Wanting to Walk

After trying to crawl for the last 3 and a half months or so, I think Tessa has decided it's just not happening - time to move on to plan B and just start working on walking. :P

She loves to stand and practice walking while holding on to our fingers. If we try to put her on her hands and knees to practice crawling, and she's in the mood to walk (which she often is), she'll get pretty upset. It's pretty cute how excited she's gotten about trying to walk but we're definitely still working on crawling with her as we don't want her to skip the milestone. Our girly is growing up fast!

My Gummy Girly

At 7 months Tessa still has absolutely no teeth and I don't mind. It means I can keep letting her get away with chewing on cords -

- which she loves!

She's so close!

Tessa is so ready to crawl already. She's been trying to since she was 3 and half months and now she is super close.

Here she is rocking. She spends a good amount of time on all fours now. We usually have to put her up on her knees; she doesn't get up on her own without help but she's rocking!

Then here she is trying to reach her toys. The more she tries the further away she gets. Poor girl! 

6 Month Photos

We took Tessa to Camera Shy again for her 6 month photo shoot. Here are some of our
favorites - Enjoy!!

6 month baby Tessa

Tessa has grown and changed so much in the last 2 months. She's gotten so much bigger! Here is a recent picture of her. And spoiler alert . . . she can sit up!

Seemingly impossibly, she has become even more smiley and friendly.

She has also become so much more aware of the environment around her and so much more able to interact with others. It was so neat to see her with her cousins over Christmas and since the beginning of the new year. She noticed them and was interested in watching them so much more over Christmas than she had been over Thanksgiving.

She seemed to have a good time smiling at and enjoying their company. Watching them walking around also got her more interested in wanting to stand and try to crawl so that was cool. She'd also yell at her cousins to try to get their attention or talk with them. She especially loved it when her cousin closest to her in age would come over and hang out with her.

She is especially interested in the cat now where before she hardly noticed him. If he walks by she gets excited and reaches both arms out toward him. When we can cajole him to come over to her, she gets the biggest smile and giggles as we help her pet him.

Then she's so much more into exploring her world. She used to just look at things. Now she's rolling over onto her tummy or rotating herself all the time to get better views of things or reach things. She is constantly reaching for things and wanting to touch everything. For instance the other day I was just standing holding her near a wall and she reached her hand out to touch the wall. She loves playing with and looking at her toys more too.

She has also been showing an increased interest in her food and spoon. Generally we'll let her play with both after we've finished feeding her.

It was fun to have Christmas with Tessa. She was able to actually open some presents with a bit of help. She is good at grabbing and pulling (a skill honed by regular practice pulling her mom's hair :P) so if we put the present where she could grab the wrapping paper seam, she was could actually pull off strips of wrapping paper. It'll be fun when she understands Christmas a little more and gets excited about it next year.

We love our little pumpkin! She's growing up so fast.

Trying solids

Here is Tessa's first time trying green beans. I heard from multiple people to start her out with vegetable baby food instead of fruit so she would like vegetable baby food. After her reaction though I thought, oh no, she doesn't like veggie baby food and she hasn't had any fruit baby food.

Amazingly, after trying the green beens a few times, she warmed up to the green beans and she actually likes them now. :)

4 Months

Tessa is 4 months and it's got to be my favorite age yet. I told David that she can go ahead and stay 4 months old for the next 6 months or so. She has started to be so much fun. She is so social. She loves to stare at people and smile at them to get them to smile back and talk to her. She'll honestly stare at strangers in the grocery line until they give her attention.

Her 4 month appointment went well. She is in the 54th percentile on her weight and 81st percentile in her length.

As for milestones, she is really close to rolling over. She can roll from her back to her side but hasn't quite figured out how to get her arm out of the way. She loves to try to crawl. She'll be on her tummy and will bend her knees back and forth trying to move. It's pretty ineffective but it's cute that she is trying.

Sometimes when she brings her knee forward, I'll put the palm of my hand on the bottom of her foot and she'll straighten her knee and push off my hand. Doing this, she's been able to scoot herself a few inches. She seems to enjoy that.

She lately discovered her tongue and has loved sticking out her tongue and licking her lips. It's pretty cute.

In the last few days, Tessa's had a lot of firsts. She had her first plane ride. She did pretty well. She really liked being able to stare at everybody at the airport even though it kept her up past her bedtime.

She also got to visit the beach for the first time. She seemed to like digging her hands and toes into the sand and then eating it as she stuck her fingers in her mouth.

On Thanksgiving we gave her solid food for the first time. We just started her on rice cereal. She doesn't seem to know what to think of it yet. She suckles the spoon as if it were a bottle which is pretty cute but rather messy.

Then this picture was just too cute to not share. We were waiting for some work to be done on our car at Walmart so we were just killing time goofing off in the toy aisle.