So Creative

Tressa is such a little character sometimes. She has quite the imagination! The other day Jason was watching a hockey game on TV and was trying to get the kids into it so that they wouldn't make him put one of their shows on. They were pretty curious about the skating on ice part. Tressa disappeared into her room for a few minutes and came out looking like this.

"Look Mom, I'm a hockey player!" She said as she started "skating" around the living room. It was hilarious.

Daddy's Little Buddy

For months Corbin has been going through a Mamma's boy stage and has been a little clingy. But I think he's starting to come out of it a little lately. He likes to mimic what Jason does and follows him around the house. Anytime Jason's home Corbin will run and get a toy to play with Daddy. Usually it's a ball or car of some sort, or sometimes they just wrestle or tickle. But the other day Jason was reading in bed one morning (he's one book ahead of me in the Twilight series ladies!) and Corbin grabbed a book of his own, climbed up in bed and joined him. He didn't ask Jason to read it to him, he just wanted to look at it on his own, he wanted to do what Daddy was doing. It was so cute.

And here he is helping himself to a lick of Daddy's ice cream cone, even though he's got his own in the other hand. He also kept insisting that Daddy have a lick of his. What a character.

Nesting

I've had a sudden burst of energy over the past few weeks and I've been nesting like crazy. Getting things ready for the baby, but also just purging and organizing in general. I even went through the kids rooms and tried to get rid of old clothes and excess toys. I was able to go through Corbin's stuff mostly without his knowledge, chucking the junky things that he doesn't play with anyway. But I decided to elicit Tressa's help when decluttering her room because I was sure that if I threw something out she would somehow realize it was missing (even if she never plays with it) and get upset. So I made piles of similar items and allowed her to choose a certain number of items from each pile that she really loved, played with and wanted to keep. She did really well and we got rid of a lot, but after we went through the stuffed animals she started to look a little worried. "Are we giving these animals to the needy children?" she asked looking very thoughtful.

"Yes, sweety. To the kids that don't have any stuffed animals."

"But...will I ever see them again?"

"No sweety, but that's why we kept all your favorite ones."

"Well, can we maybe give them to one of my friends so that I can still visit them sometimes?"

"I think all of your friends already have stuffed animals."

She started looking teary eyed at this point. So I came up with a plan. "How about we take a picture of all the animals we are giving away so that you can always remember them."

She thought it through. "Okay Mom, but I don't ever, ever, EVER want to get rid of the picture, okay?"

"OK."

After we took the picture she seemed to feel much better and we went on with our evening. I got the kids in the bathtub and started bagging up the things we had purged from her room. Every so often I heard a sad little voice calling from the tub as Tressa kept thinking of items we'd tossed. "Mom? Did we throw away the (some junky toy she hasn't touched in months)?" I started feeling a little bad and I let her rescue a few things, but then I had to put my foot down and tell her that there was no more space to keep things, so if she wanted to take anything back from the junk pile she'd have to get rid of something else. She got over it after that. I know that adults often get into the bad habit of keeping too many things...becoming pack rats, but I couldn't believe my 4 year old had such strong feelings about her clutter. It was so cute. I think she felt good about getting rid of it in the end, especially since we were donating a lot of it. Hopefully it won't be so traumatic next time!

A Break from the Cold

There were a couple days during the holiday break where it actually warmed up enough to take the kids to the park without jackets. (I'm ready for another one of those days about now...it's been so COLD!) I think everyone else in town had the same idea as we did that day. The park was super crowded with kids trying out their new Christmas toys (bikes, scooters, roller blades, skateboards, kites, etc.) There were even some friendly games of soccer and football going on. Corbin had been asking to go to the park for weeks. He just didn't seem to think the cold weather was a valid reason for not going to the park. I was relieved to finally be able to get him off my back...and he was ecstatic. He knows there are three things mommy won't let him do in the cold weather: wear crocs, roll the window down in the car, and go to the park. So now anytime I let him do one of those things he excitedly asks for the other two. For example, there was one day that I was in a hurry and didn't want to fight about his shoes so I told him he could just wear his crocs. His face suddenly lit up and he exclaimed "Hab my window down in da car!?" Anyway, we were all glad to have a break from the cold and the kids had a great time at the park.

We played on the playground...






Went for a walk...

And rode bikes...

Jason even got out his old remote control car for Corbin (which was a big hit)!

How about These Names for the Baby?!

So, we've been having a little trouble coming up with a name for the baby this time around. How about these? (left to right) Vikas, Hitesh, Nishant, Sidharth, Jason, Rajiv. These are some of Jason's flight students that we had over for dinner one night during the holiday break. They are all from India and Sri Lanka...and I have no idea how Jason can keep those crazy names straight! They are all super nice guys...very polite...very hard (for me) to understand. I thought it was really thoughtful of Jason to invite them over since they are all away from their families right now. What a guy! He is a great instructor and really likes his students...but maybe not quite enough to name our child after one of them. Hmmm...back to square one I guess.

Briggs Christmas 2008

This was our first year spending Christmas away from our families. It was a little weird not being together. We missed the traditions and being with them of coarse, but it was actually kind of nice to have a quiet Christmas at home with our little family this year.

The kids had a fun time helping me decorate. Corbin reminded me to turn the Christmas lights on each day.


Tressa and I made a gingerbread house this year. Corbin kept trying to eat all the candy, so we had to banish him from the project.


