Snow Day

This morning was full of firsts for our family. Brady was kind enough to wake up with Tessa at six this morning and let me sleep in. That's not a first, by the way. He woke me up at about 7:45 to say Tessa was about to play in the snow for the first time. Last winter she was just a baby in a bundle of blankets and so she's never really seen snow. It's also the first snow "storm" we've had since living in Washington. It was a whopping inch-and-a-half which meant no school. 

A snow day. 

The back yard was full of giddy children. We used to laugh at the thought of a whole city shutting down because of two inches of snow. I guess that's because of the I-had-to-trudge-through-nine-feet-of-snow-for-a-solid-month-to-get-to-school-and-it-was-the-middle-of-april mentality we adopted in Utah. Now that we're living here, we know that the roads can be pretty scary. Black ice is inevitable and the hills are steep steep STEEP.  I know I really don't need to tell you that Tessa loved everything about this morning but... she loved everything about this morning! 

^The majority of these pictures look like they were taken at night. That's Seattle for you.^

^Maybe we'll have a white Christmas after all.^

^Shaking hands with Frosty.^

^In desperate need of a tissue.^

^Post snow and pre bath. Frozen fingers and toes.^

It was the perfect amount of snow, for me at least. I think all of the kids, especially Tessa, thought today was the best day yet. It definitely didn't look like the picture my friend just sent me from Utah:

or the winter wonderland we experienced back here but to a child snow is snow. And snow is magical. Here is a video I made this morning of Tessa. Hope you enjoy. If you're family could you upload the video to facebook so others could see it? Happy Friday!

 

Insta

Hey all! Can you believe Thanksgiving and November have already come and gone? I can't tell you how excited I am that Christmas is literally just around the corner! The holidays are a busy time for everyone and I've found it very difficult to keep this blog updated on the daily. I know many of you (by many I mean Ron) check this blog multiple times a day to get updates on our family. I know you've been very disappointed at the lack thereof. So how do we find a balance? How do I keep you updated on all the daily happenings while still juggling the busyness of our lives? 

The solution?

Instagram.

On the right side of the page you'll see a little icon of a camera. That little camera will take you straight to my instagram page. I've normally kept that page private and just used it to edit pictures that I later put on my blog. Yesterday I decided to take pictures with Instagram, add a caption right next to those pictures and *VOILA* I found myself with a bunch of mini blog posts documenting our day, each taking only a few seconds. It was so easy!

Wait, Kate! What about the blog?
Well, I plan on doing a post at least once a week but the majority of the updates you'll find on my instagram page. I'll even let you know via Instagram when I post an actual blog here so you don't have to try visiting both sites daily.

Like I said before, I really only used my instagram to edit pictures, so all of the pictures before December won't have any captions and there will be multiple pictures of the same event. To make each photo bigger and to see what I've written just click on the picture.

Don't worry guys. This is going to be fabulous and everyone gets their fill of Tessa, Kate and Brady.

This post at a glance:
Instagram icon on the right. Click it.
There will be multiple pics daily so stop by often.
Captions starting in December.

And most importantly... LEAVE A COMMENT!
I love them :)

Happy Holidays everyone!

Also, look at this pic of Brady opening his mission call when he was 19. Aw, he's just a baby!

A video

October just whizzed by and November seems to be doing the same. Rather than try and do a separate post for each amazing thing that happened this past month, I decided to make a video instead. Tessa has transformed, over night it seems, into a toddler. We've celebrated her first birthday and now are heading into our second year of holidays with her. Crazy. What you'll find in this video: A little farm girl in overalls, a cherry red scooter and a day at the carnival with our favorite girl Melissa. There is a messy little one-year-old and a spotted leopard. You'll see Tessa and her best friend Emma laughing it up, a trip to Baimbridge Island with some good pals, partial nudity (sorry about that), and a couple random shots of guitar playing and noise making with daddy. Basically, every time I watch it I think to myself, "Man, I have the best life." Happy Friday everyone! Enjoy the clip...it's one of my favorites. 

I think I finally found a kitty I like

Saturday Tessa experienced her very first trunk-or-treat. I was planning on making her a cat for Halloween but wasn't really sure how to go about it, especially since I didn't want to spend any money on a costume. We cut some ears out of an old black folder, cut up one of daddy's old socks, zipped up our leopard footy pajamas and voila! We had ourself a little wild cat. I'm glad it worked out because we were literally putting the whole thing together minutes before we had to leave. For the most part she seemed to enjoy it. Ok, so she really didn't know what was going on but she sure liked grabbing candy out of people's buckets. The whole thing ran rather smoothly until Tessa saw a family dressed as Angry Birds (a popular game for your phone). Man, they really freaked her out. When we got her to calm down Daddy took her out a second time only to bring her back crying minutes after. You know those candy buckets that you can hide your hand in? Well the person popped his hand out while she was grabbing candy and scared her. Poor girl. Hopefully trick-ot-treating on Thursday will be full of a little less birds and scary hands and a little more candy!   

