Eight Months!

Wow! Eight months already! I remember when you were eight weeks and I accidentally said you were eight months old. I laughed at the idea of having such an old daughter, and now you are there! I am watching you sleep in your swing as I write this post, and I couldn’t love you more if I tried! This has been a busy month for you! Here’s what you’ve been up to:
• You are constantly on the move. I have to follow you around to see what needs to be baby-proofed around the house! Your crawling has become very good and you move so quickly now! You are up on your knees, rocking, but still not crawling on your knees.
• You have become a yoga baby and practice Downward Facing Dog all the time, even in your sleep! It’s as though you want to skip your knees and go straight to moving around on your feet.
• You love music. You like to dance all the time and love playing with musical instruments!

• You are such a talker now! You started saying ba-ba, blah-blah, DA-DA and MA-MA!!! You don’t connect the words to us yet, but I know in your heart you are saying, “I love you Mommy and Daddy!”
• Sometimes you nap really well. Other times, we resort to the swing, like today. I’m glad you still fit and will fall asleep there! This weekend you borrowed your cousin’s swing and figured out how to swing yourself! You got that thing swinging so fast!
• You have also started swinging in the big kid swings at the park!

• You are very strong. You can pull yourself up from laying to sitting if you have something to pull on, like a blanket or sheets!
• You got to play in a baby bounce house this month and had such a great time! You were the last one out!

• You want to stand all the time! I have to bend your legs while you’re still in my arms and trick you into sitting, and that often doesn’t work anymore! You also are taking practice steps! You really want to stand on your own, but keep falling every time you try. Keep practicing, and you’ll be a good stander very soon!
• Your Mohawk has become more pronounced and everywhere we go, people comment on it. It’s a good thing you are so cute!

• You had your first casting call for baby modeling this month! Daddy and I aren’t sure how long we will have you model, but as long as you keep up your big smiles and love for the camera, we’ll keep building up your college fund!

• You love pillows! You’ll crawl over to pillows and rest your head whenever one is in sight!
• You met Santa this month! You weren’t quite sure what to think of him, but at least he didn’t make you cry!

• You are a smiley girl! You smile all day long and smile at every one you meet. I think you got your dad’s outgoing friendliness!


I love you more than life itself sweet Tessa girl. I am so excited to share Christmas with you and show you all the lights and sparkles that come with this season! Your daddy and I are the luckiest two parents to have the sweetest, most clever, spunkiest, cuddliest baby girl!

*These monthly photo shoots are getting harder and harder as Tessa moves around more and more! Here's a peek into our photo shoot this morning:

Consider Me a Seamstress!

Now that I have learned to sew, I am loving it!! I have made 3 1/2 pairs of baby legwarmers, Tessa's disco dress, a doll, a blanket, a tag blanket, I'm working on a ruffle skirt, and last night I made a bib. Easy, right? Well, I wanted a very specific bib.

Tessa has this bib, which I love because you just wipe it off and it's ready to use again! Plus, there is a catch-all at the bottom that velcros on the sides for easy clean up. I decided to try my had at making one, and after reading countless tutorials on sewing different things, I decided to just jump in and go for it! Basically, I just bought some cute oil cloth, traced her other bib on it, sewed on some velcro and bias tape, and voila!

The bias tape was a bit tricky, and I'm not very good at sewing anything that isn't a straight line, but I'm very happy with it! I'm not ready to go into the fashion design industry, or anything, but I feel very accomplished!

Thankgiving Dinner Blog Hop

Welcome blog hoppers! I hope you are enjoying our Thanksgiving Blog Hop so far! If you came directly to my blog and want to start from the beginning, link back to Robin’s appetizer here.

I’m excited to share with you the broccoli salad my grandma always made during the holidays. I have strayed a little from her recipe, but I don’t think she’d really mind. In fact, I think she’d love it! After all, it is delicious!

Krista’s Version of Grandma’s Broccoli Salad

Salad Ingredients

2-3 bundles of broccoli crowns
½ lb bacon
½ lb shredded cheddar or mozzarella cheese
½ red onion
6 oz (one bag) dried cranberries
A couple of handfuls of walnuts, pecans, or sunflower seeds
~ Add any ingredients you like to make it your own

Dressing Ingredients

1 c. mayonnaise
½ c. sugar
2 T. cider vinegar

I start with the bacon so it has time to cool. One tip my mom taught me is to cut the bacon before you cook it when using it in a recipe.

