Tate eating cereal

What's new...

Tate has been eating rice cereal at night the last 3 nights. He isn't sure about it, but he has been a little oinker and I feel like he's been needing more than just his bottles. His doctor said that would probably happen soon and that rice cereal would help. The problem is, he eats about 5 bites and then he's over it. Oh well, hopefully he'll catch on with more practice. We have pictures of him eating it that I'll post here soon. Also, he got his highchair a few days ago and has really enjoyed sitting in it. He likes having his toys in front of him on the tray to play with. It seems like he's doing new things and making new noised every day! He loves turning the pages of his books when we read to him and he mimmicks sounds that we make. He's not our little itty bitty baby anymore! Pictures to come...

Yuck...

I am sick. We didn't go to Muscatine because of the possiblity of bad driving conditions. Then my little sniffle and cougn turned into a full blown coughing, sneezing, snotty, congested, sore throat cold. I feel so yucky. :( Somehow amidst all of the piles of Kleenex, cough drop wrappers, orange juice, Ibuprofin, cough syrup, pillows and blankets that surround me, I have to find a way to be a mother! This is hard...

He's just too cute!

How old are you?

Tate seems to think he's older than he is. He's such a little jokester! :)

Sitting Up...sort of

As you can see, Tate has started "sitting up". Well, okay, he's kind of just sitting "over". I don't know what the deal was with my camera while I took these pictures, but they aren't very clear...sorry, but you get the idea. He can get into a pretty good 45 degree angle and balance like that for several minutes. He can sit all the way up for a few seconds, but that's all. We're pretty satisfied with the "sitting over" for now. He's only 4 1/2 months, so we think in the next few weeks he should be sitting up. He is so funny. It's almost like he's proud of himself when he does it! He has been so smiley and talks all the time!

Our Excursion

Tomorrow morning, Melissa and I are taking the boys to Williamsburg to stop at a couple of stores. After that, we will be heading to Muscatine to visit Cassie, Paul and the kids and stay the night. Then, we're heading back to Williamsburg to stop at a couple more stores. We're hoping that by breaking up the shopping trip, the boys will be a bit more cooperative than if we did it all in one long trip. We'll see how it all works out. Then, after we get home on Thursday evening, Sean and I are going to turn around and go to Muscatine for the weekend as Chris, Brenda and Bode are going as well. I am sure I will come home with many fun pictures to post next week!

Beautiful Art

Following Landon's 2nd birthday party, we all headed to Chris and Brenda's for an evening of fun and finger painting! Brenda covered her table with white paper and Bode and Landon had at it with the finger paints. It was great! Bode had to taste every color of paint while Landon was a speed painter. Melissa would hardly have the paint squeezed out for him and he would be rubbing it in saying, "more, more". Then, they decided to do delve into the world of body painting as well. A great time was had by all and the messiness ended with a bath for the boys. Tate just watched and longed for the day when he'd be able to join in. For now, I am okay with him being a bit young for those kinds of things! :) It won't be long and he'll be right there with them!

Landon turned 2!!!

We celebrated Landon's 2nd Birthday at Kahunaville on Saturday. After dinner the "kids" (including the big kids) went and played games in the arcade. Tate had a great time partying it up! :) These are a couple of cute pictures from the event.

The haircut

I chopped Brenda's hair off the other night and colored it lighter. I think it's so cute! This is the best picture I could find to show it off.

Peanut Butter

Did you hear about the Peter Pan Peanut Butter Recall? Well, I looked in our cupboard at our peanut butter (I buy the Peter Pan brand)and it has the tracking numbers of the recalled peanut butter! Seriously, I could have gotten salmonella poisoning! Yuck!

Poor Baby

While posting this evening...I am exhausted. Tate had a rough day. I don't really know what was wrong with him, but man was he fussy! He wanted to be held and cuddled (which was okay with me!) all day. Although, much of the day, that didn't even work. He slept a TON! I shouldn't be complaining about that, but I was a little concerned because he never sleeps like he did today. It seemed that when he woke up, he was immediately fussy again. :( He did take a 3 1/2 hour nap in his crib today...that is unheard of! He has never in his life done that. If it's light out, he will sleep for about an 1 1/2 hours if we're lucky, but usually only an hour at a time. He never had a fever today, but he is not eating well. He hasn't been eating well for the last couple of days...especially in the mornings. I don't really know what's wrong with him, but he's in bed sleeping now. He's been sleeping great these last few nights, so that's good! I know he's a bit young, but he has been drooling like crazy and gnawing on anything he has near him. Could he be teething already???? I can't come up with any other reason why he would be acting like this. I don't know, I just hope he's better tomorrow. I'm going to bed now!

Finally, we're moved in

Sorry, no pictures...I packed my camera in something that hasn't been unpacked so I haven't taken any pictures since we moved in.

It has been a stressful and tiring last 4 days, but we're happy to be in our new, much bigger place! We really like it and are loving the location. Our neighbors are really nice too, which is good. We are looking forward to getting everything unpacked and settled in, but are pretty settled for it only being our second day in the house. We kind of unpacked things as they were brought in. We still have to do some major cleaning at the apartment sometime in the next couple of weeks, and we have a few small items still there, but for the most part, it's empty.

Hopefully I'll find my camera soon and get some pictures posted!

Moving!

Well, today we get our new place! We are SO excited, but also dreading the moving that will be taking place in the next couple of days! We will be officially in our new place on Saturday. I am sure we will have some small things at the apartment to finish up such as cleaning, but everything (we hope) will be moved by Saturday!

