Pictures of the curtains...

Here are a few pictures of our new curtains. As you can see, they do a good job of blocking all of the sunlight we get all day. Sean says he likes them because he doesn't feel as 'exposed'. I think he likes them because they block out the light so he can nap (see last picture). I don't know if you can really tell, but they are kind of a light green color and brown. So there you go, that's the excitement in our household these days! :)

It's about time!

We had curtains made for our living room about 5 months ago. They have been sitting in a bag all this time just waiting to be hung. I could never find just the right curtain rods (unless they were the SUPER expensive ones!) and if I did, they didn't have the length that I needed. One of the windows in our living room is over 9 feet long and so we needed a loooooong curtain rod. Anyway, we got curtain rods today that I love at a great price and hung our curtains! I am happy because the long window can get a bit drafty and the curtains help to block the draft a ton! Also, it brings some warmth and color to our living room...it almost looks like a whole new room! Just had to share! :)

Helping Daddy Study

We were all hanging out this evening in Tate's playroom so that he could play while I did some things on the computer and Daddy studied. The only problem was, Tate REALLY wanted to help Daddy study! Here he is being such a big help! :)

Also, here is a video from this evening. I haven't taken any videos of Tate lately, so I thought I would try and show you all how Tate is almost walking. Well, it didn't go so well, he wouldn't take a single step for the camera. What he would do was say, "no" a lot. This is a common thing in our household. He likes to answer every question with "no". When we watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse in the mornings and Mickey asks the viewers a question, no matter what the question is, Tate says, "no". The video is cute despite the fact that he wouldn't walk for me and he said "no" to almost everything we asked him to do!

Growing Up

Just Lounging

We got our camera up and running again! Wohoo! Here are a few pics from today. As you can see, Tate lounged in his pj's all day. We had a great day and are enjoying some family time!

A Funny Story

I gave Tate a bath today and as you all know, he LOVES his baths! I started to run the water to fill up the tub and Tate was crawling in the hallway outside of the bathroom. I left the water running while I went into Tate's room to get his towel, washcloth, lotion, diaper and his clothes I was going to change him into. I was in his room for about 20 seconds max and when I went into the bathroom, Tate was in the tub with his clothes on just playing with his toys like nothing was strange about this situation. He had removed 1 sock and the other one was hanging off of his foot. I can imagine that when I left the bathroom and said, "do you want to take a bath?", he got REALLY excited (as usual) and speed crawled into the bathroom and removed 1 sock and started to remove the 2nd one before he realized he was too excited to remove anything else so he just thought, "forget it" and jumped right in! I didn't see this happen, but I know that he knows he is supposed to get naked before he gets into the bath because when we're stripping him down while in the bathroom before his bath and he's eying the warm sudsy water, he will pull off his socks to speed up the process and will take his own diaper off so he can get in quicker. So knowing this, I am just imagining what exactly happened and I would bet I am right! :) He is too funny!

Not much to report

I can't believe it's Friday! It seems like just yesterday, it was Monday! Sean will be off of work at 6:00 tonight and tomorrow, so we will be happy to see him a little bit in the next 2 days. He is almost done with his semester of school and has a couple more things to complete, so he informed me that he plans on doing a lot of school work this evening and tomorrow evening. Even though he'll be busy, it's still nice to have him in the house and have him to sit down for supper with us, so I won't complain. We are looking forward to the short break he will get before next semester begins!

I need to do some wrapping of gifts and pick up a couple of other small items left on our Christmas list and then ALL of our shopping will be done! Tate is gradually getting used to the Christmas tree and isn't constantly pulling and yanking at it anymore, so that's good. :) It's almost like he's decided that the tree isn't quite as fun as he thought it was at first, and we're fine with that!

Today, Tate and I don't have any plans to go anywhere or do anything. It will be a day of relaxing and lounging and hopefully napping! Not much exciting news to report here.

Christmas Questions!

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Much more fun to open wrapped gifts, but bags so much easier for me! :)

2. Real tree or artificial? I like real, but artificial is less messy so that's what we have

3. When do you put up the tree? It varies, as soon after Thanksgiving as possible, this year we put it up the weekend after Thanksgiving

4. When do you take the tree down? Way later than we should...a couple of years ago we didn't find time to take it down until the last weekend in January! Usually though it will come down within a week after Christmas.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? There were so many! I loved my Cabbage Patch doll and I got a sapphire ring from my dad when I was about 13 that I loved and still love!

7. Do you have a nativity scene? Yes, the Willow Tree Nativity Scene

8. Hardest person to buy for? My dad!

9. Easiest person to buy for? Sean and Tate

10. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? I can't think of a bad gift I have received...I am sure there has been a bad one, I just can't remember it

11. Mail or email Christmas cards? Mail

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? Elf

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Usually 4-6 weeks before, this year I’m already done!

