Trick or Treat

This year Halloween was a lot of fun! We had a full day! Tessa woke up and had a runny nose and I was afraid she was coming down with a cold... Luckily, it turned out to be just a runny nose and nothing else! We started out our day at the pumpkin patch. Poppa had been in town all week so he tagged along with us. Tessa played in everything, touched all the pumpkins she could, and even got to ride a pony. She enjoyed that! Next we went to McDonald's and ate lunch. Then it was home for a few minutes and off to the Kirk's Trunk or Treat festival across from our neighborhood. (The site of their new church in the works.) Tessa loved that! It was her first taste of filling up her pumpkin. Then we came home for a nap, dinner, and dress up. We headed out trick or treating that night not knowing how long it would last. About 30 houses later and a full pumpkin, we decided to come home and pass out some of the candy we had bought. It was such a fun day...Tessa can't quit talking about it.

Pumpkin Patch

One of our favorite thing to do each year is to take Tessa to the Pumpkin Patch. We have been every year since Tessa was born...we usually try to go every weekend we can in October. It is so fun watching Tessa run around....She loves it:) She gets so excited seeing all the pumpkins!

Videos for Daddy

Josh went to Shanghai to work for a couple of weeks and so Tessa, Toby, and I packed up and headed to Texas. We went to Grand Prairie for half the time and San Antonio the other half. It was so fun seeing everybody. Tessa got to see all of her grandparents which can be kind of confusing for a 2 year old remembering 8 different names. Nana and Poppy; Noni and Poppa; Mimi and PawPaw; and Grandma and Grandpa. She did pretty well and really only mixed up 2 of the names. We missed Josh while he was away, but got to talk to him every day. We didn't do a whole lot on our trip. It rained the WHoLE time we were gone it seemed. It was just nice hanging out with everyone.

video with Great Grandpa and his glasses

Tessa talking to daddy:)

Kisses

The past two nights when we have put Tessa to bed she has said the sweetest thing. After we read her a story and said prayers, we gave her a kiss and told her we love her.....then Tessa said "I want more kisses:)" ......So sweet!

Two nights later, we had already put her to bed and we were in our room getting Josh packed up for his trip to China. A few minutes later we hear Tessa over the baby monitor saying "I need more kisses." She loves her kisses!

Dance Party

Each night we have a new thing Tessa likes to do. We know it's time when she starts saying "dance party." She stands up on the fireplace mantle...she calls that her stage...and she asks us to sing. She uses her play-do roller and she bangs on the bricks and dances....really just bounces. When we're done with the song, she gives us a standing ovation. It's so cute and fun to see her doing things like this and using her imagination more!

BTW: the orange pants are what she calls her pumpkin pants. She is going to be a pumpkin for halloween and that day I tried on her outfit and she refused to take her "pumpkin pants" off. Good thing we didn't have to go anywhere that afternoon!

Nana's visit

Nana came for a quick visit last weekend. She had seen us 2 weeks earlier when we went down to Grand Prairie for Labor Day, but she had a free ticket she needed to use, so up she came. Crazily, she noticed such a huge difference in Tessa over the course of 2 weeks. Tessa was so much more playful with Nana than she had ever been on any of her visits. They even got to have sleep overs at night:) Tessa has graduated to her big bed and so when Nana came to town, they slept one on the top twin and one on the bottom twin bed. Nana said she woke up and Tessa was just staring at her. We had fun while she was in town. We made a few new hair bows for Tessa to match some of her fall clothes. We went on walks and to the park, we played, went to the mall, and just hung out. It was a fun weekend!

Tessa is so blessed to have such loving grandparents!

Trying to become more domestic....

My mom came in town for the weekend and we decided to take advantage of Tessa being in preschool Thursday morning. We went shopping for my Christmas present...a little early.

My mom has always wanted me to sew. She is a really good seamstress herself and she tried her best to teach me, but I was just never interested. My 8th grade home-ec project was a baby doll dress. I always told my teacher that I needed more time to work on it so she would let me take it home. Of course, that meant my mom did most to all of the work:) She always told me when I was ready that she wanted to buy me my first sewing machine. I don't know where it came from, but I finally got the urge to sew. I've been wanting to find a hobby that I can do in all of my free time ;), so I thought sewing might be a good thing to try.

I practiced a lot over the weekend. My mom showed me the basics of my machine and we hemmed a pair of pants together. I haven't decided what my first project is going to be.... I need something really easy so that I don't get frustrated or feel like a failure:)

Thanks Mom...hopefully I'll be half as good as you someday:)