December Visitors

In late November Aaron was asked to be a Stake High Councilor so his Mom and Dad flew out here the first weekend in December so that Grandpa U could ordain Aaron. Because our plan was to stay in MA for the holidays it was especially nice for us to have some family visit during the season. Their trip also coincided with the Christmas in Salem Holiday House Tour that I the non-profit that I work for hosts each year (this year was the 30th annual tour) so they got to see some of the really cool historic homes in Salem.

A hottie keeping my cutie warm.

Does it look cold? Oddly enough two days before this picture we all went to the park and enjoyed 70 degree weather (yes, in December).

What a pretty dress! Tessa was going through a "not looking at the camera" phase.

Cute pic headed into the Aquarium

A-DOR-ABLE candid shot. I turned around and she was sitting patting this penguin.

Okay - and now, some of you may not like this but I'm going to post a bunch more pictures of the trip on facebook - see you there.

Luv Bug Birthday

Here is a sample of an activity we did today for Tessa's Luv Bug Birthday...

4 Layer Cake

Yesterday was my birthday (note the new background in honor of said event).

Yada...yada... frankly I didn't really care. I mean this in a good way, I just felt like, big deal. I would have been fine with just knowing myself it was my birthday. But, since other people cared (for which I am grateful, I mean, that DOES make you feel good) I used it to get some things that I wanted (in addition to presents, which were also very nice)...those things were:

Going out to eat at Passage to India. If you live in the area you MUST eat there. MUST.

Sleeping in.

Baking a 4 layer cake. And thus we come to the reason I posted at all. I had to show off my pictures of this delight.

(This is what it looked like under the frosting (I doubled the frosting recipe and still barely had enough to cover the cake)

O have always wanted to bake a 4 layer cake and now that I've finally done it I think I'll make this a regular birthday tradition. If any of you want to invite me to your birthday feel free to ask me to bring the cake, and I'll bring YOU a 4 layer cake.

Our Mecca (more commonly known as Temple Square)

We spent some time in Salt Lake City before our flight home. We wanted to go to Hyer's Hamburgers, particularly to get some fry sauce, but apparently its a popular place on a Friday night, so we found Mexican restaurant to eat at instead. Then we went to Temple Square to look at lights.

This is a very common outing for many people, but my dad installs Christmas lights professionally so with him it was a in depth research trip. For Aaron and I it was just fun looking at lights and being surrounded with thousands of other Mormons. We snickered at a few of the conversations we overheard, things you'd never hear on the streets of Boston, but we also found a lot of very nice people to take our picture.

This is where I told eveyone to hold still and Aaron made a face instead...I'm posting this to teach him a lesson...

These pictures were ones I took while playing with my camera settings. That is one of my favorite games yet I'm really no good at it...these are the few that weren't (too) blurry.

At Grandma and Grandpa C's House

Christmas Eve we made the trek through the white and drifted snow to my parent's house. Christmas Eve was filled with the well-loved traditions of reading Poochy the Christmas Pup followed by the Christmas Story in the Bible. I know you've all heard the story from the Bible so you should put Poochy on your list of "must reads" particularly if you can have my dad do it with the voices...just be warned, sometimes he gets over excited and raises his voice. I didn't warn Tessa and she got scared, it took her a few days to trust Grandpa completely, although she would still smile at him, from a distance.

While at both family's Tessa met hundreds of new people (Aaron points out that this is a slight exaggeration) but as long as they were there to smile at her she didn't mind. The best people she met though were the cousins that were near her age. (Once again I request that anyone who took photos at Aaron's parents house forward them along because I don't have any.)

This is cute little Gage. I'm holding a place for someone to send me the picture of his sister Charlotte giving Tessa a kiss on the forehead, I'll assume no one got a picture of her pushing her brother over while chattering happily with Tessa.

Mommy got sick the last day we were in Idaho Falls but Daddy took good care of Tessa and I'm sure duly impressed the in-laws.

When Blogs Collide

One of the highlights of the trip was seeing a good friend of mine from High School. Emily had her second child in June so we were excited to meet each others babies. Here is a picture...

...as well as a link to the correlating post on her blog.

Now is the part where I blatantly flatter Emily! Lately I've been obsessed with hair, and as you can see in the picture, her's looks so good!! I couldn't say this in person because it would lead to the obligatory "oh, you too..." and "oh, it just doesn't do what I want it to." It was also fun to feel like I know her kids, especially Nixon, from reading her blog obsessively. There are some real blessings that come from technology.

