Tessa turned 2. . .

a month ago!

Life has been crazy and so I'm behind, but since it is snowing a lot today, I'm postponing my errands for the day and I'll attempt to recap a few blog-worthy items.
All Tess asked for for her birthday was Elmo. But since she doesn't play with toys much at all, I didn't want more than a small Elmo for her. . . ended up being a fantastic decision because she has given Elmo about 4 minutes of her life. She *loves* blowing out candles, so the cake was the highlight of her birthday.Saying "ooooooooooooooooooooo" about new beady socks from Camille, Mary and Alexa. They were a hit!Since she is such a busy busy girl, we decided a trike would be something she'd take to. WRONG!! After a few minutes of trying to ride it, she demanded "No work, take it back!" She couldn't figure out how to peddle. . . still hasn't since she won't touch it! On the other hand, those cute little pink boots from Grandma and Grandpa Porter have been an absolute favorite. Getting her to church in something besides the boots has been a bit tricky. I'll give you one guess as to what she is getting for Christmas. . .yes, clothes and shoes. She loves and plays with those a lot more than toys. She comes out from her nap dressed in lovely little creations (guess I should be a good blogging mommy and take a few pictures!)

Now just a few Tessaisms for my own record:
She is getting pretty good at using words such as "why not?", "maybe", "probably", "actually", "never mind". Pretty funny most of the times when she says them.

At her 2 year old appointment she only weighed 18lbs. 4ozs. Okay, to be in the 5th percentile she should be 22 1/2 lbs. Thankfully she has been a pretty healthy girl otherwise her weight would be even more of an issue.

While she is running away, she says "Come back here, Dessa." or as she is climbing to unreasonable heights for a 2 year old she says, "Careful, Dessa." And as she is getting into something she shouldn't she says, "No, no, no, Dessa."

One day after only a 40 minute nap, Tess woke up screaming. I debated whether to go into her or not because I really wanted her to sleep longer, but she didn't stop crying so I went into her. So glad I did! Her little hand was swollen and purple. She had taken out both hair bands and wrapped both of them around her wrist. Now she doesn't go for a nap at all with hair bands in. We also have to watch her in the car seat and other times she is bored because inevitably they come out and then get put on her wrist.

She has learned all the shopping lingo for a girl "Oh, this is so cute!" "I like this one!" "So cute!" "Want one of these!" "I love this!" And she LOVES to go shopping. . .I think I'm in trouble!

Thanksgiving with Kramer

Grandma Waddoups' friend and neighbor, Debbie, challenged all of the kids to a race with her goat, Kramer. If they could beat him, they got a lovely grand prize (although, I can't remember what it was!) It started out looking good for the kids, but it didn't turn out as well for them by the end.No matter, all the kids had a great time! (Nate ended up beating him after a few heats after Kramer lost his stamina. He maybe got an extra piece of pie!)

PS. . .while we were there, Debbie informed me that she liked reading my blog, but had a bit of a hard time finding it at first because she had been typing in "abigmomma.blogspot.com". . .I think she should have found it under that since that is so fitting these days!

Primary Children's Service Projects

We have been quite heavily involved in our ward's service project for Primary Children's Hospital. It was such a great project that I hope our ward does it again next year (in lieu of a sub for Santa tree because it allowed my kids to be involved a lot more).

Tom was in charge of a Duty to God activity in the teacher's quorum in November and we helped the boys tie a quilt for the hospital. While it wasn't grandly accepted at first, the boys all pitched in and did their part. Then, thankfully to my mom, it got bound.As a family we made pillow cases and medical dolls (don't have pictures of the latter). The boys were able to help quite a bit with both projects. (they loved the serging part!)I was also involved in the Primary portion of the activity. The kids worked on these service charts for about 5 weeks before the activity. (on the back of each chart was a list of ideas of things the kids could do for each box)At the ward Christmas party, they came to the "Helping Hands Gift Shop" to purchase items for the hospital with their service chart. Each chart was worth $1 and each item in the store was worth $1. (all of the store items were donated by people in our ward--you can see they were very generous!) Then they got to make a card to go on their gift(s). It was such a wonderful project because everyone in the ward from the Primary up was involved in service.

Christmas Day Surprises

{sorry this is so long with very bad and few pictures}

I grew up with a Christmas tradition that I can't replicate. It started out (I think) as a plan to keep us kids in bed a little longer on Christmas morning and blossomed into a very big deal. Every year my dad set a 'Christmas Trap'. They ranged in the early years from a simple fish line strung across the doorway connected to some pots and pans to complex mechanical devices that told us to get back to bed or that lit up or gave us a little scare or we faced false walls, decoys etc. . . . As kids we spent hours planning ways to get through the traps. We planned ways to communicate between bedrooms, stashed scissors, wire cutters, flashlights, knives etc. in our bedrooms so that we would be able to get passed or disarm whatever got in our way. In many ways the traps were more anticipated (and remembered) than the presents we gave or received. I wish I had some pictures to share, but I made an album last year for my dad about the traps and don't have any pictures left. So you'll just have to use your imaginations.

