Sisters, Princesses, and Babies (Oh my!)

I'm so excited for T and Nora to be best friends. Nora adores T, she just grins and grins at her whenever she is in sight. And T feels the same way about her. Teresa got a toddler bed this week and Nora moved in to the crib, and T just so badly wanted Nora to sleep in her new bed with her, it was so sweet. She cried and cried when we took Nora out.


Don't they look so much alike in this picture? This pic is the first time I've really thought they looked a ton like each other.

Love that cheesy grin :)



I wanted to get some cute pictures of the girls before church on Sunday, but this is what T was giving us:



Nora was more cooperative:



Teresa has started to show some interest in princesses lately. Not so much the Disney ones yet, but just in general. The other day she came in with a blanket on her head saying "Sessa pincess", so I told her she was a very beautiful princess, and then she kept walking around with the blanket repeating "bootiful pincess".



I found this Snow White dress for super cheap at Ross a few months ago, and T has just now been wanting to wear it. This is her doing a princess dance.



One drawback to having a super tall two year old is that she can reach way too much stuff on the counter! She filched the juicer and a juiced lemon and kept bringing me 'yemen juice'.



T keeps coming up with the most creative way to wear her babies. Today it was her apron, and she wore her baby most of the day:

Things she says: Part 2

Teresa is talking more and more, almost on a daily basis. I love listening to the things she says, or attempts to say ;)

-Recently she started requesting the 'Tinkle shtar' song. I was surprised to find that she knew all the words to it, since we hardly ever sing it. I guess she learned it in Nursery at church? Anyway, she can sing pretty much the whole thing, but her version of the first line is "Tinkle tinkle little shtar. How I wonder are are are". I love it.

-"Open da doors". She says this about just about anything she wants opened. Doors, windows, a box, snacks, water bottles, my glasses case, whatever, they're all "doors".

-"Good job Sessa". We hear this one a lot. Anytime she does anything she's proud of, she claps and says 'good job Sessa!". Last week we were coming downstairs in the morning, and T really wanted me to carry her down, even though I had Nora too. So I picked her up in one arm and had N in the other. When we got downstairs T clapped and said "Good job Mommy!" It totally made it worth it :)

- "Oh no, happened?" T's version of asking what happened. If something is broken, or if N is crying, or when she notices her fingernails aren't painted anymore - anything like that, T puts up her little hands and says "oh no, happened?". It's pretty cute, she always sounds so concerned when she says it.

-"Yook at Sessa". She loves to pretend to take pictures, and always says "yook at Sessa" when she does. Probably because I'm always saying "look at mommy" and following her around with a real camera...

-Ever since she saw a Tinkerbell movie where Tinkerbell gets captured she'll randomly say "oh no, Tinkabell stuck!". She was excited to wear her green dress the other day because "is a Tinkabell dress".

-She has recently dubbed orange juice as "yemen juice". I drink lemon juice in the mornings sometimes, and I thought she knew the difference, but, yeah...maybe not. Actually, I think it's because we switched to frozen o.j., and it definitely tastes more sour than the stuff in the cartons.

-She really likes frogs right now. Only she pronounces 'frog' the same way as you would pronounce a different, less desirable four letter word that also starts with 'f'. Awesome

The one with Gigi and Poppie

After my parents left, we got to spend a few more days with Gigi and Poppie. These two little girls of ours have been so spoiled with grandparent love recently! We went down to Annapolis on Memorial Day, so this time Marc got to come with us.

Nora waited patiently for us to leave:



T loved the boat ride again, and I loved how the humidity made her curls even cuter than usual:





Remember how T used to love bananas? Well, she quit eating them. We were shocked. But Gigi brought one along on the boat and T decided to give them another try:





Success!

She entertained us all with her hopping:





I have to get all the ruffle bum pics I can, before T gets too old for it:







We ate dinner in Baltimore that night, in Little Italy. I'm bummed I didn't get any pictures, because it was a really neat part of town.

The next day Marc and Poppie both had to go to work (Marc's dad was able to combine this visit with a business trip), so Gigi filled up the pool for the girls. It was Nora's first time in, and she seemed to really like it. At least until someone started splashing water right in her face...





Teresa really loved having Nora in there with her, and she barely let Gigi sit down the whole time.



T had to 'water' the slide to cool it down.





We definitely had some sad little girls when they left!

Nora's blessing

The main reason we had all our visitors recently was for Nora's blessing in church. We decided to do it on the weekend of Teresa's birthday so we could celebrate them both together. She actually was blessed on T's birthday, the 29th, so that was pretty neat. Marc gave her a wonderful blessing, I could really feel what a special little spirit Nora is during the blessing. We are so grateful to have her in our family!

She wore the same dress T was blessed in, which is also the same one I and all my sisters, and many of T & N's cousins, were blessed in.

(click to enlarge)




This little noodle loves to have her fingers in her mouth! She gags herself pretty frequently cause she tries to shove as many as she can in there.









We just love Nora so much! Tressa is always asking to hold her and giving her kisses. She is showing us more and more of her sweet little personality every day, and we just can't get enough of it!

Teresa's Birthday Party

Look, I'll just tell you now: this post has a lot of pictures in it. Like, A LOT of pictures. We took over 600 pictures of T's birthday party. But don't worry, not all 600 of them are in this post.


Only, like, 4-something.


Ha ha! I'm kidding, it's way less than that.


Anyway, for Tressa's second birthday, I wanted her to just have an awesome day of doing whatever she wanted to. We decided to take her to Greenbelt Park, which is a national park up here, between us and D.C. We'd been there twice before and T loved it. It is the perfect place for Tressa-like children, it has several playground areas and tons of open fields. It was so nice to just let her run and play and do whatever she wanted without us ever having to tell her no about where she could go or play. We had a picnic there, but of course T was not too interested in eating much, there was too much fun stuff to do!

Teresa and Granny had fun on the slide:






She did some swinging with Daddy:



Nora snoozed through most of the party:









Love it. This girl has endless energy and this was the perfect place for her to run some of it out:



She did finally take a break to eat some chips:



And Nora woke up near the end, so we took some pictures of her too :)





Both sets of grandparents got to come to T's party. Man, was it nice having six adults to two children!

With Granny and Grandad Ricker:



And Gigi and Poppie Milligan:









Ha! T is totally picking a diaper wedgie in this pic...





I can't believe she is two already! She can't believe it either, apparently. She's the best.



After two hours at the park (she still cried when we left, she would stay outside all day if she could) we headed home for cake and presents. She did not love getting sung to before opening presents. But then, wouldn't you cry if someone put a huge pile of presents in front of you, and then made you sit through their mediocre singing before you could open them?



I guess I should have flipped that picture. She was leaning against Marc's legs, and he took it looking down at her, so that's why it's upside down. Now you know :)



After last years cake, I swore I would make a much simpler cake this year. But then a friend offered the use of their Mickey Mouse pan, so how could I say no? I knew T would love it. I was soooo nervous it would stick and not come out of the pan right, so I shortening-ed and floured that baby three times before I put the cake in to bake. And it came out perfectly! Seriously, I was shocked.





T loved it, she kept asking to "open da Mackey".





We sang to her again before the cake, and she liked it a little better that time:

We sing happy birthday to T from Tara Milligan on Vimeo.

Nora didn't get any cake, but she did get to hang out with Grandad!



This one is the best, too. She is closing in on the four month mark already!



Just in case you wanted to see even MORE pictures from T's party, you may look on the facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150195268916205.308248.532436204&l=db5ab4dc2b