Tessie Turns 4

Is it just me, or has this been a long year?  In any event, Tess has been waiting to turn 4 for a long time now!

We started things off with a birthday celebration at Nana and Papa's house.  Tess and Nana conspired against me by putting 4 candles on the cake.  I told Tess I had a really great idea to put only 3 candles on this year and then she wouldn't grow up and get any bigger.  Then every year we could use just 3 candles and she would stay my little girl.  Needless to say, Tess wasn't happy with this idea, but she got tired of arguing with me about it.  She would say, "You'll just see when I get my birthday cake," as if some cosmic forces of right and wrong in the universe would somehow balance things out and put 4 candles on her cake.  And they did.

She made fast work of the cake because she was so excited about presents!  She got such wonderful gifts!  Way fun dress up stuff and Polly pockets from Nana and Papa; a bathtub "waterpark" set from Dipsy & Papa; an interactive chipmunk toy that she named "Pet"; and a Baby Alive doll that she's only been wanting for 6 months now.

Birthday party #2 came a couple days later: a rainbow-themed party with her 3 bestest friends, Danielle James, Cade Austin and Lindsay Watson.  

I "rainbowed" the house up and scattered chocolate "gold" coins on the walk and lawn.  It was fun to watch the surprised kids spot the coins when they came to the front door!

We asked the guests to wear "colorful" clothes.  Lindsay wore a colorful striped sweater, Danielle wore rainbow ribbons in her hair, and Cade basically wore every color in his closet he could find.  I think we was wearing 3 shirts.  His mom said he took "colorful" to mean that he was supposed to wear the most unmatching outfit possible, and that at one point he was wearing a bandana on his head.

I was surprised how much they enjoyed making (and eating) rainbow fruit pops.  And adding marshmallows at the end for "clouds."  I love how silly these kids get when they're together.  They really enjoy each other.

After rainbow pops, it was time to hunt for "gold" at the end of the rainbow.  And one hunt wasn't enough!  After the kids collected all the coins, a "rainbow elf" stole all their gold when they weren't paying attention and scattered the coins all over the lawn again.  At first they all blamed Drew for taking the coins until they saw the lawn and they couldn't believe their eyes!  Danielle spent the rest of the party checking to make sure her coins were still in her bag.

We also did a simple rainbow craft, because kids love glue.  Apparently, Lindsay had never heard of a "pom-pom" and she thought that was the funniest word she'd ever heard.  Lindsay has a totally infectious laugh, so the kids kept making her laugh by saying "pom-pom" over and over again.  (FYI--it was during the craft that the sneaky rainbow elf struck!)

Finally time for cake!  The kids had big eyes when they saw all the candy and marshmallows.  Tess watched closely to make sure I didn't use the #3 candle from last year. I know in a few years, I will think I'm silly for thinking she looks so grown up.  But she looks so grown up.  (Even though I made her sit in Drew's high chair!)

I let them each pick a different color for their milk.  

And it turns out that cake and Skittles are a pretty tasty combination!

I love these little faces.  

They really are the cutest, sweetest friends ever!  They were so genuinely happy  for Tess and so excited to give her their presents.

I loved the adorable cards the kids had worked on for Tess.  She had the biggest smiles when she opened each one.

They finished off with some fun playtime.  It amazes me how well they play together.  They initiated this Candyland game all on their own--how nice of them to keep with the rainbow theme.  :)

So it's official--Tess is 4!  

My only consolation is that I've discovered that 4-year olds give really good hugs!

'Tis the Season

Christmas preparations are well underway.   A few holiday highlights:

We greeted Santa who arrived by boat in Occoquan.  Tess painted a Christmas tree picture to welcome Santa, but made it clear to us that Santa was only supposed to look at it, not keep it.

Tess was just fine keeping this distance from Santa.

It was not difficult to convince her to skip the LOOOOONG line to sit on Santa's lap and opt for the cupcake shop instead.  After sweets we stopped by the Christmas shop to pick out ornaments for the kids.  Tess picked Hello Kitty and Drew got a basketball.

I took the kids back to Occoquan for Christmas photos (not an easy feat, I tell you!).  A different pic will arrive on your Christmas card.

We welcomed a new tradition this year with an Elf on the Shelf gift from our Morley cousins.  I heard about this tradition and thought it would be fun:  A little elf doll comes to stay at your house before Christmas.  He's one of Santa's helpers and keeps an eye on kids during the day and flies back to the North Pole to report to Santa at night.  When the elf comes back, he hides in a new place in the house and the kids have to find him in the morning.  

So I told Ann about this idea before Tess started obsessing that Santa wasn't going to bring her presents because she'd done crying this year.  Hmmmm.  I decided to try it anyway--just a fun game right?  First thing you're supposed to do is name your elf.  Tess thought long and hard and came up with an appropriate tribute to our gift-givers:  "Morley."  We read the story that comes with the elf and Tess was totally not buying it.  "Mom, he can no fly.  He's a doll and dolls can't fly!"  "Mom, how can he see me?  His eyes don't go like this [shifting her wide eyes back and forth]."  I explained that Morley has a bit of Santa's magic in him that can enable him to do amazing things.  She told me, "Mom, I don't have any magic in me.  I just have bones.  That's how I go."

So the first day of having Morley around, Tess must have told me about 4 times that Santa wasn't going to bring her presents because of something she did wrong.  I finally explained to her that Morley loves her and Santa loves her and they don't expect her to be perfect, but to just try her best.  Morley likes to point out all the good things that Tess does and Tess has grown very fond of him.  She loves finding tricky Morley's new hiding spot every morning.

Here's a LOOOONG conversation I taped of Tess and her elf.  The actual conversation was probably 30 mins.  It's a pretty good window to her little mind at this age.

Drewie's first encounter with the Christmas tree.  He has a funny way of saying "O-o-o-o, W-o-w!" when he's impressed by something.  I love his little circle lips in these photos.  He likes to point to the tree if you ask him to show you the Christmas tree.

We stopped by this neat live nativity put on by a local church.  It's just off the road so those who drive by can see it, but we found a spot across the street to get out and watch for a while.  The had live animals:  donkeys, sheep, camels, goats and even a chicken.  Tess was scared the camels were going to come across the street and get her.  She spotted the chicken and after being afraid the chicken was going to fly across the street and get her, she lamented all the way home that our nativity set is lacking a Christmas chicken.

They even had a strong spot light that shot up into the sky for the star of Bethlehem.  We spotted it in the sky on the way there and it was fun to "follow the star" to the manger scene.  We could still see it sweeping the sky when we got home.

Other than her fear of the live animals, Tess really did like it.  She really wanted to go see baby Jesus' "cute little face."