Santa visit

We visited Santa today for a McMenamin's Breakfast with Santa at the Crystal Ballroom (where we got married).  Tegan was less than happy to see Santa, but enjoyed the breakfast!

13 months

Likes:
Blinking (understanding both english and nepali)
Feeding her doll cheerios and water.... sometimes monkey gets in on the action too
Loving, patting and kissing her doll
Giving kisses
Cheerios and water, I think she would live off them if we let her
Letting you know something is pretty or nice by waving her finger and clicking her tongue (taught by the nanny)
Climbing into laps, especially to read a book
Eating
Making elephant sounds, mooing like a cow and doing the sign for monkey
Telling us she wants up with baby sign
Her friend Felix
Other babies
Seeing herself in pictures

Dislikes:
When she doesn't get what she wants - duh
Photo shoots during nap-time

Photos by Peter Hennigar

Thanksgiving

and for the heck of it, a flashback from last year at this time:

Tihar

Laxmi Puja

Learning to color

Tonight

Tegan scooped up an armful of cloth diapers, waved goodbye to grandma JoJo and gave her a big air kiss.  Again and again.  Once in awhile in between she'd race from one side of the room to the other.  Finally, she climbed into my lap, laid her head down and crashed.

Over the rainbow

Feeding cheerios to her friend

Can't wait to try it out!

She hugs and kisses this doll every time she picks it up - so cute!

Tegan, Nepali-style

Bangles, tika, dress, make-up, hair, jingle anklets... Tegan was all dolled up by our nanny today for our school's Nepali holiday celebration.  She was a hit!

1 year!!!

Likes:
Offering to share something, pulling away quickly and laughing
Dancing
Putting her arms in the air to say "so big" when you ask how big she is
Watermelon
Looking at books and flipping back and forth (and back again :)
Walking
Animals - she makes a grunting animal noise that is the same for all animals (it was originally the Chewbaca sound she learned from dad)
Looking under the couch for lost items
Peek-a-boo Wild app
Being outside
Waking up and having breakfast

Dislikes:
Things on her head
Giving up the iPhone
Not being allowed to touch the computers


Tegan understands a lot of what we tell her in English and what her nanny says in Nepali.  She knows some sign language and has made up some of her own.  She isn't saying many words, though she babbles all the time.  She is quickly moving from walking to attempting to run (really fast walking then falling into us or the furniture).  She has 6 teeth.  She nurses in the morning and night, loves to eat and can suck back a sippy cup of water.  She didn't like milk when we gave it to her and we haven't tried again.  Sleeping is still a challenge, she started waking up a few times a night again; I find her standing up in her crib ready to play at 2:00am!  She is happy and smiley most of the time and loves interacting with people.  Basically she's awesome and we love her to pieces!!

Investigating

Those darn ants sure move fast!

Walking video

Tegan progressed from taking a few wobbly steps to walking all over the place quite quickly.  She still crawls some when she wants to get someplace fast, but stands as soon as she is there.  As a bonus in this video, you can hear her funny little laugh towards the end.

Grandma is here!

Loving lap time with a good book

Put me in coach

We spent last weekend supporting our school's girls volleyball teams. Tegan thought she should get to play too, but had fun just cheering and clapping for them. Likewise, the girls got a kick out of her being there.

11 months

Likes:
Feeding herself with a spoon (pre-loaded by mom or dad first)
Shaking head no
Walking - up to a solid 8 steps and quickly improving
Laughing - she has gone from a baby who was always happy by rarely laughed to laughing a lot
Water, lots of water
Bread (carbs) in any form
Going outside
Putting things in and pulling things out of containers
Waking up between 4:30-5:30am
Skyping


Dislikes:
Being told no - duh
Things being taken away - duh
When mom and dad bring her in to our bed in the morning and don't go downstairs right away
Bumping her head
When people leave the room without waving
Leaving after her lunch feeding at school
Vegetables
Getting her diaper/clothes changed
Not being able to touch the computer when Skyping

Riding in style

We went on a hike this weekend and Tegan spent almost all of it in this pack - what a trooper!  And speaking of troopers, Jeremiah carried her the whole way!  And, me?  Well, I supplied the fish crackers, sippy cup and sunscreen.

Dancing and walking

I'm struggling with video tonight.  The bouncing is Tegan's version of dancing when sitting (I'll get some of her dancing standing up, it's even better).  Her walking is getting better and better each day!

Hot day

It was a very warm Saturday here so we took the sink from Tegan's play kitchen and had some water fun.

Spoon feeding

Learning to use a spoon is messy work.  Tegan for the most part is really good about grabbing the spoon and getting it into her mouth with relative ease.  More often than not her curiosity gets the better of her though and inevitably she feels the need to explore her food further.  This is how we end up with carrot hair treatments, prune facials and squash behind her ears!

