Cheers

Another funny thing Tessa picked up over the Holidays was 'toasting'. As we had several nicer dinners where toasting was involved, she now knows how to clink glasses and say "cheers". She was even doing it with her little tea set.

Pretend

Something I've been meaning to post for a while and just keep forgetting. Tessa is really into playing "pretend". She loves playing with the little tea set my mom has (Tessa got one for Christmas) and will make tea. I almost start crying every time I see her slowly and carefully walking towards me with two cups and spoons sticking out. I don't know why, but she is just concentrating so hard on not letting the spoons fall out and just seems like such a big girl.

Then she will pretend eat off her plate and the funniest is when she shoves the spoon in one of the dogs faces and says "mmuuummmuuyyymmmyyymm". Now don't get me wrong, she is not very delicate with the tea set (thank god for plastic) and "filling" the cups looks more like she is on Junior's pit crew refilling a tank of gas, but she has the concept down.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Santa was good to us all this year. We are so very fortunate and blessed. I just want to take a small moment and hope that everyone keeps our troops in their thoughts and prayers over the holidays, especially those men and women who cannot be with their families. Thank you for serving our country!

I will post pictures, videos and funny stories of our wonderful Christmas later.

You reap what you sow

Tessa has a nad habit of biting when she doesn't get what she wants. I have done a lot of research trying to find the best way to address it and I have an idea of how to go about it now. Last night, while I was giving Tessa a bath I noticed this bruise on her arm by her elbow. It looks like she got bit, but I hadn't received a write up from her day-care. When kids bite each other in day care, they get a written notice that both parents have to sign. Rarely is Tessa the victim (napoleonic complex?).

I asked the teacher about it this morning. She said it definitely looked like a bite mark, but Tessa didn't cry or give any indication that she had been hurt. Apparently she rarely, if ever, cries in school so they usually know something is wrong right away. I guess some kid had had enough of Tessa bullying him or her.

On another side note that FREAKED Mike out, while I was talking to the teacher yesterday when I picked her up, Tessa was standing by the door hugging one of the older boys.........REPEATEDLY. She's cute, because when she hugs people or animals she says "Aaaaawwwwwww", and that's what she was saying. She's such a goober.

Changes

Please pardon the changes. I am playing around with new (different) layouts, so any feedback is welcome (come on Mom, I know you're just DYING to make a comment).

Colors and Counting

I think Tessa has finally mastered colors. She has this puzzle that has shapes in different colors and she now gets them all right. The funny thing, is that on the 1st round she will randomly pick them up, hold them high in the air and proudly proclaim "GREEN". Once she has gotten them all right, she'll start again but this time she'll say the wrong color and then when I say no she mumbles "blue, green, yellow, red". It's pretty funny.

The other thing that floored me this weekend was her trying to count. I actually stared at Mike with my jaw dropped while she was doing it to confirm that I wasn't just hearing want I wanted to hear. She was stacking blocks (the German ones from Aunt Aly - thanks Cat) and while she was stacking them she was counting, and actually got the number 'two', 'four' and 'five' correct. She hasn't gotten the true numbers right since then, but she is definitely trying to count. Once they topple over, she doesn't start from one again either, she just keeps going to ten. And she still can't get the order correct. But she is definitely trying. So now when we read her "Doggies" book instead of emphasizing the different dog barks we are trying to focus on the numbers and counting the dogs.

Christmas Tree

We spent the weekend up in the mountains again with Omi and Opa and Mike made it up for one night so that we could all go cut down our Christmas Tree together. My parents, Tessa and I rode up on Friday afternoon. It was FREEZING when we got up there and it took forever for the cabin (and me) to warm up. ALthough, my parents think I have some strange disease becasue I'm always cold and my parents joke that they are hanging out in thier bikinis because it's so hot. Then the mental image of my dad in a bikini made me barf. Anyway, we woke up the next morning to SNOW! It was so beautiful. It started off as wet sticky sleet and then turned into beautiful fluffy snow that dusted everything.

Tessa actually slept until 9:00am that morning (and Opa slept even longer). Mom and I enjoyed our hot beverages (coffee for Mom hot tea for moi), watching the snow and chatting about this and that. Once we got the rest of the troops roused and had breakfast, we bundled up and went outside to play in the snow and get some kindling for the fire. Tessa had so much fun playing in and eating the snow. She loved running down the road and then back towards us. As any mom does, I had a fleeting worry of a bobcat jumping down from the hillside and snatching her (because she looked so cute of course), but we had no bobcat encounters this time.

On a side note, one of my favorite cabin past times is locating all the different wild life. The coolest (and maybe stranges) was when I was up there the summer Tessa was born, we had gone for a short walk up the gravel road and actually saw a turtle laying eggs in the middle of the gravel road. What a strange (and uncomfortable place) to lay eggs.

Tessa took a nice long nap and I helped mom make enough goulash to feed an entire platoon. She browned eight pounds of meat and I peeled and chopped 10lbs of onion. I swear my hands still smell like onion. She wanted to freeze the extra and leave it up there. After Tessa woke up from her nap, Omi took her back outside and I made Engineer's Dip for the SEC and ACC Championship games and we spent the rest of the night watching football (GO JACKETS!).

We woke up Sunday morning and packed everything back up, bundled up and went to the tree farm to cut down our Christmas tree. It was sunny, but really cold. And we walked all over that damn hillside trying to find the right tree. It's a really great place, because they have this old fire-truck that they have fixed up and they use that to take you out to the fields of trees. WHen you get back, they take a picture by a tree and if you can find your picture from the previous year you get $5 off. They also have warm apple cider which Tessa LOVED. As she gets older it will definitely be a fun little family tradition.

Now to the bad part. I forgot my damn camera so I don;t have a single picture (except in my head) of our wonderful weekend in the snow and cutting down our tree. So, I am posting one from last year of when it snowed it Atlanta. At least that way you can feel a little essence of the snow.

