I don't know what it is...

but as soon as we got home with my new camera, Tate insisted on me taking pictures of him.
WHAT?!?!?!
He despises getting his picture taken!
Is it the new camera????
I sure hope so! :)
Anyway, I got TONS of super cute smiling pics of Tate...these are unprompted smiles.
And seriously, the quality of these new pics is incredible!
And the ones below were just taken using Auto...nothing fancy!

I got about a 2 hour hands on lesson from a camera pro on how to use all of the other fancy stuff on the camera to make the pictures look even more amazing. That mixed with my old photography knowledge from all the photography classes I took in school and I am hoping I'll be able to get some amazing shots of my new niece or nephew in a couple days. I'll be sure to share all of my Florida pictures with you and plan to be posting while I'm down there. Less than 48 hours and I'll be in Florida!!! Woohoo!

the first picture I took with my NEW Canon Rebel!

As I'm sure you've figured out from my previous post, I got a new camera. WAY better than my old point and shoot camera...

He acts like it's no biggie, but he's totally excited about all the new, better quality pictures we'll be getting with our new camera!

Guess what I got!!!!

I cannot even describe how excited I am!

out of the mouths of mamas

I've done this before and so I thought I'd do it again when I was reminded of it while reading someone else's blog who posts "out of the mouths of mamas". These are things that I have actually said in the last few weeks to Tate that seemed to make complete sense at the time, but when I look back at them, someone hearing me say these things and not knowing the context in which I used these statements in might think I was crazy...

"Tate, don't let your cheese touch the garbage can!"

"Is that poop hanging out of your bum? Come here right now so I can look to see if that's a poop hanging out of your bum!"

"take your gloves off before you wash your hands"

"stop playing with the sticks of butter...no, that's garlic, you can't play with that either"

"don't pee on the couch, Tate. I'm serious, I will be very upset with you if you pee on the couch. No, you can't poop on the couch either."

"take the blanket off your head while you walk down the stairs"

"get that straw out of your nose. I don't care if you want it in there."

still my baby

While we were on our evening drive tonight, Tate fell asleep.
He didn't want to get up when we got home and I would be lying if I said I wasn't thoroughly enjoying Tate cuddled in and sleeping on me when we got home. This never happens anymore!
He'll always be my baby...always.

happy car ride

We took a drive tonight...just because.
It was especially good because we got yummy Sonic beverages to take along.

MMMMM...maybe we'll make this a weekly habit!

a couple of house pictures...

our living room...well, a corner of it at least :)

our downstairs 1/2 bathroom...

I want a table!!!

So since we moved in, we have not had a table. I had no idea how annoying that would be! We hated our glass top table and refused to use it in this home. We've eaten every meal at TV trays. I am SICK of it! Sean and his brother built an island on wheels for our kitchen before we even moved in, but we had to special order the counter top and we haven't gotten it in yet. We also haven't stained the island yet. However, I'm kind of giddy because I just bought some bar stools online! I've been looking and looking for a couple of weeks, but couldn't find anything. Finally, I found some today!!! Woohoo! It's going to take a few weeks for them to come in though...ugh. So it looks like we won't be eating at a table until mid May. I don't know if I can make it!!!

update

Well I know that the last time I talked about Tate's adjustment to our new home, it wasn't going the best. I am happy to say that he hasn't mentioned our "other home" in days! He refers to this house as our home now and though he's adopted some different habits here when it comes to his sleep, he is doing well and sleeping well! YAY!!!! He now insists on his bedroom door being open when he sleeps which is so strange for him. He used to have to have it closed to sleep.

As far as getting our house put together and unpacked...well, it's going slowly, but it's getting done. I do a little every day, but I hate to spend an entire day doing it because I have found that Tate struggled more when I did it that way the first week or two. Once I started taking breaks to play with him or have him help me make dinner or snuggle with him, he started to act more comfortable here. However, I am leaving in exactly 1 week from today to go to Florida!!! I am so excited! I would love to come back to an organized home though so I am going to work really hard this week to get all of the last minute odds and ends done.

While in Florida, Tate will be staying a couple of nights at Cassie's in Muscatine and another couple of nights in Colo with Nana and Papa P. I hope that his staying away from home won't mess up his adjustment to our new home! I am a bit worried about that and would have really liked for him to be at home while I was gone, but it just didn't work out that way. It'll be good for Sean though because he'll have a busy week while I'm gone.

