Santa came!

We must have been good this year because Santa came! He brought all sorts of goodies! Of course there were books,

and toothbrushes in their stockings. Some noise makers, play dough, clothes, cars and other fun stuff.

Tessa is especially enamored with the puppy Bell that he brought. It comes with a book and responds to certain phrases when you read it. Like I read "I love you, Bell" and Bell barks back! Tessa thinks it's amazing =) Luca got another dog Jingle a couple years ago, and so Santa brought a book that is for the both of them. I read "Jingle even loved to sing" and Jingle starts barking out the beginning of Jingle Bells, and then Bell finishes the song! It's great!

Luca started leaving messages on Santa's voicemail in August. Yes, we called Santa in August. And he always asks for a vacuum (because Daddy doesn't share his.) About November he added a shopping cart and a big basket to put his toys in to his list. Wouldn't you know it, Santa delivered!

After we opened everything at our house we went to Oma and Pa's to see if Santa visited there too. He did! And left the kids a little shopping cart and a sled! Then we traveled over to Grammie and Poppie's for even more festivities!

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas full of family and friends and love and cookies. And vacuums, if that's your thing. =)

Christmas Eve

We mixed things up this year and for Christmas Eve my family came to our house to celebrate and open presents. And man were there a lot of presents!

Luca enjoyed helping pass out the presents to everyone and hardly ever stopped when he got one with his name to open it right away. After everything was opened, and the Lego things were built, Luca and Josh went outside to sprinkle some reindeer food that he got at preschool.

Then it was back inside to set out cookies and carrots for our midnight visitors. Luca wanted to make sure Santa got a variety, so he even asked Pa to share the springlele he had just gotten as a gift. We counted out nine carrots for the nine reindeer, and it was off to bed.

It was one year ago tonight that Tessa slept for 8 hours straight at night. Hoping they aren't too excited to sleep all night again this year!

Preschool Program

Luca's preschool had a school wide holiday program and it was, like all events requiring kiddos to sing, amazing. Terrible pictures and video, but wonderful memories.

That's one of his teachers, Miss Kellie

There are five classes total, 3 of three year olds and two four year old groups. Each class sang a song of their own, each age group sang a song together, and then the whole school sang one. Unfortunately the acoustics in the building we were in were terrible, so it was hard to hear and the video turned out pretty lousy. So, I'll help.

(To the tune of I'm a little teapot)
I'm a little pine tree, tall and straight
Here are my branches for you to decorate
Don't forget to put the star on top
Just be careful the balls don't drop.

It was a fun morning, I love kid's programs! When we got home we tried to take family pictures while everyone was looking handsome. It kind of worked.

About an hour after we got home Josh and I got slammed with that lovely flu virus that's going around. Kiddo's took a round of it too. Glad if it had to happen it was at least after the program, I would have been so bummed to miss it! Luca's other teacher had to miss the program because her husband and three kids all had it.

Luca's class song was the Reindeer Pokey. They wore reindeer masks and sang about putting their hooves in. Adorable. See?

15 Months

When someone asks me how old Tessa is, I sometimes forget that she's a year old. It just doesn't seem like it's been that long. Of course at the same time it's hard to remember a time without her. But now she is not only a year, she's a year and a quarter! Whoa.

She has the cutest curls in the back of her hair. That she loves to twist when she's sleepy. Most times after nap I have to work a knot out. Thankfully she doesn't seem to be tender headed, so it's not a huge deal. But the first time she puts such a knot in that it has to be cut out will be a very sad day!

She has four teeth on top in the front and two on the bottom. I think she also has two top molars and one bottom one, but when I stick my finger in her mouth to check she bites so fast and so hard I can't tell where the pain is specifically coming from, only that it hurts. ;)

We think she could walk, she's pretty steady standing on her own and walking holding onto our fingers. If she's got something in one hand we can sometimes get her to walk holding on to just one of our hands. Mostly she'd rather crawl though.

