Yup, She's My Daughter

Shawn here. Yesterday I was helping Nessa get dressed, and we had a little disagreement about who should move so we'd be closer. I meant to say "You should move because you're the young person," but I actually said "You should move since you're the young girl." Nessa picked up on that immediately, saying "I can't be the young girl, because you're a boy." I was flabbergasted. It was impressive enough to realize she was capable of advanced relational reasoning at age three, but given how often her words get away from her, it was even more impressive that she expressed her understanding so succinctly.

And yes, she's excellent at splitting hairs. Her Grandma Jan will tell you she gets that from her Dad...

Sweet Dreams

Remember how I said that sleeping children are one of God's secret weapons? That weapon has extra powers when the parents have been away for a few hours ...

Saturday night when we came home from the theatre, I went to check on Nessa and found her sleeping so sweetly I had to take pictures ... or at least try (bad camera for taking night pics)

Notice the little "breathe right" strip? I bought them in desperation when she was having a hard time breathing at night last week. Of course in true Nessa fashion she now wants to wear one every night! Of course she only wants the green ones!

Look on the headboard and you'll see the entire lineup of what Nessa is now using most nights out of ritual ... the breath right strips, some rescue remedy, some "mellow" essential oil (lavender and sandlewood I think), and some saline spray. Now if only our sweet girl could be as obsessive about teeth brushing and saying prayers!

Commentary or just a tired girl?

So tonight Shawn is working late and I opted to let Nessa stay up to "watch" the President's Press Conference with me. I hyped it up by saying we could eat some banana ice cream while we watched and we could snuggle up in our jammies ahead of time. Well, Nessa opted not to put her jammies on (well, she had her nightgown on only to her wait over her jeans), but she sure remembered the icecream part...and then we settled in to watch...

... apparently President Obama talking about economics isn't as exciting as hearing him talk while on the campaign trail (oh, wait Megan fell asleep during a debate I let her stay up and watch ... never mind).


The best time to take pictures of Nessa is when she is sleeping though, so of coruse I did! Do you love the headband? I can't even remember where it first came from, but I've had it for years and mainly use it in my stash to keep my hair out of my face while washing my face. Nessa has decided that it is her headband now and wears it as often as possible, and of course she puts it on by herself. It's SO cute!

I had asked her to lay next to me (I was sitting right next to her), and she just looked at me sweetly and explained that she WAS laying next to me. So I had to specifically ask her to lay her head on my shouldar or lap ... she declined, and that is SO Nessa.

By the way I think that the fact that even older children are adorable when sleeping (babies are a given) is God's secret weapon in assuring that the next generation survive. :-)

I just LOVE that sweet little hand!

Christmas Thank You Shout-Outs ... part two of many (Heidi, Ben, Jake and/or Marcus)

Tami here with more Christmas Thank You Shout Outs --

These were the great gifts that Nessa received as part of the gift exchange the cousins do on the Groth side...but I can't remember which one of Heidi's boys actually had Nessa's name (oops). Either way it was a great and much-appreciated gift -- THANK YOU!

Curious George is still a favorite, so this new book was especially appreciated!


And if you look closely you can see Nessa holding the great clothes that were also part of this wonderful gift. I'm sure if you look at our photo stream over the winter you'll see Nessa wearing this great shirts A LOT. She loves them and likes to wear them a lot.

Below is a picture of Nessa wearing the flower shirt on Christmas ... after a big day at the zoo she ended up falling asleep in the chair while watching a video ... sadly the great flower shirt doesn't always have such magical powers. :-)

Christmas Thank You Shout-Outs ... part two of many (Grandma and Grandpa Groth)

Don't let the cheesy smile fool you, Nessa LOVES her Cinderella sweatshirt! Nessa has been wearing her sweatshirt(s) from Grandma Karen nearly every day this winter!




And here is Nessa holding tight to all her goodies stashed in the great Toy bags Grandma found!


Of course this post would not be complete without an official thank you to Grandpa and Grandma Groth for ALL of the wonderful gifts we received at Christmas (whether they were Christmas gifts or not) -- from little things like the great scarf to the BIG things like the WONDERFUL time spent in the timeshare in Brownsville. And while there aren't great photos to share, Megan LOVED her gift cards too (So far we've had one awesome night at Barnes and Noble and many hours since then watching videos and reading books that she got that night.)

THANK YOU!

~Tami (and family) :-)

New Years 2009

After returning from our Texas trip we were tired, but not too tired to make it to the Big Event La Crosse New Years Party (at Logan this year). It was a blast, and it was made even more fun by being joined by good friends. :-)

Below is a pic of all the kids after we got home that night.

