing out the scantrons, I said to the students: "I'm not supposed to bias you in any way while you are filling these out to try and get you to give me good reviews, but just remember I'm not that one professor and I've never gotten naked in class!"

Luckily the Dean had a good laugh about it. And I'm sure she has started a special file on me. But I still have a job!

Anyhow, we're enjoying life in Atlanta and professorizing is the best!

Black Eye...

2011-04-23T22:40:00.008-06:00

Tessa's face got beat up pretty bad last week. If you think she looks bad, you should see the other little girl.

And by other little girl, I mean the stairs the little dummy barrel rolled down. It was one of the prettiest shiners I've seen. Unfortunately, I couldn't get a picture that really did this thing justice. It's the best (worst) black eye I've seen in a long time.

Here are some fun things about having a kid with a black eye:
--You basically have to stay indoors until it heals because people assume you are beating the kid.
--Telling someone your kid fell down the stairs and got a black eye sounds about as believable as "she ran into a door knob."
--Telling people your kid fell down the stairs when you live in an apartment without stairs makes you sound even sketchier.

Also, it's really neat when you invite some people over for dinner the day after she gets the black eye, and then realize the last time you invited them over, she also had a face injury. Which again makes telling someone, "She fell down some stairs" really believable!

Anyhow, Tess fell down the stairs at someone's house after play group. Fortunately, she is back to her normal self...as in she won't stop talking. She never stops talking!

Atlanta Temple...

2011-04-23T22:00:00.000-06:00

The Atlanta Temple is reopening. We've been able to help with the open house. Jaime helped put booties over peoples' shoes, and I helped direct traffic one night during a tornado warning. That was a fun experience having not had to worry about tornadoes for the last 10 years or so. It's nice to be back in the South! Jaime was in the car during the warning and ran into some big marble sized hail. Luckily no damage was done.

We also took Tess on the tour of the temple a couple of Tuesdays ago. She loved it, especially the Chandeweens (Chandeliers). And dancing in a circle in front of the temple. She thinks that circles were put on the earth for her to dance in.

Also, while standing in front of the temple watching Tess dance, I realized you can see my workplace from there--although you can't see the temple from my work. Who would have thought that 15 years ago when I came down to the temple on youth trips that I had seen the place where I'd be working today. I don't work in a bunch of trees. There is another building next to that parking garage behind the trees.

It's still crazy we're in Georgia. But we love it here!

Nice Weather...

2011-04-23T16:40:00.000-06:00

I don't know how much longer this nonsense is going to go on. Blogging is such a pain.

Anyhow, we've had some fun in the last month or so since our last post. And it has included some nice weather. There are a few nice parks in the area, especially the ones on the Chattahoochee. Here's a few pictures we took at the beginning of the month.

We found a little boat dock right on the water. Tess loves these things, and it's fun taking her down there, but at the same time we have to keep a hand on her the entire time because she would just jump right in if we didn't.

Dinosaur Identity Formation...

2011-03-13T18:03:00.003-06:00

Tess really likes to assign us all alter-egos from her favorite shows/books/etc. When she's thinking about Mulan, for example, I am "Captain Mommy," she is "Captain Tessa" (or "Tessa Tailua Alley, Captain") and Josh is "Mulan Daddy."

When she's thinking about Peter Pan, she is "Peter Pan Tessa," I am "Wendy Mommy," and Josh is "John Michael Daddy." (Also living in her Peter Pan imagination are "Captain Hook Kellie" and "Tinkerbell Shane," heh heh heh. I swear there is minimal seed planting on our parts to get these out of her.)

We used the last of our free movie passes to see Rango last weekend and for a few days after that we were "Rango Tessa," "Rango Mommy," and "Rango Daddy." I guess she didn't think the other characters were very memorable in that one. (As an aside, Rango = pretty good for supposedly a kids' movie! Although maybe too scary for actual small children...I was kind of nervous about Tess as we were watching it, but she is weirdly immune to scary things in kid movies and showed no signs of trauma either during or after.)

Anyway, she got a dinosaur book for Christmas and at some point (I think when we were all snowed in) I took this video. As you can see from her rockin' hairdo she and I had been playing hair salon. After her first trim at Christmastime she got really into getting and giving haircuts. :) So here is our conversation about our dinosaur selves. It was a good heart to heart. Lots of soul-searching.

There's something mildly disconcerting about how obvious it is to her that I am a T-Rex, I think. (Is it my weak arms? My extra-pointy canine teeth? Or just my towering size?? Hmmmm. After making this list I think she might have been onto something after all.)

Dream car...

2011-03-11T12:44:00.003-07:00

Wouldn't it be so cool to be able to tell your friends, "Yeah, I helped my friend's/in-law's/sibling's/cousin's sister drives one of those new all-electric cars." Wouldn't that make you feel good about yourself. Of course! Tell your friends and share the link!!!

You know you want her to win!!!

Watch my sister's awesome video and vote here so she can win an awesome new car: https://www.drivenissanleaf.com/Win/Vote.aspx?b=EU9ZM2XRCAWR.

My boyfriend wants to do skips with me...

2011-03-06T16:52:00.002-07:00

We found out yesterday that Tess has a boyfriend. She wouldn't tell me his name, but she did tell me, "My boyfriend wants to do skips with me..." That better not be a euphemism for something.

And here are some videos of her lately. This one is of her trying to watch her stories. She loves the TV and zones everyone out when it's on. It's her hobby. Am I right, mom? Tess puts up with a lot with us as her parents, but we've got to figure out some way to let her know we're superior. She's always thought of me and her as equals under Jaime. But for some reason, she has decided recently we're all on the same level. Jaime is no longer our evil overlord. So, here's Tess watching TV:

And here she is at Chipotle Friday night. These next two videos show she is definitely a product of both of us. She loves her salsa:

And this proves she is Jaime's. Jaime is the chorister at church, and Tess thinks it's really fun watching her mom lead the music (she might be singing in French). When I asked her the name of her song, she said: "On do ma fa.":

What's your favorite number...

2011-03-01T21:16:00.003-07:00

We were reading stories together this evening, and one of the books was a counting book. One of the last pages had all the numbers listed with a corresponding number of objects (like 6 bananas). So the page said to pick your favorite number and count the objects. This is how the conversation went with Tess:

Jaime: What's your favorite number Tess?
Tess: Dancing!
Me: That's not a number. Do you have a favorite number?
Tess: Yes.
Jaime: What's your favorite number?
Tess: Charlie and Lola!
Me: Nope. That's not a number either.
Jaime: Do you like the number 1?
Tess: Yes.
Jaime: Do you like the number 2?
Tess: No.
Jaime: Number 3?
Tess: N'es

.....That's another of her contractions. It either means maybe or I don't know. No + Yes = N'es

So, Jaime goes through all the numbers (well just 1-10--not ALL of them), and most of them Tess says she likes.

