Fayfessels in Atlanta
For Helena’s six month birthday, the family went out for her second pro soccer game in a VIP suite!
baby fast asleep while parents enjoy the game
the falcon at Mercedes Benz – Atl’s newest stadium
Getting the Beyoncé treatment walking through Mercedes Benz stadium
Maya’s former bridesmaid Kim visited from Boston and as the nights get cooler in Atlanta, she made sure she stayed warm
Some hiking, cabin hang outs, and great times has by all (except during periods of rapid altitude incline and declines 
Trip to the great smokies Friday-Sunday for Harvestivus, a reunion for friends and good people
stretching during a quick road side break
elk sighting on the road
hiking with Helena, a great trouper with 3-4 hour endurance
With Madame Ouanzin in French class
Sleeping in and working on sitting
Click on Goalie
“let’s play!”
“what’s going on out there?!”
Some more photos from the two day power outage including hanging out with the Air BnB guests from Florida
Helena got a taste of the real world when she came with momma and papa to work when the power went out at home after Hurricane Irma swept through town.
Helena helped her parents with some gardening on a beautiful Sunday before hurricane Irma rolled in to town. She loves touching the leaves on the trees
Helena’s not quite there but she’s certainly trying!
Trying everything by eating has begun- or rather has been going on now for a few weeks but with her improved abilities on her stomach it has gone to new levels.
It doesn’t matter what you wear,
Just as long as you are there
So come on, every guy, grab a girl,
Everywhere, around the world
They’ll be dancing, dancing in the street
The family headed up to Cleveland GA for some Labor Day hiking under beautiful weather and Helena crushed it on the hike
she literally crushed the potato chips at the lunch break on the hike
Youngest picker on record
As Helena becomes more and more alert she has taken note of this strange, furry four-legged creature and roommate.
taking a nap on Helena after a long day of work 
trying out the new Korg sv1 together
Helena appears to have an interest in music, like her parents!
Well at least Helena’s parents were-
She was too busy napping
Awaiting totality In Murphy, NC
feeding in the Apple tree forest
After the wedding, Helena and company also took a quick trip to the iconic Sandy Point Beach for a quick dip. It was Helena’s first ocean experience and with the heat it wasn’t such an easy one. But overall the trip was a lot of fun and Helena has now been to 3 weddings in her short (less than) 5 months of living.
Helena continues her traveling adventures and good nature on airplanes.
After being diverted to and stuck in Richmond from storms for 4 hours, she couldn't take it anymore and smacked mom in the face.
This past weekend Helena danced and had fun at dad's concert at the Sweetwater Brewery. It was a scorcher!
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A few samples of Helena’s routine at daycare. They’re keeping her so busy that some nights she falls asleep before 8 (normally bedtime is around 8:30).
For now it's just Helena and one 'classmate' with two 'teachers' at Urban Explorers Day Care. Her parents have been told that she's been as happy as a clam and rarely cries! Report card week 1 summary: A!
So far so good…
Helena's new banana tooth brush for her two front teeth
Helena with her boyfriend Bennett
trying out a bassinet
As papa goes back to work Monday we take a look back at a few typical moments at home together in the past week
https://youtu.be/hXbilIdfwiY
The real and challenging moments
Helena grabbing the milk on her own
watching the dog
looking at herself in the mirror
Fellow French Teacher Ben and Andrew enjoy a nice summer hike near Emory with Helena. Helena stayed awake for a good portion of it!
Helena is learning french and how to eat giraffes! She’s now up to two front teeth and recently heard that early teething is associated with language abilities. So giraffes and French really can be connected!
Helena met her first puppy at a friend’s BBQ this weekend. Helena was slightly older than the pooch.
Abel’s old sleep pouch is still a little too big for Helena but she is already starting to fit a lot of 6 month old clothing!
Andrew & Maya frequently volunteer for their favorite local non-profit Concrete Jungle. Concrete Jungle often picks fruit hanging around and waiting to be donated to shelters and food pantries around Atlanta. Helena volunteered for some apple modeling after yesterday’s pick
Helena has taken to experimenting with her voice lately. She likes to wake up just unfortunately an hour or so before her parents and see what sounds she can make. She can sometimes even mimic a sort of “hello.” Here are two morning experimentation samples.
