Field Trip to Dewberry Farm

Tess’s class went to Dewberry Farm and Clayton and I decided to tag along and be chaperones. We had a really fun day with our little one on her first big field trip. The day started out a little hectic right before we pulled into the farm a truck rear ended us, the damage was minimal more of a nuisance than anything.

We eventually made it to the farm and had a fun filled day. We started by jumping on these large pillows. Tess liked jumping on them but she is so small that everyone jumping around would make her fall and bounce her around.

We jumped for a while and then moved on to various other activities. We took a picture with a school bus, our friend Anthony, and in cow barrels. The cow barrels were really small and the ride was pretty bumpy but the kids really enjoyed the experience. Tess and Anthony are really close friends and hang out at school all the time.

One of the things that we did was this huge slide, of course Clayton volunteered to go up to the top before anyone else did. He sent Tess down the slide and then after all the other kids at gone down, he also went down the slide.

We also visited some animals on the farm, Tess loves all animals even the smelly pigs. She couldn’t see all the animals so I picked her up and was showing her all the different ones. This one goat found his perfect place in of the cement cylinders and wasn’t moving no matter how much you offered him food. The farm also converted an old fire truck to shoot out candy during Halloween for all the kids.

At the end of the day we all took a hayride out to the pumpkin patch and all the kids could pick a pumpkin. Tess found the perfect pumpkin and wouldn’t let it go. We had to get a pumpkin picture with Anthony.

We had good weather for most of the day, by the time it was getting hot we were done with most of the activities and ready to head home. We need to come back on our own to Dewberry farm, but it was a good introduction to the place. 

Every Picture has a Story to Tell

We did 2 rounds of family pictures this year, 1 set with the grandparents/granny and another with the Braun family. Tess was really good throughout both sessions and I think the pictures turned out really well.

I picked up Tess early from school and we went and got our nails done. She was super excited about getting her nails painted and loved getting pampered for the 20 minutes.

My neighbor/friend took the pictures for our first session. We met at this park around the corner from our house and walked around and took pictures at various parts in the park. We didn’t realize that there was this event going on during the weekend at this park and it was being set up the morning we were taking pictures. Some of the spots that Alex usually used were not available because of this setup but all in all I think the pictures turned out great.

I really wanted to get some good shots of Tess and her grandparents, I think Alex did a great job at capturing her relationship with each person. We also got a couple of good shots of her and granny even though that relationship has had some ups and downs lately with the changes from Chemo.

The second session was a couple weeks later and the photographer was a teacher at Strake. We met at a park in Sugar Land and he had some particular locations he liked to take pictures, we just smiled. Tess was the star of the show. At one point we changed into our Christmas Sweaters and took a Christmas picture. All the pictures this year turned out great.

It's as Much Fun to Scare as to Be Scared...

We were Rapunzel again this year for Halloween. My mom made the costume and Tess loved the fact that she had long, long hair to go with the princess dress. At school they had a fall festival, you could buy individual tickets or buy an all-inclusive wrist band. We went with the wrist band and Tess could play as many games as she want. We met up with Kayla and took some picture, got out face painted, and painted a pumpkin. Tess had fun at the fall festival and she enjoyed seeing her teachers outside of the school setting.

On Halloween night we met up with the neighbors and we trick-or-treated around a couple of streets. Clayton stayed at the house to scare all the neighborhood kids. We didn’t get a good picture of our house, but he has started his haunted house vision. 

Time for Fall

Fall has been pretty busy for us, Tess started Pre-K this year and it’s been pretty different for her. She has gone from a fun all the time experience at daycare to a very structured learning experience at school. I wanted to take a first day of school picture but the only way she would let me take a picture of her was if I let her take a picture of me also, so we both had a first day of school picture.

We had a couple more Astros’ games 
to go to and Tess was disappointed a couple times because they had the kids play area closed. They had the area closed for a long time this year because they were waiting on a part, one afternoon we consoled her by letting her sit on the Astros Pig and taking a picture. She was a little apprehensive at first but by the end of it she didn’t want to get down. She loves stopping by Astros Mickey and always remembers him and wants to stop by and say hello, now if mom and I can remember which end of the ballpark he is at we wouldn’t have to walk so much. We are looking forward to another season of baseball and teaching Tess more about America’s favorite pastime.