While we lived in Preston, we often spent Christmas Eve night with my parents so the boys got a few experiences with the traps. When we moved away, I knew we couldn't continue the traps because we're not nearly as resourceful or smart as my dad. But I wanted a fun, but doable for us, Christmas tradition. So Tom and I have come up with a Christmas Day surprises tradition. What does this mean? Who knows. . . but each year we try to make things just a little different and crazy. I'll share a few things we've done thus far to give you an idea.

First off, I have to note that we came across a *wonderful* tradition for us as parents, the kids have grown to like it, but that isn't to say it was well accepted at first. . .but at 8:30 on Christmas Eve, the kids are sent to bed in our room. They get the PlayStation, books, snacks and a cell phone. They are NOT to come out on any condition (but they don't need to since they have access to a bathroom, food, phone and fun.) That way we can get to work on all of our stuff at an early hour. I tell you, this idea has been genius for our family. I will ever thank Whitney Barrett for sharing their family tradition with me. Anyway, back to the Christmas Day Surprises. . .

We started out small the first year we did it. . . it was a search and find type of thing for one of their gifts. They each got numerous small gifts for their collections--Cache dice, Caleb marbles (Chan just got a small Lego set) that were all wrapped individually in the same paper and they had to hunt all over the house until they found all 50 or so items before they could open them. It ended up taking quite a bit of time and they had a lot of fun with it.

The next year Christmas was on a Sunday so we didn't plan something long and extensive. That year we got a ping pong table that we set up downstairs then we wrapped a lot of ping pong balls in shimmery paper and tied them with curly ribbon on the ends to make them look like candy. Then we hung them from the ceiling. Two of the balls were orange and at the end of the Christmas unwrapping that day we started opening ping pong balls one at a time. Whoever got the orange balls had to clean up. Caleb and Tom were the (un?)lucky finders. We sent Caleb downstairs with a large load of things to put away and he was the one to discover the ping pong table. (the bragging rights from the find made the cleaning up woes suddenly okay!)

The next year we hid their stockings, but left each boy a different color of yarn strung ALL OVER the house that they had to wind up to find their stocking. This was one of their favorites. (the whole house looked this tangled!)

Last year we got a little more involved with it. . . first off, the boys woke up to no presents under the tree, the old Christmas stockings were the only things under the tree, with nothing in them but a very large nail (like 5" long) with a poem about Christ's atonement. After a little devotional, they each got an envelope. In the envelope was a paper with bunch of numbers on them. Small dot stickers were stuck all over the main living area of the house. They had to collect the small dot stickers of their color to put on the numbers which created a dot to dot picture of the place where they would find a clue as to where their stocking was. (one picture made a drawing of the ceiling fan). Once they found their stockings, they had to find the presents. They were all stashed in the bathtub. After hauling them back under the tree we started the unwrapping festivities as usual.

This year we have gone even crazier, but I'm not going to say what we are doing in case I've got some blog reading children. I'll post about it after Christmas.

What are your traditions? I love to hear about what other people do. I was talking to our neighbors and it is interesting how vastly different everyone does Christmas morning. Please share!

Advent Calendars

We have an advent calendar for each kid in our family . . . They rotate between them so they each get a chance to do each one. They are a fun tradition so I thought I'd share.

#1:
This one we've had *forever*! I grew up with one very similar and I think many of my siblings have one too. I loved it growing up! It has 24 pockets with mini ornaments in them and each day an ornament gets hung on the tree.#2:
This is just a picture from Deseret Book that is put on a sheet of magnet (adhesive backed). Then it is cut into 24 squares. One square is put up each day. On the back of each square there is a piece of paper glued to it telling us a scripture to read or a song to sing.#3:
This is from the December 2000 Friend. I put the pieces that make up the Nativity picture on a sheet magnet then cut them out. The main sheet contains a scripture and an activity to do each day. (both #2 and #3 hang on our fridge and we do these advent calendars in lieu of daily scripture reading for the month of December. )
#4:
I just made this one this year (I think we used a throw away one last year). I looked at a lot of different advent calendars available on Etsy and then went from there. Had I not made it up as I went along, it would have saved me *a lot* of time, but as it was, I ended up becoming better friends with a seam ripper than I ever wished. Oh well, it is done and I'm mostly happy with it. For the numbers and letters, I used my foam stamps with fabric paint. Worked swell :). It has magnets sewn in it so that it hangs on the door going out to the garage. Each contrasting fabric piece is frayed a bit and puffed up with a little batting. In each pocket there is one mini candy bar and 5 M&M's. The person whose turn it is to open the pocket gets the candy bar, everyone else in the family gets an M&M!