Tessa the Photographer

Tessa grabbed my camera and started saying cheese! As she pointed it at me and started pushing buttons. I managed to get this pic of her in action before I got the "real" camera back.

Happy to you!

"Happy to You!" as Tessa says. March 23 is a special day for our family- now 3 generations of birthdays: my mom, my brother and Tessa. My brother lives in CA and went fishing on the Columbia river for his birthday.
We celebrated this year with a cupcake party with the family. We did a cupcake walk, sidewalk chalk, and ate the delicious cupcakes I stayed up way too late making the night before.We had a great time. Tessa's favorite present was the pretty dress her aunt Jaime got for her. She danced with it and twirled it around for nearly 10 minutes! And the dresses that Auntie Caroline gave were darling at well! Tessa is such a girly girl, they were perfect! Her other favorite present? The bag that the dress came in. She played her own game of putting the bag on her head and walking all around the room, laughing hysterically when she ran into the furniture. Lol!
The later in the afternoon, we had a neighborhood potluck, since we have awesome neighbors, and one of them has a birthday on Sunday too. We played pin the candle on the cupcake, which Siena LOVED- she kept telling everyone, "NO, over here! Put it on the cupcake, look over here!" And we all had a delicious dinner together. Tessa scored her first real tea cup from Julia.

The Pre Party

So we celebrated Tessa's birthday the day after. Day of, I had to work, so I sent a party in a bag with her to the babysitters, where they had cupcakes, played games and blew bubbles. They had such a great time, Siena totally conked out after (while Tessa helped me make more cupcakes).

I love to see the temple

One of the girls' favorite songs is "I love to see the temple," the primary song. They sing this every time we drive by a temple. So I thought it would be fun to take a few temple pics for their bedroom.

Riding Bikes

Siena learned how to ride her bike last weekend. She is on training wheels, but may not need them for much longer, she is doing so well! We even rode to the park together, after Thad installed a baby seat on my bike for Tessa. Jairus was visiting and rode the trike.

t-shirt turned toddler dress

So I saw this tutorial for turning a shirt into a dress for a toddler, and I thought, 'Hey, I have a hideous shirt that doesn't fit because it's too boxy and the seams don't even line up, that might even make a cute dress.' Unfortunately, since this was my first attempt, I didn't have super high hopes and didn't even bother taking a "before" shot. I am still new to this. Anyway, here are a couple of after shots, as modeled by Siena.
I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out! And the most exciting part is that she has shoes that will go great with this, and I have a matching pair of those same shoes for me!
More pics to come on that...

Little Miss Siena

I took the girls shoe shopping a couple weeks ago. A store was having a big sale, so we checked it out. We found lots of cute shoes, including a matching set for Siena and mom!
There were loads of super cute little girl shoes I had Siena try on. These were not one of those. These were not even on display. Somehow, Siena found these all by herself, located a box (the only box) with her exact size, put them on, and refused to take them off. She was in heaven when I finally bit the bullet and let her wear them today. And while her journey started out a bit wobbly, this girl learned how to walk pretty decently in heels in 1 day! I guess I have no more excuses for not knowing how to walk in heels.