She seems to have learned that if I'm not near her and she and Luca are playing together, she can scream and Luca gets in trouble. I'm not saying that was something I ever did, but I may or may not remember Alex yelling while he was in his room, and Alan getting in trouble even though he was in his room. Generation after generation, kids are stinkers.

We are excited for Christmas! Both kids are mostly excited to open presents, and we are eager to find out what Santa brings. Luca has been leaving him voicemails since August! =)

Mommy's Little Helpers

I like having help in the things I do, whether that's making dinner or cleaning up the house. Sometimes, I should be careful what I ask for. Luca has long been  helping me in the kitchen, and now that Tessa has learned to climb up on the step stool, she wants to help too. Which is how I now have two sous chefs.

Mmm... cookies

Their help does not end there! With all the talk of Christmas and presents and such, Luca has decided it's great fun to wrap presents. So he helps to cut the paper and hold it in place and put on pieces of tape. Tessa loves how sticky tape is.

It's okay to be jealous of my sense of style ;)

Everyone should be so lucky to have helpers like mine!

Fun with Tupperware

Tessa figured out at Oma's house if she takes all the chips out of her cabinet she can fit in it. Which is not so bad, half a dozen bags of chips are easily cleaned. Especially because if you're standing there when she does it, she hands each bag to you. Then she figured out she could do the same at our house. In the tupperware cabinet.

Of course Luca didn't want to be left out of the fun.

The perfect little chair, with just a few adjustments.

Hair Cut!

I was letting Tessa's bangs grow, because they are easier to clip back when they're longer. But I finally admitted to myself that while she is super cute with a clip in, and while the longer bangs makes it easier, Tessa would not leave them in. She ended up with bangs in her eyes well more often than not. So, it was time for a hair cut.

She was about as amused as Luca was the first time, but at least she doesn't have hair in her eyes anymore!

Around the house

Just some pictures for things we've been doing recently.

Last year we accidentally decided that the fallen leaves would make a good cover for the grass during the winter. Because it snowed before we had a chance to rake them all up. This was not the best decision, and this year Josh made a real effort to keep the leaves raked. Which meant lots of jumping in leaf piles.

I'm pretty sure that this is what people were talking about when they say in Illinois you should "vote early, vote often." Just doing our civic duty!

Tessa likes to read all the books. Or at least take all of the books of the shelf. All. Of. The. Books.

Happy Halloween!

Luca was so excited to go trick or treating this year! Last year we went to some family and neighbors and Luca didn't want to do anybody else. So I was expecting about the same this year. He, however, had different plans.

Taken after his school party-it's icing on his clothes

After we spent a couple hours visiting with family, we went to my parents house to do their neighbors and have dinner before heading home. After doing the neighbors he knows, though, he decided he wanted to keep going. Of course by that point it was dark and snowing and the trick-or-treat hours were almost over. About half the houses were dark, but we stopped at every single one that was lit! And he said trick or treat, picked some candy, and was especially excited about the retired teacher who gave out pencils instead.

Diver guy and a mermaid

 
As we were heading back to Oma's he tripped on the sidewalk and I ended up running back with a piggy back rider. As he whispers in my ear "I'm so happy it's snowing!" So much fun =)

On a Horse

Since Luca goes to preschool through the parks department, every so often he brings home a flyer with upcoming activities. One that sounded interesting was a 10 minute ride on a horse that would be dressed up for Halloween. He loves riding Sandy (the mechanical horse) at the grocery store so I thought he might have fun on a real one.

His horse Rosie was dressed as a skeleton

We talked about it. I explained that it would be a big big horse and he would be all by himself on it but we would watch. He said as long as he was buckled on he would like to ride. So I signed him up. And we went. And he got on, got a helmet that fit, and off he went. Making sour faces every time I lifted the camera in his direction. I have no idea whether or not he enjoyed it.