Jaime: So what's your favorite number?
Tess: Teddy bears!

And speaking of hating the number 2...Jaime decided it was high time to potty train Tess, and it's been going really well, as seen by this picture Jaime put up on Facebook:

Yesterday I called Jaime from work to see how it was going. She said Tess had already had a number of accidents and didn't seem bothered by them. In fact, Tess would wet herself (or worse), find Jaime, start dancing (because it's her favorite number) and sing: "I'm not learning! I'm not learning!"

N'on't...

2011-02-21T09:09:00.002-07:00

Learned a new word today from Tess. N'on't. As in, "No, don't!"
Jaime: "I'm gonna tickle you!"
Tess: Shrieks, "N'on't!"

It might be spelled no'n't.

February? More like first day of summer...

2011-02-19T20:10:00.002-07:00

Since it was in the 70s today, we spent all day outside of the house. That's what Atlantoids do. As soon as it hits 80, though, I'm going back inside the air conditioning. We didn't exactly spend the whole day outdoors, but we did do our best to wear out Tess.

We started by doing a little shoe shopping. Tess was absolutely obsessed with these mirrors. This is quite possibly the best picture I've ever taken:

Afterward, we were invited to play some frisbee golf with some new friends. Frolf. Jaime had never played before. And I had only played once, and it wasn't a great memory. This girl I really liked had just broken up with me (I won't mention names to protect her from the swift judgment you should all bring down upon her, but I eventually married her. That might help some of you narrow it down.). And so one of my roommates set me up with a girl and we all played frisbee golf. Frolf. I think it's great that both of my experiences with frisbee golf have involved playing with people I don't know very well. I'm not awkward...at all. It's probably not helping to endear me to frisbee golf. Frolf. And Jaime and I are both horrible at throwing a frisbee. I wanted to say we were both horrible at throwing it straight, but really we're just horrible at all aspects of it: straightness, distance, not landing it in hazards like muddy water/briar bushes, etc. We convinced Tess to tag along with us, even though she had offered to stay behind at the playground.

It finally got to the point where she kept telling us, "I need carry you, Mommy." That sounded great, but apparently that meant she needed to be carried. Similar to how she will tell us things like, "These peas don't like me," when she doesn't want to eat peas. Well finally after 9 grueling holes, we made it back to the playground. And played and played. I don't remember wanting to go down the same slide 20 times in a row as a kid, but that's the thing to do.

After tearing Tess away from the playground and making fun of her for saying things like, "What's happen to my eye?" after crying uncontrollably, we made it to the car and went for some ice cream. There's a place here that gives anyone under 40 inches tall a free ice cream cone(the promotion might actually say, "Any children under 40 inches"). So, we got Tess her very first ice cream cone! So our little girl who thinks something horrible has happened to her any time she has a tear rolling down her cheek or gets food on her hands, ended up like this:

She just doesn't like being dirty. Some how she got ice cream on her back. We're not sure how that happened.

When we finished ice cream, we piled back in to the car and drove down Riverside Drive on the banks of the Chattahoochee. Tess had fallen asleep before we got out of the parking lot. 9 holes of frisbee golf really wears a kid out. This is her on the couch after we got home wiped out:

She did wake up long enough to eat a few things and build some lego hammers. But she was asking the whole time to go back to bed. She's a strange one. Jaime got her all ready for bed, put her in bed and left the room when Tess started crying, "Help me. Help me. Let me out! Let me out! I wanna dance! Please. Please. Daddy, help. Please, Dada. I wanna dance!" How can I say no to that? So, we finally ended the day with a slow dance around her room, and now she seems to have gone right to sleep. What a weirdo.

I need a Hammer...

2011-02-11T18:17:00.003-07:00

Legos are the best. Ever. That's been proven scientifically. In multiple studies.

Tess got a bunch of legos for Christmas, and it's been really fun the last couple days seeing how creative she gets. I'll show a few of her most recent creations:

Exhibit A:

Me: What is that Tess? The letter T?
Tess: Yes!

Exhibit B:

Me: What is that Tess? The letter T?
Tess: No. It's a helicopter.
--then she twirled around the room flying her helicopter.

Exhibit C:

Me: What is that Tess? A helicopter?
Tess: No, it's not a helicopter. It's a hammer!
--it's been a hammer since.

This is her cheesing for me, when I asked her to smile. I should have videotaped it because it was one of the first times she has smiled on command for me. So, more like constipation than glee.

This was a little better:

Don't you love the colors on her hammer? We were listening to one of my favorite Bob Marley songs when she built it. She da rasta baby mon! Listen to it:
Hammer by Bob Marley

Centennial Park...

2011-01-29T23:02:00.004-07:00

We got hit by an ice storm here in Atlanta. It shut the city down for a week. We were basically living like cavemen...except with central heating...a fridge full of food...TV...internet...So, yeah, it was pretty rough. But we survived. This is how we pretty much spent the entire time stuck inside:

Did you notice those were taken on two different days? She got off the chair long enough to change her clothes. Luckily, this week has been surprisingly warm (at least to us--it might be normal for Atlantans). Because of the great weather, we decided to finally explore some of the city. We were going to go to the Aquarium, but decided in the end to not spend money, and we played in Centennial Park for free instead. Tess was in heaven. Unbeknownst to us, children actually like playing outdoors from time to time. And picture bombardment:

Playing around the olympic rings fountain. We're excited to come back here in the summer when it makes sense to play in these.

The park had a couple of playgrounds that Tess couldn't get enough of:

AAAAaaaaaahhhhhh...

2011-01-29T22:56:00.002-07:00

I've really tried to encourage Tessa's creativity...until now. Jaime and I were having a pleasant conversation on the couch the other day, when Tess brought her latest masterpiece to us:

We lock our bedroom door at night now. I'm pretty sure I've seen this exact picture in a horror movie. Why are little kids so creepy?

I win...

2010-12-21T22:48:00.003-07:00

High Museum...

2010-12-18T19:50:00.008-07:00

Guess which exhibit we went to see today at the High Museum...

That's right, the Salvador Dali exhibit. It was a spontaneous trip. Jaime swears I didn't tell her beforehand that we were going, but I'm pretty sure I let her know well in advance...as we were getting in the car to run a couple of errands.

We dragged Tess along too. We mainly got her to agree to it by telling her we were going to ride the train downtown. On the train:

Doing Tess' hair on the train cause there wasn't time before. I woke up at the crack of 9:45 when Jaime was bringing Tess into the bed as she was running out the door for choir practice. Then Tess and I got a little too caught up watching cartoons to bother with combing our hair. So, Jaime stepped up on the train. I at least got her dressed. It's funny how she always picks her "I love my daddy" shirt when I help her get dressed.

