The Sweetest Girl

Lately we've been having fun with all of the developments of our little girl. She has rolled over, today she accidentally crawled, and as seen in the video below, loves to talk to her Daddy!

Teresa and Daddy decided to have a chat while Mommy was getting the bath water ready. Be sure to turn on your speakers and crank 'em up!

Moving

We've been spending most of our time recently either getting ready to move, moving, or unpacking. We have WAY too much stuff. Even after getting rid of tons of stuff, we still have too much. We just moved across town, to an apartment that is way less expensive, and not on the third floor. I definitely wouldn't recommend moving out of a third floor apartment in 102 degree heat! I felt a little guilty asking people to come help us, but we were lucky to have lots of volunteers show up to carry stuff down three flights of stairs. Anyway, I just found our camera again, and we've been having lots of fun taking pictures of Teresa. Poor baby has to deal with the camera flashing in her face all the time. She was so good while we were moving - she actually napped a good part of the moving day, which is unusual for her. She's doing some moving of her own - she rolled over on Friday. I put her down for some tummy time, and after a few minutes she started to complain about it. She stopped complaining not too long after that, so I looked over to see if she had fallen asleep. I was pretty surprised to see her on her back. She seemed pretty surprised by it as well :). She's also started sleeping on her side now, which I'm thinking she's not supposed to do. Here are some recent pictures:



I had been trying to decide whether or not I wanted to start pumping. Marc had bought me a pump right after Teresa was born, and ever since it had just been sitting on top of our entertainment center while I tried to decide whether I should use it or return it. I had pretty much decided against using it when I happened to read something about what a great bonding experience it is for Dad's to be able to feed their babies, etc...which made me feel kinda selfish for not letting Marcus have that opportunity. Here he is feeding her for the first time. (Actually, the only time so far, we've been freezing the rest). Anyway, the book I was reading about introducing a breast fed baby to a bottle had said that it would probably be a hard adjustment, and that someone other than Mom should try to get the baby to take a bottle, and to not get discouraged if it took a few tries for the baby to accept a bottle over her mom. I was a little offended when Teresa had no problem adjusting right away. Apparently I'm easily replaced ;).

The next few are just some of Teresa in her cute Sunday dress.



I love her face in this one!


She's so smile-y now, we love it! We love trying to coax a smile out of her when she wants to cry, she comes up with the awesomest (yes, grammar police, I know it should be most awesome...) combination's of smiling and crying. These pics are just regular smiles:

We've been enjoying a lot of this lately:


(sorry for the black and white, Marc changed the settings on the camera and I don't know how to change it back)

We were pleasantly surprised this week when Teresa decided to start sleeping 6-7 hours at night. Sunday night I put her down at about 8:30 and she didn't wake up until about 3:45. Causing us to have the following conversation:

Tara: Wait, is this the first time we've gotten up with her tonight?
Marcus: Umm...I think so...I don't think I remember getting up before now...

Our brains still weren't fully functional at that point I guess. Anyway, we figured it was just a fluke, since she'd had a pretty intense weekend, what with the blessing and all the relatives passing her around and such, but she's kept it up all week. She still doesn't nap very well during the day, but how can I complain about that when she lets us sleep so long at night? Here's hoping she keeps it up...

Blessing Day

We had Teresa blessed in church this past Sunday. We were excited to be able to have her blessed the same day as Ciaran. It was fun to have so much family in town as well. Marc's parents, and his sister Melissa and her family were able to come, and my parents, Fiona and Zac, and of course Aislinn and her family were there also. Unfortunately, Erin and Rob and their kiddos had already gone back to Poland, so we missed them. Teresa wore the same gown that all of my sisters and I were blessed in. Fiona and Erin's little girls were also blessed in it. Of course, she looked absolutely adorable in it ;)





After the blessing with Granny and Grandad...



and Gigi and Poppie



Mom holding her two newest grand babies



Ciaran tried to borrow Teresa's pacifier...

One Month

Yesterday was Teresa's one month birthday! I can't believe it has been a month already. She has changed so much since she was born. She has started smiling for real now, which is so fun. It still takes a lot of coaxing and acting silly to get her to smile, and she has to be in a pretty good mood, but it is so fun to try to get her to smile at us! She is also a lot more interested in what is going on around her, and a lot more interactive when we talk to her. We took her to the doctor for her one month check up on Friday. She weighed 10 lbs 12.5 oz and was 23 inches long. She's in the 95th percentile for both height and weight. We are so grateful to have such a sweet, healthy baby. She is a little colick-y, mostly in the evening, starting right about the time Marcus gets home from work... I feel so bad when she is screaming and there isn't anything I can do for her. She makes the saddest faces when she does that. The doctor gave us some drops that are supposed to help, and it seems like they have been. She's also starting to let me put her down more often during the day without getting so upset about it. I love holding her, but it's nice to be able to get a few things done around the house.

Here are some pictures:

Bath Time!

Here are some pictures from one of Teresa's recent baths. She likes the beginning part, when she's just sitting in the warm water and Marcus is sprinkling more water over her. It's fun to watch her when she sees herself in the mirror, she'll stare at herself for a while. Once we start actually washing her, she gets pretty upset though. She's not such a fan of that part. I always feel bad by the time we're all done drying her off, lotion-ing her and dressing her, because she's pretty upset by the end. I'm sure she's wondering why we keep being so mean to her!

The part she actually likes...the little cup has holes in the bottom, so it kinda showers her with water






I love the look on her face in this one! I think she knows the part she doesn't like is about to start...

Father's Day Weekend

We took Teresa to Baytown for Father's Day weekend, to visit the Milligan side of the family. She's not such a fan of riding in the car, unless someone is in the back seat with her. I sat by her for the first part of the trip, until she fell asleep - right around the time we hit some really rough patches of road, I think all the vibration lulled her off to sleep. We had a fun visit, and the four hours in the car was so much easier now that I'm not pregnant anymore!

Here are some pictures from the trip

Sleeping with Gigi


Her new swing...she loves it when Marcus swings her back and forth in her car seat, so we figured an actual swing would be much easier on him ;) She immediately fell asleep when we put her in it the first time. It's been so helpful this week, she will actually let me put her down for a little while if she's in the swing. It's so cute to watch her watch the mobile.


After church. Of course, she slept pretty much the whole time at church. Before she was born, I kept getting all sorts of advice saying I could get enough sleep as long as I slept when she did, even if it meant not getting laundry or something done (not that I need to be told to put sleep ahead of laundry ;). Unfortunately she has made a habit of mostly sleeping when it would be impossible for me to...I mean, I guess I could have slept through church too, but it would have been a little more awkward for me to do it...


Here's Teresa with her Great-Granny Milligan. Teresa is the newest of her 18 great-granchildren! (She'll have twenty by the end of this year!) We took her to visit on Saturday, but she was pretty upset. Poor girl had been woken up to go somewhere, or be held pretty much every time she fell asleep on Saturday. We had much better luck on Sunday after church. She was so good the whole time, even when some of the nurses stopped by for a turn at holding her. She's so cute when she's sleeping!


Aunt Melissa, Granny Milligan, Marcus, and Teresa


Hmmm...I just realized that she's asleep in all of these pictures. Don't take that to mean she sleeps a lot. She doesn't. She hardly ever sleeps during the day. If I'm lucky she'll take one two hour nap during the day. Then she'll just cat nap for maybe 20 minutes or so here and there. That's okay with me as long as she keeps sleeping well at night. She's had a few rough nights, but usually she's good for one four hour stretch and then a 2-3 hour stretch. She starts all that around eight or nine, but we are totally okay with going to bed that early nowadays!