Go Cubs Go! & Working Out

I have been looking online for months for a Derrek Lee t-shirt for Tessa. David and I both have Lee jersies. I did find a little Lee jersey a while ago, but I wasn't about to pay $58 for a jersey for Tessa that she will grow out of in a few months. Strike 1. I looked online, and I finally found the t-shirt I had been looking for, but they only had it in 12 mo size, the 18 mo & 24 mo sizes were sold out. Strike 2. Then a couple weeks ago, I was shopping with Tanya, my sister in law, (and Tessa, of course), and we went into The Fan's Edge in the mall and they had a whole new stock of baby Cubs stuff, and I found it! They had a Lee Cubs t-shirt that was in her size. I was so excited!!! It makes it even more fun that I have the exact same one, just my size of course. I wouldn't dream of raising my daughter any other way that to bleed Cubbie blue!

The newest addition to her Cubs collection came this weekend. David had to go to church on Saturday because he was on worship team. Apparently, he had made a few other stops on his way there. When we saw him after church, he had a surprise for Tessa. He found a soft leather Cubs baseball and bat. She loves it! She mostly likes to put them in her mouth, she chomps on the bat like a dog on a bone, and she likes to stick the ball in her mouth and just go. That's how she gets it around. She looks awfully cute. My sweetie pie!!!

Today, after I took the Cubs pictures, Tessa and I were playing upstairs in our den. It's a mess right now because when she's up there, she likes to pull all the books and dvds off the shelves, so I have given up putting them back up there because she just pulls them down again. Anyway, our treadmill is in the den also. After watching her today, I realized how much she really pays attention to what we do and I really saw how our healthy habits are going to rub off on her in the future. She climbed up onto the treadmill and she crawled on the track all the way to the front, then she turns around and crawled to the back, then would stop and turn around and crawl to the front, and so on and so forth. She did this probably 10 times, back and forth, back and forth. She was really trying to go on the treadmill. Keep on going baby!

Happy 11 month Birthday Tessa Charlotte!

Wow, I never thought we would be here. We are one month away from celebrating our first year with Tessa. It is unbelievable to me how fast the time has gone by. This has been such a wonderful month. We have so enjoyed the nice spring weather and getting to go outside and not be bundled up all the time. We've had fun wearing some new spring clothes and taking some nice outside trips. We celebrated Tessa's first Easter this month and had a great time doing it. We had the whole family here and got to do Easter egg hunts and color Easter eggs, and of course, getting all dressed up in her beautiful Easter dress was definitely a highlight. Tessa has become ultra-mobile this month. We have started having to push our ottoman up in front of the tv when she is awake so that she won't pull up and bang on the tv. It's a constant battle to pull her off of the end tables as she is attracted to them like a magnet and wants to pull everything off the tables that she can reach. She just wants to be "on the go" all the time. She has really started eating so many more foods too. She still eats some baby food, but loves to try all kinds of new table food, sunbutter & jelly sandwiches, grapes, grilled chicken, scrambled eggs, Gerber Lil' Crunchies, etc, and let's not forget all the inedible things that she has been trying to eat: her books, her crib, and any other little thing she finds on the floor. She has definitely turned into our little beaver. She'll chew on everything and anything that she can get a hold of. She is our sweet angel from Heaven and I could not imagine my life without her. In some ways, I look at the last 11 months and think, holy cow, time has gone by so quickly, then in other ways, I look at 11 months and think, "is that all?" It just seems like she has been with us forever. I don't remember what life was like before she came and changed us forever! Love you baby girl!

Pretty, Pretty Princess

Over the last couple of months, Alissa and I have started selling some stuff on Etsy that we are making at home. She is doing hats, blankets, etc, and I am doing headbands and flowers to go on them (and on the hats as well). It's been a lot of fun, and we've really been enjoying it. I was kinda hoping to branch out and make some more things that we can put on our Etsy site, so this week, I experimented with tutus. I decided to not only do a tutu, but a matching headband to go with it. I absolutely love it! I put it on Tessa this afternoon and she looked so adorable!!!! I think I'm going to have her wear it for her birthday. She looks like such a sweetie pie! She was not wanting to cooperate really well for the pictures, she was more interested in watching Jungle Junction, but I think I got a couple of cute ones. Such a sweet little princess!

Playing in the Potty

Tonight as Tessa and I were getting ready for bed, she did something totally gross. I was in my bathroom, washing my face and taking out my contacts. She was crawling all over my room and pulling at every cord that she can find and grabbing at everything that she's not supposed to, like usual. So I finished taking out my contacts and I put on my glasses and I turned around to look in the bedroom to see what she was up to. I didn't see her. I looked around the corner, didn't see her. That's when I realized that she had snuck into the bathroom behind me. She had pulled up to the toilet (toilet seat up, thanks Daddy) and had her hands down splashing in the toilet water. GROSS! I grabbed her and washed her hands so quickly. I would love for her to know how to use the potty, but not that way.

Tessa's new friend

Today was an exciting day! A new little friend for Tessa was born. Stephanie Westerfield, one of my best friends, gave birth to her first baby today, Kellen Aaron Westerfield. He was 6 lb. 3 oz and 19 inches long. Congratulations to Steph and Aaron on the beautiful baby boy! Tessa can't wait to meet him and we look forward to many playdates together as the babies get older and are excited to raise our babies together! Welcome to the world Baby Kellen!

Tooth #5

Tessa has been pretty fussy the last few days. She has been taking mini naps and has been restlessly sleeping at night. I assumed that we had another tooth coming through. Not to mention that she's been drooling like crazy and chewing on fingers and anything else she can put in her mouth. When she woke up from her nap today, I looked in her mouth and saw that tooth #5 has broken through her gums and is now working it's way up. The tooth that came through is the second from the middle on the bottom on her right side. Keep on working those teeth baby! We'll get a break from them soon!

Big Ol' Tessa

Let me start by saying, my nephew Jack has this sweet way of tacking "big ol'" in front of a lot of things. When he sees a semi-truck, it's a "big ol' truck." When you ask him who's driving the truck, it's a "big ol' man." And so on and so forth. This weekend, we went down to Peoria, IL to watch my brother-in-law Kyle run in a 50 mile race. The night before the race, we were at our hotel and had decided that we would head out to the mall for a while to kill some time before everyone else arrived. When we were walking down the hall of the hotel, David put Tessa up on his shoulders for a ride, which he does often. Jack didn't notice this at first, but then he spotted Tessa sitting way up high on David's shoulders and he said, "Hey! There's big ol' Tessa!" We all got such a laugh out of it. He's such a sweetheart!