10 months!

Double digits! Two months from a year! Whoa!

We think she's a Southern Belle, she holds out her hand flat palm down to you, and thinks it's funny when you kiss it.
She's steadily improving on sleeping. I can put her down wide awake and at most she'll cry for a couple minutes, frequently she just goes to sleep. She takes two solid naps a day, though she's able to skip one if we need to. She's still up once at night to eat and it seems she is determined not to give that one up. Maybe once a week she's up twice at night, but I feel like an end to my disjointed sleep is in sight!
I took her nine month pics, it was hard to keep her focused, but she was happy to be there!

She didn't fall, and mom is just out of frame. No worries =)

It's amazing, she loves her family so much. =) When Josh gets home she stops whatever she's doing when she hears his voice and heads his way. He's the only one that she will willingly leave my arms for.
Luca calls her "pretty girl" and she loves pestering him. Especially when we're shopping, Tessa sits in the seat of the cart and Luca sits in the basket. She turns around and plays with his hair and his face and thinks it's hysterical.
He is so sweet to her, if we're in the car and she starts crying he says to her "We're almost there pretty girl."
Meal times are pretty easy with her, she hasn't turned up her nose at anything in a while. She did have a reaction to either strawberries or mandarin oranges, but other than that, we haven't noticed any problems or allergies.
Her bottom left tooth started poking through at the very beginning of July. A couple days ago I noticed her top right side looking swollen, and then the one to the left of the top middle. If those two do come through she'll look like a jack-o-lantern. =)

You can tell she knows which toys are Luca's and that he doesn't like her to play with, because she sneaks over to it, plays for a second, and then looks at me seemingly asking "Am I in trouble?" If it's a toy that she's okay to play with--it's just Luca doesn't like sharing it--then I let her and she just laughs and laughs while she continues playing.
She turns the pages when we're reading, and is starting to enjoy books that don't have textures, though she still prefers those.
She has very nearly outgrown the infant tub, probably the next bath will be in the big tub. I can't decide if bathing her with Luca is a brilliant idea or guaranteed to be a hot mess. Only one way to find out. =)

She is exceedingly agreeable, answering most everything with either "ya" or by nodding her head. We have whole conversations like that. "Tessa are you stinky?" "Ya" "Do you want Daddy to change you?" "Ya." Can't argue with that!
She is a super speedy crawler, and very quiet. She'll be playing with toys in one room, you blink or turn away for a second and you hear toys making noise in a different room.

We are quickly approaching our big trip to Kansas City. I'm excited to see family and friends, but I'm very anxious about how it will all go. I think by the time Luca was this old he'd been in twice, the first trip took I think 17 hours and the second one 12 (it's about an 8 hour drive normally). We'll see if we can continue to improve on our time. ;)