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!

She's mobile!

Teresa has been moving all over the place recently! I can't believe how big she is getting. She's been getting pretty frustrated recently with her lack of mobility. Especially since most of the time when she tried to move forward she would end up scooting herself backwards instead. Yesterday she figured out some solutions to that problem. Now she will just roll over and over until she gets somewhere she wants to be. If what she wants is close enough, she'll do a little army crawl. It is so cute watching her! I knew you would all want to see it too, so here is a little video. It might have been longer, but my memory card filled up and cut it short. Apparently we've taken roughly 1100 pictures since May 29th. Anyway, Teresa really likes my cell phone, so it is the perfect incentive to get her to scoot along.

Accessories

Back in the day, when I actually put effort into how I dressed, I used to LOVE accessories. Belts, hats, shoes, earrings, scarves, bags, whatever, I love accessorizing an outfit. At one point I owned over 30 belts. Excessive, maybe, but at least I wore them all. Having Teresa has opened up a whole new, previously undiscovered, category of exciting accessories - headbands,bows, and pink! When I was pregnant with T, I was not planning to have her in very much pink, or have her wearing bows and headbands too often. However, I can admit when I'm wrong - especially since it happens so infrequently - and boy was I wrong about pink and bows! How was I supposed to know she would just look so darn cute in them? Here are some recent pictures of T and her bows. And pink. And her pink bows ;)


With Aunt Melissa:



How cute is this dress? And the cute little shoes (thanks Erin)! Oh, and the cute girl in the dress and shoes, of course.







I love how huge this flower is! She'll grow into it...