Next, cut the broccoli into small pieces, using mostly just the top part, and very little stalk.

Chop the red onion. I don’t have any tips for chopping onions, and I cry every time. If anyone has a tip, please leave me a comment!!

Mix all salad ingredients together. I made two different salads, one delicious one, and one for my mom, the picky eater.

In a separate bowl (or measuring cup), mix the dressing ingredients together and chill.

About ½ hour before serving, pour dressing over salad and mix. If it seems dry, don’t worry! By the time you are ready to serve it, stir one more time and it will be covered with dressing.

I can’t eat this salad without remembering my grandma. I hope you enjoy it as you create new holiday memories with your family!

Now, hop on over to Becky’s blog to see what she’s cooking up!

Little Dancing Queen

I got a great video of Tessa dancing this morning! She loves playing the music on her exersaucer and has started dancing along with it! So cute!

~Snapshots of Life~ Thursday, 9:00 PM

Once Tessa is in bed, my life is not very exciting. I am usually cleaning house, working on a craft, or on the computer. Last night I decided to finally try to edit some photos to submit online. I was trying to change the DPI to 72, but had no luck. I hope Tessa isn't disqualified because I don't know how to edit photos!
Isn't this picture of Tessa so cute!!

Weekend with Daddy!

I just realized I haven't posted all week! I have my Snapshots of Life post ready for tomorrow morning, and saw that my last post was Snapshots of Life for last week! Tessa and I have been busy!
Last weekend, Ryan was home for four whole days! It was spectacular! We picked him up from the airport late Wednesday night, and Tessa couldn't stop smiling! She was asleep in his arms, but kept waking up just to smile. It melted my heart to see her with her daddy!

Thursday morning, Ryan went to our MamaFit workout with us! It is always nice to have a Daddy or two there to help with the babies. We also had our monthly morning picnic in La Jolla. Ryan joined us there, too!

Saturday was a fun family day. We took Tessa to Toys 'R Us for the first time! Ryan really wanted to get her a wagon. She LOVES it! He had to go all out and get the Radio Flyer with the canopy and the cooler attached to the back. I know this wagon will become a necessary part of our trips to the park and beach in the years to come!

After our trip to Toys 'R Us, we went down to Balboa Park and met up with some friends from one of my new moms groups. We had an impromptu photo shoot! Two of the moms have nice cameras and they wanted to get some shots of the babies. I am always up for getting cute shots of little T! I love how they turned out, even though nobody there was a professional. Here are a few of the pictures we got:

And of course a baby group photo!

Ryan even got behind the camera for a few shots! Not surprisingly, he is a really good photographer!

Saturday night we went to a friend's house to watch the big boxing match. I am not really a fight fan, so I spent a lot of the time upstairs talking to our friend who is a soon-to-be new mom and sharing any advice I could! I do have to say, I enjoyed watching the main fight. I watched the 60 Minutes about "Pac Man" and was glad to see him win!

Sunday was completely a family day. We took Tessa to the park in her new wagon. She went on the swings for a little while, and we blew bubbles! It was such a nice, low-key way to spend time together as a family. We don't get to do that often enough!


Sunday night we were supposed to go to a charity event at my friend's gym, but we opted out and stayed home to spend the evening relaxing as a family and enjoying our last few hours together before Ryan had to fly back to Sacramento. If you are feeling charitable and want to donate to a GREAT cause, you can "buy a pie" for Thanksgiving. If you live in San Diego, you can actually get a pie in return for your donation!

Ryan won't be coming home this weekend. I'm pretty bummed, but am very excited for the upcoming four day weekend! My birthday is next week and I am so excited to spend the day with Ryan and Tessa!

~Snapshots of Life~ Thursday, 10:00 AM

Tessa and I work out 3 days a week with a group of 10 new mamas and their babies. We often incorporate the babies into the workout as weights or our target (like, when we are jumping up and then touching the ground, we'll tickle our babies instead!) Now that most of them are moving around much more, the babies spend most of the workout playing in their gym-inspired punching bag play area! I love these mornings. The babies interact so well (most of the time) and I know it has been so good for me, physically, mentally, and emotionally, to get out and to the gym! Gina, our leader, is a championship Muay Thai Kickboxer, so you KNOW these workouts are not easy!
Check out Gina's link. There's a picture of me doing a kettlebell workout when I was 7 months pregnant!