Speaking of Sean...he has officially switched to the night shift at work and is really loving his job. He works 7pm to 7am 3 days a week. He only has to work 1 weekend a month so that's good. He's managing to get his sleep during the days on those 3 days and then has also been doing a really good job readjusting his sleep back to sleeping at night on the days he's off. We weren't sure how easy it would be for him to do that, but it seems to be working just fine. :)

We are all adjusting well, but still cannot believe we live here! Ha. We are so happy to be here closer to family and only a couple of minutes away from friends who we are spending lots of time with! Thank you DeCooks for having us over all the time! Tate, Ava and Chloe just love playing together (most of the time!) and will play for hours and hours while Sean and James play basketball and Lora and I chat. Sean's ready for some more free time this summer so he can golf a bit more and is excited to try out some new golf courses in the area. It's also really nice to be so close to Mike, Sarah, Leah and Kayla and thank you to them for having us over for dinner and playtime for the kids (and dads!) too! Leah, Tate and Kayla play so well together too! Tate loves being so close to his cousins (now Tyler and Bode just need to move here!) and being able to play with them often.

Hawkeye Spring Practice

Well, we thought it would be a good idea to go to the Hawkeye spring practice/game with DeCooks and the kids (minus Chloe who is just too little). So we did. And for us...it wasn't quite the good idea we thought it would be. Tate was not the most obedient to say the least. He was TIRED from a lack of sleep the night before and had several meltdowns throughout the day. It was a rough day to say the least. Despite that, it was still special because it was Tate's first time in Kinnick Stadium...and the last time for at least a couple of years! Ha.

We got some good pictures though! :)

Lora, Ava and James...

"GO HAWKEYES!!!"

and then this happened on the drive home...

I was thrilled for him to sleep because I couldn't handle another meltdown after the day we had!

I cannot wait...

...to have some time to love up on this little man and his new brother or sister in LESS THAN 2 WEEKS!!!
I will be flying out with my mom and will be leaving Sean and Tate home so I'll be able to give Bode and my new niece or nephew 100% of my loving and attention and there are no words to describe how excited I am.
I miss you so much Bode and will see you soon!!!

New recipe...finally!

Check out A Peakin To My Recipe Book for a Chicken and Biscuits recipe!
Hopefully more recipes will be coming soon now that we're getting a bit more settled.

Our new "green" ride!

(the quality of the picture is poor because it was taken on my Blackberry)

Except it's blue. :)
We LOVE it!
It is so fancy for us...all computerized inside, has a rear view camera for when we're in reverse, it smells new and I love that!

And it is the 6th Toyota I have owned and I am so happy to be back to a Toyota!
Now Sean and I both have a Toyota. :)

And it gets around 50 miles per gallon.
I hate getting gas and with this car, I won't have to very much!

night shift

Tonight is Sean's 1st night shift. I am praying he does okay and doesn't fall asleep at the wheel on the drive home tomorrow! He took about a 3 hour nap today just before he had to leave so hopefully that will be what will help him through the night. I'm sure he'll crash as soon as he gets home from work. He's kind of got some sleeping issues as it is...to add him working these strange hours will be interesting. I hope he can train himself to get a good "night" sleep in the middle of the day! We will see.

We are hoping to be heading to Muscatine to pick up a new vehicle we plan to purchase. Well, "new" to us. It's actually a couple of years old. :) I will post about that and post a picture when we get it!

we live here

This new chapter in our lives here in Davenport still feels like a vacation! Sean and I drove around the Quad Cities today checking things out and just familiarizing ourselves with our surroundings. We kept saying, "I can't believe we live here!" It just is so strange to be living in a whole new city after being in Des Moines for 9 years (and over 10 years for Sean!). We are really starting to make our new home feel like home by hanging things on the walls and clearing out the boxes. Tate is getting more comfortable as well.

Then, we drove the whole 5 minutes in takes to get to DeCook's house and ate homemade pizza for supper and the guys played basketball, the kids played and Lora and I drank wine and chatted. It was so nice! It felt like the weekends we would just come and visit and then have to leave a day or two later feeling like we wished we lived closer to them and could hang out with them all the time! Now, that is happening and when we left, we got to drive the short 5 minute drive home. It's just not sunk in that we live here yet.

Tomorrow, we are heading to Muscatine to do some car shopping (I wasn't kidding about getting rid of my Ford!), see my family and possibly make some covers for our living room pillows. And again, it's only a 1/2 hour drive to get there!

Sean has a sort of crazy work schedule this week. Typically he works 3 days in a row, but this is a different week for him. He will work Sunday and then Wednesday and Thursday. And he starts the dreaded nights this week...ugh! Hopefully that will go okay for him. He tried to "practice" last night and stayed up until 5am!!! Then he only slept until 10ish this morning so he couldn't make it past 11:45 tonight. I think he plans to try to stay up uber later tomorrow night and then either sleep in or get up at a decent time and then take a several hour nap in the afternoon so that he can make it through his night shift. We'll see how it goes. I think that until his body gets used to it and he comes up with a sleeping routine that will work for him, it will be hard.

