Big Steps

Today, Tessa took her first steps!!! I am so proud of her. I have been trying to get her to be brave enough to take a couple steps for weeks, but every time I let go of her hands, she chickens out and drops to the floor. Come on baby! Finally, today she was standing in the living room and I let go of her hands and stepped back and told her to come to me and she took two steps to get to me!!!! Yay for Tessa! Alissa, Jack and I all clapped and cheered for her, which of course, she loved, and started clapping for herself. I stood her back up and we tried again and again, she took a couple of steps then plopped on the floor and we clapped for her again and she clapped for herself. After that, it became quite a game. I would stand her up and she would take half a step, sit down, and clap wildly for herself while looking around to see if everyone else was clapping with her. What a little ham, she loves to be center of attention. Hopefully, over the next few days, she'll start taking more and more steps and hopefully she'll be walking before long. Big girl Tessa -- Mommy is so proud of you!

My Little Fishy

Tessa is definitely my little fish. I would have never imagined it a year ago, considering how much she hated taking a bath and being in the water, but man has she changed. Last week, we took a couple of trips to the pool in our subdivision and she absolutely loves the water. The first day we went, it wasn't terribly warm outside and the water was freezing, so I figured she would have a cow and just cry and want to be out of the water, but it was the exact opposite. She loved it. Our subdivision has a little zero-depth kiddie pool so she can walk around in really shallow water and it gets deeper gradually. She just wanted to walk and play and splash. She had so much fun. David and I took turns just being with her in the water. We went back the next day and it was quite a bit warmer out and the water was much nicer and she had even more fun. There is a bit mushroom shaped thing that has water falling off it, like a waterfall, and she really enjoyed it when I held her close to it and she would reach out for it, then pull away fast. She just kept laughing and laughing. She really loves being in the water. I can't wait for her to start walking so that she can get around even better in the water by herself. Now, if we could just get some consistently decent weater around here, I know we could have so many more fun times at the pool with our little fish!

New Play Room

So this weekend, I kinda had a breakdown. I was so tired of feeling like I was sitting in a messy, unorganized pile of junk at my house that I realized I had to do something. David suggested to do this a few weeks ago, but I wasn't sure, then my mom brought it up the other day and I realized that it might be time. We have a large extra bedroom upstairs in our townhouse which really doesn't get used. It has a huge closet and has previously been just a room to put the extra furniture that we don't use other places in the house. We never used the room, except to run on the treadmill. We decided to make it into a new play room/upstairs family room, and I LOVE IT! I can't believe I didn't do this earlier. We cleaned out the closet of a lot of Tessa's baby stuff that we don't use anymore and put it in the garage to store. We also moved the treadmill to the garage. On one side of the garage we put a bunch of carpet squares down so that it's a clean play area out there too. Then we threw out a bunch of stuff that we didn't need and organized what we had left. David, Alissa and I (and the kids) went to IKEA yesterday and I bought a desk with a cubby organizer attached, a separate cubby organizer for all Tessa's toys, a new desk chair and a new lamp. I later found some great decorations and another lamp when I was shopping with my mom. We moved another comfy chair into the room, so there are two, enough for both David and I to sit and relax. We also put the nicer tv that was in our bedroom into the new playroom and moved the old tv that was in there into our bedroom. My dad got a little mini fridge for us so that we can keep drinks and snacks up here and we are all set to go. I absolutely love it. Tessa is having a great time in it too. She can move around and play and I don't have to worry about her getting into stuff that she shouldn't because it's a "Tessa-friendly" room. I know that we're going ot be spending a lot of time up here. Thanks so much to David, Alissa, Mom and Dad for your help!!!! I can't believe it took me so long to get this ball rolling!! I'll try and post some pictures later!