Tessa {18 Months}

Long time no see!

"helping"

I thought I would do a little update on the little Miss in our house to start off some more updates that I hope will be coming in a timely manner!

First off, she is ONE AND A HALF.  She is so full of personality, and spunk, and energy, and man, she is not always a nice person to be around if I'm being honest.  She gets in these moods where nothing, and I mean nothing, can please her.  She is lucky she is cute most of the time!

She hasn't really been up to much since she turned one.  She learned to walk, and took her first steps while we were in Australia.  She took her first 17 hour plane ride TO Australia.  She has gotten a few words here and there, but she is certainly not talking in sentences.  I like to tell people, she is miles ahead of where Dylan was, but probably behind Graham.

on our way home from OZ

Speaking of her brothers.  They just love her, and I think the feeling is pretty mutual.  They love waking her up in the morning, and she loves when they come into her room, and they play a game of " throw it out of the crib."  I like it to because it gives me a good chunk of time where I can get my contacts in and wake up.

She is enjoying school now, she doesn't even cry at drop off, and they say she has such a great time playing with all the kids now.  Though she is still pretty reserved when around strangers, I'm hoping that she gets out of that soon.  She is not a "people person" for sure.

Some of her favorite activities are swinging, climbing up and going down the slide, pushing our little blue ikea chairs all around the house, eating, and taking a bath.  She throws some of her biggest fits when I take her out of the bath tub:)

Eating, well, she likes to eat a lot, but she doesn't have a lot of things she will eat.  She still will not drink any milk.  Her diet consists of waffles, chicken nuggets, pancakes, eggs, cheese and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and sometimes fruit.  She gets most of her fruit and veggies in the form of pouches, or smoothies ( I sure can load a lot of fresh spinach into those smoothies without her knowing!)


At her 18 month appointment, we actually had a bit of a health scare , again, for other reason's she had a urine test done at her well check, where they found sugar and ketones in her urine.  After a finger prick resulting in a blood sugar of 266, we were immediately sent to the ER at Childrens.  After 3 normal blood sugar reading there, and a normal test to check for Type
1 Diabetes, we were sent home.  We still have no answers as to WHY her sugars were so high, seeing as I can't seem to get into see an Endo until February or March.  I'm still working on it!:)  So, if her genetic Liver disease isn't enough, there is a possibility, her pancreas it also faulty.

She sure is growing into her own little girl, and I'm excited to see who she grows up to be.  She already has a love of my jewlery, and of shoes, but also enjoys playing with Power Rangers, and Spiderman toys, so I'm thinking she will be a great mix of princess and tom boy!:)

1st Day of school Aug. 24, 2015

18 Month Stats: 

22 pounds 3 oz

32 inches long

18 month PJ's, Shirts, and 12 month Rompers, and shorts

Great sleeper

Mediocre eater

Words that she says on a regular basis: Mama, Dada, Daddy, Bubba, Ball, Dog, Dink, Up, More, Uh Oh( i'm forgetting some)

She knows all her face parts but eyes.  

Tessa {12 Months}

You got it, she went and did it again.  Another month, and probably the last month birthday update!
 ( except she is now 13 months old... I'm a little behind! my Little, tiny, baby girl is a whole year old.  It seems like she has been here longer than that, but some days it seems like she just got here.

This month, she really started turning into her own person. She has opinions, many, and likes and dislikes.  She continues to be a happy baby, though we are getting to the point where it is hard to give her exactly what she wants because we don't understand her!:)

This month she gained 3 teeth.  Her other eye tooth, and a big front one, and a lower.  Needless to say, there were a few days where she didn't want to eat much of anything, and was a bit of a well, she complained about everything.  She is still not walking, but loves to walk with her dinosaur and with holding onto our hands.  She can stand unassisted for a pretty good amount of time too, so I know walking won't be far behind.  Though she does seem to have inherited the lazy gene that her biggest brother also got, so who knows.  I'm still borderline on whether I want her to be walking in time for Australia or not.  Chances are she will be ( even Dylan was walking by that time) but it might also be nice if she was still crawling.

