Seven Months

Let's just say that taking these pictures on my own is not going to work anymore. We have a lot more out takes then we do good pictures. I really didn't get a picture of her smiling. The one in the middle is the best I could get. 

 

Tess Celebrated her first Christmas this year. Clayton had to work so in the morning I went to my parent's house and for dinner I headed up to the station. She was way more impressed with the boxes and paper then she was with the parents. A couple days after Christmas Clayton's parents came into town and showered baby girl with more presents. I think she had a pretty good first Christmas.

After the Harris Family Christmas Tess spent a couple days up in Dallas. This was very hard on me, I was not prepared to not see her every day but Clayton and I had a good time sleeping in and relaxing around the house. Tess was a hit and had a lot of people come to hang out with her. She spent some time with her great-grandparents and even Kramer was intrigued by her. Don't know how intrigued he will be after she can walk.

Tess received an exersaucer from her grandparents for Christmas. It took her a little while to get used to it but after a couple of days she was spending her time playing. One of Tess's favorite toys is a ball, well Clayton and I found this big version with a little noise rain maker in the middle. She pretty much loves it.

After I had put her down one night I look at the monitor and she looks like she is flying. I took a quick picture and right afterwards she rolled over on her side into her normal position.

My parents bought Clayton and I Texans tickets for my birthday and his Christmas. We had a lot of fun until the end when we lost. Tess stayed with my parents. She was dressed for the occasion but I don't think she could have handled the noise in the stadium.

I will leave you with a milestone video. We had just come home from the grocery store and I had put Tess down in the living room to play with her toys and the dogs. I was helping putting the groceries away when I looked in the living room and I didn't see Tess. I walked around the corner and there she was crawling. I freaked out a little and made Clayton stop putting the groceries away to get a video of our baby girl crawling. 

Half a year...

I can't believe Tess is already 6 months old! She is growing up way to fast! I think she grew a bunch between 5 months and 6 months! She started sitting up more on her own and she started to be a little more mobile.

We did quite a bit this month. We went and watched Daddy play soccer. She definitely found her fingers. The minute she found her two fingers she has really not used a pacifier. Her and I sometimes take crazy pictures and send them to daddy while he is at work! She has continued her quest to grab everything around her, no matter what it is or how hard it is to pull.

She is definitely a girl at heart, we were hanging out and she is already going for the wallet. I am not sure what exactly she was going to spend the money on but she knew she wanted it! Lexi is even looking at her like she is crazy!

Speaking of the dogs they still think they are the center of the universe. I think Lexi loves that Tess goes to bed early so she can get some one on one time with either Clayton or I. She really isn't picky. She also has mastered the pitiful no one plays with me look. Clayton and I tend to get that look quite often. She acts like no one likes her. I also think she is ready for Tess to be old enough to play.

Tess has learned what the iPad is, sometimes on long car rides this is our only saving grace. This will keep her occupied for around 20 minutes. She loves to watch and try to grab her lady bugs. 

The other day while we were at dinner Tess found her toes. She played for a little bit but then became really uninterested and really hasn't played with her toes since. They probably didn't taste that great and are harder to get into her mouth than her fingers.  

She started to be mobile this month. I wouldn't say she was necessarily crawling but she was definitley getting from Point A to Point B. This was just the beginning of her mobility. Every day it seemed like she was getting closer and closer to crawling.

One night before I put her to bed she started playing with her ball. Since then she has done this when she is tired. She tends to get into a rhythm and you have to break her trance before she started. This video is pretty cute.

I will leave you with her first Santa picture. Anadarko throws a really nice children's holiday party and they have a really good Santa and Mrs. Clause that comes to take pictures.

A Day of Thanks...

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and had as much fun as Tess did...

We spent Thanksgiving day with my parents this year. We all wore our texan gear and the game almost gave all of us a heart attack. Glad we were able to pull it out in the end.

5 Months

I am way behind but I am going to try and catch up. It's been pretty busy around the house. Tess is growing like a weed and it seems like she is doing something new each day. This month she started rolling around to get places. She loved to get under cribs. At daycare the ladies said she would get under the crib and act like a little mechanic. We were in Dallas for a weekend and I walked into the room and at first didn't see her, until I looked under the crib. She was having a blast and didn't like that I was taking her away from her big toy. She really started to smile and react to both Clayton and I. She started sitting up a lot better in the bumbo and reached for everything around her. This is when we started to have to clear a circle around her and take away the things she shouldn't play with.

 She started using her walker and loved it. She only moves backwards though. So Clayton and I continuously have to push her forward. She hasn't gotten the hang of the moving forward part because she always drags her feed which makes the whole process a little more difficult. She sometimes gets distracted by the TV. She loves to watch sports.