At Grandma and Grandpa U's house

After driving through a blizzard we got home very late. Tessa, of course, slept in the car and, of course, was still on Eastern Time so she woke up at 5:30. It wasn't bad though, because she got to eat her bottle while looking at the Christmas tree, then she got to play on the CARPET and look at the train set. It was nice quiet Mommy time and I got some cute pictures.

While at G & G U's house we got to see all the Aunt, Uncles and cousins. However my camera wasn't working so we only have a few pictures. If you happen to be an Aunt, Uncle or Grandparent reading this, and have any cute pictures, I would really appreciate if you forwarded them to me...I'd hate to have a gap in the photo documentation of the first child!

We had fun getting ready for Christmas, despite not having our luggage for three days. We also had fun at Aaron's family Christmas Eve party, which was moved into town because of the blizzard (second of three for our trip).

Christmas travel

For a long time I thought we had good luck traveling. But just recently I realized that our luck had changed and suddenly we have a long list of "cliche" travel stories.

A brief recap:

6 years ago - we were stuck on the tarmac in Amsterdam for 5 hours with the pilot intermittently announcing that we would be taking off in approximately 15 minutes. Finally, when the flight crew could sense mutiny afoot they put in the in-flight movie "Emperor's New Groove" and every single person on that plane sat down and watched it peacefully. We were ultimately put up in a nice hotel and flew out the next day.

2 years ago - There was the year that each flight we had arrived late so we were the crazy people running through the airport to make our connection, which, luckily they were late taking off so we made it everytime but one. The only one that left on time was the one we missed, which was good because that gave us time to eat. We had a direct flight to our home town that year. At the gate for this flight instead of the computer screen graphic with the destination listed there was a lined piece of paper taped to the blank screen with the words "Idaho Falls" written on it in ball point pen.

Last year our cat got sick the night before we left so we had to take him to the "Animal Hospital" and take advantage of the charity of quite a few of our friends to ensure his health. That year also featured delayed flights as a result of a huge storm over Denver and a drive from Salt Lake to Idaho Falls on Christmas Eve. The best part was the special Christmas Eve dinner of Cheetos, Beef Jerky and pudding purchased lovingly at the Flying J convenience store.

This year:
There was a light snow falling as we drove to the airport. That light snow resulted in a 3.5 hour wait on the runway during which 10,000 lbs of luggage was removed from the plane so that we could take off with slush on the runway. You guessed it, 200 lbs of that was our luggage. We were assured, and naively believed that our luggage would be put on a plane leaving an hour after we did and that it would be in Denver (and then Salt Lake) not long after we were. In reality, our luggage left Boston 36 hours after we did and then it went missing completely for a time before showing up mysteriously at the Idaho Falls airport just as Aaron and our "muscle" (our brother-in-law John) headed over there to do some thumping.

Thankfully, oh so thankfully, the return flight was smooth and non-eventful. However, both the drive from the SLC airport to Idaho Falls and the drive from Idaho Falls to the SLC airport were through blizzards...we really owe our parents for coming to get us.

See the weary travelers...

Tessa was an excellent traveler. On the 7.5 hour plane ride from Boston to Denver (should have been four) she slept well and rarely fussed. She was a bit less excited about the hour flight from Denver to SLC but I think she did wonderfully!

Okay - in this paragraph I was going to write about how on 3 of the 4 flights we had we sat next to college age girls who didn't say a word to us or Tessa the entire time. I was going to wonder if they thought there was such a great difference between themselves and me that they just couldn't cross the divide and then I was going to say "poo poo" on them for missing a great chance to meet the sweetest baby imaginable. However, then I realized that on 2 of the 3 flights that we sat next to young college age girls I was a coughing, snotty mess and perhaps to them I wasn't "that woman with the baby (roll eyes)" but instead "that coughing, snotty mess (roll eyes)" in which case I also wouldn't talk to myself. Yes, I was that person.

Innocence

Elf

Seasons Greetings

Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving. We ate dinner with friends and it was great. The only person who ate more than Aaron was Tessa.

Just kidding, she did feast on the creamy mashed potatoes though...and Daddy gave her some roll. Mommy had to give him "the look" for that one.