At the museum, she made sure everyone (in Atlanta) knew she didn't want to be there. I guess it might have had something to do with it being her naptime. Luckily, the museum does have a childrens area, so Tess got to do a little painting. We let the museum keep her masterpiece. No charge. We like to support our local museums.

Finally leaving. She's happy again because we're heading back to the train:

Baby Cheeses...

2010-12-10T22:36:00.005-07:00

Not too long ago, we went to see a nativity festival held at our church. When we got there, Tess was wiped out. Luckily for my back, she stayed asleep the entire time we were walking around looking at the nativities.

Luckily for everyone else, Tess woke up when we sat down to listen to the music by a couple of choral groups. Jaime got to sit and enjoy most of it, but Tess and I had to go out into the hall so Tess could finish her solo. She really got into the Christmas spirit and was singing a very moving rendition of the Itsy Bitsy Spider when I dragged her out into the hall.

They had tons of different nativities from all over the world. We only took a couple of pictures, including this one. It was taken after we were leaving. The decision to leave was made when Tess and I came back in to the concert, and her solo started right back up again.

One nativity even had live fish as part of the display, but I didn't get a picture of it. We did at least get one of the best nativity there:

Oh, and you get double points if you got the reference from this post's title.

That's my girl...

2010-12-06T16:44:00.002-07:00

Ever since Tess was born, all I've heard from everyone is: "oh Jaime's hair is so pretty. I sure hope she gets Jaime's hair. Have you seen how nice Jaime's hair looks today? I sure do hope Tess gets her hair..." Blah blah blah. I don't get it:

One thing we have started to notice is how much Tess will rival me for most amazing bedhead. I woke up the other day with a flock of sea gulls double faux hawk thing going on. This morning Tess woke up with this rat's nest. She wasn't cooperating when we wanted a picture. "no, daddy. I'm having a bad hair day." What a girl!

She has some good bedhead, but still hasn't reached my level. When she wakes up with bed eyelashes, I will be one proud dad!

5 Moves in 5 Years...

2010-12-03T09:37:00.006-07:00

We are reunited! Over Thanksgiving break, we met up in Raleigh and then we all drove down here to Atlanta. It's been interesting. Jaime said she realized she was back in the south when we stopped for gas in one of the Carolinas, and she overheard some lady trying to trade some meat for gasoline! Then the next day after making it to Atlanta, Tess told me, "No, Daddy. I not move a Georgia." That initial rejection seems to have worn off.

Jaime let me know this is our fifth move in five years. So even though we aren't particularly close to any family (my parents are now about 5 hours from us), we hope this one sticks for a while.

Previously, I had been updating our header image every now and again when big events happened. So I've done that in honor of our big move to Atlanta:

I've also included some of our previous headers. This was done around the time we moved to Philadelphia and Tessa's blessing:

And this is our first one with the mountains in Provo and ultrasound of Tess:

We were really sad to leave our family behind in Philly, but every thing about this move and job has been mind bogglingly amazing. We love you the Raines family! and you too Kellie.

My new favorite artist...

2010-11-10T16:08:00.003-07:00

I thought Jaime might take over the blogging for me while I'm settling into life in Atlanta, but alas...

Here's what's new:
--I live in Atlanta
--Jaime and Tess don't
--Tess is 2 now (I have all the pictures, so Jaime definitely won't be showing you that.)

That's it. But here's my new favorite artist:

I love it! It really captures my essence.

espanich...

2010-09-26T12:27:00.000-06:00

Me: Te amo, Tessa.
Tessa: Ti elmo, Daddy.

Our TV debut on Jimmy Fallon...

2010-09-23T08:58:00.010-06:00

We abandoned Tess with her aunts yesterday so we could go to NYC and try to get standby tickets to Jimmy Fallon. And it worked! At the end of the show, Jimmy and his chef guest passed out treats to the audience. See if you can find us in the crowd. We're in the clips that show the chef.

Jimmy gave me a cupcake! We're basically BFFs 4eva 4life now.

While waiting to see if we could get the standby tickets, we passed the rest of the day at the Met. I found some new favorite works of art. This one is pretty great:

But this is my new favorite:

Guess which Katy Perry song we were singing when we saw this one:

This was probably Jaime's favorite. I think she stared at it for a good 7 and a half minutes. Pervert.

The last time I was at the Met (years ago), I didn't get to see any of the ancient stuff. So, even though we killed our feet walking around the whole museum, it was worth it:

Here is Jaime on the roof garden:

This work was up on the roof garden. Very cool.

Flugtag...

2010-09-19T21:48:00.004-06:00

3 days after my birthday, Kellie finally gave me permission to celebrate. So we went to flugtag to see all the human powered flying machines. Most of which fly about as well as a large rock.

Here's the record flight, so you can see what the goal is:

And here is an ad showing what usually happens:

We took a shuttle over to Camden from Independence Hall to see this, which wasn't the best idea. Here's what our ride over in the shuttle looked like. There were so many people:

Shane and Ashton came down after us and actually got to the place before us. Then it took forever to find them amongst the 85000 people there. Tess was very happy to have found them, but she was a bit wiped out.

Nothing a little Red Bull can't fix! Having her first one ever:

Because we were so late getting there, we never had a good view of the barge where the flying machines take off. So after it ended and people cleared out, we went down to the riverfront to see things up close. This is the crew pulling some of the last remains of a craft out of the water:

Us with Philly behind us. Notice Tess still won't give up her Red Bull:

Instead of taking the shuttle back to Independence Hall, we decided to walk back over the Ben Franklin Bridge.

It was a long walk, and we stopped every now and then to take more pictures. Some crazy ladies on the bridge:

Standing on the bridge looking at nasty New Jersey on the left and Philly on the right.

PS-we didn't really let Tess drink the Red Bull. We told her she would have to wait til she was at least 3 before she could have that strong of a drink.

Kellie's Birthday in Philly...

2010-09-19T21:31:00.003-06:00

To celebrate Kellie's birthday (which incidentally is mine too, but I'm not allowed to celebrate it until Kellie gives permission), Miriam and Shane took us all down to Philadelphia to eat at Max Brenner. It was pretty much amazing. Dessert for dinner is always a good thing!

Afterwards, we walked around the city a little and went down to see the Love statue. Aaaawwww. Love. Blah blah blah.

Twin powers unite! Kellie claims I made her pose like this, but she's obviously the one having the most fun with it. She's so weird.

Here she is again.

