Valley Forge...

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?

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...

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...

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?..

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...

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...

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.