Christmas Video

Merry Christmas everyone! We have had a great couple of days and are busy getting ready for our trip to CO tomorrow to start round two of holiday fun. Instead of posting a 1,000 pics Jeremy put together this awesome video of Tessa's first Christmas. Enjoy!

To view in full screen please use this youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbE5g4lpdKQ

Christmas So Far...

...has been very good but a little tiring for a little babe....

Stay tuned for a slide show of Christmas pictures, coming very soon to a baby blog near you.

Present Thief Caught on Tape

Look What an Army Crawler Can Do...

...when Mom's not watching! She can scoot all the way across the room to get at the tree! I have to get used to this mobility thing.

Eat Your Veg

I couldn't resist snapping of pic of this 'pond scum face'. I made Tessa some pureed kale that she had for lunch today and really liked. So far she happily eats almost anything I give her which is great. The only thing she has rejected is pears but I wonder if that was because of the grainy texture. I made another batch and blended it real smooth so we can try again.

I think Hayden must have taught her to beg for table scraps because she's pretty good at it. I like to give her tastes of what we're eating so she's used to that now and bangs her hands and opens her mouth when there's food around. Eventhough she has no teeth she has started gumming soft pieces of bread which she really likes, especially if I dip it in some tasty baby food.

I forgot in the previous post to give a special thanks to Jeremy's sister Carrie for the suitcase full of Vicki's baby clothes she sent us home with! We got both a stash of clothes and a new suitcase out of the deal. Yay!

Home for a Bit

Can you believe it's almost Christmas? Only a week left- ack! So much to do still! I guess since we have been vacationing in CA and Seattle the time has slipped away from me. We had a great time. In CA Tessa and I mostly relaxed and shopped, etc while Jeremy was at work. It was really nice to just hang out with no housework, laundry or dogs to worry about!

We had a great visit in Seattle with Jeremy's sister and her family including our new nephew Zack. I am totally deliquent because I forgot the camera, and I'm not sure if Carrie took any pics or not. Whoops :( I think Vicki, who's 4, found Tessa alot more entertaining this time. She likes to roll around and squeal and Vicki liked squealing back at her.

Right after Christmas we are heading to CO to celebrate New Years with Jeremy's family so it's a busy travel month for the babe!

And now I would like to give a shout out to Hayden Elem where I know I have many very faithful blog readers, including a classroom full of 4th graders. They were recently recognized as a blue ribbon school! I went down today to pick up the dogs who were weary from a long week at their Mamaw's house, and her classroom on the way. Everyone loved seeing Tessa.

Tessa is pretty close to crawling. She can 'army crawl' by pulling herself with her hands, and she can also get into this position below. I think it's time to baby proof!

Of course Monkey went along, who is now famous in his own right

Tale of a Monkey

So Mom thinks I should write a children's book series about Tessa and her adventures, and my friend CA Stephanie (as opposed to RI Stephany) is writing a sitcom based on my everyday life....so is that to say that our lives are entertaining? I'm not really sure...but I do know that Steph's premise is about all of the clumsy and stupid things I do everyday so there you go.

Anyway a possible book topic could be about the day that Monkey was almost permanently lost at the mall in California.....

So Tessa has a brown courderoy monkey named Monkey who goes everywhere with her. He has magnet hands so he sticks to the stroller, carseat or highchair. His tail and hands are all hard and grossed from being lovingly sucked to death.

Two days ago I was hanging out here at the mall in San Jose, waiting for my friend CA Stephanie to meet me for lunch. After a long time shopping I finally got a call from Steph saying she was in 15 min parking outside and we could drive to local sushi place for lunch. Now this is a BIG mall. Big enough that they give you a map when you enter so that you don't get lost.

After about 7-10 minutes of walking to get down to the door where Stephanie was I noticed that Tessa was squealing and hollering alot. Normally she's so quiet in her stroller and just plays with her toys...toys...she has no toys. Where's MONKEY? Oh no.

I call Steph and tell her to wait in her spot, I have to backtrack and look for Monkey. I retraced my steps to Lane Bryant where I had been in the dressing room (yes I'm plus sized- get over it). I looked under racks of clothes, all along the ground, I looked on the dressing room floor....no Monkey. I felt kinda silly leaving my phone number with the cashier but given her fellow mother empathy she insisted she would keep an eye open.

Let me take a moment to say that Monkey is a cheap toy, probably less that $5 and has no real value other than his ability to make Tessa smile. He even has a French cousin that Jeremy brought back from Paris named Le Monkey.