One afternoon on my way home from work I noticed a huge column of smoke and wondered to myself what could that be and then thought hmm that sucks for the people it impacts. Little did I know those “people” would be me. There was a Power Plant that caught on fire which means they had to cut the power until they put the fire out. Clayton was at work so it was just Tess and I, and we had power for all of 15 minutes when I got home. I looked through the pantry for something to eat and we had a little picnic. We played some games and I realized that it was starting to get dark and the power was still not on so we needed to start getting ready for bed or we were going to be doing it in the dark. Tess was excited because she carried the lantern around after the house started to get dark. Right after Tess went to bed the power came back on and I had to walk around the house and turn off all the lights that we had left on. It was a nice quiet evening without the modern comforts we are used it. It’s about as close to camping as this girl is going to get.

We took a trip up to Bedford to visit the family in September and took Tess on her first Putt Putt experience. She was not that thrilled with the golfing part but was super pumped about the games afterwards.

She did pretty well, except she likes to swing the club around once she is done putting.

One night when I was getting ready for bed I looked in the monitor and I realized that Tess had fallen asleep while petting Lexi. Lexi started sleeping with Tess awhile back and it works well for both of them, Lexi likes to sleep on the bed and Tess likes a companion. Some nights when I am putting both of them in bed Tess tells me she is not tired and doesn’t want to go to bed and I will tell her she can pet Lexi for a minute but she needs to get back under the sheets and lay on her pillow so both her and Lexi can go to bed. I guess this night she was a little more tired than she originally thought.

Tess is doing great at school, we get these little picture updates from her teacher sometimes showing us what they are working on. I can’t believe my baby is going to be in kindergarten next year. 

Rosy

We have a really cute new member of our family… Rosy Harris. We were running errands and had to make a quick stop at the pet store. Clayton ran over to the fish section to pick up a couple things and Tess and I went to see the puppies and kitties, it was adoption day. Tess likes to tell all the animals’ hello and then goodbye and we usually leave the pet store without a new pet. This time I saw a puppy that looks like a puppy version of Lexi and I showed Clayton, big mistake. He couldn’t leave, we got in the car and we were pulling out but he could not leave the parking lot. I went back in and started the paperwork. We brought her home that day and we now have 3 puppies.

Rosy has actually been wonderful for our family. Lexi isn’t quite sure she wanted a puppy but Toby who was looking old plays with her constantly. Rosy has done really well with potty training, the only thing that she loves to do that I wish she wouldn’t is bring all her toys outside. It’s not like she plays with the toys outside, she just brings them in and out and then leaves them outside. We have to do a sweep every night and bring in all the toys.

We are done with animals in the Harris Family, 3 dogs and 1 fish is my limit.

Keeping Busy

Back in September we went to Anthony’s birthday party at this trampoline park. We had seen this place in passing and kept meaning to stop by but never had the time. The kids had so much fun playing in the ball pit, jumping on the trampolines, and running the obstacle course.

There was this really cool slide that lead into the ball pit, once the kids found this slide you couldn’t get them off of it.

Tess took a good nap after this outing, we have been back when Tess has had some extra energy that we need her to jump out.

Grandparent Visit

Back in July Nana and PawPaw came to town and visited. Granny came also but she stayed in Houston with some family. Saturday night the boys went to the Astros game and the girls went to the movies. We saw the new Ice Age movie, it was like all the other Ice Age movies but Tess enjoyed it.

After the Movie we stopped for a quick Ice Cream Treat. Our Family loves Ice Cream, we usually have some sort of ice cream in the freezer but it’s a special treat to go to an ice cream shop. Tess always picks out Chocolate Ice Cream and some sort of Chocolate mix in, this child loves her chocolate.

On Sunday we ventured out to the Children’s Museum. The outside of the museum hasn’t changed much since I have been but the inside has completely changed. We got there when the museum opened so we missed most of the crowds. Tess has a ton of fun running around looking at everything and trying everything out.

There was this one section where you could build things and knock them down, I think her daddy, PawPaw and Tess enjoyed this room the most.

Overall the museum was a nice outing for the family and we had a fun weekend with family. 

Built-in Shelving

Clayton and I realized after Tess’s birthday that we needed a lot more storage upstairs for all her toys and nick knacks. We looked around and I could not decide on anything that I really wanted and one night he looked at me and said well I could build you something, I think he regretted saying it right after it came out of his mouth. My simple shelving unit morphed into a built-in that took up most of one wall in our upstairs play room.

I took a week off from work and Clayton and I started the process of building our built-in shelving unit. The whole process took about 3 days and it was nice because we had the Olympics on the whole time. We also painted the playroom and decided to rearrange things while we were up there.

I still have some knick-knacks to buy for the top shelves but I am pretty pleased with how the unit turned out. Tess loved it, she kept wanting to go upstairs and play in her pretty room. She thanked Clayton and I so many times for making her play room so pretty for her.