The First Year

Did you know that Teresa turned one year old this morning? At 5:20 to be exact. I can't believe she is a year old already. This year flew by, and we have loved every minute of it. We thank Heavenly Father every day that we have this beautiful, sweet, crazy, stubborn little girl in our family. We are so grateful for her, and for how healthy she is! In case you weren't paying attention, here's a look back at Tressa's first year.

The hospital:
Look at that chunker!




And because I've never blogged about this, or written it all down even....Teresa was due May 25th, but (not surprisingly) didn't arrive on her due date. We went into the hospital at 7:00 pm May 28th. The plan was to start with some Cervical that evening, and then start Pitocin the next morning to get her moving. After getting settled in, and hooked up to all sorts of monitors and machines, our nurse realized that the air conditioning in our room was broken, so we ended up getting to move rooms and start all over again. And, as always, T didn't feel like sticking to the plan. To make a long story short, I got the Cervical at about 10pm, and started having contractions about midnight. The anesthesiologist arrived around 1:45 with my epidural. That wore off about 3:15. I got more shortly thereafter, but not as soon as I would have liked ;). The real action started at about five til five. I looked at the clock at exactly 5:00 am and thought "I'm not doing this for more than thirty minutes". Hah! As if I really would have had a choice! Luckily, I didn't have to, Teresa arrived at 5:20. When I called to tell my Mom she had a new granddaughter, she didn't believe me at first. She thought I was calling to tell her we were about to start the Pitocin. We were pleasantly surprised by how quickly she got here. Very pleasantly surprised, indeed. (Although, when Aislinn first commented that she was glad I'd had an easy labor, I was quite offended. But, turns out that as labors go, mine was not so bad) After a brief stay in the NICU due to worrisome levels of oxygen saturation, we brought her home with us on Sunday the 31st.

One week later she looked like this:



(No, she wasn't smiling already at one week, that was just a lucky shot)

One month:



Two months:



Three months:




Four months:
(and one of my favorite ever pictures of T)


Five months:



Six months:



Seven months:



Eight months:



Nine months:




Ten months:



Eleven months:



And here she is this morning.


(Please excuse the apple juice and strawberry that she already got on her outfit)

We just love this little girl. She is so much fun. She loves to play and laugh (she thinks she is hilarious), she loves to make us laugh, she loves to be chased, she loves the bath and reading and food. Oh my goodness, does this little one love food. Especially bananas. I've mentioned it before, I'm sure, but she just loves bananas more than anything. We have to be so careful when we're grocery shopping that she doesn't see the huge display of bananas. One day, I must have left the laundry room door open a crack (yes, we have to keep them there so she doesn't see them), and T managed to get herself a banana and had bitten through the peel before I found her. Little rascal. She's stubborn and independent, and crazy sometimes. But, we love her so much. She can say 'ma ma', 'da da', 'up', 'duck' (which she usually shrieks), and our favorite, 'no'. She's already showing preferences for her clothes, if I put her in an outfit she doesn't want to wear she will tug and pull on her clothes and complain until I take them off. She is always, always busy doing who knows what. We are so blessed to have her in our lives, she brings us great joy with just a touch of anxiety.

Happy Birthday Tressa!