Turning 4 Round Two…

 Round Two was another party using the blow up water slide but at our house with mostly friends and my side of the family. We had a lot of people in and out of the house and a chaotic week leading up to the party. We decided to put in a back porch which was wonderful for the party but stressful leading up to the party.

Tess went to school on her actual birthday and wore a special birthday girl shirt. We ate donut holes that morning and brought cupcakes for her class to eat for snack.

Her class sang Happy Birthday to her, she loves the birthday song especially when they are singing to her.

We had a ton of people over for her party, and we made it pretty easy on us this year. Food to snack on, tray from Chick-fil-a, veggies, and fruit. It worked pretty well and was really easy which was needed since we had two parties this year.

We had another cookie cake and Tess loved that this one just had pink and purple on it, her favorite colors. We got the biggest cake because we weren’t sure how much we were going to need. We ended up sending some cake to the fire station.

Tess got a lot of presents and she was so excited when she saw them. My sister got the whole opening presents experience on video and everyone at the party thought it was hilarious how excited she was for every single present. They call it the Tess Experience. She is so innocent and I love that even when she received the same toy twice she was just as excited the second time as the first time and exclaimed she could share it with her best friend Kayla and Anthony.

She had a good time celebrating her birthday (twice), this year we started to a process that she needs to clean out old toys before she can put open up and put away her new toys. We then donate her old toys. This helps us keep her playroom clean but it also helps us teach her that its always good to help those that may need it more than we do. 

Turning 4 Round One…

We celebrated 4 twice this year, once in Bedford and once in Cypress. Granny wasn’t able to travel so we brought the party to her. The party was mostly family and Tess had a lot of fun. We came in Thursday night and celebrated Mona’s birthday on Friday. Tess and I took her to a ceramic painting place where you can also mosaic. I didn’t get a picture of her masterpiece but fun was had by all.

From the moment we arrived Tess started getting birthday presents, to say this child might be a little spoiled by her grandparents is an understatement. She loved that her presents were spread out and she had time to play with each one before opening the next one. This year she really got into the presents, making a list of her own and she lit up when she saw something that she had put on her list. It was really neat.

Aunt Alicia and Cody fishing pole, which she had been wanting for a long time. We met them at a stocked lake that night to test it out. We had been out to this lake with them before but Tess now had her own pole to test out and she was super excited. Tess didn’t realize the patience required for fishing. She also didn’t realize how slimy fish were. 

Alicia caught a fish on her pole and let Tess reel it in, once she got the fish in she dropped the pole and ran. We have used the pole at home but she has informed me that if she catches a fish daddy will have to take it off the hook.

Saturday was party day, we brought our blow up water slide with us and as usual it was a big hit with the kids. The kids played, and ate and played some more. I think they were all pretty tuckered out by the end of the party. 

Its nice that even though Tess doesn't see her distant cousins all that much she still gets along with them really well when they are all together. 

We decided to go with a cookie cake this year, Tess loves cookies and it worked out pretty well. We ate cookie cake and ice cream, opened presents and then said our good byes. We cleaned up the house and everyone had rest time.

We of course had to get our dog picture before we left. We had a good first party, round two was the following weekend. 

Summer is here

Summer started with a roar. Tess’s daycare send pictures when they are doing fun activities and they were dressing up like the circus one Friday. She decided to be a Tiger and they painted her face. She usually doesn’t like anything on her face so I was surprised to still see the paint on when I picked her up. When we got home she immediately said get this paint off my face. It was cute while it lasted.

The annual Guns & Hoses game this year was a bust. The game was on Saturday night and the game got cancelled and rescheduled for Sunday. Not a lot of people showed up for the rescheduled game on Sunday. The rain held out for the Dynamo game but it started raining as Clayton starts playing. Several lightning strikes ended the game and they have yet to reschedule it. Clayton did an interview at the beginning of the game which he was not really prepared for. We had celebrated Mother’s Day before the game so my parents brought Tess to the game right as the Dynamo game was ending and she was excited to see Bubba. She misses him since he has moved. He carried her on his shoulders to our new location for the Guns & Hoses games. And we were prepared for a good game. The weather had other plans.

Matt and Tess had fun dancing to our new location. Tess likes music and likes to dance but she doesn’t like loud music. She put her hands over ears because the drums were too loud for her.

Our normal summer time activity is the Astros Games. We have enjoyed quite a few Astros games and Tess is starting to learn the positions and the rules. My mom has started teaching her the game. She has the brand recognition down, anytime she sees the Astros logo she instantly says it’s the Astros, I go see them.

We have also tried to spend some time outside while the weather was still nice, it didn’t get too out till later in the year this summer. One of our neighbors has this toy motor bike thing and Tess enjoyed riding it. She was a little apprehensive at first but when she got the hang of it she took off. She was not so good at turning though.

Clayton and I knew that we wanted to get Tess a Bike for her birthday but we didn’t know what size helmet she needed. One day while we were out shopping we decided to try on some helmets. They have some interesting helmets for kids these days. We decided on a Minnie and Daisy helmet for Tess.

Lexi has spent her summer in the cone of shame, she scratched her eye again. We later found out that there were some little hairs inside her eyelid that were wreaking havoc. She spent a good amount of time in the cone until we went to a specialist and she had surgery.

  

Jetting to Bedford…

Tess and I jetted off to Bedford for the weekend, Clayton couldn’t come because he had to work. We took an evening flight on Thursday out of Houston and Landed in Dallas. Tess was so excited to visit Nana and PawPaw but she was even more excited to be on an airplane.

When we landed we got in the car and headed to the house. We had a quick snack and then headed to bed. The next morning we got up and Tess and Nana went and got a haircut. I waited around the house for the AT&T guy. Tess got a pretty good haircut from her Great Aunt Marcia.