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? No

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? soup and all of the sweets!

16. Clear lights or colored on the tree? Clear

17. Favorite Christmas song? O Holy Night

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? usually we stay in town, but we are game to go wherever the family is!

19. Can you name all of Santa’s reindeers? Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen…and Rudolph too!

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? Angle

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? We open gifts Christmas Eve and then on Christmas morning we get our gift from Santa and our stockings from Santa

22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? traffic

23. Do you decorate your tree in any specific theme? ornaments from when Sean and I were kids and new ones since Sean and I have been together

Back to normal health!

Tate is officially better. It took a long time for him to get over whatever bug he had! It's nice to see him smiling and hear him laughing again. Although, I will say, it was nice when he was sleeping SO deeply and so well! He is back to his normal, light sleeping self. We are lucky if we can get a 2 hour nap out of him now which is pretty typical.

It has been freezing cold and I am ALREADY sick of it! I am not at all a fan of winter! It especially is no fun getting Tate bundled up and stuffing him into his car seat so that he can't move at all! I feel bad for him when he's in his car seat with his winter coat on! We haven't been out and about much at all (except for his doctor appointment) since we got back from Thanksgiving last week. I almost don't mind though because I really don't like getting out in the cold.

Tate has really been enjoying the Christmas tree and loves to go up and pull on it and then look at us and say, "no no". He likes to look at us and say that anytime he's doing something that he knows we don't want him to do! He'll pick stuff up off of the floor and act like he's going to put it in his mouth, it will almost touch his tongue and he'll lift the item (a leaf, a rock, dirt...whatever it might be) up towards us and say, "no no" with a little smirk because he knows that he's just messing with us. He's pretty clever! :) He is STILL not walking yet! He stands and holds things and plays with them in his hands all the time and he'll take about 4 steps, but won't take any more than that. I'm not worried about it at all, I just think that he can get around so much faster by crawling that he prefers that method. He'll take off soon enough! He still is a dancing fool and dances to any music he hears and sometimes even dances when there is no music playing at all! He loves to cover his head with a blanket or just cover his face with his hands and say, "ways Tae?" (where's Tate) and then uncover himself and with a wide eyed, excited smile say, "thayeeis!" (there he is)...he does it over and over and over! We are enjoying him more and more every day! He is constantly learning new things and it is so amazing to me to watch him learn!

"Oh, Christmas Tree..."

We got our Christmas tree all set up and decorated last night! And by 'we', I mean, 'me'! Sean did help me set up the tree and put the lights on it, but then he went to bed and I decorated it. As you can see in the picture, we strategically placed the tree in a corner so that it wouldn't be quite as accessible to Tate as if it were out in the wide open. Honestly, I am not sure that it will make much of a difference, but we tried! Tate really likes the tree and has 2 favorite decorations on it that he pulls off...the train and the purple ball, which I think he believes is a real ball. Even though we may have to corral Tate a bit to keep him from destroying the tree, I am so happy that we have a tree up! It really puts me in the Christmas spirit!

Still sleepy, but feeling much better

Tate has been a sleeping machine these last few days! Aside from that and being a little whinier than usual, he seems to be feeling much better! He even got out of my lap today for a few minutes to play with his fridge barn and cracked a couple of smiles too! This is a big deal for the poor little guy! He's barely smiled all week! Of course I had my camera ready to capture the moment! :) I think the slight dehydration he was experiencing has gotten to him a bit because his lips are cracking and bleeding a little bit. We ventured out for about a half hour to Younkers to pick up a Christmas gift and we stopped at the Clarins counter and I put some Moisture Replenishing Lip Balm on his lips. It was so funny to see his lips all shiny. He couldn't stop licking them after I put it on...it was pretty cute. The short trip wore him out though and he fell asleep in the 5 minute car ride home. I layed him down for another nap when we got home and he's sound asleep now.

Sleepy household!