This past weekend was a busy and fun one. Helena’s first tooth started coming in this weekend (or her parents just noticed it this weekend). Besides going to the second karaoke in her life, a birthday party, Helena saw recently returned to Atlanta cousin Shana at a bluegrass brunch, attended a Yelp elite roof top, and watched her parents play a pick-up soccer game.
Helena and dad recently went birding with the Audobon society of Atlanta at the Reynold’s nature reserve. After getting out early and walking around a bit and seeing many birds and other animals, by about 10:30 it was too hot for everyone and they turned back. Still, it was a successful father-daughter early outing in the hot Georgia summer.
Helena enjoyed sitting in the big chair at the Meerkat recent happy hour. She also played the piano for the first time back home. According to the Wonder Weeks, she is in her fourth leap so while she’s been a great sleeper, recently she’s been waking up once or twice a night. Still doing pretty well overall!
Helena has started laughing in the last few weeks and it’s one of her parents favorite new developments. Kissies is one of the things that sometimes gets her when she’s in a good mood.
All of Helena’s swim lessons are paying off as she took her first spin in the real pool this weekend. It’s been a few weeks since the last swim update here where you can compare progress to below. While mom and dad were nervous, Helena did not cry once and is well on her way to becoming a world class champion swimmer.
So Helena’s neighborhood, Grant Park, organizes parents and their kids into different age groups. Helena is a meerkat and once or twice a week the meerkat’s meet up for drinks, social gatherings, lunch, or cool stuff happening in the neighborhood. It’s been a great way to meet other young babies and for her parents to gain a nearby network. There’s lots of baby friends for Helena to choose from!
We got back from Denver on Wednesday and everybody needed a good nap.
On Friday, Helena strolled for 8 miles on the new Eastside belt line trail of Atlanta with new friends Dave and baby boy Bennett. While the heat got to her at times, she persevered and took in a lot of new views!
After Brad and Rachel’s wedding, Helena and her parents hung around Colorado for more exploration and hang out. Everybody enjoyed the cool Colorado summer weather and used the opportunity to play 9 holes of golf and explore Boulder. They also got the chance to see the world famous Red Rocks amphitheater for a Blue’s Traveler, Spin Doctors, Rusted Root, and Samples show with bonus fireworks.
Helena is still working on it but compared to http://helenakessel.com/wordpress/?p=259&preview=true&frame-nonce=73ccb9c141 she’s getting there!
Helena may be the youngest baby to attend two weddings at just over three months now. Brad Goldstein married Rachel Rosenfeld #rosegoldcheese in Keystone over the 4th of July weekend. Here are some of the highlights
Helena organizes her days fairly evenly between business activities and pleasure. Here she is talking to Grandpa Herb on facetime, while in the other photo she is all business. Don’t let that smile fool you – she is hard at work and has to put in a few last emails and phone calls before her vacation to Denver this evening.
As Helena improves her grasp on things (pun intended) she can now drink her milk on her own!
Some day Helena will look back on this and think: “Why did I hate being on my tummy so much?!” But for now Helena must practice, practice, practice and documenting the practice will show progress some day. Crawling is in your not-so-distant future little buddy!
For a few weeks now Helena has been learning how to swim. It’s supposed to be good for their development and considering how much of the time Helena cant really move or go anywhere on her own (which is all of the time), a 15 minute swim is a big work out! Helena swims now most days and when she does she gets a deep sleep.
Helena likes to FaceTime with her grandparents whenever possible. Sometimes she’ll even dress up for the occasion
Helena has started rolling over – from back to front, which is more unusual we’ve been told as normally babies start by going from front to back. Maya has left her on her stomach for what seems like a torturous amount of time (1 min.) with the sink or swim mentality but she’s yet to make that move. Helena is improving at tummy time and today set a new record of over 2.5 minutes! Here is the back-to-front roll from today.
Today Helena went to work but mostly Maya’s colleagues were the ones working. Helena tends to do well with the ladies!
Helena, like her daddy, is a talker. We’ve actually heard her say what sounds like “hello” several times. Maya speaks to her primarily in Russian and Andrew primarily in French (except her for the video). Given that Maya and Andrew don’t speak each other’s languages (at least not very well yet) and her peers will be English speaking, the trilingual goal is ambitious but it’s worth a shot! She gurgles and makes a few attempts at speech everyday, mostly she’s happy as seen here.
As Andrew takes over full-time parent duties, let’s take a moment to celebrate father’s!