More Signs????

In my quest to find every single, miniscule sign of potty training readiness, I see everything as a sign! Ok, so maybe her climbing on the giant Costco pack of TP is not REALLY a sign that she is ready and just because she can say Pee doesn't mean she knows when she is going, but hey, I can dream, can't I?

When I am at home with her by myself, I always take her into the bathroom with me when I have to go. I just don't like her roaming the house unsupervised. And I make sure I explain to her exactly what I am doing so she can learn all the words for going potty. Of course, she loves to play with the toilet paper and so to keep her from going crazy, I give her a little square to play with. On Sunday, she took the little square, wadded it up and "wiped" the inside of her thigh. Then she came up to me and wiped my leg. Then last night, while we were getting ready for bath time, she was completely naked and of course playing with the TP. So I gave her another square and she wadded it up and wiped her butt! HAHAHAHAHAHA She just cracks me up.

Another sign

Last night when we were getting ready for bath-time, Tessa pointed to the Toilet and said Potty!!!!! It's definitely a sign. They say to look for signs that she is ready. Or maybe I'm the one that's ready and she's not. I actually just ordered her little potty, so hopefully she will find that fun and useful.

Two nights ago, when we got home Tessa ran into the den and grabbed an apple I had left on the coffee table and just took a big bite out of it and walked around and kept biting off chunks of apple and eating it. I was so surprised, because I always cut up her apple into bite size pieces. How did she know that's how you eat an apple? I didn't even have to take a "starter bite" for her. Maybe it's not that amazing, but I was surprised. She looked like such a little big girl eating her whole apple.

Jealousy

I am TOTALLY jealous of my friends kids who give them kisses. Penny gives her mommy and daddy 50 kisses at night and I can't get one. She knows how to do it, but if I ask she just says no! She will give hugs and those are sweet and precious. As long as she is this stingy with the kises when it comes to boys later on life, I guess I can suffer through the early years.

I guess when an Ellis-Hartley woman knows what she wants and what she doesn't, she's not afraid to let you know.

Goober

We had a low key weekend this past weekend. Tessa and I both have Sinus Infections, so we just hung out around the house, took our antibiotics, and napped. Tessa is growing so fast and learning so much I can't keep up sometimes. Her new favorite questions is "Where'd it go?" She will use this with a person or an object and ask non-stop until you give her some kind of answer. Most of the time it has a sweet sing-songy melody and sounds so sweet. I have also noticed that she understands a lot more than what she can say. You can ask her to go get something and bring it to Daddy and she will actually go get that item and give it to Mike, eventhough she can't say that word yet. It's amazing how fast thier little brains learn.

She can sing several different songs and is actually quite good at holding a note. She gets the melody right more often than the words. Right now her favorite is 'Baa Baa Black Sheep'. She also likes 'Row, Row, Row your boat', but she gets stuck in a never ending loop of 'row, row, row, row, row, row, .......' and has to be prompted to row THE BOAT.

She can do some many animal sounds now, sometimes she surprises me with new ones she learned in school. The funniest discovery was that with all of the rain we've had lately, I have been using an umbrella a lot. And everytime I say the word umbrella she beats her chest and goes 'AAAAAAAA'. I finally realized that they had learned 'Gorilla' in school and the words just sound a lot alike. I was so amazed. Below is a list of all the animal sounds she can do right now (that I know of)

Cat
Dog
Cow
Horse
Frog
Bear
Lion
Tiger
Owl
Seal
Gorilla
Monkey
Chicken
Pig
Sheep
Fish

Flashback

I found this picture of Tessa looking through some old files on my computer. She was only one day old.

Twisted Sister

So, for some reason my dad totally looks like he could be a Twisted Sister Band member in his Halloween costume.......FREAKY. One more reason men should not sport long, blond locks.

Tessa loves dancing in the car, after every song ends she always says "Yeah" and claps her hands. She particularly LOVES Raffi, but every now and then Mommy just can't handle "Down by the bay" anymore and we listen to the regular radio. She's is totally jamming to T.I.'s "Whatever you Like" (the clean version - the dirty version is even too much for me).

Yellow Jackets RULE!

Here are a few pics from this morning. They got to wear their costumes to school. Hopefully I'll get some better ones tomorrow.

These are from a few days ago. She just looked so cute in her little Gap dress and boots. She looks even cuter when she lets me clip her hair back. We try to do it on the weekends and at night so she gets used to it, but if you don't pay attention she'll pull it out and try to eat it so she usually doesn't wear it at school.

Warm and Fuzzy

It has dropped down to near freezing in Atlanta, so we had to bust out her new hat and coat this weekend. She should be nice and warma and toasty now.

We also had a GREAT week and weekend with Nata (one of my oldest friends - since 2nd grade). She was here for work, but we got a little "play" in also. We went to the outlet malls and did some more shopping. She came last fall (November) to visit and we have just decided that she needs to come this time of year every year. Hopefully, we'll see her next Fall. Maybe she can come for Halloween as German's don't celebrate Halloween. We already miss her and can't wait to see her next year.

Little Devil

I know we always post the good, but sometimes I think I should also post the bad so I don't seem like too much of a braggart. Tessa has had to go to time-out several times over the past few days for biting (GASP!!!). As I have mentioned before, she has a slight temper. Apparently she feels that the play kitchen in her day-care class is hers and hers only. If anyone tries to play with it, even when she is not, she gets mad. It doesn't happen every day, so I don't know if some days she is just crankier than others or what.

The funny thing is that yesterday when I picked her up, she ran up to me like always and I picked her up and hugged and kissed her. The teacher then told me that she had to go to time-out several times for trying to bite some of the other kids. I looked at Tessa and very sternly said "No biting. Tessa we don't bite other kids, that's not nice". Well, she knew she was in trouble because she wouldn't look me in the eye and was pouting and looking down. I think they are still too young to understand remorse at this age, but they definitely know what they are and are not supposed to do.