Well, I thought Tate was on the mend, but I was wrong! Yesterday he awoke with a very high fever again so I ended up taking him to the doctor. The doctor said that it was a virus and aside from the fact that he had lost a little weight and was 'borderline dehydrated', we should just keep medicating it with Motrin and Tylenol and as many fluids as we can get down him. He ended up drinking quite a bit yesterday and then he slept 12 hours last night and woke up with no fever! WOOHOO! He still didn't have a great appetite, but he was drinking a lot so that was good. He took a 3 1/2 hour nap and then 2 hours after he woke up from that nap, he took another almost 2 hour nap! Then 2 hours after that nap, he was reaching for him bed when we layed him down! He's never been a big sleeper so I know that he is just sleeping this bug off. I believe he really is no the mend now! In then mean time, I haven't been feeling too well myself. Ugh. I went to bed last night at 8:30 and slept until 9:00 this morning and was still tired and achy all day. I probably got Tate's bug from all of the kisses I was giving him to make him feel better! :) If I take Ibuprofin though, I feel much better. All Tate and I did all day was lay around and rest, sleep and for a bit I was able to get up and do the dishes while we listened to Christmas music! I LOVE Christmas music and I found out today that Tate does too! :)

This evening when Sean got home from work we watched football and set up our Christmas tree. We still haven't put any lights or decorations on it yet, but the Christmas tree alone was amazing to Tate. He stared at it saying, "whas zat?!" (what's that?) and pointed at it. It was pretty cute! I am sure he'll be even more amazed with it when we get lights and decorations on it! We also got a little tree from Mom this weekend (thanks Mom!!!) that we are going to put on our kitchen table. It's about 4 feet tall and pretty skinny so it fits well on the table. I think we will decorate it too. Hopefully by Monday night our house will be decked out for the holidays! I am so excited! Last year, we were still so dazed and sleep deprived from having a new baby that we just plugged in a ceramic tree on our end table and that was the extent of our decorating. It will be fun to have the house decorated this year!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Though it wasn't the Thanksgiving we imagined it would be, it was still a great time with family! We wish Tate had been well so that he could have joined in the fun a bit more and we felt terrible that he was so miserable...also, we were feeling like everyone was probably getting pretty irritated with the constant crying even though no one indicated it at all! Thank you to Mom and Dad for hosting the gathering and making it wonderful as usual! Thank you to everyone for the FABULOUS meal! We missed being able to see and celebrate Thanksgiving with the Peakin side this year, so HAPPY THANKSGIVING to you all as well! We love you all and are SO thankful to have such and amazing family!

Chris preparing the turkey to be 'dropped'. We deep fried the turkey this year and it was SO DELICIOUS!!!
Sean and Brigg just hangin' out before dinner.

Brigg and Lani enjoying the first snow of the year! It wasn't much, but enough to play in! Seeing as Sean is pretty much a kid himself, he couldn't resist going out and playing in the snow either...he managed to get a pretty exciting snow ball fight started with Brigg and Lani!

Little Ayla Lyn

I missed Ayla sooo much! She has changed so much since she was born and it's only been 2 weeks! She sleeps ALL OF THE TIME. I am not even kidding, she doesn't wake up ever! She is sleeping great at night already, going from midnight until 6:00 a.m. I seriously don't think Tate did that until he was about 6 or 8 weeks old. I love her so much. This first picture cracks me up!

Some were a success.....and some were not!

The photo shoots that is...

Oh, look at the beautiful, happy family...

and this one too!

and then there is this one. Happy? Not so much!

And our attempt at a fun, candid photo of Nana and Papa with all 5 of their grandkids...let's just say it didn't go well!

We decided that now that Ayla is here, we would get a picture of all of the kids. With Tate not feeling well these last few days, 3 other rambunctious children and an infant, we didn't have high hopes! Well, we were wrong...we got several adorable pictures of all of the kids. Ayla slept through the entire photo session and Tate enjoyed sitting on the couch with his cousins and all of the kids cooperated! I love the first picture because it shows just how much Tate loves Bode and you can't tell how much of a 'Tater Hater' Bode is in it...he actually appears to enjoy the love that Tate is giving him! :)

After the feast...

This is what everyone looked like after our HUGE feast...typical!

On the Mend

Tate seems to be on the mend. He hasn't had a fever much today at all. He awoke this morning with a little one, but we gave him Motrin and it went away and never came back. He still was not feeling well though...definitely not being himself. He took 2 half hour naps today which definitely wasn't enough for him, so he was quite crabby and just still not feeling right we could tell! We left Muscatine around 8:15 tonight and as I was sitting on the couch holding Tate while waiting for Sean to load and heat up the van, Tate fell asleep in my arms. Poor baby...he is just plain exhausted! I know he'll sleep better in his own room. Hopefully he'll be a lot better tomorrow too!

Here are a couple of pictures of him from today...

I don't know what it is with kids and party beads, but almost every kid I know seems to love them...including mine!

Poor Baby...