I was looking though the parks dept catalog recently for something fun and found that they do something similar again around Easter. I'm thinking about signing myself up and getting a babysitter for him. ;)

Playing in the leaves

When we got back from the town trick or treat the weather was beautiful and the yard was full of leaves. Naturally, that meant playing in big ol' leaf piles!

Last year while Luca played in the neighbor's leaves 2 month old Tessa was inside napping. So this year we were excited to see what she thought of it. She loved it! She liked handing leaves to whoever was closest, laughing and watching Luca, and splashing in them. =)

Luca of course had a blast running and jumping in and then immediately asking us to rake them back in a big pile so he could do it again. He was less excited about sharing the pile with Tessa, but was eventually convinced that she could sit to the side and he could still jump in the big part.

Pa had come over to help fix stuff (again... Thanks Pa!) and tried to convince Luca he knew a fun and exciting new way to play in the leaves! Luca was not sold.

Still, lots of fun, lots of jumping, lots of raking, good way to spend an afternoon.

Pumpkin painting

The last couple years we've carved pumpkins. And by "we" I mostly mean Josh. It was fun, we had both gone years without carving a pumpkin. The first year we figured Luca would be too little to enjoy it, but we did it anyway. Then last year we thought he might get into it more. He didn't. So this year we decided that playing in pumpkin guts and hoping it doesn't rot before we're done enjoying it just wasn't worth it.

The stem needed to be pretty too

Instead, we found some huge pumpkins for a huge deal at the grocery of all places, and gave Luca a couple plates of paint blobs and told him to go to town. And he did. I debated doing it with Tessa too, but decided it wasn't really a good idea. She has her own little white pumpkin that Luca picked for her that she carries around and tries to eat and has fun with. So she's good with the festivities.

Happy kids equals happy parents!

Little Creeper

One of Luca's duplo sets came with little eye stickers so he could turn any block he wanted to into an eye. I didn't want all eye blocks so I took the sheet and stuck it somewhere. Ages ago. Luca found it. I have no idea where it was because, genuinely, it was probably a year ago that I hid it. And because he's clever he knew they were eyes. But he had bigger plans than putting them on duplos...

I mean, love him, but creepy, right? ;)

Summer isn't over yet!

Luca is getting used to doing fun things in the mornings because of school, so now I'm trying to plan a fun activity for him to do during Tessa's morning nap. On this day, since summer weather was trying hard to stick around, we decided to play outside. With paint. And his feet for paintbrushes.

He was excited at first and had fun walking and skating up and down the paper. But pretty quickly he decided he didn't like getting dirty feet and switched to using his hands.

The patio also got a little bit painted, but it washed so easily off his hands and feet that I'm hoping the first good rain takes care of it for me. Other wise my poor lazy self will have to actually go scrub it. Either way, it was fun!

Pumpkin Patch

We have two pumpkin patches that we go to every year. Both are free, usually pretty empty, and have animals and other fun things for the kids to do. Generally it's a good way to spend a morning. This year one of our favorites had made some big updates! There was a big pirate ship and a huge castle to climb up and look around with a tunnel to climb through. Oh was that tunnel fun!

Of course we had to say hi and try to feed all the animals, including the wild cat that was not interested in being loved on. And we dodged the corn bin. I don't know why Luca dislikes it so much, but he is just not a fan.

It was a beautiful day, the water pumps were working, and everyone had fun! Wonder if there are any changes at our other pumpkin farm? Guess we'll find out in the next couple weeks!

Go duckies, go!

Party!

We were so happy that so many of Tessa's friends and family were able to come celebrate our Little Lady at her birthday party!

The birthday fairy went a smidge overboard decorating for her birthday, but everything was so cute! The number of streamers over head keep growing, we're going to run out of room soon! 

She wasn't quite sure of what to do with her cake. When she did figure out she would take a tiny pinch of frosting, daintily put it in her mouth, and get another tiny pinch. It was pretty funny!