^Are you surprised she let me draw on her face? Me, too.^

 ^Trunk-or-treat.^

 ^I imagine for the next couple of days this girl is always going to have some kind of candy in her mouth.^

 ^Hard to choose.^

 ^Finally noticed she had a tail.^

 ^Caught her red handed. Just like a cat! Goes straight for the milk.^

^Sporting her killer rain boots.^

^The after math.^

^Candy hangover.^

Ponies and pigs

Lately I've been really in to doing Tessa's hair. The only problem is it makes her look so old! When it's just down and curly she looks like such a little baby but when it's in pigtails or a ponytail she looks like a little toddler! Speaking of grown-up behavior, Tessa wanted to wear mommy's shoes around the house and so she slipped her feet into my flats and scooted as best she could. So cute! She's also really into feeding herself with a spoon or a fork these days. She's actually really good at it, too! She likes to do chores with mommy and yesterday daddy helped her put away all of the utensils. She knows where her hand is and loves to wave "hello" and "goodbye." She says "ball" and "hi" and we're currently working on "more" and "drink". She loves to sit down and look at books by herself and sings along when mommy sings "Papa bought me a candy pig." She's finally gotten used to wearing her big girl shoes, which happen to be pink with sparkles (in case you wanted to know). If I'd let her she'd wear my blush every day (sometimes I let her. shhh don't tell dad).    

A 28" freshman

Yesterday we took a trip to the university's campus. Daddy wasn't able to join us like he was back here but we still had a really great time! Tessa loved being able to explore and slowly she got more and more brave and was able to venture farther and farther away from mom. She's learned how to wave and say "Hi" and so practically everyone on campus got a very special greeting from a very special girl. Once again she decided to brave the weather and rocky cement in socks. Sigh. The shoes we ordered for her came yesterday but were way too big. That's strike two for us because the ones we first ordered were too small. I think we'll just keep these and let her grow into them. As you can see from the pictures below Tessa had a hoot-of-a-time and the only way mom could get her to come back was to lure her with some snacks. Happy Thursday!

Seattle is beautiful this time of year and I'm loving every second of it.

Ode to pumpkins

Ok so I know this post doesn't have anything to do with poems, let alone poems about pumpkins. I just really liked the title so I decided I'd just use it anyway. As you can see in the picture above Tessa had a hard time finding a pumpkin she could lift. I really wanted her to have one she could carry around the house so we ended up heading to the nearest QFC and getting her a "fun sized" pumpkin. She loves it! Yesterday Tessa and I played with the pumpkins in our backyard. We also had a lot of fun playing with the camera... mom did, at least. I can definitely see why Brady loves taking pictures so much!

^Just right.^

^Our little pumpkin "patch".^

^Tessa's "fall harvest" pants.^

^Can I introduce you to my new boots? Every time I put them on I just want to go gather eggs or milk a cow. They're the best! Also, be impressed with the picture above because I took it all by myself.^

To see our trip to The Farm click Part I and Part II.
We are halfway through the week everybody! That's definitely something to celebrate.

The Farm: the BIG slide and a pumpkin or two

 Looking for pumpkins may have been my favorite part of our family adventure on Saturday. I always forget how overwhelming it can be for an OCD perfectionist to pick a pumpkin in a pumpkin patch. I have to find the perfect color and size and shape. If I get two or more then those have to be the same shape, color... you see what I mean? Ok, I'm really not that bad. Don't let me fool you though, I definitely cycled through my fair share of "perfect pumpkin" candidates. Brady will testify because he was the one that had to do the heavy lifting.  As promised from the post yesterday, here are our pictures of the pumpkin patch. Click here if you missed Part I of our trip to The Farm.

 ^Wanted to touch and lift them all.^

 ^Trying to figure out if these "balls" are like the soccer ball on our back porch. Nope.^

 ^I love this picture because it kind of looks like they're holding hands. They sure do like each other a whole lot. And get a load of my girls dusty bum!^

 ^Brady really is a fabulous photographer.^ 

 ^I'll take them all!^

 ^She was too busy trying to sit on pumpkins to take a picture with her mom.^ 

Ok, remember in this post how I said that despite the cold weather Tessa insists on being outside as long as possible and the process is always the same? I wasn't kidding folks. Every time it's like clock work. Let me show you:

 ^Outside! Yahoo!^

 ^Play. Paly. Play.^

 ^Her "Hmmm-is-it-just-me-or-is-it-kind-of-cold?" face.^

 ^ Her "Ok-Mom-I'm-really-cold-why-did-you-let-me-come-out-here!" face.^

Have you ever seen a sadder, snottier face?

 ^Miserable. Just miserable.^

And to wrap up our trip to The Farm here is a little clip of the girls and their daddies going down the big slide: