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.