I don't really feel like we did a lot this month, or that she did.  We dropped her formula intake, and have taken bottles away.  She drank milk one time a few weeks before her birthday so I didn't think that giving her milk was going to be an issue.  Well, call me a liar.  The child refuses milk.  I can give her a bottle on 1 oz formula, and 7 oz of milk and she will drink it no problem.  If I give her 8 oz of milk, no way.  So she is just drinking water.  I don't want to buy new formula for so little.  She eats plenty of dairy products so I'm sure she is getting all she needs. Speaking of eating.  Man, does she know how to eat.  She eats more than her brothers. A Chick Fil a meal, no problem. I have actually started getting her, her own food, because she eats more than the boys are willing to share.  But somehow, she seems to have also been blessed with her Daddy's " I eat all the time and don't really gain any weight gene"  I wish my parents had given that to me!  

This month, she witnessed her first snow as well, I guess it was 3 snows.  The first time was pretty weak, and I was out of town for the second,  and the third was a great one!:)  I took her outside for pictures and put her in her bath seat, I know, it was the best I could think off.  We were outside for about 2 min, and she ripped her hat of, so no judging me based on the pictures.  I just had to get some pictures though!

So now that she is 13 months old I'll add in what happened from 12-13 months.  She was sick.  I feel like the whole month.  She got her first snotty nose about half way through the month.  She wasn't a fan of the snot sucker, but she quickly learned that if she would just chill out, I would be done before she knew it!:)

She has also gotten an opinion about where she is, what she eats, and what she is doing.  She is like the boys in that she is currently not a huge fan of veggies, but of carbs instead.  She is still gagging on milk, it's actually hilarious, and pretty sad at the same time.  She refuses to drink it, so we have been giving her lots of peanut butter and cheese and the like to make up for the calcium/fat she isn't getting from milk.

Her hair is officially in her eyes, so she often can be found sporting the " BamBam" ponytail.  Or pigtails, but I have to make her sit longer for those, so it doesn't happen too often! She is getting closer and closer to taking those first steps, I think she did two baby ones today, but it's hard to tell.

She is a silly girl, and LOVES to be outside crawling around, and she loves to make her brothers do all kinds of silly things to make her laugh.  They are her puppets! I can't wait to see her little personality come out even more as she gets older, though I'm not too excited about the drama mama tantrums that are coming!

 12 Month Stats:

18 lbs 6 oz

29 and 3/4 inches

Wearing 12 month clothes

sleeping 12 hours

making lots of sounds, no specific words yet, other than mama, and dada, but not to us

7 Teeth

No bottles.

Pink and Gold

Well, Tessa went and did it.  She turned ONE YEAR OLD!  We celebrated one day early with her pink and gold party!  All I have to say, is that she wasn't so sure of all the eyes on her.  She didn't have a bad time, but she certainly didn't seem to be having a great time! I think I got one picture with her smiling!  It was our usual crowd at birthday parties, close family friends, and grandparents.

We had cake, chicken nuggets ( always a hit with parents and kids) mac and cheese and a few other things.  I didn't get a bounce house because the weather was not supposed to be that great, but it ended up being beautiful, but really soggy, so we just had all the kids in the house.  I'll tell you, 9 kids in one house is too many.  When all of them left, it was amazingly quiet in my house!:)

Tessa was NOT a fan of her cake.  I won't take it personally even though I made her cake! This is the first party that I decided to make all the cakes.  Adam tried to convince me not to spend an arm and a leg on something I can make " Just a good" his words not mine, every year.  For some reason, this was the year I decided to do it.  I think they came out alright, though I'm not sure anyone would have told me if the cake was terrible!:)

She loved opening presents, when her brothers would let her.  They woke up that day SO excited about her party asking if they could open her presents and blow out her candle.  So I of course said they could.  They basically tore through packages not even looking at what was inside. This freaked Tessa out a bit.  She was so over stimulated with all the kids and noise, and people.  She just isn't used to having all the attention!

I can't believe that my baby girl is one year old.  Needless to say, I can't wait to see the little toddler she grows into, and she really shows us another side to her personality every single day.  She is silly and dramatic, and I fear she might be a rough and tumble, princess.  But I wouldn't have it any other way!  Happy Birthday sweet baby girl.  We all love you Tessie Paige!

There will be a more in depth one year post tomorrow after we get her stats from the dr. So never fear.