I love my little bug.

New Kicks

Last weekend, my mom and I went up to the outlet mall to buy Tessa her winter wardrobe. She had no long sleeve shirts or sweaters that fit and very few pants. They had some great deals and we got her some really cute stuff. Now I just have to decide what outfit to put her in for her pictures next week. I LOVE the new shoes we got her, so I had to include a pic. She moves around a lot, so getting shots of her shoes was actually really difficult.

Colors - her favorite colors to say are purple (purpur), yellow (lello), and green (gree). She can't really distinguish yet, so she will just repeat purpur while pointing at her green cup until you agree that yes it is purple, Good job Tessa.

Animals - she is learning more and more animal names and sounds. She has learned cow and moo (not sure why that took so long) and another interesting one is seal or sea lion and she'll actually clap her hands like they do and do a very good seal noise. She recognizes the picture of the seal in her animal book. She is trying REALLY hard to say alligator and gets pretty close most of the time. She know monkey and will imitate a monkey sound and movement. For some reason whenever she see the gorilla in her animal book she says "Mama". I think (hope?) that she is trying to Monkey but I'm not sure yet. It doesn't help either that Mike agrees with her everytime, saying "Yes, that's Mama".

Beard - Mike loves to wrestle with Tessa and will rub his beard on her face, which she just thinks is HILARIOUS. Once he stops, she will get up walk a few steps and fall back down waiting for Mike to wrestle again. I attached a small clip of these "wrestling" matches.

Oh No!

Tessa sometimes has perfect comedic timing. Yesterday afternoon we were over at Omi and Opa's house and she was playing up on the 3rd floor. My mom had bought this book with a CD that has "If you're Happy and you know it". Tessa really likes this song and was dancing away. Well, the brand new CD started skipping and Tessa goes "Oh No!". It was perfect, we all died laughing.

Then last night, she was really jacked up and running all over our bedroom. We have a platform bed, so it's pretty low and she can easily climb on and off. At the foot of my bed is a body pillow that she likes to throw herself onto. She was particularly jacked up last night and was jumping on the bed and kept falling backwards (on purpose) and just really enjoying herself. Then all of the sudden she dove head first onto the body pillow and then bounced (with the pillow) and literaly flipped over the end of the bed. Of course Mike and I dove after her, fearing she he really hurt herself. As she is lying on the floor under the pillow she goes "Oh No!". Again, we died laughing. She was totally fine and didn't even whine or anything. She just climbed back on the bed and did her usual thing. She cracks me up.

ABC

As you know, Tessa loves music. On our walk last night, she was just talking away to herself when I noticed that she was singing her "ABC's". She would say the A, the mumble and then the D, then mumble some more (with the correct inntonations) and then clear as day said "LMNOP" and then mumbled the rest. It was awesome. Then I recongnized her trying to sing Twinkle, Twinkle. I am just so amazed at what a little sponge she is.

Airplane

Almost forgot her latest word "Airplane", Aunt Kirsten would be so proud of her little niece. I think she just recently leanred this word. As it seems to have been raining here the past month, we have spent very little time outside. We live very close to Dobbins AFB and so get a lot of low flying, large cargo planes flying overhead. On Sunday Omi and Opa were over and we were playing out front, when a giant C-130 flew by and Opa made sure Tessa saw it and said "Airplane". About five minutes later, she started saying it non-stop, even though there was no plane in sight (or sound). Last night on our walk she saw one again and said it again. She's such a little genius.

New Phrases

The older Tessa gets the more rapidly she learns. She talks non-stop. Most of the time I do not understand what she is saying, but as long as she entertains herself more power to you, Tessa. She now says funny phrases like "Let's Go" and "All Right". I have no idea where she learned these as we don't really use them that often. I heard her say the word "Please" (of course sounds like Peeees). She's been doing the sign for Please forever, but hasn't really said the word. In sign-language she knows More, Please, Milk, Help Me, Mama, Dada, and Dog. She will grab a blanket and lay down and pretend snore (Daddy taught her that) and she will say 'night-night'. Of course this does NOT mean that she is tired, she just thinks it's fun to play. She is still completely obsessed with Pokerface and wants to watch it 24-7. On Saturday morning she woke up early and Mike and I hoped that if we brought her in bed with us she would snuggle for a little bit longer (YEAH RIGHT). She jumped off the bed and immediately ran to the iPod and started pushing buttons. Nothing like C&C Music Factory "Everybody Dance Now" at 7:00am. She loves her music.

Pokerface

My dear, sweet little girl is obsessed with Lady Gaga's Pokerface. Tessa really does not like watching TV, she has never sat still long enough to realize that there is anything on the TV. Even Baby Einstein, Mickey's PLayhouse, nothing really tickles her fancy.


UNTIL NOW


She is obsessed with Pokerface and the video. It's her favorite song to dance to and we have the video on our iTunes. She knows how to press the space bar on the computer to get it going and she know if the she presses the buttons enough i the iPod it will come on. She will actually sit still (almost still) at watch the video six times in a row. It had become her bed-time ritual before bath time. It's amazing to see her so enthralled with this one particular video. If I start playing the P!nk video, she'll climb out of the chair and wonder off to do something else.

Unfortunately the video clip I have is too large to upload, I'll try to get a shorter one.

Shrimp

Today was Tessa's 15 month check-up. Everything is great. She in still in the 50% for weight and she dropped from the 25% to 20% for height. I've started calling her my little shrimp. Of course she had to get her shots today (3). But, she was fine about 3 minutes later. But I don't think you ever get used to having to see your baby in pain. I wish they could give me the shots and I could somehow osmose the vaccine into her. Can one of my smart family members or friends work on that please? Thanks.