9 months at a glance

My favorites from instagram:

An interview with Tegan

Tegan Interview For Dad's Birthday from Allison OSullivan on Vimeo.

Another Visit to Boudhanath

Boudhanath

Wonderful wonderful sleep

About 3-4 times now this week, Tegan has finally slept through the night.  She sleeps 10-12 hours a night, so this is no easy feat.  Plus, as we've said before, she just really hates sleeping.  Up until now she's woken up a least 1 time, often more, and needed help getting back to sleep.  That first morning she slept all night I woke up, looked at the time and nearly had a heart attack when I realized it was morning and she hadn't woken up.  My first thought was that something was wrong.  Then I heard her little sleep noises and did a mental fist pump.

Napping

After 10+ months of waking up throughout the night, I'm ready for some better sleep.  She still wakes us up early, but one of my favorite parts of the day is all of us slowing waking up together in bed (a close second is the moment we walk in the door after work and Tegan sees us - amazing smile always).

10 months

Likes:

-Waving hello and goodbye

-Saying "namaste" with her hands

-Pulling up on anything and everything, the proceeding to walk around that thing

-Investigating and playing with anything she shouldn't be playing with - cords and plugs are high on the list

-The kitchen; something about that room is super cool

-Swimming

-Biting her food - 5 teeth now!

-Sharing, or pretending to share, food and toys.  If she's in the mood she'll hold out something for you and actually let go (of course expecting it back a few moments later).  Other times she holds it out and when we go to grab it she pulls it back and laughs.  Often the item is a piece of cheerio she's already sucked on... yummmm.

-Walking up stairs.  And let me tell you, watching her lift her little leg almost half her height to get up a stair is adorable.  Once she figured out the stepping thing she realized other things can be climbed and is starting to work on that too.

-Pointing to what she wants or where she wants to go

Dislikes:

-When we take something away, or move her from something she wanted to play with

-Falling off the couch and landing on her back - ouch!  Tegan thought the dr. was a nice lady to meet though and all in all everything was ok.

-Finally weaned the night time feeding and at first this was a definite dislike, what an easy way to fall back asleep that had been.  We're on track to sleep through the night, and for now she's up to 9 hours for a stretch - mom loves this!

Out and about in KTM

Pictures of the three of us are definitely lacking.  Not the best, but we're all in it!

Pool

Hanging out at the pool while mom works out!

Namaste

Tegan has been learning lots of new tricks lately.  One that has been a big hit with folks here is when she brings her hands together for the Nepali greeting "namaste" after she hears someone say it.  It's pretty adorable.  The nanny must have been working on it for awhile with her.  She also waves at every hello or goodbye opportunity.

Today she decided that she no longer needs to hold on to furniture while standing up.  Today she was playing with a block while squatting and just stood up without holding on to anything, and brought the block with her!  Later as she was cruising around the furniture she'd stop to play with something and just let go for extended lengths of time, of course making me nervous she would fall and hit her head.  She didn't though.  We're going to have a walker before we know it!  And all this learning (and teething - she's up to 5 now) explains the terrible time she's been having sleeping.  I'm just sure though after mastering that whole standing-up-on-her-own thing she's going to sleep great!

Under My Thumb

T and Dave busting out a little Rolling Stones on the Xylophone 

Latest face

Tegan has started making what we call the snarl:

Yum - green beans

Tegan has learned it can be fun to spit food, squish it around your face, and make it ooze off your tongue, but today when I put green beans in front of her for the first time in their non-pureed form she ate them right up without taking a break, and kept them in her mouth!

And thank goodness our shipment arrived last week - feeding this girl without a high chair was becoming very difficult!

9 months

Likes:

• Crawling!  Yay - she figured it out just hours after we left Oregon for Nepal, during our layover in Houston.  She still appears to favor standing and trying to walk over crawling.
• Taking a few falling steps towards dad or mom.  Not really walking, but so darn close
• Showing off her teeth with big smiles - two bottom teeth and a top one poked through our on the 1st.
• Playing phone by holding her toy phone, our iphones, or even a toy monkey up to her ear
• Screeching when happy and sad - yeah, fun on those 35 hours of travel from Oregon to Nepal!
• Clapping
• Eating, still loves fruit and needs to be convinced to actually eat those veggies and not just play with them.  Cheerios are also a favorite.
• Drinking from a straw
• People - she smiles at everyone and anyone all the time
• Visiting mom and dad at work at lunch time

Dislikes:

• Being too far from mom or dad when we're getting ready in the morning
• Really has started putting up a fight at nap and bed time - pushing away with arms and legs - until she gives up and collapses

Nepali love

Folks here looooove Tegan!  They look, point, smile, make noises, touch her cheek, and reach to hold her everywhere we go.  Of course she loves them right back and never fails to give them a big smile.

Lil swimmer

Tegan's first "swim":