Who needs bibs?

Not us! We need something much, much bigger than that. Here's the thing. Teresa likes to grab stuff. Especially stuff that's headed for her mouth. She'd rather put it in there herself, you know. Except she's still working on that whole coordination thing. I was pretty naive when I thought "she'll just wear a bib, that should protect her clothes". Wrong. I'm pretty sure the food got everywhere EXCEPT on her bib. So we had to improvise. Because her clothes are just too cute to be getting mushy sweet potatoes on them. Now we just wrap a big dish towel around her and pin it in the back with a chip clip. Not only does it protect her clothes, it keeps her arms down too. No more grabbing! I expected her to protest her lack of arms, but it's been surprisingly effective so far. Plus, it makes me smile to see her like that.

Have I mentioned...

...how fun it is having such close cousins?

Graduation!

Marcus graduated from Basic Training! Teresa and I flew out to South Carolina this past week to attend. Teresa was a dream on the first plane, she was just perfect. She nursed during take off, so her ears wouldn't pop much, and then she was happy and playful for a while, until she fell asleep next to me for the rest of the flight. I had to wake her up for landing, and she was all smiles for that part too. She was pretty much the exact opposite on the next flight. Although, I'm thinking the main reason for that was because our plane from Atlanta to Columbia was one of those tiny little Delta Connections planes. I know I felt the pressure changes a lot more on that plane, so I'm sure Tressa did too. Coming back she did pretty well, she squawked a bit on the last leg of our flight, I think she was just done with the whole traveling thing by then. People were SO helpful the whole time we were traveling, we had lots of help from random people at the airport.

Playing at the Atlanta airport



Thanks goodness for our GPS...pretty much the best thing that ever happened to me. Well, top three, at least. Because Teresa wasn't very helpful when it came to finding our way from the airport to our hotel, and then to Fort Jackson.

Thursday was Family Day. We started out in a big auditorium, where we sat on ridiculously uncomfortable benches for over an hour because we were told it started at 9:00 am, but it really started at 10:00. They started the program with a prayer (shh, don't tell the liberals...), which was nice, and then they had a little slide show with pictures from training. Which I thought was nice, but it would have been nicer if they had just let us go then to see our soldiers in real life. They introduced all the drill sergeants and important people, and talked about stuff for another 15 minutes or so before they excused us and we got to go find Marcus. We got to spend the rest of the day together, but couldn't leave base.

I'll just warn you now that there are about a million pictures in this post...

Feeding T her bottle. She doesn't get a bottle very often, but she loves it. She gets VERY upset when it's empty. And don't even think about taking it away from her if there's still something in it...







Teresa was pretty interested in the trees...she had to taste the leaves, which she (surprisingly) didn't like.









Marc and Teresa in front of our tiny, tiny rental car.



The next day was graduation. It was freezing! We were totally under-prepared, since the day before was nice and warm, and the news said it would be the same way on Friday. It wasn't. It was super windy and cold. Luckily, some nice people sitting near us gave us a blanket to use. They had a little more than 1200 soldiers graduating. The little ceremony was really short, they just talked for a little while, presented a few awards, and then had the soldiers march by us. I tried getting a picture of when Marc was going by, but Tressa was not cooperating, and my fingers were frozen, so I was unsuccessful. Here are some other soldiers, though, so you can just pick one and imagine that it's Marcus.





Teresa had so much fun finally getting to hang out with her Daddy again! I think she recognized who he was. She didn't really show any preference for me over him, except for once after waking up from a nap. I think she was a little confused then. Marcus got to re-figure out how to change her diaper. I guess I should have helped him put her tights back on...I think she looks a little concerned in some of them ;)









We celebrated Marc's 27th (wow!) birthday while we were there. It's actually today. Happy Birthday Marcus! We went to Outback, where Marcus had a partially cooked steak and Teresa had a bottle. For his birthday, I let Marc change Teresa's blow out. You know you're jealous.






We forgot to have someone take a picture of all three of us, and T doesn't know how to work the camera yet, so we had to use the self timer.