After lunch Tess and PawPaw went to the park with Cramer. They fed the ducks and walked around, it was too hot to play on the playground. When they got back from the park Cramer was wore out and he was laying down on the garage floor and then moved to the wood floor trying to cool off.

After Dinner we went fishing with Alicia and Cody. Tess got a little bored of watching no one catching any fish so we went and investigated the playground. She ran all over the playground and tuckered herself out. When we got back to where everyone was fishing, Cody freaked her out by eating some dog food because he was a little hungry. I wish I had taken a picture of the look on her face when she saw Cody put a piece in his mouth.

The next day was Terry’s birthday party. We all went over to Marge and Terry’s and helped him celebrate his big day. Tess at one point fell in the pool and I jumped in from to make sure she was ok. When walked across the street the change our clothes and came back to the party for a little but longer. She stayed away from the pool for a while but eventually she started getting closer and we kept having to reminder her to stay away. This child has no fear and that scares me.

   

Let there be change

One of the things that we knew that we wanted to change in the new house was the floors. We spent a lot of time figuring out what we wanted to do and what would work best with our life and the space. We decided on tile that looked like wood, and we love it. Clayton and I spent a couple of days moving furniture around the house and putting plastic up around the cabinets to protect the house. The company putting in the tile would have moved the furniture around and put some plastic around but we wanted to minimize the dust on the furniture and make sure the plastic was secured well.

The guys were supposed to start on Monday and the process was supposed to take a week. The Sunday before we were supposed to start the whole town flooded and most of Houston shut down. The process started a day late and actually completed on time. We were stuck upstairs and in our rooms but the plastic pretty much contained the dust to downstairs. We couldn’t use the kitchen all week so we ate out all week. Tess was not happy with the noise and the mess and she wanted the carpet back but after the process was complete she was OK with the change.

Tess and I jetted off to Dallas before the process was finished so we didn’t see the finished product until we got back. The floors are amazing and take up most of the downstairs. The floors make the floor plan more open (if that’s possible) and connects all the rooms together. We love that the floors are tile but look like wood.

Spring is in the air

We had pretty nice weather this spring and the cool weather lasted a pretty long time. Clay was still studying for his promotional test so we stayed around the house and I tried to find things to occupy Tess’s time.

Tess enjoys helping as much as she can at the store. She carried the bread like a champ at one of our quick stops one night after daycare. That same trip she wanted to take a picture on the horse. She knew that I didn’t have any change to make the horse move she just wanted her picture taken with the horse. Tess loves her puppies and tries to coral them into taking a picture with her. The puppies are not always happy but they obey and then quickly scatter. Tess has learned how to master monkeys in a barrel and she always loves to play bubbles outside. Matt was in town for a weekend and we enjoyed some time with Roscoe.

Tess loves to play bubbles and when the weather is nice we spend some time outside blowing bubbles, catching bubbles and enjoying the sunshine.

Cat got married this year and of course we had to have a night out to celebrate before the big day. We all went out to dinner and then went to what we thought was a low key bar that would have some live music. It turned out to be a hipster bar and we were a little out of place. O well we had fun and no one bothered us.

Cat’s wedding was very beautiful and a very fun evening. She got married out in Wharton and it seemed like it was an all weekend event. Friday night we went to a non-rehearsal rehearsal dinner. They didn’t have a wedding party but invited the people that would have been in their wedding party to dinner. Saturday was the wedding and Sunday was a barbecue but we were exhausted and decided to stay up north. It was a great weekend and I am so happy for Cat and Justin.

We had a fun filled Spring but I am glad its over, it was hard to occupy Tess while Clayton was studying. I do miss the awesome weather. 

Easter in Dallas

For Easter we went up to Bedford for a long weekend. We went up Thursday morning and came home Sunday. We spent a lot of time around the house and Tess made her first visit to Fossil Rim. Granny hadn’t being feeling well so we was in a rehab facility so when we weren’t at home or at Fossil Rim, we were at the Rehab Facility.

One evening we enjoyed some park time before dinner. The Boys Ranch in Bedford is going through a massive makeover and it’s looking really good. Tess loves the park and Mona even joined in on the fun. It was a really nice day out and Tess needed to burn some energy so we spent a good amount of time hanging out at the park.

One of the days we went to Fossil Rim, Tess is still too young for the behind the scenes tour so we just drove through the park. Tess loves animals so I knew she would enjoy being able to feed the animals from the car. We started out the car ride with the normal warning, don’t feed the ostriches, and she knew when we got to the ostriches we don’t feed those birds. She had so much fun looking at the animals and feeding them. 

There was a petting zoo and little shop where she flattened a penny and an animal appeared on it. After the shop we continued on our way and saw and fed more animals on our way out of the park. I can’t wait for her to be able to do the behind the scenes tour and stay the night.

At one point we came across some massive red deer and they came right up to the window and almost came into the car. Tess was not thrilled with how big they were or how close they came. She had enough of them and was ready to roll up the window and leave them behind and see other animals.

On Sunday we woke up and the Easter Bunny had found us at Nana and PawPaw’s house. We had a big egg hunt inside since it was yucky outside and she found the golden egg. She was so excited when she realized there was money inside the golden egg that she wanted to go to the store right then and spend her cash.

When we got home we had to go to the grocery store to pick up the necessities and at the store she found to perfect toy and asked if she could buy it with her egg money. We said ok and she and her pony wheeled around the house till the battery ran out.

That night before bed Tess was singing her songs and as I was listening I realized that she had combined two songs into one, This Little Light of Mine and Deep in the Heart of Texas. She starts off with this little light of mine and then breaks into deep inside my heart. I am not sure how these got combined but she has made a new hit.