She's teething right now and apparently the molars are pretty bad. One of my buddies, Divo, recommended those little teething balls that dissolve. I am going out this afternoon to buy some. My poor little booger has been waking up almost every night. Wednesday night was horrible. She woke up screaming and would not stop for two hours no matter what. I ended up sleeping on the floor next to her crib (thank god we have carpet) and holding her little hand between the bars.

I love my little booger.

Blinking

Mike like to deliberatly blink at Tessa several times, which she just thinks is the funniest thing. In response, she has started blinking back. It is so cute. I was sitting with her last night and noticed her blinkking at me and when I started blinking back she starting giggling. I told Mike about it and he started laughing and told me that they do that at night together before she goes to bed. I was a little upset that they had this little special game that I didn't know about, but then I realized I have my own little special moments with her.

On a more somber note, one of my dad's best friend, Bob Stiles, passed away yesterday. It was very sudden, he was only 58. My parents had had dinner with him and his wife Olga the night before. They were doing an autopsy to determine the cause, but we have not heard anything yet. THEN, on top of all that, one of my cousin's was in a horrible car accident and is in ICU. The next 48-hrs are critical. It's just amazing how quick something can happen. I want to run to Tessa's day-care and pick her up and just hold her and squeeze her. Last night I just wanted to hold Mike and never let go. It's makes you realize to truly sieze the day (Carpe Diem).

Omi

We are soooo excited that Omi is coming back tomorrow. She's been in Germany for two weeks. I know Tessa is excited, but I think Grandpa is WAY more excited. Dad actaully had to do laundry all by himself (apparently he washed a yellow towel with some blue ones and that wasn't very successful). Today he is frantically cleaning to get the house back to the pristine condition my mom left it in. And he's been srounging for dinners whenever possible. HAHAHAHA!!!! Just kidding, Dad. I love you and I need $20.

I've been really busy at work. They have moved me from Engineering into the field to help finish the 1st floor and do punchlist. Punchlist is my least favorite part of a job, but with the economy and job market, I'm thankful to have a job. I'm just working more hours now and Tessa is spending longer days in day-care. I don't think she cares, she loves hanging out with her buddies (aka bossing them around). I know this sounds crazy, but I hope she doesn't become a bully, she can be kind of tough. Mike has been crazy busy and has been working a lot of nights pouring concrete. He thinks it will slow down in a couple of weeks, but I've heard that before. All in all, we are all doing great.

Hokey Pokey & Bi-polar

She hasn't been napping very well lately, so after school she is pretty crabby. This video is a prime example of her bi-polarness.

She is also trying to master the use of the spoon. As you can tell, placing the food on the spoon first, and then into mouth defeats the purpose of using the spoon to keep your hands clean. At least she's trying. Most of the time, she just uses her hands as this is much faster.

Her dance skills are improving greatly. She loves to spin in circles. I think she learned this in daycare doing the hokey-pokey. In our 'Little Gym' class on Saturday, she was doing this everytime they played music.

Brown Bear - Genius

So, everyone who has children knows the book "Brown Bear, Brown Bear". Tessa does not have the patience to read a book, so we end up flipping through the pages really fast while I try to read as fast as I can. There are many books that I have never read the last page of. Brown Bear is one of those books, so my shortended and condensed version is (read REALLY fast)....Red Bird - Tweet Tweet (I do ad-lib the animal sounds), Yellow Duck - Quack Quack, Blue Horse - hairball (I can't do horse sounds), Green Frog - Ribbit, etc.

So this weekend, I am reading the book and Tessa just walks off because some shiny object caught her eye. So, I just keep reading, the next page was White Dog and Tessa did her woof woof. I thought this was a conincidence, but decided to test her and said Purple Cat too which she meowed, Black Sheep she a-a-a-a-a'd (she leaves out the b), red bird - twee twee, etc. She did almost every animal with out looking at the book and I didn't read them in order to make sure she hadn't just memorized the sequence.

I just think it is so amazing that she has already memorized this book. It's one of her favorites (from her buddy Jack).

Conversations

I have noticed Tessa saying eye (which she can also point to on her face and someone else's face). She says morning (which comes out as nonon).

The funniest thing is that she will hold her hand up with her index finger pointing and wave it and hold this entire conversation in a warbled tone. It's really quite fascinating. I will try and capture it on video this weekend and post it. The way she waves her hand is almost like she's making a very important point or maybe cussing me out.

New Words

We are enjoying our last day at the beach. The weather has been OK, it's been overcast and a little rainy, but we have all managed to get out at various times and soak up the sun. Tessa loves the ocean and sand and plays with her bucket and shovel non-stop. She has also made some friends here. There's Lane, whose grandparents own the unit two doors over. Lane is one month younger than Tessa. And she met the twins. There are two cute 18mo old boys, Nicholas and Joey. They are two cute little blond haired, blue-eyed cuties. They had a little play date yesterday and Tessa was running around high-fiving everyone. Every time you high-five her she yells out "Yeah".

Tessa can point to her mouth, ears, nose, head and eyes on command (ok I know she's not a dog, but wasn't sure how to word this differently). AND she can say nose (sounds more like "naw) and she can say mouth ("mau") and think she tries to say head but it sounds like "ha". She has also figured out her shoes; ie she has figured out velcro and can take them off. Her little white sandals are easier than her brown ones, so they go missing more often.

Cutie

Well Tessa did GREAT in the car. She took three naps, we did a lot of singing and when we could we would roll the windows down so she could feel the breeze in her hair. Kirsten took a funny picture (think Einstein) of her hair sticking straight up.

She absolutely LOVES the beach. She runs towards the surf and would probably keep going if I let her. She will run back and forth between the surf and Grandpa standing in the sand with the bucket. We have already taken so many great pictures. Unfortunately I forgot my camera cable so I'll have to post them when we get back.

