Two-year-old Tessa

At 2, Tessa is very active. She loves getting out of the house and goes a bit stir crazy if kept at home all day. A good day is one where we get out to the pool or park or to one of her favorite places - "Tait's house" (her cousin's/best friend's house). She also loves going to ride the ponies at Thanksgiving Point and going to play at the children's museum. She loves going on walks especially to the mail box. This week after going to the park on Monday, the pool on Tuesday, and a different park on Wednesday, I told Tessa that we were going to have a stay home day on Thursday and told David he could take the car to get to work instead of riding his bike. On our stay home day, Tessa and I ended up playing an elaborate game of pretend where she buckled her bears in and out of their imaginary carseats and drove us around town. We went to the park and pretended to swing on the swings and go down the slide. We pretended we went to the pool and swam there and we went to Tait's house where we talked to and played with a pretend Tait. Later we went to the library, a farm, an icecream parlor, and a candy store - quite the eventful pretend day on the town.

At 2, some of Tessa's favorite toys are her baby doll (referred to simply as 'baby') and stroller. She'll take her baby on walks in the stroller and likes to have baby come with us the park. She'll "breastfeed" her baby from her belly button which is pretty cute and put her baby down for naps. 

She also loves her two teddy bears named green bear and pink bear. She has become quite the little mommy with them. She'll swaddle them in Jenny's blankets and give them Jenny's pacifiers.

She also really likes these toy plates and cups she has. She likes to pretend to cook and eat with them at her little table in her play room.

At 2, Tessa has lost her nanny she's had since she was 3 month's old. She talks about her often saying "Rachey gone." or "Rachey help. Rachey's dad." She'll also draw pictures with Rachel in them. It's been hard to lose her but we've been grateful that we were able to have her for as long as we did and that Tessa was able to have a secure, loving bond with her caregiver. In this picture she is practicing writing the letter 'S' with chalk and making differently sized S's calling them 'daddy S', 'mommy S', 'Tessa S', 'Rachey S'.

Tessa can talk so well now. She says longer and longer sentences. She sometimes even uses the plural 's' correctly. She is such a chatterbox; though if you're a stranger talking to her you'd never know it as she is rather shy until she warms up to you.

At 2, the weirdest food Tessa has requested and eaten has been cubed sharp cheddar dipped in mustard. Followed closely in grossness probably has to be when she asked for mustard on her toast. Of course, the frozen peas eaten straight from the freezer (I offered to cook them) were pretty weird too. Her favorite foods are noodles, scrambled eggs, milk and of course sweets like chocolate, icecream, and chocolate milk.

We threw a little party for Tessa's second birthday. Thank you to all that were able to come and thank you for the kind gifts.

It's hard to believe David and I have a 2-year-old. It's all gone by so fast. When I think about how fast it's been going, it makes me feel like before we know it, we're going to be dropping Tessa off at college and it makes me almost want to cry. I love Tessa so much. She's so creative and playful and funny and kind. She has become such a cool kid. Sometimes I just desperately wish there was a "pause" button to pause life as it is know so I can just keep enjoying the awesome kid that Tessa is at the age she is now.

Jenny is 6 weeks old

Time is flying by. Jenny is already 6 weeks old. She has put on about a pound since she was born and is nearly 7 pounds now. She fills out her newborn clothes now. She seems longer too but it may just be that she's not scrunching her legs up as much. She still sleeps a lot but she'll have a few longer stretches during the day when she is awake. She likes to nurse to sleep and is still sleeping next to me in bed at night. She seems to give some limited eye contact now which is neat. She has the prettiest dark blue eyes though they'll likely change. She has vocalized a little bit too. She'll make this "ah" sound and I'll talk back to her and she'll make the sound again. So that was really neat to see the first inklings of communication. She likes her swing though she is so light the various settings that are supposed to swing at different intensities all just swing fast and high so I think sometimes she gets scared on it; she has her startle reflex sometimes while on it atleast. She likes her baby gym and has been able to bat at the toys on it a few times. Whenever I'm out and about with her people will generally say "oh, a brand new baby" or when people ask how old she is, they are surprised when I tell them a month old and they remark at how small she is. To me though she is getting so much bigger. We're glad she is doing well and love our Jenny girl.