Teresa was all kinds of tired at the end of the day



South Carolina was beautiful, and we had so much fun visiting Marcus and seeing him graduate! I'm so proud of him, I know Basic Training was really, super hard, and all three of us are glad it's over with!

Teresa, Ciaran, and an Avocado. Oh, and T turns 5 months old...

I guess I blinked too long, because all of a sudden I have a five month old! I can't believe it! One of the baby books I was reading referred to this age as "your older baby". Umm, no way, she is so NOT an older baby. Not yet, please. Anyway, here we are on her 5th month birthday.

It's okay, I know it's cheesy...





I decided to go ahead and start T on solids (well, on mush, really. Nothing she's eaten yet has really been solid...) this month. I had originally planned to wait until six months, but she's just been so darn interested in everything we eat...plus, she's been really, really hungry lately. Aislinn and I thought it would be fun to have a little 'first solids' party with Teresa and Ciaran, so while they were in Boerne this week for a home school field trip we broke out the avocado.

Right before. They have no idea what's coming...



First bites...



Not sure what to think...






Teresa really wanted to grab the avocado...and, unfortunately, I kept forgetting to hold her hands down before going in with another bite. So she was able to grab several handfuls of the green stuff...you can see it got everywhere...hands, knees, feet, all over the bouncy seat.



Some of it got in her mouth, too, I think...







She was pretty receptive to it, I think she liked it more than these pictures indicate. Ciaran had some awesome faces too - he is so stinkin cute! She's had some banana now too, that wasn't quite as messy as the avocado, and we finally bought some rice cereal, so I guess we'll see how she feels about that next.

She's getting so big, we had fun sitting on the floor watching her creep all over the place last night. She's starting to push with her knees more, instead of just dragging herself with her arms, and is such a little mover. She won't stay still if she's on her tummy now. I bought our plane tickets to go see Marcus this next week, so we'll see if he recognizes our sweet little girl. She has changed so much since he left, I'm so excited for him to get to see her again. She's twice the age she was when he left!

She found them...

I've been waiting for Teresa to find her feet for the past few weeks. She would notice them occasionally when she was in her car seat and they would get in her line of vision, but she hadn't been too interested in them until about two weeks ago. Unfortunately, she plays with them the most during diaper changes, which don't make for the best photo opportunities...this time I got her diaper on before the foot grabbing began, so I was able to get some modest shots ;)

Swings!

We took Teresa to the park one day last week, to see if she was big enough for the baby swings yet. Since the weather has been awesome lately - nice and cold in the mornings and then pleasant the rest of the day - we thought it would be nice to start going to the park. I didn't bring my camera, since we just stopped by on our way back from HEB, so these pictures are from my cell phone, which isn't the best. It took me about a year to figure out how to get them from my phone to the computer, so hopefully you enjoy them! The swings are a little big still, but she had fun, and so did we!

The Great Outdoors

Okay, I realize that all I ever post about is Teresa, but...that's pretty much my life now. If I ever do anything non-Teresa centered, I'll be sure to let y'all know.

So, on to the real subject of today's post...Teresa LOVES to be outside. Seriously, any sort of complaining or crying ceases as soon as we go outside. Ever since she was born, too. When she was brand new, a lot of the time she would only let us sit down when she was fussing if we were outside. Which wasn't too exciting this summer when the weather was 100+ degrees everyday. Anyway, she really likes to watch the trees moving in the wind. So. Cute. She usually just sits quietly, looking around, with an occasional squeal or cheer thrown in. Or sometimes she chats softly to herself, so quietly I can barely hear her.

I took these pictures yesterday, when we were out on the grass. Well, I was on the grass and T was on her blanket, which worked out nicely for her, since I came in covered in little bug bites, but Teresa did not. We usually sit on the bench swing in the backyard, and Teresa was definitely interested in the different feel of the grass under her blanket.

hmm, I guess I could have rotated this one...


Staring up at the trees, it was a windy day!



Seriously, how lucky am I to get to see this cute face everyday? I'm so grateful for her!