Biloxi

The day after Christmas we headed to Mississippi, Tess and Clayton had never been and the whole family hadn’t been back in a while. My mom had found a condo that everyone could fit in and it was across the street from the beach so it was perfect. Matt, Clayton, Tess and I all flew into New Orleans and then rented a car and drove to Biloxi. It worked great because I don’t think that Tess would have lasted the entire car ride. This was her first Plane ride where she had her own seat. She did pretty well for the most part. She is so small that walking through the airport is a little tough. For the most part she hitched a ride on the suitcase.

We were pretty bad about taking pictures the entire trip so I only have a few. The weather was not good but we did see a lot of family. We ate a lot of food. It seemed like we were either eating, visiting family or eating while visiting family. But we had a great time and I was glad that Clayton and Tess were able to meet/see some people. I will not say everyone because it is not possible to see everyone in a long weekend. We have a large family. We will definitely have to make it back soon.

 

Christmas 2014

This year was a good Christmas all around. Clayton and I attended the Anadarko Christmas party this year and had a good time. This was not a year to miss the party as Maroon 5 was the performer and it was pretty cool seeing them perform so close.

 

Last Christmas in Clayton’s stocking was a snowball shooter and this year Tess is big enough to play with it. She loved playing snowball fight and shooting the snowballs all over the living room.

 

Mona and Kevin came down the weekend before Christmas and brought down a SUV filled with presents for Tess. She loved it and couldn’t wait to open all the presents. Last year she was only good at pulling the tissue paper out of the bags and this year she could rip the paper off the boxes. She was ready to get the toys out of the boxes as she opened them up. It was fun watching her open all her presents.

On Christmas Day Tess and I met Clayton and everyone else at my Parents house. We ate made from scratch waffles for breakfast and then started to divvy up the presents into piles for everyone with Tess’ pile being in the middle. She again loved opening her presents and once she was done with hers she went around the room and helped everyone else open theirs. Sometimes she would even open  a present for someone else.

I think this was the best Christmas yet. The only problem we had is that we had to pack up most of her presents because we were putting our house on the market at the beginning of the year and couldn’t have a lot of clutter. So once we move into the new house and unpack, it will be like Christmas all over again.    

Iceland

We decided to visit Moody Garden’s Ice Land this year. This was the first year that the ice sculptures were in Galveston. Clayton and I have been to ICE in Dallas for many years and thought this would be something cool that Tess would enjoy. We had a pretty big crowd, Mona and Kevin were in town for the weekend, my parents came and so did Diana and Matt. Everyone had lunch before heading over to Moody Gardens. Since we went during the day it wasn’t that crowded, some people said that if you went during the Festival of Lights it was a madhouse.

We had to wait in line to get the special jackets to withstand the freezing temps and the smallest jacket that they had was still way too big for Tess. We had to roll up the sleeves but really couldn’t do anything about the height. She walked around and people laughed because you really couldn’t tell if there was a person in there or not because you wouldn’t see any shoes or hands and the hood would cover her face for the most part. But it was pretty adorable.

 Tess and I decided to do the ICE slide and we happened to pick the slowest one possible. I had to propel us down using my hands which I could not feel by the end of the slide. I think she had fun, I couldn’t see her I was just trying to get down as fast as possible so I could stop putting my hands on the ICE.

We walked around and saw all of the sculptures. When Tess was little she would watch a lot of Sponge Bob, more of her Dad’s influence than mine. I tried to get her to watch anything else. Finally she got interested in Mickey and Sponge Bob left us for a while. I wish the theme was different but I think Tess had some fun. Towards the end I think she was over being cold and some of the designs scared her a bit. If the theme is more her style next year we might go but this might be something that might wait a couple of years to repeat. Overall we had fun and it was something new to bring to our ever changing Christmas traditions.

 

Potty Training

We decided to take the big step and transition Tess from Diapers to Panties. Clayton and I bought her a bunch of panties and set up the potty in the living and starting one Friday we hit the ground running. We had a rough time the first couple of days but by Sunday peeing in the potty had clicked and Tess has not turned back since. Tess has always had a hate-hate relationship with poop. We started with regulating her bowel movements and she has started to make progress by pooping in the potty. We started with not pooping at all, moved to pooping in her panties, and then moved to her telling us while pooping in her panties. She has progressed to giving us a little lead time to get her to the potty and has pooped in the potty several times. She gets excited when she goes in the potty because she gets to feed her pig (piggy bank).

As you can see from the pictures this was a process, on Saturday she didn’t want to take a nap until her and I were watching a movie and she passed out in my arms. It was a hard weekend but overall I am glad we took the plunge

 

At one point we tried to use the iPad to get Tess to use the potty, we tried anything and everything. In the end she needed to decide when she wanted to start using the potty.