And one last shot of the group walking back to our car. We all piled in to our station wagon. There were 7 of us, and we still could have fit one more person! Miriam and Ashton rode in the very back where the seats face backwards. Luckily they both only way 70 pounds which is the suggested weight limit.

More catching up to do...

2010-09-19T20:57:00.003-06:00

At the end of August, many of Jaime's family came to visit us. So we unceremoniously threw all of Kellie's stuff to curb to make room for everyone, and left a note on the locked door telling her to come back in a few days. Our apartment isn't very large.

It was pretty cramped, but it was a good visit...despite our nosey neighbor threateningly asking all these brown people what they were doing snooping around our garage.

We also took everyone downtown to see Independence Hall. The first picture is of everyone eating Philly Cheesesteaks. A must.

We had gotten tickets when we arrived to go through Independence Hall. Waiting to get in, Tess had fun and entertained Grandma:

After the tour, we took a family picture. I tried to combine it with another one so that you could see the whole statue and the bell tower behind everyone. But they were taken at different exposures. So it looks good small, but not the best large.

However, the original of the family is great:

Finally, here is our little family and then Jaime with the Liberty Bell.

How I waste my time lately...

2010-09-09T13:34:00.005-06:00

I have a pretty obsessive personality and go from hobby to hobby fairly quickly. Here is my latest obsession. Equirectangular panoramas and stereographic projections. These are 360 degrees by 180 degrees panoramas which can be warped into a small looking planet. I think they're really interesting especially because you get to see so much all at once.

To give you an idea of how it is done, here's how it starts. I don't have a very good camera, so I have to rotate 360 degrees around one spot taking 60 to 80 pictures to get the whole panorama. The below image shows those images all together. You might want to click on it to see it bigger. This small, it is hard to look at:

I put those images into a nice little program I have, and it stitches them together to create the Equirectangular Panorama. So then it more or less turns into this:

After the program has combined the images, I have to go in and make some corrections in Photoshop--usually to erase my gut, which you can see a few times in the first image! I was lazy with the above image and only corrected a few parts of it. So there are lots of spots where the stitching doesn't match up, but you get the idea.

Finally, using the same program, I can then turn the 360 degree panorama into a small planet (Stereographic Projection):

I'm also putting up two more that I did a few weeks ago.
Commodore Barry Bridge:

Swarthmore Train Station:

If you want to see more of my little planets, head over to Flickr.

And that is how I waste my time.

Tess vs the Volcano

2010-09-05T14:44:00.004-06:00

We have no idea what started this or why she thinks there is a volcano in our neighbor's yard.

Trying not to be so lazy about blogging...

2010-09-04T21:19:00.004-06:00

We've had a pretty fun last month or so with family. And so there are some things to write about, but I've been too lazy to do it. On the 23rd of August (Tuesday), we drove down to Raleigh to see my sister. I actually only stayed an hour and left Jaime and Tess there so I could drive down to Atlanta for a job interview the next day. Then after my interview, I drove right back up to Raleigh, and got to spend most of Thursday with Erin and her boys.

Here are some of the highlights from the trip:

Marbles Museum
Erin and her boys really enjoy this museum, so we thought it would be a fun day activity. Jaime's cousin Chelsea and her two kids also met us there. I think everyone had a great time.

Tess hiding inside a safe:

Tess definitely loved the place. Her favorite area was the Splash Zone, and she had to be dragged kicking and screaming from it.

Not too sure about her cousin's driving:

So she found her own ride:

I love this picture. Jaime and Chelsea wanted to get a picture together with their kids, and then my nephew (striped shirt) decided to jump in as well!

Members of the Alley clan:

Driving through South Carolina
I'd never been to South Carolina before. In one of the Carolinas I saw this huge water tower that instead of having the boring old bulb on top, had a giant peach. It was neat, except it would have made more sense to me in Georgia.

That one time I got a job not scrubbing toilets
While my nephew was jumping into pictures, I was on the phone listening to a voice mail message from the people I interviewed with telling me they were really impressed. So then I had Jaime listen to the message, and her face deleted it. I've been scrubbing toilets to put food on our table and been completely stressed out for the last 20 months with my crummy job situation, and finally someone shows some interest in hiring me for a job I would love and HER FACE DELETED IT! Luckily, the lady that called, also sent me an email and I was able to reach her. And...they gave me the job! I'm sure most anyone that reads this blog already knew, but we'll be moving to Atlanta in the near future where I'll be teaching at the Art Institute of Atlanta.

Our Big Fat Greek Anniversary...OR...5 Years and Goin the Distance...

2010-08-20T08:25:00.014-06:00

We spent a week trying to figure out what we wanted to do for our anniversary, and finally just decided to do a couple things that ended up being Greek themed. First, we went down to Fairmount Park in downtown Philadelphia to walk around the Water Works. Some of the buildings are Greek in their architectural style and fit in nicely with the Museum of Art in the background:

We got down there around 7 and had a dinner appointment at 8, so we just wandered around and watched the sunset.

Hard to believe it has been 5 years. Look at these skinny babies:

And now we're fat and old...well at least one of us.

After a nice walk with the sun setting, we went to Zorba's (I may have just made that name up) for some Greek food. Don't tell our vegetarian sisters, but I ate a lamb. Unbeknownst to me, the restaurant was BYOB, so we were stuck drinking water.

I decided to try and take one last scenic shot before leaving the park, and asked Jaime to stay out of the picture. So this is what happened:

Once dinner ended, it was only 9pm and my sister was babysitting all night (thanks Kellie!), so we decided to really turn up the romance. We went back to the Museum of Art for their open air cinema where they were playing one of the best chick flicks of all time. It ranks up there with Braveheart. ROCKY!!! It was a strange anniversary date, but it was really fun watching it on the same steps that he runs up in the movie. And being with a bunch of Philadelphians cheering every time there was any sort of Philly reference added to the fun. It was a Rocky marathon (I-III), but we didn't have it in us to go the distance. We just watched the first. This was our view, taken with my phone's camera:

And somebody else took this picture and posted it on Flickr. Roll your mouse over this image to see where we were sitting. You can't miss Jaime's hair and long legs, even in a blurry silhouette:

Since I didn't take this picture, I should give credit to rollingroadshow. I think this is the group that actually put on the movie.

Does Tessa love YOU?

2010-08-16T08:39:00.003-06:00

Did you hear that Josh's twin sister Kellie is living with us now? No? Well, Josh's twin sister Kellie is living with us now. There are lots of perks to this situation for us, not least among them being that she has a fancy MacBook Pro laptop that she lets us look at sometimes. I won't lie, it's pretty dreamy. As much as I love and appreciate my five-year-old Dell clunker - which has been a loyal companion throughout almost our entire marriage, consistently gets a better wifi connection than Josh's newer computer, and even survived falling from the roof of a moving vehicle that time last winter when I forgot it was up there on my way to Miriam's house (Yes. Yes, I did that.) - Kellie's laptop is undeniably a sexier piece of technology. Part of me feels like a cheating dirtbag for saying so, but there it is.

