Tess' latest artwork

Here is Tess' most recent masterpiece... can you guess who it is?

It's Rapunzel, of course! And if you're at all familiar with the movie Tangled, you'll certainly recognize Pascal (Rapunzel's chameleon) next to her.

Sunday morning at the Zoo

In an effort to tide you over, here are some more pictures from last weekend that I didn't post earlier in the week.  Last Sunday, I ran in the Zoo race and the girls and Damon came down to cheer me on.  I found them at three different places along the race course!  Such good cheerleaders.  After the race, they had festivities at the Zoo, complete with hot dogs and twinkies (at 10:30 am).  Tess thought that her very first twinkie was pretty delish.  The girls had fun playing at the Zoo playground until it was time to go.

Lots of firsts!

We had quite the week of "firsts" around here.  In addition to Tess' first day of preschool, she also had her first homework assignment.  This only started a minor frenzy in the house since we had NO ink in the printer and Tess needed pictures printed for her project.  Ok, so it crossed my mind that this was all very bad karma and we were totally getting her entire educational career off to a bad start - and of course she'd never be able to recover, even into her college years, given that we waited until the last minute to finish her very first project ever and we were short on supplies to boot.  Overreact much?  Who me?!  Damon probably would like to comment here, but too bad for him - I am the bloggess and he'll just have to start his own darn blog.

See?  No reason to panic!

Next, Tess had her first ballet class of the fall - which was also her very first time doing tap!  We moved to a new dance studio this time and had a small snafu on the first day of class... the class is supposed to be for three and four year olds, except Tess was the only four year old signed up and was at least one head taller than all of the other little munchkins in the class.  They were bitty girls, most of whom just turned three - making them closer in age to Nora.  I wasn't sure if Tess would notice, but who am I kidding.  After class, I asked her if she had fun and she said, "yeah, but Mom, they are all three."  Luckily, I had already moved her into the 4-5 year old class before the class was even over.  It is amazing how quickly a four year old in her second year of ballet can look like a seasoned pro!

About 15 minutes after ballet ended, we were at the Y for Nora's first swim class this fall.  She was a fish, as usual.

Tess also had her first swim class...

And for the grand finale, Tess got her ears pierced!

Here she is anxiously awaiting...

Watching the worker get it all set up... very skeptical, but never backed out!

Not really sure what just happened.

Oh, now she's sure.

I promise you that she really was and is happy that she got earrings.  I swear.
Why don't you believe me?

Nora loves it when her sister does all the work, but she scores a sucker!

First day of preschool!

Tess had her very first day of preschool today!  She was really excited about it and did great.  After she got home and we quizzed her about her favorite part of the day, it didn't take long to see that she was most psyched about her first hot lunch - which really had nothing to do with her morning in her new classroom.  She went on and on about how today was pancake, sausage and yogurt day.  It took a few minutes for us to explain to her that no, she can't get hot lunch everyday, and no, they don't serve pancakes and sausage everyday either.  Tess gave two thumbs down to that dose of reality.  "But Mom, I almost ate ALL of it!"

 

Her coat hook and her new preschool tote bag that has her hand print, along with Dad's and Mom's. 

Friends!

Looking for her name on the board so she can match it up with her place on the circle rug.