7 Months

Tessa is 7 months old and is just changing so fast!

She's wondering what kind of crazy thing I stuck on her clothes..."how do I get this off?"

 She's also on the move...taking these pics is getting dangerous :)

 She is weighing in at 13 lbs 8 ounces, is wearing mostly 3-6 month clothes, and is in size 2 diapers.  She fits into a few of her shoes so that's exciting for this mama!  She's been doing well on the "muscle milk" supplement.  The doc's original suggestion was to offer her a 2 oz bottle after each feeding but that just wasn't conducive to our schedule and since we were about to leave for almost a month to see grandparents I couldn't take any frozen milk.  She has never had an issue with formula so I wasn't worried about it but we worked ourselves into a pretty good schedule where she nurses in the morning, after her morning nap, after her afternoon nap, and before bed.  I give her a 4 oz formula bottle around 12:30 before her afternoon nap and a 2 oz formula bottle just after she eats dinner at 5:30 and this seems to be working great.  She's still eating just breakfast and dinner.  The doc said not to start introducing lunch yet because she needs the calories from the milk more than the food right now and once they eat more food the tend to drink less milk.  So she has yogurt for breakfast and some sort of veggie / fruit combo for dinner.  Since she didn't show any signs of allergies to any foods I have started just mixing them all together.  I have been making her food while we have been traveling and she is eating 4 cubes of food each night and loving it all!  Her current menu is a mixture of broccoli, sweet potato, squash, carrots, peaches, pears, bananas, and apples...yum!

Her sleeping has been great this month and she has worked herself into a nice little schedule since we have been traveling.  She is sleeping about 11-12 hours at night and taking two 1-2 hour naps each day..usually around 9 and 1.  She's been sleeping in a pack 'n play which is what she's used to and she was tucked away in a closet at both my parents' house and Jason's parents' house!  She's been having some even longer naps the last few days and I think she just might be in the middle of a growth spurt.  She has made it very clear this month that she is a mama's girl!  If anyone besides me puts her to bed...she is not happy about it!  Just before we left on this trip we had Madison babysit both girls for the first time.  Tessa went down ok for her but an hour later she was up...Madison got her back down once but then she was up again and no luck.  She had to call me to come home and when I got there Tessa was happy as can be and went right to sleep and slept all night!  She pulled this same trick on my dad while we were in Texas and she pulled it on DiDi when Jason and I snuck away for a night.  Silly girl!

She has really started giggling this month.  For as much as this girl smiles she makes you work for a good giggle fit.  She's always had this reaction that it almost seems painful for her to giggle and she hesitates.  Well that is gone and I am so glad because nothing can make you happier than a giggling baby!

She has also started talking...mainly saying "yayayayayayaya" and she just added "mamamamama" to her repertoire as well! This girl is LOUD...all the time!  She is a happy girl but a very vocal girl...screaming, squealing, talking away.  I think we are in trouble with this girl!  Our church doesn't allow babies in the nursery until 6 months and the few weeks before we could take her we literally couldn't go to church because she would have been so disruptive!

Well I've said all along she's a mover and a shaker and she's proved me right this month!  She started rocking on all fours while we were at my parent's house and she also pulled up on their ottoman all by herself one day!  I can't believe she will be crawling pretty soon!

 I love these girls so much!  Riley is really so sweet and the best big sister!  Tessa is still a pretty big mama's girl at this point but she sure loves her sister!  She has huge grins for her first thing in the morning...she's just not too sure about Riley holding her and sometimes for obvious reasons ;)  They have started playing together and it just melts my heart!

Here's the comparison for this month!