Walk and Roll

Tess is walking!

Yesterday, August 18, 2009 at 7:12 p.m. Tess took her first steps. She took about six steps from the fireplace towards the couch. It was so cute to see her tentatively take each step — she looked like a little Frankenstein.

Watch out world!

Belated Birthday

Finally — here are some of our favorite pictures from Tess' birthday party on June 14, 2009. We got through food, cake and presents just in time for a torrential downpour and hail storm. Luckily, no one can rain on my little girl's parade and she had a wonderful day in spite of the weather.

Opening presents

Ready for cake!

Floppy baby after a long day ...

Tess' One-Year Photos

Tess turns a year old on Sunday (can you believe it?!), so I had her pictures taken today. They turned out pretty well ... here are some favorites:

Busy Bee

Little Tess is all over the place now. She pulled up for the first time on April 16 and since then she's been crawling faster and faster, and getting in to everything! Just this week she started to walk around the furniture while hanging on; I have a feeling it won't be long until she's walking for real.

Her birthday is a little over a month away. I'm planning a party that's simple and nice , just like her. Can't wait to celebrate her big day, but I'm left wondering ... where did the last year go?

Happy Easter

Aloha

Tess really enjoyed her trip to Hawaii. What a lucky baby she is to have traveled to such a wonderful place at such a young age.

The flight to the island was probably the worst part of the trip for us. She didn't sleep at all (seven hours) and bounced on our laps the entire flight. Exhausting. However, once we were settled at the hotel, she was a perfect angel. She slept in the crib, took her naps, enjoyed meeting lots of new friends and was a generally happy and content baby. Sadly, the water in the pools and the ocean was much too cold for her. We took her in once and she absolutely hated it. We didn't get much swimming done, but Hawaii sure is a nice place to hang out and relax! The flight home was a dream; she slept six of the seven hours. I'm so relieved the trip was a success and we arrived home unscathed.

Busy Bee

Miss Tess has been a busy girl! Starting on March 12, she learned to:

• Crawl! And has been motoring around the house at an astonishing pace.
• Get to a sitting position from her stomach.
• Roll over left and right.
• Pull up on objects (just to her knees right now).
• Wave and say "Hi". (It's more of a sing-song kind of "ah" than "Hi", but she's got the idea)

I can't believe how much she's changed in the last two weeks. It's like everything happened all of a sudden.

At her nine-month checkup on March 19 she weighed 14 lbs and was 27 inches long. Still not on the charts for weight, but is in the 25th percentile for height.

Sorry I don't have pictures to share this time. Will have plenty on the next post because we leave tomorrow for Hawaii. Can't wait to get Tess in the pool for the first time. Fun!

Catching Up

Sorry I haven't been very diligent about keeping up with Tess' blog lately. Time just gets away, doesn't it?

We took a trip to Arizona the beginning of April and Tess loved her first plane ride. She slept most of the flight both ways and didn't annoy any of the other passengers. We were relieved that she was such a good baby! We've already started packing for the long flight to Hawaii the first week of April. I'm so excited to put Tess in the pool for the first time and watch her hang out in her little floater. It's going to be so fun!

In my last entry, I think I said that Tess would be crawling soon ... well, not yet. She doesn't seem very interested in crawling or scooting at all. It's funny because she can get to her tummy from a sitting position, she just doesn't feel like going anywhere. I strongly suspect that she's going to skip crawling altogether because she's been working on pulling herself up for the last week or so. Who knows what she's going to do! It's fun trying to figure it out, though.

She's doing great with her eating these days. She loves all her fruits and veggies, and eats about 8-9 tablespoons of cereal per day. The only food I've found that she doesn't like is the Chicken and Noodles baby food. I wonder if it's the texture that puts her off ... it's really awful. Other than that, she likes everything we've fed her. As far as "big people food" goes, she's tried: tortilla, corn chip, french fry, cheerios, cheese and juice. She loved the french fry (of course) but gagged horribly on the cheese. I think it stuck to the back of her throat or something. We'll wait a while before trying that one again!

Tess is still using her voice, but she doesn't chatter as much as I expected. Sometimes she surprises me and begins to mumble, but mostly she's a pretty quiet baby. I've heard her say some funny things that sound like actual words and they always make me laugh. Bub, dob, don (I love that one!) bop, dop, mop and mama are some of my favorites. The best thing that's happened in the last month is Tess learned to give kisses! She leans toward us with her mouth open and plants big, gummy, wet kisses on our cheeks — sometimes she gives extra love and gives them on our lips. It's so sweet, I could just melt every time she does it.

As you can see, Tess is growing and thriving. We're so blessed to have her and can't wait to see what she does next. Until then ... !