Tessa {11 Months}

She did it again.  She won't stop growing no matter how much I beg her!  Geez. She is eleven months old.  Crazy.  It's hard to believe she is almost one, and that she has been here a whole year.  It's scary because it just shows us how quickly time is going by.

It was a big month for her.  Like I mentioned last post, she started school.  She is only going one day a week, and so far is doing pretty well.  Of course she cries when I leave her, but that's to be expected.  I know that when she starts going two days ( in the summer) she will get more used to it, and it won't be a big deal.  Her teachers tell me she is pretty shy, and doesn't really like to be around the other kids, which is pretty strange since she is kinda used to chaos in our house!

She finally got another tooth this month as well.  She might have gotten her teeth first out of all our kiddos, but she is sure getting them the slowest as well.  I'm sure you are wondering if she also got her fangs first, just like her big brothers, and the answer is YES.  She is a little vampire baby. She only has one right now, but I don't think the next will be far behind.

This month also brought on sickness for her.  She got a tummy bug. I'm pretty sure those are the worst, but like her oldest brother, she seemed to only get sick in the evenings in her bed, so we often wouldn't find out about it until the morning.  Gross, I know.  She was very snugly and very sleeping during her few days of sickness, and it took her just a bit over a week to get back to eating normally.  I know she lost some weight, because her thigh rolls are basically gone, which I know is a mix of finally crawling and getting sick.

Speaking of eating, this child will eat anything.  ANYTHING.  I'm sure the boys were eating anything at this point as well, but she seriously hasn't turned down anything.  I also loved that I'm at that stage where I don't really have to worry too much about what I give her.  I mean I keep an eye so she doesn't choke, but I'm not worried about allergies.  She has had berries, and peanut butter for about a month now.  I also gave her some hard boiled egg off my salad the other night, she loved it.  So I'm hoping that she continues with this trend and isn't a picky eater!

She is pulling up on furniture now, but she really shows very little interest in walking.  She doesn't like to move her feet. We have been trying to get her to walk with the dinosaur walker toy, and she will just fall down to her knees and laugh. She is silly, but honestly, I think I'm OK with her not walking, although I am itching to buy her some super cute girl shoes for spring and summer!

She has recently started babbling a lot more.  I'm about 95% positive she says "hi" even Dylan thinks it.  Even if that isn't what she is meaning, it absolutely sounds like it!  Lots of "yaya" "mama" dada" and even "BaBa" once.  I think she is just about where Graham was at this point!  She is getting better at waving, but won't do it on command, just whenever she feels like it!

She is still highly entertained by her brothers, though they have been a bit too " in her face" for her liking recently.  Graham has really not liked her messing with his stuff, and often yells at her.  She will have to learn they don't like their towers knocked down or puzzles torn apart.  They only thought they wanted her to move!;)

I can't believe the next post will be about her birthday party and her turning one.  I think time needs to slow down, because I'm not ready for my baby girl to not be a baby anymore. But I'm more than ready to be done with bottles and formula.  FOREVER!

11 Month stats:

18ish pounds

9 month sleepers

still in 6 month onsies, but needs to move up, but I'm trying not to have to buy much more long sleeve stuff!

3 teeth

moved her to size 4 diapers because I ran out of 3's and 4's were on hand.

3- 8 Oz bottles a day 

Tessa {10 Months}

Another month gone by.  I can hardly believe than in less than two months our baby girl will be ONE!

This was a big month for her.  Lots of new tricks.  First and foremost, she is now an official crawler.  She just got up one morning and decided she wanted to crawl.  It was almost as if she had been practicing privately or something.  She looked like she had been doing it for a while.  All she needed was the motivation of a little yellow practice golf ball!  The boys thought it was awesome when she started moving.  Within a few days though, they realized that meant she was going to be all up in their business taking toys, destroying puzzles, and banging on the Ipad!  I hear a lot of " No Tessie, and Noooooo Tess don't!"

Her other new trick this month is clapping!  I think clapping is one of the most adorable and precious things to see babies do.  It just melts my heart, and I'm so glad that she does it.  She doesn't do it on her own, but if I say " Tessa can you say YEY!! or Tessa clap your hands" she gets a huge smile and will do it!