Well, our poor baby is not feeling too well! He is SO pathetic! He can't sleep more than about an hour at a time today and when he's up, he's whining and crying and only wants to be in our arms. :( We have been alternating Motrin and Tylenol every couple of hours to keep his fever under control, but he still has a little fever that just won't go away. We may end up heading to see a doctor if things don't start improving. I am sure it's just a virus, but would rather be safe than sorry. Last night was rough! He was up at 12:30 for about 5 minutes and then from 1:30 until 3:30 just whining and crying. I got up with him and gave him medicine and rocked him, but there was just nothing I could do, he was just so tired and miserable. He woke up again around 6:00 and then went back down at about 7:00 for another hour. He NEVER gets up in the night, so I know he was feeling pretty lousy! On a positive note, he has eaten much better today and also drank about 6 ounces of fluid already which is about three times more than he drank the entire day yesterday! Although, he is acting more sick today. It breaks my heart to see him so uncomfortable! Poor baby!

A Little Freaked Out!

The other day I noticed that Tate had cut his 9th tooth! He has been a drooling mess and awfully fussy so I know he is cutting several. Just before we left for Muscatine today, I noticed that Tate felt a bit warm so I gave him some Motrin and he fell asleep shortly thereafter in the car on the way to Muscatine. He didn't sleep well. His head kept bobbing up and down and occassionally he would open his eyes...I blamed this on the carseat being so upright and it just appeared that he couldn't get comfy. Once we got to Mom and Dad's, he was a bit more chipper and began to play and crawl around, but about an hour and a half after arriving, he started getting fussy again. He hadn't eaten a very good lunch and for some reason acted as though he didn't like the food he was eating which was odd because it was food that I know he likes. Anyway, I decided around 4:30 that he was fussing because he was probably hungry so I fed him some raviolis which he gobbled down quickly. Then, we all decided to go out for Mexican and so we planned to feed Tate some more food there...rice and beans are some of his favorite foods! :) We got to the restaurant and tried to feed him some rice and beans which he immediately spit out and acted repulsed by...this was odd. We tried to get him to drink some milk...no luck. In addition to not eating well all day, he had up to this point only drank about 3 ounces of fluid all day. I decided he must not be feeling well - poor baby! We headed to Cassie and Paul's after dinner and I was relaxing on the couch holding Ayla and Sean said, "hey Jennie, look at Tate, he looks like he's convulsing!" Sean was right, he DID look like he was convulsing...he wasn't, his whole body was just shivering from his core and his lips were looking a little blue...I immediately freaked out! He couldn't stop shivering, but when I felt him, he was pretty hot and obviously had a fever. In the next 15 minutes he just started feeling hotter and hotter. We gave him some Tylenol and he fell asleep in my arms (a very rare occurance!) for about 1/2 an hour. I tend to worry a lot and so I am glad that my Dad, a medical professional, was there to assure me that Tate was fine, he is just obviously sick and had the chills from his fever. The blue lips are actually pretty common for him when he gets cold, so that wasn't what scared me the most. I was still (and still am a bit) freaked out, but when we got back to Mom and Dad's, Tate ate some yogurt and drank a little water and his fever went down, he got color back in his lips and he ended up playing and being his happy self. I think we just need to keep medicine in him. We will definitely be keeping an extra close eye on him until we know he is completely better! I hope that he starts to feel better and is happy for Thanksgiving!

Thankful

Sorry...another post with no pictures! I have been terrible at taking pictures this last week or so...I am not sure why, but I know I will get plenty in the next few days as we will be heading to Muscatine tomorrow to celebrate Thanksgiving. We are anxious to have a few days to relax and be with family. It will be a fairly quick trip because Sean has to work at 7:00 a.m. on Friday so we will head home on Thursday night when Tate is ready for bed so that he will sleep in the car on the way home. I barely remember Thanksgiving last year because I was so sleep deprived! Tate was still not sleeping well (he was only about 6 weeks old!) and so neither were we! I remember Tate had his first experience 'swimming' at Thanksgiving last year. Well, not really, but we stayed in a hotel and had a suite with a big jacuzzi tub in it and we filled it up and got pictures of him 'swimming' in it. We had no idea that fish he would actually become! He LOVES the water! I can't believe that was a year ago! Time really does fly.

I look forward to seeing Ayla again! I can't wait to snuggle her. I am sure she has changed a ton in this last week and a half!

We have so many things to be thankful for this year. It's been an amazing year filled with countless blessings. I still look at Tate in awe that he is our son! We are so blessed and SO thankful for him! He has brought us unimaginable joy and we thank God for him every day! We have been blessed with several new members to our family as well with the birth of Ayla and also through our new relationships that have come from our open adoption. We are thankful that Sean has made it through 2 more semesters of school with much success and that despite the tiring work and long hours, he still has a passion for his studies and looks forward to his future career! I am thankful that I have had the amazing opportunity to stay at home with Tate and witness nearly every moment of his life so far! To list all of the things I am thankful for would be impossible, but every blessing is from God and most of all, I am thankful for Him...to know Him, to lean on Him and to have Him in my life!