Hi there, everyone! I wanted to get a few more photos of Tessa on here. We are thinking her first real word is either "bubbles" or "kitty." She's said both in front of the object a couple of times now. Even if she's not realizing what these words mean, she's certainly trying to mimick our words and phrases. She has been crawling all over the place and pulls herself up onto everything! She is cruising and pushing her wagon, but gets nervous when we let go and she's standing alone. We just had a playgroup over here today--6 of Tessa's little friends came over to play on this 65 degree, sunny Colorado day!
Another exciting piece of news: we put in an offer on a house that was going into forclosure. We thought they may write a counter-offer, since we low-balled them, but they agreed to our offer, as long as we close at the end of this month. So, we are moving in 10 days. We have been super busy getting things squared away with the new house and finding someone to move into the old house (our lease is until the end of March). The house is beautiful, nestled in the bluffs about 15 minutes SE of our current house. It is across the street from another park with hiking trails, so we are happy about that. It is a 4 bedroom, 3 bathroom stucco house. You all will have to come out and visit!
We had her Cardiologist appt last week and her repair looks good; no hypertension, so that's great. They did say they found a small piece of tissue behind her mitral valve that they will keep an eye on. There is a chance that it could restrict blood flow in the future, requiring another surgery. Dr. Duster says that chance is less than 10%, so we are trying not to worry. Who knows, by the time she may need this, they could be able to fix it with a cath. So, we're just not going to think about that until we have to.

Hola!

Hola everyone! As you can see, Tessa and I just got back from a great vacation with the Pickrell family in Mexico! Tessa loves the beach and pool and is already asking me if we can go back. Next time, we're bringing Daddy though, we both missed him tons! We're hoping to make it back there soon, because I've taken up a new hobby, kite boarding. I took a lesson and love it. It is a very dangerous sport, though. The kite got away from me when getting out of the water; they're truly like powerful engines. I was thrown in the air, landed on my head and drug across the sand on my back towards the jungle. I got a wicked sandburn on my back and am still quite sore. Despite my fear, I got back on the kite and am ready for more. We had such a lovely time with everyone in the warm weather!
I don't think I've updated this in a while, so let's go back to Christmas...Tessa was a little angel. She has been so pleasant lately--just a happy baby that is eating better, sleeping better and is just content most of the time (as long as you're giving her the bulk of your attention:) We spent Christmas Eve at Aunt Kimmy and Uncle Bob's house. All of the cousins from the C-Springs area were there and we had a blast playing Cranium and Catch Phrase until 1:00am. Grandma Karen and Grandpa Michael came down to stay with us, so we spent Christmas morning opening gifts and Santa stocking stuffers before church. Ha! Just kidding! Anyways, we then went out to the ranch for the day--Auntie Lee Lee was in town and Tessa's new cousin, Alex, even came out! We had a nice light dinner and good company, of course. We also spent new year's eve at the ranch this year--had a smoked prime rib and king crab dinner and were in bed before midnight. Yes, we are old.