Tessa makes 3!

The adventures of a young couple starting a family, teaching each other and learning as we go, and having fun doing it!

October 27, 2012

Petite

I like the word petite. It's better than small, short, tiny, little, etc. Plus, it describes my girls perfectly.  It also happens to describe me, my mother, my sister, my aunt, and my grandma. I assume it also describes her mother, her mother's mother, and so on. Somewhere down the line, the petite gene was created and here we are. A whole family of petite girls.

We had Tessa's 2 year check up and Nora's 2 month check up this past Thursday.


Tessa is was 25.5 pounds (fully clothed) and 34 inches tall. That's 25th percentile for weight, right where she's been since birth. Her height was just under the 60th percentile, which was a little shorter than she had been previously. She had always hovered around the 75th percentile and was long and skinny, just like her dad. She seems to be tapering off in her height as of late. She's in 18-24 month clothes, but we usually wear 2T leggings and tights because her cloth diapers make her butt big. Old Navy makes these awesome jeans with adjustable waists so we can buy a 2T, which fit her in the length without her pants falling off.


Nora was 9lbs 15.5oz and 21.5 inches long. That puts her just under the 25th percentile for height and weight. She seems like a chunk but I guess she's little compared to what others are. She has started smiling and brings a whole new level of awesome baby with that development. She is just so easy and so content. She eats so well, taking 4oz of pumped milk or nursing 5-6 times per day. She's sleeping 10-12 hours at night (usually 9-7, 9-8ish) She's still wearing newborn clothes but those are getting pretty tight. The 3 month size is still a little big so we go back and forth. She loves to be swaddled, loves her swing, and loves the chances she gets to lay on the ground without fear of getting smushed by sister.

I never thought I'd be the parent that would just call my kids by a nickname instead of their actual name, but we've got some nicknames that are really starting to stick. Nora, for example, is "baby sister Nora Jean." Not Nora, not sister, it has to be the whole thing. Just ask Tess. Oh, I've been calling Tessa "Tess" pretty frequently.  Tessa is also known as "goose". It started by asking her "Who's my baby goose?" I don't know why we ever got on the subject of baby geese but somehow Tessa is goose now.

October 13, 2012

Pawk

With having fewer and fewer warm days this fall, we have been taking full advantage of the park at the end of the block. Tessa always asks to go to the "pawk" and it easily wears her out for nap time, so one of us is usually happy to oblige. It's a cute little park with a couple swings, a slide, some climbing bars, and a teeter totter.


From the top of the slide, getting ready to go down. 


She could swing all day if we let her. She likes to tell you to "push more, Mommy." She also makes sure there is an available swing next to hers because she wants you to swing with her. She's a bossypants already!


This was the first day she tried the teeter-totter. She wasn't really sure what to think of it, but after a few cycles of going up and down, she loved it. This is her new favorite, and she constantly asks us to "tee-totter". 



October 10, 2012

Back When

A few days before I was set to deliver, my wonderful mother Pam, pictured below, came to visit with  a plan: to make a plethora of meals that we can freeze and defrost post baby to ease supper time preparation!


We started with 8 pounds of hamburger meat, a rotisserie chicken, 3 pounds of ground ham, and a bunch of vegetables, spices, and sauces. After a long hard day of mixing, we had the following:

4 pans of homemade chicken and noodles, just needs to be reheated
4 pans of cavatelli
2 pans of spaghetti bake
3 pans of ham balls (pictured below, one of my favorite meals!)
3 pans of cheesy potatoes
double batch of chili
3 pounds of sloppy joe meat



I also got a fresh batch of cheese soup, another one of my favorite meals.

The woman is a saint, I tell ya. We're about halfway through our freezer meals, and I can't even begin to explain how great it is be able to run to the basement and grab a meal to defrost for dinner, especially while taking care of 2 little ones while Joel is at work. I can pop it in the oven without spending a lot of time in the kitchen.

Tessa can't be trusted alone in a room with Nora and Tessa isn't helpful in the kitchen, so this is just a huge relief for me. When Joel's home, I cook fresh meals. When I'm feeling even lazier than normal, we splurge on a Casey's pizza.

October 9, 2012

Busy, Busy

I apologize for the lack of posting. Life is busy with a newborn and a 2 year old! I can't get the time to update without Tessa trying to "help" me take care of Nora, which includes picking her up, giving her the pacifier, and trying to change her diaper. Tessa is adjusting very well, although we still have to constantly remind her that Nora is fragile and we need to be very careful. I can't believe in a couple short days, we'll have a 6 week old!

We decided to take month by month pictures of Nora like we did with Tess, so here's month one!




We have also determined that Nora looks much different than Tessa. Some of their facial expressions are the same, but their overall look is much different. Here is Tessa's one month picture for comparison.



This is Tessa at 4 weeks.