The Daycare ladies found out it was my birthday and they helped Tess make me a cute little card. It was really cute and made my day!

These monthly pictures are getting harder and harder to take. I think this was the last month that she would actually sit still

Jailbreak....

 About a month ago Clayton and I completed a jailbreak event. It was a 3.1 mile run with a lot of obstacles. The race was a challenge between HPD and HFD. The event benefited the Houston Police Department. A bunch of people came out and it was a pretty fun day. A cold front came in the night before and it was freezing.

The day warmed up a little but it was still cold. We were in the first wave which started at 8:30 in the morning.

Pictures were taken of the HFD team before the race started. We all were huddling around a couple HFD vehicles because the heater was on. Everyone was trying to warm up before the race started.

People also used the vehicles to warm up after running the race. The picture above are people that actually work for HFD and the one to the right is everyone that ran on the HFD team.

I rolled my ankle minutes into the race so I told Clayton to go ahead and run it since he was trying to get a good time. I stayed back with a guy from the station.

George and I ran the race at our own pace. One of the last obstacles was a soapy water slide. Yes this obstacle was cold.

There was another huge water slide you went down before you got into the mud pit. Clayton finished the race about 10 minutes before I did. He was happy to cross the finish line and rest before he started watching for me to come around the corner and finish up the last portion of the obstacles.

I was not that far from Clayton. Here George, Carol, and I were trying to figure out the best way to go down the slide. The guy told us the best way was to go down on your stomach.

What he didn't let anyone know is that there were rocks down at the bottom and your hands instead of your feet where the first things to find the rocks.  

The Cargo Net was another obstacle that was after the soapy water slide. This one was a hard one for me because there are so many people that are climbing it once that the whole thing shakes constantly. 

You are wet and really cold at this point in the race. The finish line is within site but there are about 3 wet obstacles between you and victory. After you go down the huge slide you crawl through a mud pit and then have to roll through sand. If you are not really dirty at the end you have done something wrong. 

 Clayton and I had a lot of fun doing the race. We even said we would probably do it again. Here is a picture of the Station 51 team.

Everyone finished and no one came in last place. I think we did a good job. The only bad part is.. George was listed as a girl!

Happy Haunting...

This was Tess's first halloween. One weekend we took her to a pumpkin patch. We had a ton of fun. She was pretty intrigued by the orange pumpkins. I love all the pictures, couldn't really narrow any down to being my favorite.

This halloween Tess was a lady bug. She didnt last long in her costume but we got at least one good picture. She was asleep by the time the trick or treaters came to the house. Clayton and I sat outside just like we did last year. So much has happened in a year, last year we found out I was pregnant with Tess and this year she is dressing up! Hope everyone had a good halloween!

Four Down... Many to Go

 Tess is a pretty good mixture of Clayton and I. Tess had her first school picture and there is no denying that she is Clayton's little girl. She looks more and more like him every day. A lot of people actually ask if I am

jealous that my child looks a lot like her daddy. I think its a little funny because this child may not look like me but she sure does have a lot of my personality :) We tried to take a four month photo... this is the best that we got... got to love the look of death. I probably have a ton of pictures where I am giving my own mother this face.

This month Tess started smiling back at you when you smiled at her. Now she smiles all the time, mostly when she sees her puppies. Her whole face lights up when she smiles. My mom use to call me her ray of sunshine, well Tess is the same way. When she smiles everyone else in the room smiles. .

One weekend everyone came to the house to watch the game and eat an early dinner before Matt flew back to Florida. Tess had to support her team. It says "My First Texans Tee" T

We had a couple rough weekends during the fourth month. Tess came to visit my mom and spend the night with her Oma and PawPaw Charlie. Her she is helping my mom work. Clayton and I picked her up on Saturday morning. Clayton got sick with the horrible stomach bug that passes through Houston once a year. So I shipped Tess off the my parents so she wouldn't get sick. Good thing she wasn't at home because I had to take Clayton to the ER to get an IV. The next weekend I got the stomach bug and again Tess was shipped off to my parent's house. We are all so thankful that Tess never got the bug (Clayton, Matt, Mona, Kevin and I were not so lucky)

 It finally got a little cold her and Tess was able to bust out some cute winter clothes. While I was getting her pants and jacket out I realized we really were not prepared for the cold weather. A bunch of clothes were bought and she is set for all the cold weather. The weather was nice and chilly for Clayton's game. We put a hat on her to shield her ears from the wind. I think she likes the cold weather as much as she likes being outside.

We hit another milestone this month... guess who can roll-over. Now she rolls everywhere. She realized she could roll to get places so that's what she does. She would roll across the room if we let her.