Tessa is particularly fascinated by the camera function on Kellie's laptop. Here she is a few days ago having a chat with Kellie while I am in the background writing something for the family email newsletter. (You may notice that I don't actually have my laptop on my lap. This is because the screen doesn't hold itself up anymore and now has to be propped up by the arm of the couch. I really need to jerry-rig it with duct tape or some other equally classy solution. "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without," as Grandma would say!)

Anyway, if Tessa doesn't mention your name here, I wouldn't worry about it too much. She probably still loves you. Just not as much as Uncle Shane. :)

Is this even the same kid...

2010-08-09T22:45:00.003-06:00

For some reason I think it is hilarious putting grown up glasses on Tess. These are my glasses, and I have about the weakest prescription possible, so no one needs to worry about the fact that I some times duct tape these to Tessa's face for days just for entertainment. I maintain she had that lazy eye before I started this.

Since the girl was a few months old, I've let her try on my glasses. That's right. "Let" her--not force her. She loves it...which is obvious from this picture of her at 3 months:

And here's one from just this last weekend:

She's just the cutest lil nerd that ever was.

Hair did...

2010-07-06T22:21:00.005-06:00

Tess is a big Lady Gaga fan, or so it would seem. When we told her that we were going to New York to celebrate the 5th of July, she only agreed to come along if she could wear her hair in some sort of ridiculous Dr. Seuss inspired mohawk/mullet. Ah, sweat. Mother Nature's hairspray:

Just to let you know how fun of a day it was for the poor little girl, compare her hair in this picture from the beginning of the trip:

From the Mouths of Babes...

2010-06-29T15:40:00.002-06:00

Awright, awright, awright, awright.

Blogging Shmblogging...

2010-06-16T21:49:00.005-06:00

Thank you Mama. This went on for like 10 books. I wasn't quick enough to catch the whole thing. Just the end.

Tess has turned in to a polite little girl, although she is a liar. Every time I ask her if she has pooped, she says, "No." Usually she is flat out lying. She knows it. I know it.

Anyhow, she is polite. When I thank her for doing something, she responds by saying, "Thank you, daddy." And I say, "Thank YOU, Tess." And then we go through that about 17 times before we both get too bored or angry with the other's stubbornness.

Happy International Museum Day!

2010-05-18T17:04:00.015-06:00

To celebrate this renowned holiday we took advantage of free admission at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It was great because our personal tour guide (Josh) came along too. We've had a hankering to visit there for a while, but hey, $15/person is exprawnsive, man! Free, though? Free we can handle.

I did Tessa's hair up cute for the occasion - check out her first pigtails!!! I nearly died from the cuteness of it all. She nearly died from my squeezing the life force out of her and saying shmoopy things like "Ohhh! My baby's not a baby anymore!"

I had to turn on Dora to get her to stay still long enough for me to do them.

We had a great time looking at pichurs (and sculpchurs) at the museum. Here are Tess and I with a Rothko:

And with a large hanging Calder mobile:

We found this painting by Edouard Vuillard a little disturbing, though:

It wasn't the picture so much as the caption that made us do a double take:

Here are Tess and Josh outside in front of the Rocky steps:

And lastly, here is a video of Tessa taking a cue from Dada and giving us an art history lecture. Hope you enjoyed International Museum Day as much as we did!

It doesn't have to last forever to be everlasting...

2010-04-18T20:28:00.006-06:00

My dad told me that quote after I had told him about a text message I got from Jaime this last week. Any of you that have ~~endured~~ been blessed to be part of a Toiaivao family prayer might enjoy this text:

Tess was saying UP! UP! during prayer tonight, so I picked her up, and she got right in my face and said, MAMA, AMEN!

I love that little girl! Much braver than her daddy.

And here are some pictures of her from my cellphone:

Valley Forge...

2010-03-29T17:43:00.011-06:00

After a year of living in this area, we finally decided to go to Independence Hall and to see the Liberty Bell this week in downtown Philly. We decided to wake up early and leave the house around 7:30am to be first in line for tickets to the guided tour. So, of course, we woke up around 9! And then we decided to go to Valley Forge instead, another site we hadn't visited yet. It was a great day, although cold. Here are some pictures:

Tess as George Washington:

Jaime as ole George:

My awesome parenting skills on display...Trying to get a picture of the baby climbing on a cannon instead of realizing she was about to fall backwards, hit her head and scream bloody murder:

America's Arch de triomphe. I told Jaime to get a picture of me and Tess in front of the arch. She said okay and then added, "Try to stand so I can get a picture of those brazilians' big ole butts!"

Tess' favorite part of the trip--a stone stump in front of the arch that she thought was her personal seat:

Look how big this giant girl (Tess) is getting:

This is her pointing and saying, "Two," to her mom...meaning: "There is a second stump over there Mom. You should leave me alone and go sit on that one and stop trying to keep me from falling backward onto my head like I did at that cannon."

Tess' other favorite spot--leaning over her mom and dipping her hands in the creek...just like George Washington used to do.

And walking on a wall while holding her dad's hand...just like George Washington used to do:

Naptime?

2010-02-21T13:56:00.004-07:00

On the way home from church Tess fell asleep in the car. This is not unusual, and normally we can peel her coat and shoes off and deposit her in her crib without a hitch, but today she woke up mid-transfer. She was still groggy, so we tucked her in with her trusty blanket and dog and hoped she would drift back off.

Twenty minutes later it was clear that she was not sleepy at all anymore, but AWAKE! AND READY TO RUN MARATHONS EVEN!

Jumpajumpajumpajump!

Sore loser...

2010-02-19T23:57:00.002-07:00

When we bought a Wii, we got it so the whole family could enjoy it, and Tess LOVES playing Wii. More often than not, when I am in the living room, she will run to the tv stand, pull out the drawer where the controllers are kept and bring one to me while she keeps the other so we can play.

So, yesterday I sat down on the couch to watch some Olympics, and Tess swaggers over, pointing right at me, looking me right in the eyes and talking a whole boat load of trash about how she's gonna mop the floor with me in tennis. She says to me, she says, "When I get done with you Dada, you're gonna be pickin green felt out ya teeth!" No lies. I felt it was only right to humble her a bit. Jaime taped the end of the game, when I made that baby eat her words. It turns out she has her Grammy's competitive nature combined with John McEnroe's fiery temper. Sore loser.

