Tessa is 2!

It was Tessa's birthday yesterday.  She is two and let me tell you, she acts like it!  Yikes!  It's fun to see her grow and turn into a kid instead of a baby though.  Her language is really taking off, she is showing readiness for ditching the diapers and she eats and feeds herself which is nice for me.  She loves to play with Duplos and Legos and all sorts of other choking hazard type objects like marbles.  She loves to wear her jacket or a sweatshirt and she loves "clips" such as the ones on the high chair or in the stroller.  Fortunately, car seat clips are kid proof so she is still safe in there! 

 

It's hard to believe that these pictures were already taken two years ago. 

 

 

It makes me think of this poem that was on our flyer at MOPS a few weeks ago.  I had seen it before but it came at just the right time...

The Last Time

From the moment you hold your baby in your arms,
you will never be the same.
You might long for the person you were before,
When you had freedom and time,
And nothing in particular to worry about.
You will know tiredness like you never knew it before,
And days will run into days that are exactly the same,
Full of feeding and burping,
Whining and fighting,
Naps, or lack of naps. It might seem like a never-ending cycle.
 
But don't forget...
There is a last time for everything.
There will come a time when you will feed your baby
for the very last time.
They will fall asleep on you after a long day
And it will be the last time you ever hold your sleeping child.
One day you will carry them on your hip,
then set them down,
And never pick them up that way again.
You will scrub their hair in the bath one night
And from that day on they will want to bathe alone.
They will hold your hand to cross the road,
The never reach for it again.
They will creep into your room at midnight for cuddles,
And it will be the last night you ever wake for this.
One afternoon you will sing 'the wheels on the bus'
and do all the actions,
Then you'll never sing that song again.
They will kiss you goodbye at the school gate,
the next day they will ask to walk to the gate alone.
You will read a final bedtime story and wipe your
last dirty face.
They will one day run to you with arms raised,
for the very last time.
 
The thing is, you won't even know it's the last time
until there are no more times, and even then,
it will take you a while to realize.
 
So while you are living in these times,
remember there are only so many of them and
when they are gone,
you will yearn for just one more day of them.
 
For one last time.

It's hard to fathom sometimes that I will indeed miss these times but I know it's true!

 

It's crazy that all three of the kids look the same as babies! 

 

The transitions are happening all around.  Last Friday night we rearranged and Tessa now sleeps in a twin bed.  She was already in a toddler bed so it wasn't much of a transition at all. 

 

The toddler bed was converted back into a crib and is now in Ben's room.  He is excited to have Milo stay in his room but I haven't been able to handle moving him out of the bassinette yet!  He's just a baby!!!

 

Back to the birthday celebration, we didn't have a big party or anything.  My parents came on Saturday morning and we watched the NDSU football game and then went shopping and then had pizza and cake.  I decided to make a cake shaped like a Duplo block since Tessa has been into them lately. The sound of Duplos being dumped all over the floor is all too familiar!  That is as far as the party theme went but at least I tried!   This is the before:

 

More pictures of the finished product later...

 

Tessa got some nice presents.  We got her a stuffed Curious George since she likes the show as much as Ben does and sometimes they fight over his stuffed George.  Hers is wearing pajamas and holding a blanket which is really cute. 

 

She calls it "Jammie George". 

 

My mom found her some cute pajamas with "Paw Patrol" characters on them in addition to a new backpack with a kitten toy attached and a new blanket.  I somehow ended up with an Amazon Prime trial this month so at the last minute last week I ordered her two sets of Duplos. One is an ice cream cone set and one is a sandwich shop set.  They have been popular with both kids. 

 

 

Just what we need around here!  100 more small objects to litter the floors!

 

Here is Tessa snuggling "Jammie George". 

 

Ben had a rough time with seeing Tessa get presents.  My mom brought him a little something but still...He has learned about when his birthday is at school and I suppose by now he has seen his classmates have a few and he kept talking about when his birthday was coming and how he would let Tessa open one of his presents.  I bet you will, kid, I bet you will. 

So here is the cake.  It turned out OK only because my mom ended up frosting it for me after the sides started crumbling while I was trying to spread the frosting.  I put the cake pieces in the freezer to firm them up but I guess they weren't in there long enough.  Who knows.  The color I was trying to recreate was something matching those two bocks on the plate.  I put them there to prove that such colors exist in Duplo form.  In my youth they only came in the standard primary and secondary colors!  The color I ended up with was more of a 1990's mauve with a hint of grey to it.  Just what every toddler girl wants!  

 

How do you like that cake pedestal?  I had the idea at the last minute when I noticed how the cake was compact compared to the usual sheet cake.  My great grandmother was very devoted to cake plates apparently, and they appear in many old birthday photos from that side of the family.  It didn't matter if you were a teenager taking a break from working in the field during wheat harvest to pose for a birthday photo like my great uncle here,

 

 

 

or a young version of my grandpa posing on the steps of their newly built farmhouse,

 

or a two year old (also my grandpa).

 

 

If he had a cake pedestal on top of a regular pedestal for his 2nd birthday then I guess Tessa can have at least one pedestal! 

 

This particular pedestal plate was given to us by Justin's grandma who recieved it as a gift from his mom and dad years ago.  It's the first time I've used it!  Maybe I will rethink the shape of my cakes in the future so we can use it more!  In this picture we were trying to get Tessa to hold up two fingers.  She wasn't getting it, although she is really good at counting in general and can count into the teens. 

 

 

Last night, on her actual birthday I tried to get the three kids to pose together for a picture in their pajamas before we had some leftover mauve Duplo cake.  Miss Two Year Old wasn't having it though. 

 

 

 

The bro's were pretty cute though!

 

OK, we're done here!