We had fun visiting with everyone. She enjoyed alternating between being disinterested in the presents and climbing into and onto the presents. Thank you to everyone for coming and sharing in Tessa's celebration!

One Year Old

Just like that, our little lady is a year old.

She's got five and a half teeth. I think. She doesn't like us looking, but that's what it feels like. Two on the bottom, and three and a half on the top--the one to the left of the middle is just poking through. Plus her doc says that one of her molars is swollen, so there's something to look forward to.

She sleeps! We're having a little trouble adapting her nap schedule to Luca's school schedule, but we're working on it. But at night, she sleeps! From 8 til about 7. She sometimes wakes up, but most frequently puts herself back to sleep. And I think that's all about teething. It is so wonderful. Now if we could convince Luca to sleep all night long...

When we put her birthday cupcake in front of her she was interested in the flame, and then enjoyed picking the icing off. When the cupcake flipped over she decided to try the cake. By the fistful. We are excited to see her destroy her smash cake at the party!

Finally she's decided she likes shoes! We found it out because it got so cold last week and she only has one pair of socks that still fit her. I didn't feel like going through Luca's old stuff in the basement (anyway, I hate baby socks. Really. I know, it's a bizarre thing to hate, but they are the bane of my existence. So little and always getting lost and no way to tell what size they are. Ugh.) So I figured shoes would work to keep her feet warm. When one came off, she brought it over to us and lifted her foot up. Finally, cute, sparkly, baby shoes are in my future!

She does that thing when you're washing her face where she opens her mouth and sort of says "ah" and thinks it's funny when we tap the towel over her mouth. She does it with her own hand during dinner too--pretty funny.

We are trying to teach her to blow kisses, sometimes she totally gets it, other times she looks at us like we're crazy.

She says mama and dada and something kind of like uh-cah for Luca, and she says nigh-nigh. Unfortunately, I think that's her first word outside of the family. Which means we need to keep feeding her college fund account.

We are having next to no problems with her eating, pretty much anything you put in front of her she'll eat. We've started giving her whole milk and she's not really a fan. If we warm and it water it down by half she'll usually drink it. Other wise she just plays. But she's mastered the sippy cup!

In the last three months she's grown an inch and lost a half a pound. The doc says it's nothing to worry about, that a loss that small is more like maintaining. It's crazy though that she's gone down to about the 20th percentile for weight, just over 18 pounds.

Happy birthday sweet girl!

Three and a half

Oh. My. Goodness. Three and a half!

He reasons through situations and it's fun to see where he ends up. The other day he started snorting in the backseat of the car and told me that a pig was in the car and I should roll the window to let him escape. I asked how he got in with the window up. He thought for a second and said he dug a hole under the window. So I told the pig to go back out the way he came. Luca informed me that the pig was back outside and that he fixed the hole.

We are struggling with sharing. It's hard because Tessa doesn't seem to understand that a toy is Luca's and she can't play with it, and at the same time even if it's okay toy for her to play with it's not fair to make Luca give it to her just because she can screech really loud. So we're all trying to figure it out. About the time we do they will have moved on to a new piece of sibling trouble, I'm sure. We are especially anticipating trouble with Tessa's birthday coming up and Luca wanting to play with her new toys. We'll see how it goes.

He is still a picky eater though he's making huge improvements. In most cases we call meat what it actually is instead of "dinosaur" and he'll still eat it. He is even asking for foods that just a couple months ago he would refuse to eat. Still won't eat regular pizza or any kind of dip--it's "too saucy." Only three year old in the world who doesn't dip everything in either ketchup or ranch.

He is loving school, wishes he went more often. He brings home crafts every day and sings all sorts of songs. I'm glad that he's having such a positive experience!

We celebrated his half birthday with a piece of cake and dinner with Uncle Dan. He was disappointed he didn't have any presents, but excited the birthday fairy put streamers in his bedroom door. Happy Half Birthday little man!