Steph was still waiting in 15 minute parking so I pick up the pace. But of course I can't walk very fast because I am wearing shoes that are one size too big. Why? Because they were like $12 at Meijers and they didn't have my size so I bought a 10 instead of 9....yes I am just that cheap. How could I pass up that price for such cute shoes? Everytime I try to walk fast the come flying off, so I am waddling as fast as I can back to the door. I had JUST gotten out the door when Lane Bryant called...we have your monkey!

I tried calling Steph to tell her to look for another spot because we had to go back but she didn't answer. This was getting serious now, even if Steph had to re-park, like a soldier in combat I was NOT leaving a man behind. Waddle waddle as fast as I could back to the store while Tessa squealed and screamed in her stroller. I think the grief of her loss was starting to hit her. Until we arrived at Lane Bryant and there he was...Monkey!

That's basically the end of the story. This whole affair took about 30 minutes running around the huge mall and I probably looked like a crazy person waddled around and helplessly apologizing to my 8 month old (who obviously doesn't speak English) for losing her best friend.

Other than that our trip to CA is going fine. Tessa and I have just been hanging out while Jeremy works. Tomorrow we head to Seattle to see Jeremy's sister and our new nephew Zack.

And lastly I wanted to say congrats again to my cousin Eva for her awesome performance in her final PMO Christmas Show *sniff*. I totally remember how weird it is to dedicate so much time and hard work to this event over the years and then just move on at the end of senior year. I'm not sure non-PMO alum can fully understand the feeling of performing for 25,000 people every year. We went to her last show on Sunday and Jeremy and I got to go onstage with other alumni during the audience carol sing and pretend like we were big stuff.

The starlett and her crazy old cousin after the show. And Tessa stayed with one of her favorite babysitters, Blythe, I hear they had a good time.

Stranger in a Strange Aisle

Since we use cloth diapers and wipes, homeade baby food and Tessa is breastfed...I am a total idiot in the 'baby aisle'. Well we are going to CA and Seattle next week (yay!) so I had to venture there for disposable diapers, disposable bibs and some jarred baby food.

Holy monkey is that aisle overwhelming! I couldn't find the disposable bibs to save my life but I knew that they existed...they are paper so I don't have to worry about washing her bibs in the hotel next week. After finally finding them in a hidden corner behind some diapers, I stared cluelessly at the baby food wall for like 10 minutes. What the heck is a stage 1 or stage 2 baby food? I wanted to get some of Tessa's faves like peas and squash but didn't know if 'stage 2' meant a certain age?

I contemplated asking a fellow shopper but thought she might think I'm an idiot with my almost 8 month old....thinking perhaps I hadn't fed or diapered my child in all this time. Isn't a suburban housewife supposed to be an expert in such topics?

So I just guessed and grabbed some different choices...I plan to buy more when we get to CA. Luckily I did know what kind of diapers to buy- Luvs. All of the other brands of sposies have caused us leaks in the past.

I didn't know that would be so hard!

Now What is THIS Stuff?

It was only like a week or so ago that aliens landed in my house and brought the big twinkly sparkly thing to the living room. Then I woke up this morning and Mommy showed me that THIS had happened. What's going on around here? ~ Tessa

Yay It's Here!

Merry Christmas to us!

At the beginning of 2007 when we set the budget we decided that NO extra money (bonuses, stocks, etc) would be spent on frivilousity....no new appliances or housewares, no 'toys', no unplanned vacations, etc. We've actually done pretty well (with the exception of our riding lawnmower that our moving neighbors sold us for an awesome price).

Well with almost three weeks left in the year I guess we didn't make it cause look at our new fridge! The old one had a broken icemaker and would only get moderately cold, so it now resides in the garage.

Jeremy found a 20% off appliance sale at Sears on 'black friday' so it was apparently a steal. The thing I'm excited about is the extra freezer space, especially since I've been making and freezing alot of baby food. So the garage freezer will be dedicated to freezing prepared meals like lasagna and marinated meats, in order to be more organized and maybe even save some on the grocery budget. How domestic of me huh?

With the 20% off appliance sale Jer couldn't help but throw in a dishwasher too. Now this is even more excited because our dishwasher has been on the fritz for a while but actually stopped disolving detergent about two weeks ago. It still hasn't been delivered but I am very excited about it!

So today at the grocery I didn't have to buy a bag of ice for once....yay!