We are SO blessed to have such wonderful family and friends that will be helping us. From watching Tate, to helping us move, it seems like everyone within in a reasonable distance has offered their services in some way.

Thank you to Brenda and Chris for watching Tate on Friday and Saturday, to Melissa and Landon for watching him today, to Jeremie for coming down on your free Saturday to help us move and to Sara for giving up your husband and "family time" to let him...I know he's a busy man all the time and I feel bad taking him away from you guys on Saturday! Also, THANK YOU to Pat and Linda for coming down to help us move our stuff. You guys are all always so willing to help whenever we need anything, you always offer your services without hesitation and your generosity is SO APPRECIATED!

So, tonight we are going to go over to the new place and refresh our memory on what it looks like. :) We have only been in it one time! Then tomorrow we will be moving everything we can that will fit in our car. We'll pretty much be making trips back and forth all day long. Then, on Saturday, we've rented a UHAUL to move all of the big stuff. Then on Sunday, we will be spending the day unpacking and getting things settled. It will be a relief when this weekend is over, that's for sure! Hopefully the weather cooperates with us and it's not too miserable cold out!

Smiles

In the midst of Tate's fussiness, somehow I managed to capture some pretty adorable photos. Don't be fooled by these smiles...between almost every shot, he was on the verge of tears. I had to act like a silly fool to get these smiles out of him! :)

Fever

Tate could not shake his fever all day. It was not bad at all, but he definitely wasn't himself. At one point in the day, the only place that he seemed comfortable and wasn't fussy was on his changing table pad. He looked so pathetic. He wanted to cuddle with his brown puppy and blanky all day. :( It took about 2 minutes for him to fall asleep after I laid him on the changing table. Of course, I couldn't leave him there, so I put him in his crib and he woke up about 20 minutes later. This was a common theme all day...many short naps. Hopefully he'll feel better tomorrow.

Our Johnny Jump Up

I decided to break the "Johnny Jump Up" out of the box and assemble it today. Tate was kicking his legs and smiling away, so I thought he would maybe have fun in it. He did like it, but is still not so sure what the point of it is. He moved around in it quite a bit, but didn't do any bouncing. He lasted quite a while in it before he hit a wall and started to get fussy. This fussiness was pretty consistent all day long. He's been feverish due to his shots yesterday and has slept a lot. He's been awfully cuddly and definitely hasn't been his cheery self. Poor baby!

4 Month Appointment

Tate had his 4 month check up today. He got 3 vaccines from shots and one orally. He did as good as can be expected with the shots. :( Poor thing! With the oral vaccine, the nurse said he did better than any other baby she's given it to. He sucked it down like it was his lunch. Apparently, babies usually spit it out I guess.

Anyway, he is in the 60th percentile for weight at 16 lbs. even. His length and head were both in the 90th percentile! His head was about 18 inches! His length was 27 inches. Our doctor said that his head was almost off the charts! Ha. Well, he has to have a big head to hold that big brain of his, right?!

He is sound asleep now and I hope he stays that way for a while so that he doesn't have to feel his sore legs. :( He did really well, but it breaks my heart to have him looking right at me smiling as they stick him in the legs. His tears were flowing almost immediately. As soon as I picked him up, though, he stopped crying, so I would say he did just fine.

"The purpose of Christianity is not to avoid difficulty, but to produce a character adequate to meet it when it comes. It does not make life easy; rather it tries to make us great enough for life." -- James L. Christensen

Family Photo Session

Tate was so smiley and happy tonight before he went to bed. We decided to have a family photo session!

It still amazes me how much I can love this little person. I love him so much that it almost feels like it hurts sometimes when I look at him. And I feel like I love him more and more everyday! When each day ends, I go to bed thinking, "I couldn't possibly love him more than I do." Then I wake up the next morning and love him more! He has shown me how to love in a way I never knew possible and he's also made me fall more in love with Sean than I ever knew possible! We are SO VERY BLESSED! And seriously...he has to be the most adorable thing I have ever laid eyes on! :)

Tate, Evan and Sawyer

Tate got to meet the Mann twins tonight and Sean and I got to see them for the first time in months! They are growing sooo much and are so sweet and adorable! These are some cute pictures of our gathering.

Rolling Over

Tate rolled over on December 22nd and hasn'd done it since. He rolled over from his stomach to his back that day and we think it was just a fluke. We think the momentum of his big head just swung him around. I just went into his room because I heard him chattering in there and we was on his stomach! He wasn't too happy to be on his stomach and he couldnt seem to get back to his back. Our baby can roll over!!!

Poop

Okay, before Tate, I never would have dreamed of ever a way that poop could end up on my face. AND, if it did, I don't know how I couldn't have gotten sick at the sight. I had poop on my face today...I SERIOUSLY don't know how it got there, but it was there for hours, it had to be. Tate had a poopy diaper at 3ish and I just went into the bathroom and was like, "is that mustard on my face?" I looked closer and realized I haven't eaten mustard for weeks...yup, it was poop. I always wash my hands after changing a poopy diaper and I can't believe that I touched my face before washing my hands, but I must have. And might I add that the poop was dangerously close to my mouth. To make the story even more odd...it didn't even gross me out that bad. I was a little shocked, but at no point did I gag or anything. In fact, I just laughed. Wow, motherhood has changed me!

It's a Miracle!

Tate has been taking a nap now for over and hour and a half. This is unheard of! He NEVER sleeps during the day more than a half hour or so. I was just so excited! Hopefully this will continue and become a regular occurance!