Look! A puddle to splash in!

We went to Sea Ranch for New Years... And were treated to a terrific storm. During one of the of breaks in the storm we went out for a walk.

Teresa with Annie

Teresa and Allison... playing with blocks.

Dad with cousin Allison.

At the christmas party: Teresa eyes auntie Barb's wine glass...

Aren't those reindeer fetching??? 

We went to see Santa at the HOA Christmas party on Sunday. Teresa wasn't really sure what to make of that red suit, but she didn't scream like some other little kids! 

Mom with Teresa in her christmas suit! 

And teaching gramp the sign for change! 

Teresa, doing her best impression of a cherub. 

Gramma and Gramp came for a visit last week. Teresa was happy to show off her walking skills and to have help trimming the christmas tree! 

Our walking zombie! 

Little Jeeper

One day in Madison we went to the local children's museum. Not a huge place, but lots of fun toys, and Teresa got to practice her driving. 

Jester!

We went to Madison, WI last week for a little work/vacation trip. It was rather cold (down to 15F as a high one day). Fortunately, Teresa had a nice warm fleecy jester suit. Doesn't she look cozy! 

Teresa has really been taking care of her newfound mobility... recently she's been pushing the kitchen chairs around. Simply walking around them is too boring, but she doesn't seem to quite have the confidence to walk around everywhere she wants to. Then, this evening, dad was 'watching' her while playing guitar and looked up... and she was on top of the kiddie picnic table!After looking like she wants to climb everything in sight, she appears to have finally found something accessible to her.

Walking!

Well, so much for thinking about walking... This morning Teresa was again walking on momma's fingers and momma put her down a few steps away. Teresa got so excited that she forgot that she didn't really know how to walk yet and walked to momma, falling into her hands! OK, it was only three steps, but this evening Teresa really went at it. She walked at least 6 steps to daddy, and was obviously stable the whole way.

In actuality, it was very similar to the way she started crawling... she looked at us for a while with an expression like "I can never crawl that far"... And then in a very short time went from crawling 6 inches to crawling across the room.

Not bad for a 9 1/2 month old!

A step!

This morning Teresa took a step!!

She had gotten to a stand at my legs as I was making breakfast. I stepped away hoping to distract her with tupperware so I could finish prep. She stood there watching me and considering what to do. Then she lifted her left foot and stepped forward. And then sat down.

I called Dad who dashed in but her morning performance was over, no more steps while Dad was home...we'll see what the rest of today brings.

Teresa and I had our usual Friday hike with other Moms and babes. This was a great adventure! Well, all hikes are adventures, but generally we follow a trip report we find posted online (as well as use a map) so we know generally what to expect. Not yesterday. We had the trip report and were following where it said to go, but then reached a point where it was unclear if we were to parallel Eagle Creek or cross Eagle Creek. We picked crossing which as it turned out was not the right way. nonetheless we were still hiking and it was gorgeous. We eventually reached a trail junction that, while again was not signposted well, it actually had a map board so we could see where we were. We saw we could backtrack a smidge and get back on route, or loop around another way. We conferred and chose to loop. The trail took us down the back side of the mountain we'd just climbed, down to a river... sans bridge! So we mamas removed shoes and socks and waded across the knee deep water. All babies made it across nice a dry. We trekked about a mile and then crossed the same river back again. And then climbed up up up the mountain again, eventually reaching the top and the "overlook" that was the turn around spot of the orginally proposed hike. All down hill now back to our cars where we shared a wonderful picnic lunch and lolled about the blanket while the kids climbed, rolled, and explored.

We moms were all pleased with our river fording, but wonder if we'll ever get more moms to join us once word gets out that we're not sedate trail moms ;-)

After playing, there's nothing quite like curling up in the shadow of a pumpkin!