1 year

My Sweet Tessa,

I can’t believe you are one year old today!  This year has truly flown by and I’m so sad that your “babyhood” is over.  Really, you were never interested in being a baby anyway.  You have done your best to keep up with your big brother since the day you were born.  You crawled at 6 months, walked at 9 1/2 months and now you’re chasing after him all day long. You have been such a blessing in our lives.  As they say, little girls are sugar and spice and everything nice, and this is certainly true of you.  Here are some things about you right now that I want to always remember:

• Your sweet smile lights up a room.  I could look at it all day long.  People always say that you smile with your eyes.  It’s a good thing since you have that paci stuck in your mouth most of the time.
• You have become a lot more communicative lately.  You aren’t saying many words yet (some, but not many), but you definitely have a way of letting us know what you do and don’t want.  I have a feeling you’ll be my little chatter box very soon.
• You have been a complete mommy’s girl most of your life (I haven’t minded that one bit!), but lately you’ve gotten pretty attached to your daddy.  You get so excited when he gets home from work every day.  This melts me.  As much as I love to be loved, I hope you turn into a daddy’s girl.  There’s nothing sweeter than that.
• I have loved watching the relationship grow between you and Eli.  Even though you bug each other much of the day, y’all love each other so much.  When he is sent to time out for being ugly to you, you always walk over and sit there with him, usually trying to sneak him a toy or his sippy cup to console him (a time out no-no).  I love how you don’t like to be separated from him.
• You LOVE to eat!  We have no problems getting you to clean your plate.  You are definitely your mother’s daughter in this area :). 

We love you so much and can’t wait to see how you grow and develop over the next year.  Happy Birthday sweet girl.  We are so blessed to have you in our family.

Love,
Mommy

4th, Lake and Party

In case you haven’t noticed, this is my second post in nine days.  I’m patting myself on the back right now – figuratively speaking, of course, since I’m typing with two hands.  Anyways…

We went to watch Birmingham’s spectacular fireworks show on July 4th in Homewood with some friends.  While we waited for the show to begin we had plenty of family time…

…and booty dancing

And although the fireworks were beautiful

… I much preferred watching this. 

This past weekend, we went to the lake with some friends on Friday night and Saturday.  I wasn’t sure how the kids would do in the water, but Eli absolutely loved it.  Here are a few pics from the weekend.

All that swimming made for one tired little boy.  He actually ended up falling asleep on the float.  Ahh. I think we could all get used to life on the lake pretty easily.

  

Later in the day on Saturday, we came back for my Grandfather’s 80th birthday party.  Check out these old people gettin’ down! (not you, Aunt Linda :))

    

I’m fairly certain that my grandfather has never even touched a computer, much less seen this blog, but Happy 80th Birthday Paw Paw!  We love You!

The overdue massive photo dump

So here’s a ridiculous number of pictures and videos of my dear children.  Since I’m posting so seldom these days, you get them all at once.  You’re welcome.  Or, I’m sorry.  One of those.

Tessa’s been having some crazy hair lately.  I think she may end up with the curly hair after all.

Such a sweet little ham

My sleeping angel

First pigtails!

We had a family cookout at the country last weekend.  Of course, the mud puddles were irresistible to the kiddos.  

Which ended up necessitating Tessa being transported to the creek like this:

And Eli getting “bathed” like this

How my children ended up so filthy while our niece, Ali, ended up without a speck of dirt on her is beyond me. :)

Our church had their big annual birthday Sunday celebration last weekend as well.  There were bouncy houses… 

And makeshift sprinklers (aka hose pipes that had sprung a leak).  Definitely a favorite with the small kiddies.  

This is what “relaxing on the couch” looks like for me these days.

The blurriness of the photos is a very accurate portrayal of how relaxing of an experience this really is.  I wouldn’t change it for anything, though.

And last but not least, I just have to share these videos.

He’s so going to love that this is on the internet one day. 

And that’s all for today.  Check back for another incredible long picture dump in a couple of months!