Recent Happenings

Teresa has been growing like crazy this month! We had to skip her four month doctor appointment because our new insurance has taken longer to set up than anticipated. I'm sure Teresa is pretty disappointed about having to wait another month for those shots...She is starting to laugh a little (not nearly as much as her cousin Ciaran though! If only his mom had a blog, and could put up a cute video of that...). She succeeded in rolling over a few weeks ago! She had been spending a lot of time on her side, not quite able to make it all the way over, but she finally figured it out. Now I spend a lot of time flipping her back over...she can get herself over on to her tummy, and then gets upset when she can't get back. She is reaching for stuff all the time now, and of course thinks it all needs to go in her mouth. She loves to be outside, and will quit fussing almost as soon as she gets out there. One reason she likes the outdoors is because that is where the cats are. She loves to look at and grab at the orange ones (the other two avoid us), and they are nice enough to let her grab big fistfuls of fur, or nose, or tail...whatever is in grabbing distance. Here she is with one of the neighbor cats that think they live with us. I think her name is Zoe, but we call her Tic-Tac.







This is how I found Teresa one morning last week. Not sure how she worked her arm out of the neck, it's pretty snug.



We went with Aislinn's family on a homeschool field trip to Sea World last week. It was way fun, the weather was cold and sprinkly, a nice change from the 100 degree weather we had to endure all summer. We just did the exhibits and shows, and Teresa learned a lot about marine animals while we were there.

Teresa all ready to go - how cute is her sweater? Love it.


If you look closely, you can see the rear of a Clydesdale horse in the background...They were so huge! (The whole horse, not just their rears...)




I love this picture of T and my mom...she is such a happy girl!



And finally, here she is getting her first piano lesson. I was holding her on my lap and playing on Sunday. She spent a long time just staring at my hands on the keys, and then finally decided that she needed to join in on the fun too. She couldn't quite press down hard enough to make any noise yet, but we're working on it ;)

Little Fashionista

Here are some pics of Teresa in her stylin' sunglasses, that she got from her awesome cousin Brigit. Now that she's sitting up in her stroller, it was getting harder to keep the sun out of her eyes on walks. Luckily, Brigit had given T these sunglasses earlier this summer, and they were perfect for protecting her beautiful blue eyes from the sun. Plus, she can't pull them off yet, so they were able to stay on the whole time ;)

August

Lets see, what happened in August...well, Marcus decided to join the Army. He was originally planning to join either in October or January, but the job he wanted was only available starting August 18th. We found that out maybe two weeks before that...so that was pretty fast. Teresa and I were just going to stay in our apartment in Austin, since we only moved there at the end of July, but then we decided to move to Boerne and live with my parents, to save on rent. So, barely a month after moving, we got to move again. Poor Teresa has now had to move twice in her three months of life :(

Anyway, Teresa turned three months old at the end of August. I can't believe how fast she is growing and changing! She's getting very interested in her toys, and is trying to grab at them now. She's still pretty clumsy, but occasionally she can get one in her little fist. Here's her first successful attempts at getting her elephant in her mouth.





She doesn't go back to the doctor until she is four months, so we measured her at home. She's almost 26 1/2 inches long and, if my parent's scale is accurate, she weighs about 15 pounds.

Mom wanted a picture of Teresa and Ciaran together for her Christmas card...we tried to get some after church one Sunday, when they had cute matching outfits, but Teresa was not feeling too cooperative. It might have had something to do with the fact that we had ten people and countless packed boxes all crammed into out little two bedroom apartment...I think she was overwhelmed. Ciaran was great though, he had lots of smiles for the camera. Is it bad that I just love Teresa's crying face? She's so cute when she cries!

We have a thumb sucker...Teresa recently has figured out how to get her thumb in her mouth without any help. She had been rejecting her pacifier for a while now, good thing we have so many of them...and now just sucks on her thumb (sometimes her fist if she can't quite separate her thumb out). For some reason, she only sucks on her left hand, Marc is hoping that means she will be a lefty like him!

Being all we can be...

In case you hadn't heard the news, I (Marcus) enlisted in the Army two weeks ago. The military was something that Tara and I had been considering and researching for over a year, but everything came together a few months ago. After looking at all of the options and opportunities, we decided to pursue something with the Army. I knew that I wanted an intelligence job and based on the size of the Army they offered more positions than the other branches.

While I initially looked into imagery analysis, my eyes prevented me from the job as you need near perfect eyesight (my right eye is only correctable to 20/25). Fortunately, we had prepared for this and I was able to secure a Signals Collector/Analyst position. I've been able to gather bits and pieces of information (as even a detailed job description is classified) about the job and soldiers who do this work at some awesome duty stations (including Hawaii and Germany) and are rarely deployed.

I head to San Antonio on Monday for another interview and will fly out on Tuesday for basic training in Ft. Jackson, SC followed by advanced training in Florida. It will be hard to be away from Tara and Teresa, but they're both excited to move again after living in our new apartment for less than a month. They'll stay at Mom and Dad Rickers until we're assigned our first duty station next March(ish). We'll keep you posted!

Visitors!

We were excited to have our friends, the Bohons, come visit us last week. They are definitely on the list of things we miss about Utah (it's not too long, don't worry). They had to bring their little girl Adelyn to meet her future BYU roommate. She's about 5 months older than Teresa. They were super cute together. Well, Adelyn was cute, Teresa mostly just sat there. Adelyn did get some big smiles out of Teresa though.

BFF:




How cute are they in matching outfits?!

Two Months

Teresa turned two months old on July 29th, and she went to the doctor to have her first shots that same day. I didn't think she would have too much of an issue with them, since every other time she has been pricked for blood or something she hasn't complained too much. This time was way different! I think it was because this was the first time we didn't get to hold her while she was getting poked. She got two shots, one in each leg. The nurse was super fast, Teresa hadn't even finished screaming about her first shot when she was done with the second one. I felt so bad for her! Marcus scooped her up as soon as the shots were over, and she fell asleep almost right away. She weighed in at 12 pounds 7.5 ounces, which was less than I thought she would be, but still in the 90th percentile. She's 24.5 inches long, 95%. She's a pretty long baby, almost too long for her little infant bathtub already.

We went with my parents and Aislinn's family to celebrate Patrick and my birthday at the beach yesterday. So fun! I haven't been to the beach in forever. Well, we spent our honeymoon on South Padre, but Marc was throwing up the whole time, so we didn't really get to go to the beach at all. We went to Rockport this weekend, which is definitely the nicest Texas beach I've been to. The water was nice and calm, and so clean for a Texas beach, which was awesome. The sun was not so nice, as I got a pretty bad sunburn...which was weird, since I almost never wear sunscreen but did yesterday...Teresa had a fun time being held by Grandad, since he is not such a fan of the beach he was lucky enough to get to hang out with the babies.

I brought the camera, but totally forgot to take any pictures at the beach. I did get this cute one of Ciaran...he was born 11 days before Teresa, and wasn't quite awake when it was time to leave:



So cute! He's awesome, he didn't stir at all even though there were lots of loud siblings around him. Teresa, on the other hand, was wide eyed and over-whelmed by all the noise.

We've been trying out some different wraps for wearing Teresa lately. Thanks to Aislinn for letting us know about baby wearing. Teresa loves it! My friend Angie visited this week, and we went to do some window shopping down in Austin. I wore Teresa the whole time, and she slept through most of it. Here she is snuggled in with Daddy:


Teresa seems to think that Marc and I only exist to hold her all day, so wearing her has been so helpful. She gets to be held, but we can still use our hands and get some stuff done.