Tate still continues to adjust a little more each day. However, 2 nights ago he had terrible night terrors and so I was up dealing with that for several hours in the night. Then last night he wouldn't go to sleep in his bed and was shaking and scared to death and so I caved and let him sleep in bed with me. :) He slept great though and tonight didn't complain about sleeping in his room at all. He's sound asleep in there as I type this.

So now I am heading to bed myself...in Davenport...where we live now...in our new home...weird! I'm really enjoying the newness of all of this still! How long before you think it will sink in that we live here?

Gone Golfing

Tate used his "real" golf clubs today for the first time...

Tate and Sean took the long walk across the street to hit some balls...

Too cute...

Dreaming of Florida

It's been over 2 years since Tate and I have been to Florida. Sean went down there to help Chris and Brenda move in July, but aside from that he hasn't been down there either. I am going in a few weeks to meet our new niece or nephew! I cannot wait!!! I will be joining my parents, no Sean or Tate. Sean and I hope to do a family vacation with Tate sometime later in the summer or in the fall.

This was Tate the last time we were in Florida...

Look how little he was!

I cannot believe it's been so long since we've been down there!
I am excited to just be down there, but more so, I am so excited to meet our new niece or nephew and see Chris, Brenda and Bode!!! It will have been 4 months since I've seen them by the time I get down there in May. I miss them so much!

On this rainy Iowa day, I am dreaming of Florida!

a turning point...I hope!

Today Tate said out of no where, "this is my home, Mommy!"
He had his best day yet today.
He was happy and more obedient than he's been these last few weeks!
Whew!
Hopefully this trend will continue!!!

feels good...

I feel good going to bed tonight because I had a super productive day! Aside from the decorating aspect of things like hanging things on the walls and stuff, I have got NEARLY everything (aside from what's in our basement...which is a lot!) put away and organized! I completed our bedroom today which was pretty much an all day task. I did laundry and dishes too. :) Things are coming together around here and it feels good!

On another super positive note...Tate did not say once today that he wanted to "go home" or that this wasn't his home! Wow! I considered not even blogging that because I didn't want to jinx it! Ha. He had a terrific day today and I have to say that it is probably greatly attributed to our house being more organized and put together. At least today I saw a light at the end of the tunnel of a defiant child who wants to go back to a home that is no longer ours. He even asked me TWICE today to snuggle with him! What?!?! If you know him, you know that this is not a normal thing. And of course, I obliged and we snuggled. And it was wonderful. Too bad for him, I hadn't showered today and still haven't. That's on the top of my list for tomorrow. :)

Easter celebration #2

We headed to Muscatine to my parent's house to celebrate Easter on Saturday and stayed the night.
Brigg and Lani dyed eggs while Tate and Ayla had more interest in watching Wall-E...

This is one of my favorites from the weekend.
Hilarious!
Tate was thrilled with his Buzz Lightyear bubble gun in his Easter basket...

And Sean took the kids around the creek at my parents and they found robin eggs that must have fallen out of a nest.
I love my dirty little blue eyed boy!

And there was another visit by the Easter Bunny.
This Easter Bunny was a lot more of a jokester than the one that showed up earlier in the weekend.
Very nice Easter Bunny...

Okay, this one is a little better...

And this Easter Bunny cannot resist being sweet to little Ayla...

Grandpa and Kent were in Muscatine for the Easter celebration as well as Kelly.
It was so much fun.
We had great food...and TONS of it!
We had a Wii bowling tournament, played cards and had lots of laughs and fun.
The kids played and played and played.
The whole weekend was great!

Most importantly, we celebrated this weekend because Jesus payed the ultimate price for our sins so that we could have eternal life.
I am not deserving of His grace, but He loves me (and YOU!) anyway!
Wow.
Happy Easter!

For Mike and Sarah...

Some of my favorite pictures of the Peakin family...

Sarah and her daughters...

I LOVE this one.
Mommy and Daddy with the birthday girl...

A few beautiful pictures to capture a beautiful family!

Tyler, Leah and Kayla...

Tate's cousins on the Peakin side.

It's so wonderful for Tate to have cousins on both sides that are so close in age to him.
And we are so blessed to have such amazing and adorable nieces and nephews!

"Kayla, how old are you?"

This is her response...

Which of course means "2".
Love her.
:)

Easter Celebration #1

Our niece Kayla's birthday is right around Easter so we have (for the last 2 years...she's only 2) a birthday celebration for her and an Easter gathering in 1 for her birthday. This year the Easter Bunny showed up! The kids were ecstatic!

