What does a Tiger say?

I've been trying to get T to perform for the camera for a while now, but she just gets distracted! Marc had more luck today. Here she is doing her animal sounds. Sorry about the TV noise in the background, I guess we should have turned that off first...

Animals from Tara Milligan on Vimeo.

Dancing T

Here's a little video of T dancing in the backyard.

Dancing T from Tara Milligan on Vimeo.

I promise I do comb her hair occasionally.

Mostly about Marc

This post is mostly about Marc. But not completely, because I don't think I'm capable of blogging without at least mentioning Teresa. Anyway, I just wanted to give a shout out to Marc for getting an Army Achievement Medal this week. He got it for "exceptionally outstanding achievement in having exceeded the course standard" and "being selected to the commandant's list". They also said that he is "representative of exactly the type of technically savvy soldier" they are looking for. Basically he got it for doing so awesome in his training in Florida. So, way to go Marc! I know his training was so hard, and he worked really hard at it, so I'm glad that he got some awesome recognition for it.



As for the rest of us, T is getting bigger and bigger, and adding more words to her vocabulary every day. It's fun to hear her start to make more sense when she is chattering now. We're working on saying her name, but no luck so far. Today at Target the cashier asked us if she was two or three! I know she's pretty tall, but I definitely don't think she looks like a three year old.

The pregnancy is going well still. I've started feeling super pregnant this past week. I took my glucose test last week. I actually really enjoyed it, because Marc had T, so I went alone to do it. It was nice to have an excuse to just sit and read a book for an hour with no little distractions! No gestational diabetes, but I am anemic. I wasn't too surprised by that at first, since I've always been borderline anemic, even not pregnant, but I actually am a little bummed, because we've been doing green smoothies for breakfast, so I'm definitely getting my share of dark, leafy greens. It does help explain why I've been extra tired (not just pregnant tired) lately. The carpal tunnel isn't too bad yet, mostly only after I do a lot of cleaning or typing. Or knitting, so that's out too. Over all, this pregnancy is still going waaaaayyyy better than T's.

I wanted to get some pics of T in her cute little Mr. Rogers sweater today, but she wouldn't come out of the closet long enough, so these will have to do. She loves to shut herself in here, and then pop out and say "Hiiiii!". Which I think is a little weird, because it's also the 'time-out' closet, and she definitely doesn't love it as much then.



But then when I was loading pics from the camera, I found these from last week. So, same outfit, different day. She loves to carry around any type of bag, she's such a girl.

Ultrasounds and puzzles

I went to the doctor up here for the first time this past week. I'm pretty excited that we get to use Johns Hopkins, I hear pretty good stuff about them. I'm seeing a group of doctors instead of having my own specific one, which I thought was a little weird at first, but I think I'm going to like it. The one I saw this week was not my favorite. She seemed like a good doctor, but we didn't especially 'click' personality wise. She seriously wouldn't let me finish a sentence or question before she would jump in with a response. Plus, she moved my due date. Not cool. She insisted that my first ultrasound in Florida put my due date as February 18th, instead of the 10th. This is not true. The 18th was the date we were working with based on my estimated LMP, which was always a really sketchy date. My first ultrasound at 11ish weeks was when the doctor changed the due date to the 10th. I tried telling her that, but she insisted that she saw the 18th written on the ultrasound, and then she launched in to a big discussion about how due dates based on ultrasound are less accurate as your pregnancy progresses. They gave me back my Florida medical records when I left, and I seriously couldn't find anything in there that indicated the 18th as my due date based on an ultrasound. But, whatever, she can say the 18th and I'll just correct her in my head ;). I guess the only thing it will really affect is that I won't be getting induced if the baby isn't here by the 10th. I know she could tell I was still skeptical, cause she straight up told me that if someone asked my due date, I should say the 18th. So, I guess we'll just have to wait and see. I'm still measuring 27 weeks, which she said is because this baby will probably be huge like Teresa. Except Teresa never measured bigger than she was supposed to, so...we'll see.

Friday we went up to Baltimore for the ultrasound I should have had at around 20 weeks, which I missed because of all the moving stuff. I'm so, so glad Marc was able to go with me, because I would have hated having to drive there myself. The hospital was right downtown and traffic was crazy! There was so much construction and so many pedestrians everywhere, I was so glad I wasn't driving. Everything looks normal, she's still a girl (Seriously, I was about 5% worried they were going to say she was actually a boy), and her lips are perfectly formed, which was nice to find out. She had her back to us most of the time, so we got some good long looks at her spine. We saw her cute little face for a little while. I feel bad saying this, but this ultrasound was so much more interesting and exciting to me than any of Tressa's were. Marc and I were both surprised by how cute she looked in the 3D pictures, usually we think the 3D ones just look like little alien babies, I guess it's different when it's your own alien baby ;). She really didn't look anything like Teresa in the 3D picture, but I imagine she'll look way different 3 months from now. She weighs about 1 pound 12 ounces right now. It's crazy to me that she's still got another 7-8 pounds to go (if she's anything like T, anyway) in just a few more months. I thought about scanning the 3D pic they gave us, but the quality isn't that awesome, so I imagine a scan of it wouldn't really be much to look at.

And, to make up for my super long paragraphs above, here are some pictures of T! She loves these puzzles, and I love how long she can spend working on them. She can do the shapes one pretty easily now (she only has trouble with the pentagon shape, but once she gets that one she starts applauding herself) but the ones with animals are still pretty difficult for her. Anyway, this is a common sight in our living room:







(Sigh. Do you see her hair? This is what it looks like on days that aren't Sunday i.e. days I don't wet it down and style it. It's why I wish she would let me stick a hat on when we leave the house)

And some cute Sunday dress pictures...

The Halloween Post

I had big plans to actually make Teresa's costume for Halloween this year. That didn't happen, and I totally blame the move for that ;). Also, we ended up finding a cute butterfly outfit at the Children's Place for nine bucks, so I figured it was cheaper than any attempt I would make at doing something myself. The only problem? She hated it. Had a complete melt down every time we put it on. We skipped our ward trunk-or-treat activity mostly because T just couldn't even function once we put her costume on. She seriously couldn't even drink her milk without bursting in to tears, and if you know T, it takes a lot to distract her from milk.

Being the mean mom that I am, I made her put it on one more time so we could take some pictures. Even though we didn't get any cute smiley ones, we figured we still needed the pictures to remember for posterity, right?



She absolutely would not wear the little hat with her antenna's on it. There was just no way I was gonna be able to get it on her head for the pictures.




Sunday we just stuck some cat ears (from the $ spot at Target) on with her black top and tights she wore with her church outfit and gave her some whiskers. She was MUCH happier with this arrangement. Actually, she wasn't interested in wearing the ears until Marc took her trick or treating. They just went to the few neighbors we've met here and T thought it was great that they were giving her candy.

Her favorite part of Halloween was handing out candy to trick or treaters. She waved at them all as they walked up and blew them kisses as they left.

Sorry there are so many pictures, but I didn't feel like making a collage, so you just get them all :)

Coming home with her loot





Making a tough decision...








I love her little belly sticking out in this one


Happy Halloween!