Superbaby

Tate will be 3 months old tomorrow. I know, I can't believe it either. According to the "experts," I should probably have started giving him tummy time around a month ago. I haven't though because, well, I just haven't. I can see that he's plenty strong, and it's much more fun for me to hold him and look at his face and talk to him when he's awake. I decided to put him down on his stomach for a couple minutes this morning though, and he proceeded to immediately turn himself over onto his back. I thought that it had to just be a fluke. After all, he hasn't even had any practice time on his belly. I put him back on his stomach and reminded him that he's already getting way too big way too fast, and he's not supposed to be rolling over for at least another month and darn it, he needs to slow down. He responded by immediately rolling over again. So, I got the camera, put him back on his stomach, and...

Getting Ready For Christmas - Advent 2011

This year, I haven't posted any of the things that we do during December to prepare for Christmas because I posted most of it last year. So, I'll direct you to those posts instead. We are on our third year of eating rice and beans for advent. It's just such a tangible way for our entire family to sacrifice something in order to have more to give. The kids are able to be involved and they really get what it is we're doing. They are again choosing items this year from the World Vision Christmas catalog that they want to give. They take this very seriously and put a lot of thought into exactly what they want to buy with the money we are saving by eating only rice and beans for dinner each night.

This is the advent wreath that Jay made for me last year.

We did our annual St. Nicholas Day festivities with friends, but, unfortunately, I don't have any pictures from it. As I've mentioned before, Santa is not a part of our Christmas celebration. Our kids know that St. Nicholas was a real person who loved Jesus and gave generously, but that Santa Claus is not. You can read more about it here, but basically, we do not want Christ to be replaced by the jolly man in red. We want Jesus to be the reason we celebrate and the reason our kids are excited at Christmas time - because of the ultimate gift of Jesus, not because Santa is going to show up and leave presents under the tree.

Some of the other things we do during advent to attempt to focus our attention on Christ are posted here.

And, here are just a few pictures of our tree decorating night from a couple of weeks ago...

For some reason, Jay has loved doing this little balancing act with each of our children as soon as they can start to hold their heads up on their own.

Jake decided to write a birthday card to Jesus to wish Him a happy 2011th birthday.

Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving in Tucson with Jay's family and had a fantastic time. It was great to spend time with his parents and to see some extended family that we haven't seen in several years. We had some concerns about the drive with Tate since it is more than a seven hour drive and he is sometimes not a huge fan of riding in the car (after all, that means that he has to be set down), but he ended up doing really well. Jake and Addi were great too and didn't complain at all even though we made the drive on Thursday and then had to turn around and come right back on Saturday. We weren't sure how it was going to go when we left our house on Thursday and had literally been in the car for 5 minutes when Addi asked if we were in Arizona yet. And she was dead serious.

I don't think that this picture is really from when we were in Arizona, but I just needed an excuse to throw it in.

The kids learned how to play battleship while we were there and it became a great source of entertainment.

I'm not sure where she gets these poses.

I was not a fan of the motorcycle ride around the block, but Jay convinced me that it was fine, and Jake was in heaven.

Nana's first time with Tate. I think she likes him!

Beyond Cute

Sorry if you're getting tired of pictures of Tate doing nothing, but, well, there's really nothing I can do about that. It doesn't get old for me, so you'll just have to bear with me...

Seriously, cutest baby ever...right?

In case you're worried that I've forgotten that I have two other children as well, never fear, I can assure you that they are being every bit as loved and cared for as ever. But, they are not smiling for the first time EVER in their lives, so they are not getting as much camera time these days. (Besides, this little guy doesn't give me any attitude yet, so that's another reason he gets more camera time. :)) Don't worry though, I've got end-of-season soccer pictures on their way for the other two...at some point.

Stomach Flu, Round 2

We went to Jake's end-of-season soccer party last night. (Side note: I really do not enjoy being team mom. I'm not a party planner and I don't like asking for money for coach's gifts, pizza, etc. I even fretted over how much pizza to order and what variety to order. I need to learn to say no! Maybe I'll figure that out next season, but I doubt it). We knew there might be a problem at the party when Jake did not finish even one piece of pizza. But, he kept playing with the other boys like he was fine. Then, cupcake time came around and Jake didn't want one. At that point, we knew we needed to get out of there. Fortunately (for Tate and me!), we had taken two cars to the party because Jay met us there after work. Jake, of course, wanted to ride home with Jay. When he got in the car, he told Jay that he wasn't feeling well, and Jay asked him repeatedly if he felt like he needed to throw up, but he kept saying no. Jay told him to be sure to tell him right away if he felt like he needed to, and he would pull the car over. Right as they were about to turn down the street to our house, Jake declared that he did need to throw up. As Jay attempted to pull over, Jake proceeded to throw up all over the car, and I do mean ALL OVER.

So now we're feeling great about the fact that we just exposed 8 other boys and their families to the stomach flu...some of whom are about to be traveling to visit family for Thanksgiving. I can be thankful for a couple of things though: 1) Jake lasted until we left the party. It was at our the coach's house and I don't even know what I would have done if he had thrown up all over their beautiful home and furniture. I honestly would have died. 2) Tate and I were in a separate car at the time of the projectile vomiting. 3) I got home about a half an hour after they did because I had to sit in the car and feed Tate before we left, so Jay had already gotten the worst of the car cleaned up by the time I got home. Poor Jay. Dealing with vomit is not his strong suit, but he handled it well.

