Superman and the Queen Bee

Wanted: Minivan

Reason: Need more seating.
Needed By: May 17th, 2011

;)

Another picture dump

Here’s another one my typical posts - random recent pictures with short captions.  It’s all I’ve got these days.  Enjoy.

Eli recently enjoyed his first corndog. 
I think he liked it.

This is the face Eli makes these days when I ask him to smile for the camera.  Lovely…

Tessa has the right idea.

New fashion trend?

The weather was beautiful on Labor Day, so we decided to go to one of our favorite outdoor spots – Tannehill State Park.

We took a walk on our trail.

And splashed in the springs.

         

Disclaimer on the following videos:  My house is a disaster.  Garbage is overflowing, drawers and cabinets are open, random things are strewn on the floor, and counters and tabletops are covered with stuff.  Not to worry, though.  My house only looks like this about 85% of the time.  10% of the time it’s probably worse, and maybe 5% of the time it’s clean(ish).  I am ashamedly giving you this little peak because I want to document these memories of everyday life for myself.  Judge away about my domestication skills.  I judge myself all the time.  Just please don’t call child protective services :). 

Birthday party

I’ve been incredibly busy lately and haven’t had much time to picture dump blog, but I figured I should get pictures of Tessa’s birthday party posted before her next one rolls around. 

We had a low key party at home with some of our family and friends.  Fun was had by all.

Our little party princess.

     

Out to play in the kiddie pool.

  

Time for cake! She wasn’t too thrilled at first… 
But then warmed up to it and dug in.  

Aunt Jan thought the green icing would make great boogers.

Opening presents.  And no, I didn’t wet my pants.  I just picked up wet kids outside.  I thought some clarification wouldn’t hurt.

Uh….  Yeah.  After the party was over I had to keep the crown and Tessa’s “toot-toot” out of reach of this little guy.  Gotta start enforcing those gender stereotypes early. :)

As exhausting as I find it to throw these things, we had a great time celebrating our little girl’s big day! 

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!