Some Nora pics

I got Nora this cute hat on etsy, so of course we had to take some pictures!













Yep, she's even cute when she's crying!

Some things about Tressa

Tressa is changing way too fast these days, and I figured I need to document some of this stuff before I forget it all.



- She calls herself "Sessa". When we point to a picture of her and ask who it is she either says "Sessa!" or "You!". I guess we weren't too clear when we would show her pictures and say "that's you".

- She can count to two! The other day she pointed to the pictures on our living room wall, and proc'aimed "two Sessa's!". After giving Gigi a high five at the store, she held up both hands and said "two high fives". She also has eagle eyesight. She pointed out a plane in the sky today, and then said "two planes!". I could barely make out a second plane way high up there, but she could see it perfectly.

- She found this cute little ride-on horse at the thrift store here on base. She just loves it. The first week we had it she would ride him through the living room, and then let herself fall off him. Then we would have this conversation:
T: Oh no, faa! (fall)
Mom or Dad: Oh no, did you fall?
T: Yeah. Neigh.
Mom or Dad: You fell off your horse? Are you okay?
T: Yeah, Kay.
She seriously wouldn't get up from her "fall" until we asked her if she was okay. Every few minutes we would go through this same routine. Luckily she did it often enough to be cute, but not so often that it got annoying.









She loves taking her "Neigh" for a walk, she'll ride him down to the park in our neighborhood. The downside to that is that Teresa hates going home from the park, so whoever takes her ends up getting to haul a kicking and screaming T, as well as her horse, all the way home.







-Today she saw a picture of a cookie online and pointed to it and said "Cookie!". It made me sad, because she used to call them "Cookoos". More evidence of growing up :(.

-When we come in the gate on base, T loves to say hi to the guards. She insists on having her window rolled down as well so she can talk to them. Luckily they are (almost) all really friendly, and talk to her. She likes to show them whatever toy she's holding, or a lot of the time she'll point out "No-a" (Nora) to them. Tonight she had gotten a little frog toy while we were out, and it was cute how she was anticipating the guard talking to her. She was leaning forward all eagerly, waiting for him to get near her window. As soon as he looked her way she held her "fwog" out and was telling him about it.

-She looooves her daddy. Any princess movie or show we've watched she always points to the prince and calls him "dada". Sessa is usually the princess. (She did label Anita from 101 Dalmatians as "mama", so at least she doesn't completely forget me, I guess.) I think it's cute how much she loves him, she's had a really hard time with him going back to work after his paternity leave.

-She loves, loves to be outside. She doesn't care what the weather is like, she would spend all day outside if she could. This morning the first thing out of her mouth once she got downstairs was "ousside".

She's a little spitfire, she just goes about a hundred miles per hour starting the second she wakes up. We love her so much, I'm constantly amazed by what a little smartie she is, she learns things so quickly, and picks up on so much stuff that I'm not even aware that she is paying attention to.
I feel like she changed from a baby to a full-fledged little girl overnight!

Zoo

Marc had Friday off, so we all went to the National Zoo in D.C. Teresa loves her some animals, so I was excited to take her. The big cats were kind of lame, the tigers were all lying flat, being all camouflaged in their habitat, I'm not sure if T was even able to spot them. The lions were a little better, they were at least walking around enough to be seen. And to be waved at by Teresa.



Teresa was more interested in running around than the animals. In fact, one of her favorite things about the zoo were these:



Every time we saw a recycling bin she had to go inspect it. But she did like the animals too. We were super glad to have Gigi with us to help, I never realized going to the zoo could be so exhausting! Here's T imitating a monkey (or one of those other primates that we all mistakenly call monkeys anyway).







Getting T to look at the camera is even more impossible when there are animals to be looked at instead.



This is what Teresa looks like most of the time. She just goes at warp speed from morning to night.



Her favorite animal was easily this little mongoose. It was so cute, when she saw him she ran right up to the glass and said "I want him!". Then she proceeded to chase him back and forth through the glass. He would run to one side, and as soon as T caught up with him he would take off the other way.



Here's a little video. T kept bonking her head on the glass when she would have to stop suddenly and change directions. She's just coming off a bonk when the video picks up. They actually amassed quite a little audience while she was chasing him, you can hear some of the spectator comments on the video. She wanted to keep chasing him, but we figured we had held people up long enough.

Untitled from Tara Milligan on Vimeo.

Shortly after we saw the mongoose Teresa was pretty tired and started crawling, so we popped her back in the stroller, which is why she's crying in the next pic. Marc wore Nora the whole time, so she slept through all the excitement, poor thing ;).



Nora's nice long nap at the zoo made it possible for her to stay awake the whole way home! This is how T coped with all the screaming:



Here's some pics of the babe during calmer times.

Green

Happy St. Patrick's Day! We had some cute little girlies around here that wanted to show off their green. Aunt Melissa made this cute little dress for Teresa last St. Patrick's Day, and it still fit this year!











T had so much fun 'holding' Nora like this. She kept complaining any time we tried to move Nora away.

Granny's visit

We had lots of fun having Granny here to visit for two weeks. Teresa was so sad when she left! Having two kids is such a breeze when you have a live in helper ;). Luckily we will only be on our own for a few more days, and then Gigi is coming to visit! We are so lucky to have such willing Grandma's to come help us.

Sorry this post has so many pictures, but we stayed pretty busy while Granny was here. We went to Romp n' Stomp on Tuesdays - it's a little play thing they do on base, just a big gym filled with all sorts of awesome toys and things to climb on and ride on. We hadn't gone at all the last two months I was pregnant, so T was really excited to go back.

She loves these little cars. She used to only be able to push herself backwards in them, but as of our last visit she can finally go forwards as well!





She usually splits her time between the cars and pushing around the little shopping carts, and filling them with random stuff.











We also went for plenty of walks with Granny. And took lots of trips to the park. Again, those two things had kind of fallen by the wayside with being 8/9 months pregnant, and all the cold weather, so Teresa was thrilled to get to start spending so much time outside again.

Nora hung out in the shade while Teresa got out some of her seemingly endless energy on the playground.





We also took a trip to Annapolis. Marc was still recovering from his eye surgery, so he ended up not being able to go with us. Turns out it is waaaaay easier to drive to Annapolis than to Baltimore or D.C. It's a pretty cool city, did you know it was founded in 1649, and used to be the capital of the U.S.? Well, you do now. Teresa loved seeing the boats and the ducks. Nora expressed no interest in either.



Of course, we did lots of shopping, too.



I really wish T would let me put more hats on her.

Thanks for coming, Granny, we had so much fun with you here, and are so grateful for all the yummy meals and all the cleaning, and most of all the getting up with Tressa you did!

Aaaaaannnd...just a few more pictures, in case you haven't had enough yet ;)