She wore this cute little bathing suit today that Aunt Geri got her. I can't wait to post the pics. She has been so tired and worn out she has taken THREE naps the last two days. Normally she takes one.

OBX

We leave for OBX tomorrow. I CANNOT wait. I'm a little nervous about the very long car trip with squirmy wormy. But I know she will have a blast at the beach and we will be there all week.

Brew Thru (drive through beer place) hear I come!

MJ Tribute?

Tessa (in honor of MJ?) has started walking backwards. She's really good at it and seems to do it quite a bit. I am always jealous of the other babies when I see them dancing. Music will come on and they just start shaking thier heads, waving thier arms, and stomping thier feet. Tessa never dances and we listen to A LOT of music. It may have been due to the fact that she couldn't hear that well with her ear problems. Well, I saw her "dancing" for the first time this weekend to "Beat It". I was so excited I jumped up and starting dancing with her, at which point she promptly stopped dancing and just watched me. We love music and I love to dance so I'm hoping over the next couple of years we can work on her rythm and style and she may turn into the dancing queen that her mommy is ;)

I have noticed her doing some wierd monkey like moves. She pats her chest with both hands and then puts her hands to her mouth and starts babbling. I'm guessing this is something she has picked up in day-care (either some song they sing or animal sounds). I'll have to ask the teacher if she has any idea. I've also noticed her extending one arm and trying to hook the other one over it. It kind of looks like an elephant trunk imitation. We haven't gotten into the Safari section of her animal book yet so it must be another thing she picked up at daycare. She is like a little sponge and seems to be really doing well in her new class. She is definitely 'talking' a lot more now. It's more of warbled conversations than the repitive dada's and mama's. She's so much fun.

A few of the pictures are from our weekend up at the cabin over the 4th. I LOVE the pic of her with the sunglasses on her head. For those of you that know Mike that is how he ALWAYS wears his, propped up on his head like that. I had to put the pouty picture on here also as people always say how she's such a happy baby and always laughing. Well, she has her moments and this one was cracking me up. She was totally pouting and just sat there with her lip stuck out. It's amazing how they have already learned this trait at such a young age.

TP

So, as most babies...ahem I'm sorry, toddlers.....Tessa loves playing with toilet paper. I normally don't let her, but Mike bought this cheap 1-ply stuff so I don't mind Tessa wasting that. We were getting her ready for her bath and she just grabbed it and took off down the hall. What a little goober.

The 4th

Well, our week started off a little rough. Tessa had a fever most of last week, didn't sleep at all one night andthen broke out in a rash after her fever finally broke. My little bug was definitely NOT herself last week.

We went up to the mountains Thursday night and spent a long weekend up there. Mike came up on Friday night as he had to work. Tessa had a great time up there and got to spend lots of quality time with Oma and Opa. She loved watching the ducks on the lake, she definitely thought that was cool. She has also started "ducking down" to play peak-a-boo over the couch. She has played this game for quite a while with a blanker or her shirt, but just this weekend I noticed her ducking behind the arm of the couch and popping up to see Opa.

And I guess because she missed so much 'school' last week, she was absolutely beside herself with excitement abuot school this morning. She was bouncing up and down in her car-seat before I even finished parking and practically jumped out of my arms as soon as we entered the building.

I'll post some pics we took later on this week.

Ducky

She finally mastered the art of pulling a toy behind her. It was so cute watching her last night. The video clip actually captured the one time when all the stars and planets aligned correctly and the duck stayed on it's "feet" and didn't flip over. Most of the time, she end up dragging the duck on it's side or back and I am thankful it's not a live animal. She also gets it caught between her legs and then trips constantly, but can't figure out to get it out from between her legs.

Daddy

Tessa and I got Daddy a bike (that's a bicycle people, NOT a Harley). Of course, Mike won't want to ride by himself so we bought a bike for Mommy also. Now we have to by a bike carrier for Tessa so we can all go riding together. we had a great cook-out on Saturday night with Mike's son, Bobby, and a friend from work, Nate and his family.

Sunday night we went to Omi and Opa's house and had a nice relaxing dinner. My little gourmet pallet Tessa ate Salmon, shrimp, wild rice salad and goat's cheese for dinner. I bet those fish sticks at school are NOT going to be up to par now. She ate half of my mom's wild, alaskan salmon and LOVED it. She was climbing out of her chair to get more.

My little genius was playing with my keys this weekend and she actually tried to put them in the door. Of course, she is still too short to reach it. She has started to say thank you, but rarely uses it in context. She starts transitioning into the Jr Toddler class today at her daycare. I can't wait to see all of her developmental progress. I love my little booger.

My toddler

Ok - it still feels wierd calling her a toddler. She's my baby girl. Big news this week - she will begin transitioning to the Jr. Toddler room starting next week. In the Jr Toddler room they do circle time, art projects, sleep on cots (GOOD LUCK WITH THAT ONE), have a bigger and better outdoor playground, etc. I think she is getting really bored in the Infant 2 room and ready to move on. I am so excited for her and I know that her little brain is going to LOVE all of the extra stimulation.

It's really cute, because all of the kids in that classroom used to be in Infant 2 when Tessa first transitioned. The other day when I walked out of the room with Tessa all of the kids across the hall were standing at the door and pointing at us saying "TESSA". They actually remember her name. She is going to have a blast. It's also going to be interesting because right now Tessa is the oldest and most active child. The other kids in her class can't walk yet and I think she has become a little bit of a bully. Now she will be the youngest and smallest.

Great Weekend

We had a great weekend at Kristy and Kyle's wedding. They had an absolutely beautiful wedding and we had such a great time. It was so much fun getting ready together and helping Kristy prepare for her big day. I couldn't tell if Madison or Kristy was more excited. Omi and Grandpa Snapdragon watched Tessa for us. Omi took her to the pool and she LOVED the water.

