The Tater Bug

Our little guy Tate is becoming quite the big boy!! The good news is he is now officially potty trained which is quite the feat considering his favorite phrase as of late when asked to do anything has been, "I can't" said in the most whiny voice possible.:)  The bad news is for some reason now Tate wants to color every surface but paper, i.e. our rock on our fireplafe, our walls, the stucco on our house outside, for a kid who doesn't give us too much trouble this has been such a frustrating thing! No matter what we do to punish him he doesn't seem to get how naughty his "artistic freedom" is.
On a more positive note he is quite the character and continues to amaze me how quickly he picks up on songs and loves to sing. He will be playing with his cars singing songs that we just barely heard in the car or on the T.V. and he knows them pretty well for just having heard them! He is also constantly saying funny things like today:
Coming out of his room with a small suitcase,
Tate: "Bye Mom, I'm going to work."
Me: "Where do you work?"
Tate: "In St. George." (He says matter of factly)
Me: "What do you do at work?"
Tate: "Eat candy!"
Nice to know he has got it all figured out! Love this little man!

Abby's imaginary friend

I think it started at the beginning of this summer (2010) when Abby started talking about her friend "Jenny." I just assumed it was a friend she knew through Primary, but then as I started asking questions about Jenny I soon realized that Jenny was Abby's imaginary friend. When I or anyone else asks the following questions about Jenny, this is what I am told. Sometimes the details vary, but mostly they stay pretty much the same:

How old is Jenny?: "5"
Where does Jenny live?: "in town"
What color of hair does she have?: "purple and pink"
Does Jenny have a Mommy and a Daddy?: "no"
Does Jenny have any sisters or brothers?: "Yes, 11, one of her brother's name is "Thackerhea" and her sister is "Freakethera"
Does Jenny have any pets?: Yes, her dog's name is "Brucho" and her cat's name "Brenzelum."

Abby is always telling us about the adventures she has with "Jenny", she is always saying, "Mommy, the other day Jenny and I......." or when she is getting in trouble about something she did, she will sometimes say, "Well Jenny does that." The best is when she calls Jenny on her Cinderella phone and they set up playdates, and today she topped it all when she said, "Mommy, I just texted Jenny on my Cinderella phone." So apparently our daughter is quite creative and high tech! ;)

You can say that again!

So Abby has a new phrase that she continues to use over and over again, "You can say that again!" I have no idea where she heard this or picked up on it, but there have been a couple of really cute situations where she keeps using it.
Jake's mom was telling her how silly she was because she was playing with her and Abby was being funny and Jake's mom said, "Abby, you are so silly, your sense of humor is so funny", and Abby replied without missing a beat, "You can say that again!" We all laughed so hard because it fit the situation perfectly and it was hysterical. Then this morning she was helping me with Tate and I said to her, "Thanks Abby, your are such a good helper, you're the best!" and again she turned to me and said, "You can say that again!" What a cutie she is, she is getting so big and starting to look like a "big girl". She is growing like a weed, in fact now that it's really starting to warm up we pulled out all of the shorts and sundresses that I had put away for this summer that I bought last year for her to wear this summer and a lot of the stuff is too short! She has hit a big growth spurt and is getting so long and I had kind of noticed, but it didn't really hit home until shoes and clothes started not fitting.
We also had her dance recital last week that I will post pics and video from, but before it I was going through tapes for our camcorder and trying to find one that had some space on it and I got caught up watching footage of her when she was a baby, her first birthday, Christmas, etc. and she just looked so little, even in last year's Christmas footage she looked so little so it's crazy how time really has flown by. We love our Abby girl she is such a character!!

Peek-a-boo

I apologize for the bad lighting, and the semi-messy kitchen (I swear my garbage isn't always that full) but I wanted to share this video. Tate has discovered he loves to squeal especially when we play peek-a-boo with him. I also want to document his first words were "da, da" and "ma, ma"which is normal, but he also says "bee" for our dog Bree, and "up", "yeah", and said a mumbled version of "book" a few times. He is really starting to jabber and his personality shines through more and more each day.

Tate is One!