This is what I saw when I pulled into the driveway. In spite of the fact that I felt really badly that Jay was having to clean everything up, it was a little funny to see him like this!

And here's what I saw when I came in the house. Poor little guy handled it so well though. He proceeded to throw up a few more times after that, but was so tough about it. He hardly complained at all. We've discovered that he's much tougher about the big things than the little things!

6 Weeks

I can't believe that Tate has hit the 6 week mark. I know that you always hear everybody say how fast things go, but it's so true. I can't believe how big he is already. My friend, Katie, just had her baby and we went over there to see him last night. The difference between her newborn (who was 10 pounds, by the way!) and Tate was huge. Tate looked like he was about twice the size already. I'm pretty sad about that, but very happy about this...

He has started giving us little smiles! I know the picture is fuzzy, but it's the only one that I've been able to catch of him smiling. I was horrible about writing anything down with Jake and Addi, so I don't remember when they started smiling. Hopefully I'll keep better track with Tate now that I'm recording things on the blog. I love that he's getting a little more responsive. He's also getting to where he's not quite so needy and will hang out in the swing or will just lay on his own for a while without constantly needing to be held. I'm waiting for that to kick in for naps. He still does not want to nap when I lay him down AT ALL. He can be sound asleep, but will wake up immediately when set down. He's doing better with it at night, so I'm waiting for it to happen during the day as well. So far, no luck there.

In other news, the stomach flu has made an appearance here. So far, Addi has been the lucky recipient and I'm waiting for it to make the rounds through everybody else. It made for a really fun night last night. I alternated between nursing tate, cleaning up puke, washing sheets, and comforting Addi. Not a lot of sleeping took place! It seemed that just as I would put Tate down after feeding him and have just fallen back to sleep, Addi would be crying and I'd have more to clean up. I'm just praying that Tate doesn't catch it. Here's what Addi looks like today...

And, just because it's funny, and a very typical "Addi look"...

Another General Update

It's really hard to believe that Tate is already over 5 weeks old. In the past, I never considered myself to be a "newborn baby person," but always said that I wished my babies came out already a few months old. This time though, I am already sad that the time is flying by so quickly. Granted, I'm not going to miss the around-the-clock nursing and the sleep deprivation and the trying to accomplish things in 3-minute segments of time because that is about as long as Tate wants to be set down. But, I am really going to miss this tiny little person who doesn't want much more in life than just to be snuggled up, asleep on his mama's chest. In fact, I am trying to write this post one-handed, as I am getting used to doing many things, because I have this little bundle snuggled up with me...and it's wonderful. I don't want to take any minute of this for granted or just be looking forward to the next stage - when he sleeps through the night, or when he starts smiling, or when he...fill in the blank. He is perfect right now.

Jay's birthday was a couple of weeks ago. He would prefer that it go by completely unacknowledged, but that certainly wouldn't go over well with the kids. Usually for birthdays, I make a special breakfast and set out the nice dishes on the dining room table and the birthday person gets to eat off of the red "You are Special Today" plate. My mornings right now are taken up with either nursing Tate or caring for him in some other way and Jay obviously didn't want me to set the alarm to get up early to go pick up balloons or set the table or make breakfast. When we came downstairs though, Jake had set the dining room table with the nice dishes and the red plate. I was so proud of him for doing it. The kids then proceeded to give Jay their gifts. I think that I've mentioned before that we don't buy a lot of gifts around here for birthdays, Christmas, etc. The kids have come to believe that it is perfectly normal to find things around the house of their own to wrap up and give to others. And so, for every special occasion, we end up with toys from the kids that we then end up loaning back to them for them to "borrow" once in a while. I think that Jay made out this year with a deck of cards and crayons and a coloring book from Addi, and a Star Wars puzzle from Jake, along with some homemade cards, of course. We were then big spenders that evening and took him out to enjoy Happy Hour at BJs with a couple of half-off mini pizzas.

We took the kids trick-or-treating on Halloween, and no, I did not dress Tate up in some sort of cute baby costume, much to my neighbor, Sarah's, chagrin. I hate pretty much everything about Halloween to begin with, and I'm certainly not going to go out and buy some silly costume that he would be miserable in anyway. Our kids don't ever get to pick out a new Halloween costume, but Jake always wears whatever costume our neighbors have handed down to him, and Addi always wears a dress that she has gotten as a gift at some point (either from my mom or our neighbor) that she plays dress-up in. They are completely happy with that and don't even know that most kids actually go out and pick out new costumes specifically for Halloween each year. They just assume that everybody wears some sort of dress-up item that they already have for whatever reason. So, this year, Jake was a skeleton, and Addi was Rapunzel. We went to a "Harvest Fest" at my parents church a couple of nights before Halloween, and for that Jake went as a pirate and Addi was a Renaissance princess (both costumes had been Christmas gifts from my parents last year), but I didn't get any pictures of that.

We also had another Nature Day with Mr. Mark. Among other things, he showed the kids how to make a fire using tools that he had made with materials from various plants. Jake was very into it, of course, and obsessed over trying to figure out how to use the tools. We then ate some delicious apples and bananas that we cooked simply by throwing them on the open fire.

So, there you have it, a few highlights of our past couple of weeks. My goal will be to post again in under two weeks!