I dominated that mullet-headed little girl.

Doppleganger week...

2010-01-30T13:37:00.004-07:00

As a lot of you have noticed on Facebook, it is doppleganger week. Apparently you are supposed to change your profile picture to an image of some celebrity that you supposedly look like. Jaime and I decided to choose for each other. Results below--roll your mouse over the images to see our dopplegangers.

Baby say what?..

2010-01-05T23:53:00.008-07:00

Tess gets upset when Jaime walks out of a room and closes a door behind her, thus separating them FOREVER. A while ago, I started noticing that she says the exact same thing every time it happens. And I need help figuring out what it means. Luckily I was able to finally catch it on video while we were in Richmond:

The first time I heard her say this, I could have sworn she had just told me, "Mama is dead!"

Now when I hear it, though, it sounds more like she's been hanging out with a bunch of hispanic people and has picked up some espanglish: "Mama estay!"

Someone translate for me.

Christmas Day...

2010-01-04T11:02:00.008-07:00

Merry Christmas! Even if it is a little late. We celebrated Christmas with my family in Philadelphia. My Christmas present to Tess this year was this amazing set of pajamas. Who would have thought that the price of Halloween gear would be so reduced around this time of year? It's an elf skeleton, so it goes right along with the holiday spirit.

Tess had a great time opening presents and pulling the goodies out of her stocking:

In the first picture, she's doing her sign for "more", which makes perfect sense because when she got done pulling things out of her stocking, she went straight for everyone else's. Including her cousins'

And Uncle Shane's.

Later in the day, since there had been a blizzard earlier in the week, most of us went sledding. It was good we went when we did because the next day we got rain and it got rid of ALL the snow.

Blizzarding...

2009-12-26T08:54:00.017-07:00

We just remembered that we have an interblogs that needs updated. Luckily, we have lots of pictures to put up here. Last month, Tess survived her first blizzard, and got to play in some snow for the first time. We put a bunch of layers on the poor girl. We should have taken a video because she looked just like the kid from A Christmas Story. She couldn't move her arms or legs and if we let go of her, she would just fall over.

It was still snowing when we went out. The girls played for a little bit.

While I tried to clear off the cars.

But it was really all in vain since the next morning all of the snow had been replaced by new snow.

Tess really wasn't all that impressed, and was much more interested in getting back inside to continue her expeditions on the plastic containers in the living room.

4 legs in the morning, 2 in the afternoon...

2009-11-14T21:05:00.000-07:00

Over the last week, Tess had started letting go of the couch and trying to take a couple of steps. Usually that is as far as she would get. The best was when she took one step with her left foot, didn't fall and then took two more steps with the same foot. It was like watching a fish swim with one fin. This first video was taken on my phone. It's awful quality. But it was taken right after Tess suddenly decided tonight that she could, in fact, walk. And then it turned into a game. She would let go of the couch, take some steps, fall down and then crawl back to the same spot on the couch to start over.

This video isn't that great, except it ends with Jaime saying: Yay...What a..." And it cuts off. Feel free to assume Jaime said any number of horrible things.

She can even walk in pants.

Chocolate baby...

2009-11-14T20:18:00.014-07:00

Tess is a year old. 12 months. Basically a teenager now.

Since we forced her to dress up as a monkey and paraded her around for others to laugh at her on Halloween, we decided to make her birthday all about her. We took her to Target to let her pick out some party favors. Tess wanted us to get this hat for her and to call her "Your Majesty" all night. We did neither.

Afterwards we took her to a toy store, and Tess was in heaven. Her arms were basically flailing wildly from the time we went in until the time we went out. And then there was cake. This is Tess eyeing the cake:

Touching the cake...not sure what it is. Is that chocolate or poo? Chocolate or poo?

It's chocolate. Both hands in. This could be good.

Oh yeah! This is promising. Not entirely convinced yet.

GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY CAKE!!!

Saving some in her hair for later.

This is the best birthday party I've ever had!

And here's a video. Not too exciting. It might have some part of her sucking the cake off of her hands. It was pretty nasty.

And the after party just got hotter...We got her a little walker that also is part awesome four wheeler.

This is a video of her walking with it.

Brass Monkey...Chunky...

2009-11-01T20:47:00.005-07:00

Celebrating Tessa's first Halloween. Here we are arriving at a Chili Cookoff/Trunk-or-treat at the church.

It was raining in Philly, so instead of having the kids go around begging for treats at everyone's cars, we all stayed indoors. Tess and I took a walk down the hallway to check out what candies were available.

We decided not to actually walk around with her collecting candy. Instead we gave her one wrapped up ring pop, and the crinkling plastic kept her attention until the trick-or-treating was done.

So we just hung out with Aunt Miriam and passed out candy.

By the end of the activity, this is how our little angel was feeling. And we didn't even make her walk around a neighborhood. Afterwards we went home, passed out candy to the neighborhood kids and watched the Phillies lose.

A few more new videos...

2009-10-25T18:14:00.000-06:00

Kisses and Hugs:

Future Band Leader of America:

Have Your People Call My People:

Ready for Halloween...

2009-10-20T21:55:00.003-06:00

...our little monkey is! I'm going to have to clip that little pink bow (or something even more conspicuously girly) to her ear to fend off the inevitable comments about what a cute son I have.

Notice how she's holding her favorite matching monkey friend. We love this girl!

She's using her words now...

2009-10-03T19:55:00.003-06:00

...and she has at least three of them!

I think she thinks "nana" means all food. Here's why: when I feed her banana, I always say "nana" but I haven't really been telling her the names of anything else I give her. And then whenever I'm cooking or I have food that she wants to eat, she crawls up and says "nana" over and over again. In between saying "nana" she opens her mouth to make it clear she wants a bite.

She's not confused at all about who her mama is, though. And she's getting a pretty solid grip on the dada concept too.

Because we like to entertain ourselves more than her sometimes...

2009-09-20T19:35:00.007-06:00

We decided to get a headstart on Christmas pageant practice this year. Tess volunteered to be Mary. Ever innovative, she chose to do a modern take on the traditional Mary costume, inspired by the popular (in some circles) mullet hairdo. Therefore, her look is business in the front:

Party in the back! WHOOOO!!!!!

"WHY are you all looking at me like that."

Vid-E-Os....

2009-09-20T13:15:00.003-06:00

Swinging:

Piano practice:

"Old Man Walk" (from a few months ago):

Tessa-toss:

Four years...

2009-09-06T21:26:00.006-06:00

On August 19, Josh and I celebrated four years of wedded bliss. Look at how happy he is to still be married to me! :) Stupid delayed camera flash....