No, we did not wake up early to go shopping on Friday. Do we look crazy? Nevertheless we are ready to head into the Christmas season. Ho Ho Ho!!

Just for the heck of it, here is another picture that shows off Tessa's beautiful eyes.

Today is not November 13th

However I did not realize that until after I woke up at 5:30 (2.5 hours earlier than usual), shower, packed up Tessa and Aaron, drove into Boston, and sat in a doctor's waiting room for 20 minutes.

So I am considering that the dry run for tomorrow when Tessa's ACTUAL appointment is. Stay tuned.

"On the bright side," I thought, I was going to be able to get to the bank and the post office earlier and also get more work done at home.

Unless of course today is Veteran's Day, which it is, which I did not realize until after I parked, got Tessa out of the car and tried the door at the bank, which was locked.

Halloween in Salem

Halloween in Salem is great fun. Even on a Wednesday there was a crowd of 75,000 people who came that night. However not many of them came down our street (thank goodness) so it was a quiet night for us. Tessa did ask to get dressed in her costume though and so we spent some time on the front porch giving out candy and charming the neighbors.

However there was some real creepiness afoot. Some friends of ours' nanny came caught this video...its hard to tell what you are actually seeing so it really could be nothing...but take a look and see what you think.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eo8CP9Hhb58

A note about the costumes

I just HAVE to brag. (As if going on and on about how cute my baby is isn't enough.) The impetus for our bat family came when I was perusing the Halloween clearance racks last year. I made sure to buy something gender neutral considering the fact that I was only 11 weeks pregnant at the time! So as silly as that is I DID get a great deal. 1 baby bat costume originally priced at $19.99 on sale for 95 cents!! When I left the store I called Aaron and thought he would make fun of me. Instead the first thing he said was "I'm going to be BATMAN!" And there you have it.

The other brag is that I was out of time and didn't make it to the fabric store like I wanted to in order to get the felt and stuff need to turn ordinary black clothes into bat costumes. So we stopped at JoAnn's Fabric on the way to the ward party. So instead of homemade costumes they are car made costumes! Take that Martha Stewart!

Holy Center of Attention Batman!

I tell Tessa she is beautiful/cute/sweet about 25 times a day, minimum. Sometimes I think I should cut back a bit so that she doesn't become completely spoiled, but the truth is, she is too beautiful/cute/sweet for me to resist. Add that to all the old ladies at the grocery store coo-ing over her, oh, and to the problem I have controlling how many pictures I take of her. The result is she knows how to work a room and what to do in front of a camera.

Last night we all got dressed up and went to a Halloween party at a co-worker of Aaron's who lives near us. Don't tell the paparazzi but we had our baby out pretty late (with a long nap before hand.) Daddy couldn't even get beyond the front entry for 10 minutes because of the crush of admirers Tessa had. And oh did she preform!! We also wore the same get up to the ward Halloween party the night before. It was such fun to dress up and show off (as if we don't do that enough).

When last we met...

It has been a long time since I updated - Tessa was just home from the Hospital. It was Mother's Day...and it was three months ago.

Since then, well, thankfully, things have wonderfully normal. The only real indication of Tessa's rough start is the more frequent doctor visits, which mainly focus on her weight gain. Although she has been a finiky eater thus far she has still gained, about three quarters of an ounce a day. She came home from the hospital at 6 lbs. 10 oz. and today, I estimate, she is around 11 lbs. She is still long for her weight, but she has sweetly kissable cheeks and her little legs are getting more squeezable by the day.



Here are some other pictures of the past three months.

Mommy and Tessa's first day home alone...this is going to be easy ;) .

Tessa is all dressed up to go out for Mommy and Daddy's 6th Anniversary.

See I told you this would be easy...all she does is sleep.

Happy Girl.

Pretty Dress

Awwwww....

Tessa's Blessing was July 1st. Grandma Udy made her pretty dress.

Tessa as a tourist, on board the USS Constitution.

Avast ye mateys. (Can you tell Tessa is just riveted by our country's nautical history?)

This is the side Tessa has her scar on...its pretty much invisible!

Tessa and Mommy came into Boston on the train to have lunch with Daddy at the new Wagamama resturaunt at Fanueil Hall.

Playtime - she doesn't do as much sleeping lately, how can she with all these toys?

And to top it off...look what we started doing this past weekend!

Can you tell she likes it?