For those of you that don't know, my cat Marmi has been missing for a week now. So on Sunday, I took Tessa to Animal Control to look for Marmi and there are a lot of cats and kittens meowing, so Tessa just Meow'ed the entire time. It was really cute. But then it made me sad, because Marmi is/was a very vocal cat and I know Tessa learned to meow from her. I miss Marmi a lot. I haven't completely given up hope yet. I still check Animal Control every day and check all kinds of web sites. I just can't imagine that she walked off to die in peace. I know she was old, but she didn't seem or act sick. I'll keep looking.

Fun in the Mountains

We had a great time in the mountains. Omi blew up the pool for Tessa and we all got some rays. I doused Tessa in sun-screen and somehow forgot to spray MY legs, which are now burnt. Tessa kept climbing in and out of the pool, and since the deck was so hot we put socks on her, hence the "in the buff w/socks only" shot.

She fell asleep on the ride up there with her little stuffed Penguin, she looked so cute I had to take a pic.

Birthday Girl

We had a great 1st Birthday for Tessa. The sun finally came out after weeks of rain and all the kids got top play on the front lawn. Aunt Kirsten came in town to help celebrate and represent the Ellis clan since Omi and Grandpa were out of town. Grams and Poppa Tim couldn't make it either but we were thinking of them (and Uncle Keith - get well soon). Bobby and Kirsten helped Tessa "smear" her cake every where. I ended yp taking her upstair into our shower and hosing her down. Unfortunately I didn't get all of the icing out of her hair (hence the mohawk pictures).

She partied like a Rock Star and suffered the consequences. After we put her down for bed-time she woke up around 9:30pm with a belly ache and needed some soothing. And the next morning she had a fever and was very cranky. But she's a trooper and after her 2nd nap she was back to her normal self.

I still cannot beleive that I have a 1-yr old. She is so amazing and of course I think she's a genius. Ever since she had the tubes put in her ears, she has really started talking. She says her name now, and tries to repeat what we say. My favorite is "Wow". It sounds dead on and neither of us use that word, so it must be something she picked up in daycare.

My little Kraut

Tessa said her first German word this week. She said "Hatzi" - which means Achoo. IN Germany, when someone sneezes you say "Hatzi mein Schatzi" (usually reserved for children or people you are close to as "Schatzi" means Sweety). We have always used that term everytime someone sneezes. When Tessa first started smiling, it was a guaranteed smile-getter. As she got older everytime she or someone else sneezed she would always look at you smiling, knowing you were going to say it. It's only fitting that it's her first German word.

She can also say Oma (which is Grandma in German); that's what she calls my mom.

I can't beleive she will be 1 on Monday. It has just gone by so fast.

More............

I finally downloaded the video of Tessa signing more and attempting to blow kisses. She's much better at blowing kisses now. I can't beleive she's going to be 1 in a week.

Cats and Dogs

Tessa is totally obsessed with the cats and the dogs. Our oldest cat, Marmi, is great with her and tolerates all the fur and tail pulls with no objection. When Marmi is over it, she just walks away. Gretchen, our kitten is less tolerant and prefers Tessa at a distance. Dixie, our hound-mix, seems to have the same attitude that Gretchen has. She'll sniff Tessa a couple of times but prefers her from afar. Sassafrass on the other hand LOVES Tessa becasue she smells funky, tastes like food and leaves food behind.

The funny think is that I have noticed Tessa "meowing" and "barking". When she see's and hears the cats meowing she tries to meow back. And I must say, she has a good meow sound. Her barking on the other hand is a little more monkey-esc, but still really cute. Of course, we think she's an absolute genius.

Mother's Day and Attitude

I had a GREAT first Mother's Day. Tessa got me a sweet card that almost made me cry and a new Waffle Iron. Mike got me a new refrigerator.......SWEET! We've been saving up for one. It's the LG French Door with bottom drawer. I am an LG product whore, I can't help it.

In other Tessa news Ihave noticed two things about her. She has definitely become more attached and affectionate with Mike and I. She will cry if she sees one of leave the room and when we are playing around she always has to stop by and give us a hug. I have also noticed that she has definitely developed an attitude. She starts full on crying when you tell her 'no'. And if you try to take something away from her that she really wants, she holds on really tight to the point that she is shaking and has the funniest "don't mess with me" face. Hopefully it is just a phase and not a sign of things to come.

Again, thank you Mike and Tessa for making me a Mom. It's truly the best gift ever.

T Update

Tessa is doing great. She has totally bounced back from the surgery. I have noticed that her hearing has improved. She definitely jumps around a lot more when there are loud, strange noises. Hopefully with her new ability to hear better it will be easier for her to learn all these new words.

I love my little bug so much and I thank her every day for making me a mommy.

Tubes and all

Tessa had tubes put in her ears yesterday and did GREAT. She was such a trooper. We had to be at the hospital at 6:00am and she couldn't eat or have formula after midnight. She could have clear liquids up to two hours before surgey. She woke up at 1:30am Monday morning and I gave her some water and juice. As you can imagine she was a little hungry Monday morning.

Once we got into the pre-op room, Omi and I tried to entertain her as much as possible. We did a lot of singing, which she enjoys and it kept her calm. She loves it when Omi sings "The Wheels on the Bus" and "Backe Backe Kuchen" (German version of Patty Cake). I did cry when they took her back, but less than 15 mins later the Doctor was back and said everything went great and about 5 mins later we heard her crying back down the hallway. It all went very quick.

We were back at the house by 8:30am and after she finally got some breakfast she was back to her normal self, chasing the cats around the house and playing with her ball.

****Developmental Update********
She can now "say" more in sign language and blow kisses. It's very cute and as soon as I can capture it on video I will post it.

Sleepy Girl

I guess she woke up and decided she wasn't quite ready to get up yet.