To celebrate, I stayed home with Tess all day while Josh worked until midnight at his custodial job. Yes, we are naturally festive that way. As an anniversary surprise, while he was working I baked a pan of brownies with the words "happy 4th" spelled out in chocolate chips on top. Domesticity FTW! The funny thing was that he also brought home brownie cookies (and flowers) for me - WE ARE THAT IN SYNC.

Here is the best thing we have to show for ourselves after four years, as she schemes of ways to give us a run for our money during the next four.

Art History...

2009-08-22T22:28:00.004-06:00

All of my old classmates do a nice job posting about art history on their blogs, and I barely ever mention it. So, I thought I'd share one of my favorite works of art by the artist Frans Hals. It's a portrait of a mother and child done around 1619.

The double portrait is an excellent early example of Hals's subtle invention. The mother, it seems, is about to present an apple to the young child when she is interrupted by a spectator, to whom she appears to turn spontaneously. Meanwhile the child, pushes her mother back with the right hand and produces an expression as if to say, "Why on earth, would I want to play with that nasty rotten apple?". Both of the figures serve as one of the many ingenious devices used by Hals to give the impression of a moment of life in his pictures.

Hals, who always dressed his models in costumes from his own studio, chose to decorate the extremely blind mother with a pair of bright red glasses. This feature, which some scholars claim to be 20th century in style, has stirred up a fair amount of debate over the authenticity of this work. While most consider this to be one of Hals' greatest masterpieces, another smaller faction staunchly claims the work to be a fake.

Pillow talk (Don't tell Jaime I'm posting this)...

2009-07-27T19:55:00.000-06:00

In case you missed the conversation we had a while ago in bed, here are some of the more interesting parts. I wrote them down after Jaime had fallen asleep because the conversation was so life-changing for me:

Me: How much do you think a toilet costs?
Jaime: I don't have any idea.
Me: Yeah, me either.
Jaime: 350?
Me: Yeah. That's what I was thinking. Except a prime number.
Jaime: 357?
Me: Perfect...except that's not a prime number.

....long pause....

Me: Did you hear me when I said that's not a prime?

...a few minutes pass:

Me: I hate people.
Jaime: Don't you know we came from people? So you can't hate people.
Me: My family's not people. They're my family.
Jaime: So what are they? Plants?
Me: Plants? Why would you go with plants? You could have said any animal or insect. You could've said monkeys.
Jaime: I just decided to go with another kingdom. I skipped genus, phylum, all that and went to the other kingdom.
Me: Why not something like cyborgs? or zombies?

...Long discussion about what a cyborg is.

Me: Did you know that zombies are the top of the food chain?
Jaime: No they aren't.
Me: Yes, they are. It goes plants, animals, people, zombies.
Jaime: No. It goes plants, animals, people, lions.
Me: Lions? What? Lions? Are you kidding?
Jaime: No, wait. It goes plants, animals, people, lions, then hyenas eat the dead lions and fungus eats the dead hyenas.
Me: And then people eat the fungus and the zombies eat the people.

...more silence

Jaime: I love you.
Me: I love you too.

...short silence.

Me: Did you believe me when I said it?
Jaime: Why? Should I not believe you?
Me: No. I just was wondering if you believed me.
Jaime: Oh. I didn't even hear you...or I forgot on account of the tiredness.

...silence.

Me: Did you hear me when I said it wasn't a prime number?

Don't Smile Tessa...

2009-07-20T21:07:00.003-06:00

We took Tess on a trip to Skaneateles, NY this weekend to visit with some of Jaime's family and to also visit Palmyra. Happy Birthday Laura!

Anyhow, after spending 70% of the trip in a car seat, she wasn't pleased with us. So this is how she looked a good portion of the trip:

So, we started to play the "don't smile" game with our lil grumpster. It's that great game parents play with pouting children where they repeatedly tell the child: "Don't smile...no, no...don't do it. Don't smile!" And then of course, the child ends up laughing and getting even angrier. Tess plays really well. This is as close as the stubborn cuss would get. She's squeezing her lips together tight and holding it back as best she can. She absolutely refused to show any teeth...she has 47 of them now if you weren't aware. It's our new favorite picture of her.

You'll notice a stuffed monkey in the picture. Apparently the monkey is Tess' BFF 4eva. We found on this trip that she would calm down a little if we gave her the monkey while she was in the seat. She would scream and scream and then when Jaime would give her the monkey, she would stop screaming and begin to whisper to the monkey and tell it all the horrible things we put her through.

Sometimes my daughter just amazes me...

2009-06-30T19:54:00.003-06:00

She keeps on rockin til the break of dawn.

Overhead at the continental breakfast...

2009-06-28T22:31:00.003-06:00

Mother to her kids: He was 50, and they are pretty sure his death had something to do with all the prescription pills he was on.

Confused child (6 years old or so): Oh. I thought the zombies got him.

This girl has got SKILLS...

2009-05-29T20:58:00.017-06:00

Dreaming-of-mama skills:

Giggling skills:

Crawling-towards-junk skills:

Jumping-with-tongue-out skills:

Sometimes my daughter just amazes me...

2009-05-18T20:47:00.002-06:00

Tessa-san.

We've finally figured out how to communicate with her...

2009-05-11T13:41:00.004-06:00

Already on a steady diet of government cheese...

2009-05-09T19:53:00.013-06:00

For our next move, we're considering living in a van down by the river.

When we were in Richmond a couple weekends ago we took Tess down to the James to see what she thought about that idea.

Her verdict? "I'll go wherever YOU go, Mom!"

Where's Waldo, Part II....

2009-05-06T22:28:00.012-06:00

Another study in baby camouflage:

Notice how seamlessly she blends in with the underlying blanket.

Lying motionless, she is almost completely undetectable to would-be babysnatchers.

HEY, I SAID ALMOST.

Since she's already mastered reading...

2009-04-22T18:03:00.006-06:00

When Tess woke up from her nap today, she was rather upset to see my face hovering over the crib and not her mother's. To calm her down, I decided to let her play on my computer. She's pretty much obsessed with anything that has a screen...or has colors...or is plastic...or is her mom...or isn't not her mom.

Here she is doing a little programming. And again, I don't mean to brag or anything, but she's basically a genius. I know some of you might not be all that impressed by computer programming since companies like Intuit basically hire monkeys off the street to do their programming...but you're wrong. It's pretty amazing stuff, especially from a 6 month old. I asked her what she was working on, but when she gets in the zone, she only answers in binary. So I have no idea what she was saying.

Binary sounds like screaming.

Where's Waldo?..