We had a fun Easter Egg Hunt and the weather was perfect!

a sneak peek...

For now, this is all you're getting of our house. I just can't bare to put pictures up until it's all complete. :)

Tate's bed.
His sheets are solid orange and now has an orange rug since I took this picture.
He's satisfied with this...especially since the rug was added.
He says that his room is orange even though I think the brown tones it down to my satisfaction...

And our new area rug in our living room.
I love it!
I bought fabric today to cover some pillows that I already have.

Once everything is complete, I'll post lots of pictures!

some pictures of the last couple of weeks...

Tate loves Buzz Lightyear and pretty much anything Toy Story. He carries Buzz around everywhere and plays with him. Sometimes I'll talk to him and he'll say, "I'm not Tate, I'm Buzz Lightyear!" Ummm...okay. As you can see, he wanted to make sure Buzz was able to look out at the same thing he was looking at...

He hasn't been sleeping well lately. He wants to "go home" still. We were at my parents house the other day and while he was laying down watching a show, he conked out...

He's really been enjoying his time spent with Ava. Now that we live in the same town, they will get to play a lot!

And another conked out moment. He was half hanging off of the couch and stayed like that for over an hour...

He's still struggling with the move, but I'm hoping it won't last long!

as long as possible

I was talking to my friend Lora today and said something along the lines of, "it is HOT in our house! We are going to wait as long as possible to turn the air on though." Well apparently "as long as possible" meant about 4 hours. Within 3 minutes of Sean being home from work, the air was on. I think we're the only people in our neighborhood whose air conditioning is on. We are such weenies. Seriously though, Tate was sweating so bad and Sean looked at the temp in our house and it was like 85 degrees. That is just too hot for us! The open windows didn't even give any relief today although I'm sure they would have this evening. Sean insisted on turning it on and I wasn't going to argue. I'm sure it'll be off in a day or 2 once this mini heat wave blows through! :)

I love me a late night Wal-Mart trip!

It's 12:30am and I just got home from a 2 hour Wal-Mart trip alone! I love running errands alone late at night. No husband, no child, just me. The only bad thing about a late night Wal-Mart run is that they are always cleaning the floors and are lucky to have more than 1 check-out line open. I waited in the check-out line for half an hour! Ugh. I got all my Easter shopping done and got several of the items on my list for our new home! It was so fun perusing the aisles and taking my time and checking out all the fun stuff. No child to watch after or keep control of, no husband to rush me. I bought an orange rug to finish off Tate's room and saw a SUPER soft, big orange pillow that went with his stuff in his room, but passed on that. Our carpet is kind of gross (in my opinion) and so I knew I wanted a rug for his room because he sits on the floor and plays in there all the time now that all his toys are in there. Also, he sits on the living room floor and plays when he's downstairs and the carpet in there is kind of icky too, so I wanted a rug for the living room too. I didn't have high hopes of finding anything because rugs are so expensive, but there just happened to be an area rug that was on sale for CHEAP that I think will look perfect in our living room. I will wait until daylight tomorrow and see if it looks good. I really hope it does because I know I won't find another rug that cheap very easily. If I don't like it, I can return it. We'll see.

On a complete side note...

Tate used to have his bed pushed up against a wall in his room in Des Moines because his room was so small and it was such a pain to make his bed and change the sheets so I was super excited when we moved here that his room would be big enough to put his bed in the middle of the wall. The problem is, he keeps falling out of it now. He just fell out of it while I was writing this post and I had to go up there and calm him down and he's fallen out of it one other time too. He's only slept in it all night for 1 night (tonight will be 2 if he makes it all night) so I'm hoping he'll get used to the fact that it's not against the wall anymore and that he'll stop falling out! Poor thing!

it comes in waves

Productivity that is. Yesterday was a bad day in that category. It was just a bad day all around. Tate is being defiant. He is struggling still. He keeps saying, "I want to go home" or "this isn't my home." It is heart breaking. He is being quite the stinker too. He is sick to top it all off. Ugh.

Today though has been VERY productive! Woohoo! I've got the upstairs bathroom put together and organized, Tate's room is complete (aside from things hung on the walls), the downstairs bathroom is almost put together and the dishes are done. I may go run some errands still this afternoon, but aside from that, I am thinking I might be done for the day and the rest of the afternoon/evening will be spent spending time playing with Tate. I think that may help with his behavior. He just hasn't been getting a whole lot of attention from us I'm sad to say because of all of the activity with the move.

I need to post pictures, but just don't want to post any until the house doesn't have boxes and Rubbermaid bins sitting all over. I think I have some random pictures from the last week or two on my camera though so I promise to post some soon...probably tomorrow. :)