Nessa had so much at the craft tables at the New Years event that she decided (with mom's help) that she would have a "Craft" birthday party this year. In fact she'll be having her first birthday party in a few years, and her first ever kids birthday party. And mom is a little worried at how fast that date will be coming up ... wow, Nessa is almost 4!!!

Christmas Day 2008: Brownsville Zoo

So have we told you all where we were on Christmas? ;-) Now that I'm finally getting my pictures uploaded from the various cameras to my computer and various websites (check Flickr for more pics), I thought I should remind you that Christmas Day for us was gloriously sunny, and yes the girls were able to wear shorts on Christmas.

We spent the day at the Brownsville zoo, and it was great fun, and simply a joy to be outside in the sunshine. :-) Below are Nessa and Max -- first in the baby animal area and then stopping for a moment to pose for us.
~Tami

Top Ten Reasons You Should Join Us on Facebook

Tami here, just having a little fun...


10. You can see pictures of us in our pajamas (Christmas Eve / Christmas Day album I just uploaded)

9. Shawn and I average a half a dozen updates between us on Facebook ... unfortunately our blog update ratio is more than a bit lower than that.

8. If your friends with the right people you can observe Shawn securing babysitting services via Facebook. ;-)

7. You can learn all about my food and exercise habits by watching what I do in Facebook

6. I almost always upload more photos and faster to Facebook than anywhere else, and more importantly I add notes/descriptions to them!

5. If you observe carefully you can watch Shawn and I flirt like school kids ... it's rather sickening I'm sure.

4. You can see what groups we join and what causes we care about.

3. You can read all of our blog posts as notes right in Facebook (both Shawn and I import these blog posts into our notes)

2. You can chat with us on Facebook's Instant Messenger feature.

1. We want to see and hear all about YOU!!!! :-) (If you don't know the slightest thing about FB but are interested, you can even ask us to help you get started. It's really easy, seriously.)



P.S. If you are only Shawn's friend, and can't see all of those wonderful pics I upload, well I'm sure you can fix that! Need help finding us on facebook -- start with my profile here: http://profile.to/tamigroth ... oh and if you're on twitter you can connect with me there too: http://twitter.com/tamigroth

Christmas season 2008 flashback

I don't think I shared this picture of Nessa from when we were ringing bells at the nearby Shopko for the Salvation Army. I want to be sure to share is because it was a very nice couple of hours and It hink it was good for Nessa too. I had been thinking about contacting teh Salvation Army when our church facilitated us with a sign up sheet. I think Nessa was our secret weapon even when she wasn't wearing the apron as she would smile and look as the money went in teh bucket and then the person would often reach in to their wallet and take out another dollar and ask Nessa if she wanted to put in in the bucket -- and of course she did. :-)

Creative use for Fruits and Vegetables ... or, Fun in the Snow

This is Nessa's snowman from last weekend! Nessa had help from a certain wonderful Daddy, but I believe that she was the creative force behind the development of this unique little snow person.


Wondering what is making such a cheery smile on the adorable snowman? That would be a slice of red pepper! Two grapes for eyes and a carrot nose complete the look...oh and one of Megan's old hats. :-)





Nessa and Daddy had a great time out in the snow last weekend. Due to the extreme cold this winter it was actually the first time Nessa was able to just go play in the snow in our yard. It seems to be a winter of extremes in some ways as we'll be outside again this weekend as the snow melts -- either it has been too cold to be outside or it's warm enough to start melting things into a sloppy mess. Well, hopefully we'll get at least a little sledding time in yet this winter.

~Tami

Future Diva?

Honestly, I'm not sure what to think of Nessa's way of dressing up with all of the dress up clothes at ONE time. Well, OK we actually have more dress up clothes than these, but that was my first thought when I saw Nessa -- "she put them ALL on" LOL.

You can see more of Nessa's dress up photo session as well as many more photos now on Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brooksgroth/ But as of tonight I have not edited or made comments on of the pics I uploaded (all from my phone in Dec/Jan) because something is making doing such things on flickr right now REALLY slow. I hope to add photos from the other camera as well as add notes, etc. sometime this week. Oh, and I didn't delete anything, but just uploaded it all so you'll see the good, the bad, the ugly ... and ... food that I took pics of for one of my food blogs. :-)






We enjoyed a warm weekend here in La Crosse and are hoping for another one next weekend. We only managed a small snowman though because the snow didn't cooperate much with making snowmen. It sure felt good to get outside though - I even went running outside AND I liked it LOL ... it's amazing and wonderful.

Until later -- xoxo
~Tami