I can't believe that our Tate is now 1-year-old!! He is such a cute and smiley boy and makes everyone happy when he is around them. He honestly has been such an easy and mellow kid up to this point and I hope he turns out to be a pretty easy toddler.....here's to hoping. :) We really enjoyed celebrating Tate's 1st birthday this month. On his actual birthday Jake was out of town so I made cinnamon rolls for his birthday treat, and then the Sunday following his birthday we had family over to have cake and ice cream. Our family was so generous and gave him some fun gifts and it was fun to celebrate with them. I wanted Tate's cake to be chocolate, but when I went to make it I didn't have any chocolate cake mixes left so we went with rainbow chip. Tate didn't really know what to think of it, but finally dug in. He is still as big as ever, and not really crawling or walking at this point. He is doing an army crawl and shuffle backwards thing, and I am sure he will be crawling like crazy in no time. At his 1 year checkup he was:

Height: 33 inches--90th percentile
Weight: 25.5 lbs.--95th percentile
Head circumference: 19 cm--99th percentile

We love you Tater-bug, here's to many more happy birthdays!!

enjoying the candle on his birthday cinnamon roll.

The birthday cake (thanks to Daddy it looked great!)

Tate trying to get Mommy with his messy hands


Mommy and Daddy with the birthday boy!

Abby's tonsilectomy and adenoidectomy

Abby has had enlarged tonsils since she was about 2 years old. Any time she would go in to see the doctor they would look in her throat and say, "Her tonsils are pretty big!" So after watching them for over a year, having her get sick multiple times, and continue to have problems with sleeping and eating we decided it was time to get them taken out. So on March 18th we went in to get them taken out. I will be honest I was pretty nervous because I knew the rehab could be rough and let's face it, Abby can sometimes be a whiny child so to add to that could pretty much put me over the edge. But more importantly this would be the first time Abby would be put out completely with anesthesia, and that is always scary to me. We talked a lot with Abby before hand about what to expect so it would hopefully go smooth. We told her how she would get to wear a "cool mask" and a "fun nightgown" and then afterward she would get to eat lots of popsicles.

Jake gave her a blessing the night before we went into the surgical center bright and early at 7:00 in the morning. Well when we got there she was fine until they brought us back to change her clothes. We got her changed and she started telling me that she didn't want to lay down and she didn't want the mask. I tried to cheer her up about it and when it came time to take her back I felt bad because the nurse took her hand and they went through the doors and after the doors shut I could hear Abby start crying and saying "I want my Mommy!" which broke my heart. So I went to the waiting room and after about 45 minutes the doctor came and spoke with me and told me she had trouble going down with the anesthesia because she didn't want to wear the mask, but everything else went great.

They took me back to see her in the recovery area when she was coming out of the anesthesia, and as I was walking up to where she was laying I could hear her whimpering to the nurse and saying, "I want my Mommy." Luckily this time I could see her and when she saw me she started crying more, which I guess is to be expected. She was still pretty groggy from the anesthesia so I just layed with her on her bed and told her stories to keep her mind off the IV in her hand, which was bugging her quite a bit. She was so sweet and she told me, "Mommy, I didn't like the mask" which made me laugh. We were only at the surgical center for about an hour after her surgery and then headed home. The first day she was home was actually not bad at all, she just layed on the couch and watched movies and started to perk up a little that night. All she wanted were popsicles, cheetos and a little bit of pudding, so that's what we gave her. She was up a lot that first night, and had a rough second day and threw up a couple of times, but the worst has been the nights. It may be because the wounds are scabbing or for some reason I think she panics when she can't swallow or something but she would wake up crying and sometimes screaming. One night it was so bad she didn't sleep more than like 3 hours the whole night, but last night went really well and today she woke up almost back to her old self, although she has a little bit of a higher voice now, which is pretty cute, but we don't know if that will last.

Today we went to see the doctor for Abby's postop appointment and on our way there Abby was telling me how she wanted to push the button on the "elligator" (which she loves to do of course) and I corrected her and said, "No honey it's called an elevator, with a "V". Abby then replied, "No Mommy, it's like alligator, but it's an elligator". I laughed so hard, that girl seriously cracks me up! What an experience this was!!

Here she is kind of dopey on her pain medicine chompin on cheetos......hey, whatever keeps her happy!