Happy 7 month...and belated 6 month...birthday!!!

In an effort to "catch up" on the past few months, here are Alessa's 6 & 7 month photos. :) 

Unfortunately, Alessa's been sick the last week, so we've needed to take her into the doctor and while there, they've weighed her in at 16 lbs. 7 oz. (that's with diaper and clothes).  She is officially more than double her birth weight.  And to make her 7 month birthday even more special, she popped her first two teeth (i.e.teethers, as we call them :) ) the following day.  She is looking so cute with those bottom two teethers.

6 months old

Can't keep her hands off that giraffe...

7 months old

...Still can't keep her hands off that giraffe :)

Relaxin' with Mommy & Daddy

Alessa can't sit still these days!!  She always has so much energy and wants to be moving around every second.  So, while the "chill" moments are far and few between, we LOVE them.  She's been such a little cuddle bug and loves being with mommy & dadddy.  Here are a few cuddle bug pics from the last week.

 

Sippy sippy

Well, it's only been about a million years since I've last posted...where does the time go?! ;)  More posts to come later....promise!

Alessa tried her sippy cup for the first time this weekend and she really started to get the hang of it! 

Lions and Tigers and Bears...and sweet peas! Oh my!

We have had alot of fun this weekend!  Sean and I were able to have a semi-date night on Friday...we tried out a new restaurant for dinner and Alessa was an angel. :)  Yesterday, we started off the day by heading to the Mill City Farmer’s Market in downtown Minneapolis, then went to meet Alessa’s newest friend, baby Andrew, then visited the zoo for the first time, and ended the night by giving Alessa her first real food! 

Alessa loved the zoo!  She is always so observant and you can tell she’s just processing and learning all the time!  She especially loved the little spider monkeys because they were jumping all over the place and easy for her eyes to track.  And Sean kept telling Alessa we were there to see her cousins, the monkeys, because we call her a little monkey all the time.  We also got to see a tiger, a few lions, a gorilla, and two big polar bears!  We have had such crappy weather here so far this summer, but luckily the cruddy weather cleared up a bit so we could enjoy the zoo.

 

 

 

Little Andrew is the newest addition to the Hester family (our friends Mattea and Matt).  I had the privilege of meeting the little guy just a few hours after he was born, but this was Sean and Alessa’s first time seeing him.  He is so cute and looks just like his mama!  Sean and I just couldn’t get over how small he looked in comparison to Alessa.  Although Andrew and Alessa were only 2oz. apart in their birth weights, we don’t ever remember her being that small!!  Time goes by so fast!

 

 

Given how Alessa has taken to rice cereal the past month or so (that rice cereal really is pretty nasty), we were expecting her to not be so keen on eating vegetables…but, we were sorely mistaken!!  She LOVED the sweet peas (which my mom tells me were one of my favorites as a baby as well)!  Everytime I would put the spoon in front of her to give her more, she would open up wide and eat the whole bite.  We were shocked!  And she equally loved holding her own spoon (a trick I learned in one of my Parenting magazines).  We got pretty messy, but captured some great pics.

 
 
 

And today we met some friends (my friend from grad school, Cale, and his wife, Kelly) and their little boy, Adam, at Minnehaha Park.  We sat outside, ate some yummy fish tacos at Sea Salt Eatery and enjoyed a walk in the park (especially the spectacular waterfall - my favorite!)  And we got more than we bargained for today as the Park had a Swedish festival happening, too!  Adam and Alessa are only two days apart.  It was so cute to see them seize eachother up!

5 months old!

Time keeps flying by - our little girl is already 5 months old!  We don't have another check-up until her 6 month appointment, but we estimate that she's just over 14 pounds now.  She's doing really well and keeps progressing by the day.  She's such a smiley, happy baby...and SO active.  Can't keep her still!!  And she's recently really discovered her feet...and how yummy they can be! :)

Our bloopers:

World's Best Dad

We had a great time celebrating Sean’s first Father’s Day!  Unfortunately, the weather was not ideal, but we were still able to spend a little time at the Farmer's Market - having some lunch and picking up some veggies and herbs.  Sean requested to spend the rest of the day just hanging out at home...so he and Alessa had lots of play time and some nap time, too!  We thought about Sean's dad (Grandpa Gary) lots, but felt as though he was with us in spirit. I know he was looking down on Sean and is so proud of the father he's become.  Alessa has the best daddy in the world!

Shapes/Colors lesson from daddy

love this face!

 

Giving daddy a kissy

too much playtime

Daddy's little sous chef!

Twins Win!

We have a new Twins fan!  We took Alessa to her first game last weekend and she LOVED it!  A baseball game is a hard thing to sit through, even for an adult, but she couldn't have been more perfect.  She didn't fuss at all and was super observant of all her surroundings.  She especially loved the jumbotron - of course, it's like one big t.v.!  And she was super flirty with the guys sitting behind us.  It was a great night out with our close friends, Meghan and Rob, who came to visit from Chicago.  While their 9 month old daughter, Hailey, wasn't with us that evening, we got to spend time with Hailey the following day as Meghan and I took the girls shopping whle the guys went golfing.  And if that wasn't fun enough, Auntie Sarah and her mom came by to visit too as they were in town for the day visiting family.  We got so spolied seeing them two weekends in a row!  Can't wait untilt the Timmers/Stetlers and Gavins come visit again!

My favorite pictures - she is enamored by her daddy

 

Besties - Hailey & Alessa



Too much shopping!



Alessa in the big girl stroller for the first time - she loved it!

 

The daddies and their daughters on the eve of Father's Day