This month was also Tessa first Christmas.  She slept through most of it of course.  Adam's parents do gifts on Christmas Eve after church and dinner, so she was pretty tired.  She slept through most of the gift opening, but did great at dinner.  I didn't get any pictures of her in her dress, but whatever. #thirdchildproblems

Another thing that I guess I could save until next month, but oh well.  She started SCHOOL!  On the day she turned 10 months, she went to school.  I'm sending her once a week so that I have one day to get stuff easily accomplished.  Luckily, she is still the most easy going baby, so even when she is with me, I can get stuff done, but it's nicer to just run into a store or whatever without having to lug her out.  Speaking of, she is still in her infant bucket seat, and I really need to change her into the convertible.  I'm just lazy, and it's nice to just get it out of the car and into the cart! Again, I'm lazy.

She has also eaten all kinds of new things this month.  Beside her beloved puffs and crackers, she has had chili, avocado, pita and hummus, and even some gyro from our local Greek food place.  We have not found one thing this child will not eat.  I know the time is coming, but for now, it seems that our darling daughter is going to be the one to eat us out of house and home, not her two brothers.  She would eat all day if we let her.

She is still a great sleeper, and I learned this month that she is just like her brothers in the fact that I will out her in her crib for bed and she will play for a while before going to sleep, and she will be awake for who know how long before she makes a peep in the morning for us to go get her.  She is still sleeping with the paci, but I figure I'll let her have it until after Australia and then it's a goner.

Speaking of Australia, she will soon have her own passport.  Yup, during the winter break, I took all three kids to the passport office and got their passports made.  Did you know kids don't have to have new passports for 5 years?  I mean, Tessa will not look a whole lot like a 10 month old in 5 years!:) Seems silly to me, but I'm glad I don't have to do it again for a long while!

This month's photo shoot was much more difficult than usual, but I can say, she managed to only fall off the chair once!;) It was another great month as a family of 5 and I honestly can't believe how quickly time is going by. I feel like she was just born.  What they say is true, the days seem long but the years are short.  I'm finding this out, and it makes me a bit sad.

10 Month Stats:

18ish lbs.

9 month sleepers still

6 and 9 month onsies still

3 or 4 bottles a day

at least 2 solid meals a day

plenty of snack

Dylan is FIVE!!!

How can my tiny little baby boy now be a smallish 5 year old boy?  Man, time sure if flying!  Like Adam's dad said," You think this was fast?  Soon your five year old little boy, will have his own five year old little boy, and you won't know when that could have happened"

Dylan is such a boy these days! As I might have mentioned, Dylan has been going to a full time Pre K since August.  He loves it.  He has learned so much, made lots of friends, and just well, learned so much!

He continues to be the best biggest brother there is.  He loves his little brother and sister something fierce, and I hope the day never comes, when he stops trying to make them laugh.  It's his daily duty.  He is sweet and kind with them, though we do have lots of arguments between him and Graham these days, but I'd say more often than not, they play together and get along still.  I know the day is coming when that won't be the case, but until then, I think I'll savor it.  His life mission is to get Tessa to smile, or laugh, or say something, though it's usually only "MaMa" still! Poor girl, will have no personal space because of Dylan.

Dylan once again played soccer this year.  He certainly improved from his first season, but still has a long way to go.  We have convinced him that you don't always have to score a goal to be helpful on the field.  He has shown some interest in gymnastics, so when I get around to it, I think that will be the next thing on the list.  I don't really want him to play more than 1 thing right now, because I know when he gets older his schedule will be packed with stuff to do, so since he is only 5 we are keeping it simple.

He is of course into ALL things super hero.  although, he seems to have passed the "wearing a suit" torch down to his brother.  Every once in a while I will find him in a suit, but he seems to prefer just a sword, and mask these days.

Right before his birthday, Dylan showed us he was reallly into games, and puzzles.  Much to his Daddy's delight, he loves playing video games as well.  He is surprisingly good at puzzles and I know he will probably get a ton for Christmas.  Paper Rock Scissor is his newest thing.  Though he seems to only like to play with Adam.

He is everything you would think a five year old boy is.  He is full of energy,  Full of attitude. Full of hilarious phrases.  Sweet. Kind hearted. Emotional.  He is infuriating at times, then so gentle and sweet others.  It's hard not to love him, though sometimes he does drive me crazy.

I have a FIVE year old.  How did this happen?