Big Girl

Tessa is now in her Big Girl car seat (thanks to Aunt Kirsten). I can't wait to turn the seat around when she is 1............OMG that is only one month away. It just seems like she is growing so fast now. Every week there's something new she is doing and learning. For a German, I am horrible at rolling my RRRR's, but sometimes I can hit it right. The other day Tessa was taking a bath and I was rolling away, well she started trying to roll her RRR's. It was so cute. I think she is also trying to say 'Ball'. Balls are her favorite toys (no pun intended).

She has also started playing hide and seek with us. She loves running from our den around the corner to the stairs. Then she sits on the 2nd or third step and waits for one of us to come. Mike will rattle his keys and she starts laughing because she knows he's coming. I thought it was so neat that she can associate sounds like that already. Of course, I hope she doesn't think of her Daddy every time a Janitor rolls around with his keys jingling on his belt loop.

Buns of Steel

I had to do a seperate post because this "situation" just deserved a whole post on it's own. Tessa stayed with Omi on Saturday night and unfortunately was up most of the night, so Omi may be able to blame fatigue on this one. She is determined to use ALL of the Size 2 diapers she has, even though Tessa has been wearing Size 3 diapers for a few months now. When I picked her up and brought her home, I noticed the strange shape of her diaper under her pants. When I finally pulled her pants down to see what the hell was going on, I found this..........................a GIANT wedgie!!!!! Half of Tessa's diaper was stuck up her butt cheeck. So of course I did was any mother would do, I took and picture and then changed her. Enjoy!

Weekend Party

Tessa went to her first Birthday party this weekend and she had a blast! Her buddy Jack turned 1 and Tessa and Morgan (Reilly's daughter) were the only two girls there..... holding court amongst all the boys. Dylan (Devin and Naddienne's son) was there also. He has gotten so big. Jack absolutely loved his cake and was a great host (just like his mommy and daddy). The weather was perfect and it was just a great day.

Easter

We had a wonderful low key Easter at The Ellis Family house. We had some great family friends from Germany visiting, Gabi - her daughter Danni and Danni's son Max. We have know them for a very long time. Danni used to baby sit my sister and I when we were younger. Max was our ring bearer at our wedding. And although not related, Gabi looks like she could be my mom's sister and they are as close as sisters. We also had Kathi come for Easter. Kathi is an intern with my company, Turner Construction. She is from Germany and works for Hochtief (who owns Turner). Mike had to remind us to speak Englsih every now and then so that he could keep up. The weather was absolutely beautiful and after brunch we just sat around outside and soaked up the sun for several hours.

Our Easter didn't start off that great. Tessa was up most of the night with a 102 fever, but we all managed to rally for Brunch and Tessa even wore her cute dress. It was VERY cute, but not practical for the active little girl that she is. After her nap we changed her into some pants and a shirt.

Flock of Seagulls

I think Tessa was channeling Flock of Seagulls with her hair-do on Sunday morning. When she gets tired at night or wakes up in the middle of the night, she likes to pull her hair. I guess that's why it is always sticking straight up. I attached some cute videos of her walking / running ("I Ran" - again FOS). She is wide open - just like her Daddy.

Elton John????

We took this picture last weekend when Aunt Kirsten flew into Dobbins with three other IP's. Tessa enjoyed showing off how well she can walk now.

Walk the Walk

Tessa is definitely walking now. And she is getting ballsier and ballsier by the day. She tries to multi-task (ie walking with toy hanging out of mouth and another one in her hand). She is attempting long distance between the couch and the fire place. You can really see her concentrating. She starts off standing then will take a few steps and stop to steady herself and then take some more steps. The look on her face is priceless. She loves to crash land into our arms, she thinks that's really cool. Of course, she has taken some tumbles that mostly scare her more than anything. Everyone in her day care is so amazed by how active she is. Poor Ms Laura has to keep up with her all day long.

As exciting as all of this is; it of course means a lot more work for us. She's worth it.

Crash Landing

The weather was absolutely beautiful this weekend. It snowed last weekend and this weekend was 77 degrees and sunny. We spent as much time outside as we could. Well, Tessa has kind of started to walk. It's more of a sprint / crash landing into my arms but it's really funny to see her face when she does it......pure joy. We tried to capture it on the video below. She has no fear and will just take off from the ottoman to the chair. Of course she gets going too fast sometimes and takes a tumble, but a few hugs and kisses from mommy and she is back at it with full force. I have a feeling she is going to follow in her Aunt Kirsten's footsteps by spending a lot of time in the ER with bandages, casts and stitches.

Cheerios

Tessa is enjoying her cheerios, although I think she likes shaking the container more then anything. She is totally cruising (for you non-parents that is when babies walk along furniture) around the den. There are two items in the den that are off limits, the fireplace tools and the TV stand. OF COURSE, these are her favorite items and instead of playing with her toy basket or activity center, she only has eyes for the fire poker and the DVD player. I think I have a long 18 years ahead of me.

Snow and Kisses

I took this really cute picture of her this morning at her day care. She's wearing a pink jacket that used to mine when I was little.

Tessa saw her first snow this weekend. It was wet snow, so we couldn't really play in it. T still has an ear infection, so we didn't want her to get worse. But we ran out for a couple of pictures. She kept laughing every time a snowflake touched her face. I have those pictures on my other camera so I will post them a little later. We had a lot of fun this weekend, so I posted a couple of video clips. She started smacking her lips in what I like to call little kisses.

Hollywood T

We went shopping on Saturday with Gramms and Aunt Geri. We went to World Market and then walked across the parking lot to PetSmart. Tessa hammed it up the entire time. She definitely entertained the masses. When we walked over to PetSmart the sun was right in her face, hence the attached pic.

