Black Eye...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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!"