Andrew and Helena can’t twin quite as easily as uncle Jonah and Abel (see below) but they’ve made an effort on at least one occasion.
Helena also went to her first professional MLS game with the new and crazy popular Atlanta United FC game. It was so loud she ended up later getting headphones!
Finally, friend and photographer Rachel S. did a whole photo shoot at the Atlanta botanical gardens – a few favorites here
Sadly after 3 amazing weeks in the Northeast, Helena and company returned to Atlanta. The weather isn’t nearly as beautiful back in Atlanta but Helena was glad to be home. After meeting and hanging out with so many friends and relatives Helena wanted to take a moment to look back at some of the trip highlights.
Almost exactly 10 years ago Tobin and Andrew both graduated from Macalester college. Amazingly, within just two weeks their wives gave birth to a boy and a girl. This post is a little overdue as they met over Memorial Day weekend back in May but it was a great visit not to be missed in documentation!
Grandpa and Grandma help change Helena and teach her Russian:
Meanwhile, everybody is enjoying swimming:
Finally, a trip to Storm King Arts Center was not disappointing at all! Even though Helena probably had no idea what was going on, it was still pretty impressive!
Helena met her closest cousin in age Abel on her recent and first trip to the Big Apple. Besides saying hello to Uncle Jonah and Aunt Maysha, she was reacquainted with Grandpa and Grandma Solomon and Roza and got to know some of her Queen’s roots.
Helena also was fortunate enough to visit her great Aunt Amy on the Cape during our vacation. She snapped a few great ones for us. Even babysat for a few hours so we could go kayaking.
Going back a few days to last weekend, here are a few photos from Jeff Travis and Megan Adam’s wedding on the Cape. DJ Helena is actually wearing noise cancelling headphones and slept through a majority of the wedding. She was quite a hit there. Andrew and Maya also celebrated their first anniversary together too!
Reclined seating and free ticket. Beverages included. Not a bad first train ride
Summer has offiially started and we are off vacationing. After arriving in Boston and seeing a few family members and friends we took off on our first adventure of a weekend on the Cape. First stop was Wellfleet to visit childhood friend Thomas and girlfriend Meredith
Helena is also doing her own version of a work out, all the time. She’s growing like champ! Over 80th percentile for height and head circumference according to physician on our recent visit!
From their visit a few weeks back. A little late but better now then never!
Helena would rather rock out than get ready for bed
Sporting her jailbird outfit
The socks I found mixed in with my laundry today don’t fit very well!
Helena is starting to get much more attentive lately! Letting her cool off in the GA heat
More to come soon!
We have not yet found a regular schedule with Helena. We are working on it but it’s tricky and there’s no telling if it could be easy 30 minutes to bed or 3 and a half hours to bed night.
Here’s Maya rocking Helena to bed
Something about riding in the car just puts most babies to sleep – Helena is no different –fortunately! In fact, she likes the seat so much that sometimes we put her in the seat to calm down at home and it works like a charm, as seen below.
Maya threw a surprise party for Andrew and friends got a chance to meet Helena! Everybody commented on her beauty and cuteness and now she’s all pooped out!
Looking back at Abel’s photos for inspiration and came across this one. Can you tell which kessel is which?
Helena continues to grow and get used to this new world. Every day there is a new thing for her to marvel at and reactions and attention seem to be improving. She seems to also be getting used to the baths more and may even like them!
Grandpa Solomon plays with Helena, or as they prefer to call her, Isabela
Helena has a few extra baby sitters these days during paradise in Georgia, AKA spring.
How a baby is not supposed to sleep
What Helena does most of the time and we are glad when she does
Helena has been getting use to her new digs (outside the womb) and on a more micro-scale both her sleepyhead pod and new crib (as seen in pic #2 below).
I think the video speaks for itself
Helena, like her parents, is a night owl. In fact, some nights she doesn’t want to go to bed until after 1 AM or later, and sometimes not at all! It’s not easy but she is adjusting to her new life in the world outside of the womb. After feeds we try to get her to burp, as demonstrated in this video.
Cousins Steve & Peg Freedman came over with deli meats (those were missed during Maya’s pregnancy) and drinks for a beautiful Atlanta spring dinner and to meet the new lady. Helena put on her best behavior as we celebrated.
Our niece Havi recently asked, “why didn’t you name her Fayfessel?”
Sherlock has been very curious since the moment Helena arrived in our household. He is our new babysitter! The sequence below describes their typical interaction