Uh-Oh

Tessa has started saying Uh-Oh. Not sure if that counts as her first word besided mama, dada, and baba. I attached some pics and video clips of her. She loves taking toys out of her basket, I guess the next step will be to teach her to put them back in the basket.

Mike is also doing very well. I know he is antsy and ready to go back to work, but it has been really nice having him home and he gotten to spend a lot of quality with Tessa, that he normally does not get.

Hiccups

Mike came home from the Hospital on Saturday morning and he is doing OK. He's still in a lot of pain. The worst part is that he has literally had the hiccups since he came out of his surgery on TUESDAY! He has them all day long and all night long. It keeps him (and myself) awake at night. He has taken some sleep aids at night, which helps him sleep but doesn't stop the hiccups. Any suggestions, home remedies, old wives tales, etc. would be greatly appreciated.

Tessa eating

Tessa is a GREAT eater. She will eat pretty much anything you put in front of her. Here's a little video of her eating some Cheerios. She is getting really good at putting stuff in her mouth, but sometimes she misses, or chews on her whole fist when the cheerio is inside her fist. She can also hold the bottle by herself now and it's so cute to watch her drink. She takes a drink then checks the bottle to see how much is left. It's hilarious.

Mikey Mike!

Surgery was a success. Hopefully he will have a quick recovery. He's hoping to get home in time for the Daytona 500 on Sunday. I have the cutest video clip of Tessa eating cheerios. I'll try to post it later on when I bring the camera cable. Luckily they have wireless at the hospital.

Surgery Update

Mike's suregry was rescheduled to next Tuesday. It's a long story, but he will definitely go under the knife on Feb 10th. Tessa is recovering from an ear infection and I am fighting a cold. Two days of NyQuil induced comas and I should be good to go.

Mike's Last Supper

We had Mike's "Last Supper" last night. He doesn't really like me calling it that, but we had a great time. I made him his special request, Pork medallions in a rosemary cream sauce with my special scalloped patatoes (potatoes with Boursin cheese) and lots of red wine. His surgery is schedueled for Wednesday and he has to clean his insides out, so he didn't want to eat a lot on Monday or Tuesday. He is SOOOOO ready for this surgery and ready to start his new job.

Tessa has been a little cranky, I think she is getting another tooth (she has two bottom ones as of now). I hope that's all it is and she's not getting sick. She is so curious about everything. She really is like a giant sponge trying to soak up everything the world has to offer.

Pets

I want to dedicate this post to family pets. Mike's niece, Sam, had a cat named Catfish that passed away. I think with our busy lives and schedules and babies, we don't always get to spend as much time with our beloved animals as we would like. I know that with Mike home, they have definitely gotten more one on one time. As most of you know, I have a fat orange cat named Marmi that is my baby. She is the total alpha dog among the two dogs and the other cat. She loves to snuggle, curl up on your lap, or sleep snuggled up right next to you at night.

I love watching Marmi and Sassafrass wrassle. I don't think Sassafrass realizes how big she is and vice versa I don't think Marmi realizes how little she is. Sassafrass is a giant, goofy, love bug. She wishes she could be a lap dog and would love nothing more then to just play all day long. Gretchen is not a big fan of the dogs and I think she's still trying to figure out Tessa. Her favorite activity is either chasing bugs around or sleeping. She's not much of a cuddler, but she loves to sleep at the foot of the bed.

Dixie loves patrolling the yard and makes sure she greets any person or animal that walks by our house. She makes sure the squirrels stay up in the trees and when they dare each other to climb down the tree Dixie will make sure they don't stay there long.

Anway, I know when I get home tonight I will make sure I pay a little extra attention to each and every one of my animals and let them know how much I appreciate them.

Parent-Teacher Conference

Little Bug is now holding her bottle all by herself, like a big girl. She looks more like a toddler now than the infant that she still is. She has two bottom teeth that she loves to show off. On Monday we have her very first parent-teacher conference. Luckily since Mike is home he'll be able to attend. One of the positives of not working..................more family time. Tessa and I love coming home from work every day and having Daddy home.

Mike Update

Mike is doing much better. He had his 7mm kidney stone blasted yesterday. It was still in his kidney so it wasn't hurting him, but they wanted to make sure it didn't start to travel while he was in surgery. He has a slight bruise on his side and has to drink massive amounts of water to flush out the shattered stone. Hopefully they will take his IV out today, so he won't have to deal with that anymore. Having a needle stick out of your arm all day long is no fun.

His surgery is scheduled for February 4th. He'll be in the hospital for 4-7 days and then another 5-7 days recovering at home. He will no longer be working for 2000 Concrete, so we will see what new and exciting endeavours are to come. There is a possibility he'll go work for Turner Concrete (which is an Enterprise of my comany). I think that would be GREAT. Turner really is a great company to work for and I think Turner Concrete would be a good match for him. But we'll see. He may also go back to work for Precision Concrete. He worked for them for almost 10 years prior to working for 2000 Concrete.

I know he'll do great and impress no matter what.

Pics

Here are some late Christmas Pictures. Yes, we all wore matching PJ's and drove over to my parents house in them. Mike swore that if something happened or we got pulled over he was REFUSING to step out of the car. He looked cute in his PJ's. Thanks Buddy.

Back Home and First Shiner

Mike was released from the Hospital late Saturday night. He is at home recovering. He's still weak and skinny. He didn't eat much at the Hospital and has probably lost 10lbs. I have to hook him up to an IV once a day for the next week and he will have to have several follow up Doctor visits. He still has to have surgery, but we are waiting on the Doctor to tell us when exactly that will be. I think Mike just wanted to play and watch Tessa all day yesterday. He only got to see her for two, very short (and cranky) visits. She is getting her second tooth and she has a cough.

In an effort to show off, Tessa was crawling all over the place for Daddy. She accidentally ran head on into a chair and got her first dose of self-inflicted pain. Along with it she had a small bruise above her eye. The joys of growing up and learning.