2009-04-06T22:02:00.004-06:00

Since Tess is so cute, women constantly tell us that they want to just eat her up! Well, we will have none of that. No one, and I mean no one, will be eating our baby up! Not without our permission at least. So, we developed a plan to foil would be baby munchers...baby camouflage. We sleep a lot better at night knowing Tess blends in perfectly with her baby blanket, making her virtually invisible to any crazed baby hungry psychos.

We're still working on getting some matching pants.

Actually, Jaime took this picture to document one of Tessa's coping mechanisms. Before Ferberization, Tess really only liked to fall asleep with her face firmly snuzzled into Jaime's arm. Now, to help herself fall asleep, we assume she flails around until she can grab the corner of her blanket to pull it in close to her face so that she has something there to soothe her.

Pull-ups...

2009-04-05T18:25:00.005-06:00

No. Not the underwears. The exercise. Tess has started to develop a stomach a little too reminiscent of her father's, so we've started to get her to do some exercizing. Her favorite is doing pull-ups on the bouncey chair:

Oh yeah. Feelin the burn.

DCCC...

2009-03-28T10:05:00.007-06:00

I was checking out the local community college's course schedules the other day and came upon these two courses. I think if you are in the Philadelphia area, you should really consider taking one of these classes at Delaware County Community College. The instructor is amazing...and pure eye candy.

For summer term:

Or Fall semester:

This is how Tess reacted when she found out her dad was gonna be a teacher:

At first it would appear she is happy for her dad, but in reality she's saying, "Wait! Really? No way! They're actually gonna let that chambon teach a class? Ah ha ha ha! Suckers." I think she's actually just happy she figured out she can get her foot in her mouth.

I announced it on Facebook, and so I imagine anyone that reads this blog would have also heard it on there. But I'm just wanted to re-announce it cause I'm pretty excited about it.

Maymont Park...

2009-03-21T21:26:00.010-06:00

To help quell the spells of yelling (ah rhyming), we decided to take Tessa on an outdoor adventure at Maymont Park in Richmond. That's right. We drove 4 hours so Tess could experience a park in Richmond. Actually we've been in Richmond for a week with Jaime's family. It's a pretty strange park, mainly because there are animal habitats all around. It's a little like a mini-zoo.

We started at the Childrens farm. Since our baby is broken (her setting is stuck on 'scream'), we went to check out some of the fresh new crop to perhaps make a trade. Here I am presenting Tessa to potential barterers. No one made any bids.

Well, it turns out childrens farm is not at all what it sounds like. There was no farming of childrens at all. In fact, all they had were animals: goats, sheep and birds. Jaime squealed and squealed when she saw the baby goats frolicking. I hate the word frolic for not having a K on the end. Goats make surprisingly cute babies.

We fed some big goats...not cute at all.

We saw bears...and Tessa used a statue to show them what she would do to them. Head stomped! I thought the nicest part of the park was the Japanese garden. It was really peaceful until a pack of wild teenage girls showed up screeching and barking about the giant goldfish in the pond.

After the teenagers showed up, all the animals fled to this rock in the middle of the pond. I envied them.

And finally some pictures of Tess with her best girlfriend. Tess really loves exploring new places and she was pretty content the whole time we were out and about.

Thumbsucking...

2009-03-14T20:39:00.002-06:00

Her thumbs are already in trouble.

Thank you Grandma and Grandpa Funk...

2009-03-05T17:49:00.010-07:00

Tess is an awful baby. I've said it before, and I'll continue to say it. She's as cute as can be...but just aaaaawful. She hates sitting. She hates laying down. She hates being cuddled, but always has to have someone holding her. She's a screaming ball of contradictions. We about lost our minds until Miriam reminded us we have an exersaucer that the Funks gave us.

Tessa loved it...for 7 minutes and 37 seconds. But that is 3 times longer than she has liked any other toy we've tried to entertain her with! So, we have high hopes for this thing. It should be exactly what she wants since she doesn't have to sit or lay down. It makes her think she's standing up and has lots of things to grab her attention.

At first she had a little trouble with the Sesame Street characters staring at her. She must have thought they were eyeing a potential cuddle buddy. After realizing that strangling them wouldn't actually accomplish anything, she decided to just be friends. Sorry, you can't really see her face in the video.

She's gotten really handsy lately too. A couple of days ago she got very upset with me while I was holding her because I wouldn't let her stick her hands in my mint chocolate chip ice cream.

My baby's smarter than your baby...

2009-02-16T18:11:00.004-07:00

I don't mean to brag or anything, but Tess has already taught herself to read. She can't speak (unless you count barking, but she doesn't even do that on command), and can't sit up on her own. But she can read...any language...and alphabet/writing system.

Here she is reading one of Shakespeare's greatest works, All About Me, in which he incites many intense intellectual exchanges with lines such as: "I have chubby legs...and chubby feet too!" However, Tess usually fails to see the philosophical implications in quotes like that, takes it the wrong way, and glares at the page as if to say, "Oh. So now you're callin me fat, huh?"

Babies. So sensitive about their weight.

Shakespeare is lies.

Quite possibly the cutest video you'll ever see...ever

2009-02-08T12:20:00.003-07:00

Tess is like any other baby and gets cranky when she's sleepy. However, after she has gotten all of her fuss out and right before she falls asleep, she gets really happy. If you want to see her smile or laugh, then this is the best time. I made this video of her a few days ago during one of these happy spells. It didn't last long though, and about halfway through the video she realizes I'm not laughing with her, but at her.

What a giggle bot.

School marmin' it...

2009-02-07T12:11:00.003-07:00

The other day, I asked Tess what she wants to be when she grows up, and she squealed, "A school marm!!!"

Sittin up soooooo big...

2009-02-03T22:17:00.007-07:00

The girl really likes to sit up, mainly so she can see the TV. It's hard to watch TV with her because she mainly only watches CNN. We'd like her to watch more entertaining television, but you try telling a 3-month old that Anderson Cooper isn't dreamy. Blah blah blah and cute pictures.

Yeah, she's a little high strung. She makes this face a lot.

Head shots...

2009-01-23T16:01:00.010-07:00

Jaime showed me some of the head shots she took of the baby this morning. Since neither of us have useful degrees and since I still haven't heard back from the jobs I've applied for, we've decided to take the crazy 'parents of a child actor' route. We've sent these out to all the major Hollywood studios. We're not too worried, though, if this doesn't work. We've got a fool-proof back up plan...win and then sell the HGTV dream home.

These six pictures really showcase her flexibility. She can take on both the serious and comedic roles:

We practice facial expressions every day. She's can do the 'you talkin' to me?' look. Or the coy/shy/embarrassed look.

She can pretend to be shocked. Or she can play dumb/hungry. She does a mean impression of a reptile.

And as you can see, Tess is not afraid to show a little skin. So, she should fit right into the Hollywood scene.