Tressa learned some new Christmas songs at school and got to perform them for us at their "Christmas Praise" concert. She was so excited to be on the stage! She was beaming at us and waving between songs. It was really cute.


We went to see the lights at RHEMA with the Carneys and they were kind enough to take our family's picture. The kids had a blast running around and pointing out their favorite colors, except for Corbin who was fussy because I wouldn't hold him the whole time. (He's been super clingy lately...maybe in anticipation of the baby's upcoming arrival....but we've actually seen some improvement in that department lately....thank goodness!)


Christmas Day was really laid back this year since we didn't have to do any running around to visit family. It was really nice to let the kids open presents at their own pace. They spent the whole day playing with everything they got. This was the first year that they were both old enough to know what was going on and be excited. It made it more fun for me and Jason too.

They loved finding all the little treasures in their stockings and they were both pretty exuberant unwrappers this year.







They were just as excited to watch Mom and Dad open presents. Here's Daddy giving them hugs to say thank you for his new wireless Rock Band guitar.


Here's Corbin with a motorcycle he'd been eying in the store for weeks and a new remote control train.




The one item Tressa consistently asked for this year was, of all the things you could want, a bath robe. I'm not sure why she wanted it so bad, but she was sure excited to get it. She ran to try it on immediately.


Corbin's main gift this year was a train table. He is VERY into trains right now. We found a couple stores in town that have display train tracks set up for customers to play with...we were getting a little tired of taking him there every day...it's all he wanted to do. We were expecting a big reaction from him when he walked into his room and saw it all set up. It was kind of funny because he didn't have an immediate reaction. He just went straight to playing with it as if he was afraid it would suddenly disappear. After a few minutes it finally sunk in and he got really excited...he was practically skipping around the table. It was hard to get a good picture of him because he was so focused on playing. This is the best I could do.



Tressa's main gift was a wooden doll house. It's big enough for Barbie dolls to fit in and the furniture is so cute. She has been loving it! Even Corbin likes to play with it sometimes. I wish I'd had one when I was little. They make the best toys now.


They also got a school bus tent from Santa which they love to play in together. I had to get a shot of Tressa's staticky hair after hours of play.


That evening we had some friends over for dinner and games. It turned out to be a really nice Christmas.

Tressa is 4!

Tressa turned 4 a few weeks ago. We had quite the celebration this year. She had a family party while we were in Utah, then we took treats to her preschool and celebrated with her classmates and she also had her first friend party. She LOVED being the birthday girl!

We had both sides of the family over for her birthday party in Utah. It was fun having everyone together. I was getting frustrated at Tressa though because she was being so grumpy and just not acting like herself...I thought maybe it was because she had just gotten up from her nap or was maybe a little overwhelmed by all the attention, but found out later that she just wasn't feeling very well. She held it together until almost everyone had left and then she spent the next several hours throwing up! Poor thing...I felt bad for being upset at her.

It really was a fun party and I think she still enjoyed it despite her upset tummy. We did a Barbie Princess theme. My Mom found some cute decorations and a pinata and I got her a Barbie Princess cake with huge roses on it (roses were part of Tressa's criteria for "the most beautiful cake of ever"). She got some really nice gifts and felt really special having everyone there.

Here's Tressa and cousin Rachel (who didn't leave her side) by the cake.


Tressa's cousins were all eager to help her open her presents and see what she got.


Tressa wanted her piece of cake to have a rose on it. I should have clued in that she wasn't feeling well when she hardly touched it. She's wearing a special birthday crown in this picture that Rachel made for her.


Uncle Jordan held the pinata (he was glad it was the kind where you just pull the strings to make the candy fall out).


At the end of the party Tressa wanted to try on her new Sleeping Beauty clothes that the Pemberton's gave her. She came down the stairs looking like this.


It was literally less than 5 minutes later that we were in the bathroom over the toilet. I barely got her dress off in time. Luckily it only lasted that one night and she was happy and healthy for the rest of our trip.

She had school the day after we got home and wanted to bring treats to share with her class. We made sugar cookies and decorated them with different kinds of sprinkles.


Tressa loved having me and Corbin come to her classroom. She was being really cute about showing her little brother around and telling him all about what she does at school. I brought her a crown/headband that said "Birthday Queen". Her teachers lit some candles for her to blow out and all the kids sang Happy Birthday to her. She felt pretty special having her moment in the spotlight at school.


It was really fun watching her with all her classmates.


Round three of Tressa's Birthday marathon was a Kindermusik birthday party with all her friends. This was her first year having a friend party and she was so excited about it. She helped me make the invitations and put together the party favors, which we tied to balloons in the colors she picked out (pink for the girls and green for the boys).


She also picked out her own cake. I let her choose whatever she wanted in the catalogue at Albertson's. She chose a castle princess cake with figurines that she could keep. It even came with a sash and tiara!


Everyone seemed to really enjoy the party. They got to play instruments, sing, dance, hear a story and even play with a giant parachute.




After the cake all the kids swarmed around Tressa as she opened her presents. It was funny to watch them inch closer and closer with each present she opened. They were all so excited...it was really cute.


Tressa is such a good girl - she really deserved every minute of the week-long celebration. She has always been my little helper and is so thoughtful and responsible. She tries really hard to choose the right and she loves being a good friend and big sister. She amazes me. We love you so much Sweetie!