More from Christmas...

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...

...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...

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...

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

(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...

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

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

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

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

And that's all. Merry Christmas to you.

Death to the Vizier...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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