Spring Has Sprung!

And boy are we thankful! We are loving this warm weather. We spent the first weekend of spring in Franklin, TN. As you can see by the picture above, Tate drove us there. ;o) We were there to celebrate my mom's birthday. Below are a few pics from the trip.

Mom and Ray with Tate

Tate is wearing his Tennessee t-shirt in honor of Bebe's birthday.

Tate and Toby ready to head home.

We left a little early that Sunday so we could miss some of the Spring Break traffic on the roads. This gave us some time to goof around that afternoon. David and Tate decided to head out to the backyard to enjoy the weather and when I went to join them, this is what I found...

I thought that was a pretty hilarious sight so of course I had to grab the camera to catch the moment. And, as usual, it lead into a mini photo session...

6 Months

Half a year already...amazing. I realize it won't be long until he will be 6 years instead of 6 months. I try to savor each day, but they go so fast!

For those of you who are interested, here are his stats:

• Length - 27" (75%)
• Weight - 16 lbs, 1 oz. (25%)
• Head circumference - 17.5" (75% uh-oh)

25% for weight sounds so scrawney, but that's a normal percentile for breastfed babies. These numbers come from formula fed babies so they always make Tate seem skinny. He may not be a chunck, but he's not scrawny either! Here's a picture we took of him on a warm day where he went without his pants. I couldn't resist the urge to set those cute little legs free so I could enjoy them!

A shout out to Aunt Lindsey for providing the "mommy's new man" onesie. :)

Look at the face on this kid. Does he know how to give a mean face or what? Is this an indication of what is to come? I refer to this picture as "tough guy."

Shawn, Carolyn and Finley returned from China two weeks ago for good (at least we hope so)! We are so happy to have them back in town. We missed them dearly and look forward to Tate and Finley spending some more time together. Here is a shot of them reconnecting after more than 3 months apart. Most of the time, babies scare Tate, but when he's around Finley, he always reaches out for her.

This picture I've been meaning to take for several months now. Tate is wearing the outfit he was dedicated in when he was two weeks old. Yes, it's a 0-3 month size and he barely fits into it. I'm glad he still could because I wanted to get a picture of him next to the pillow that my mom had made for him. I thought it turned out to be a good picture!

And here is one last picture of Tate in his new Converse kicks. He has another pair that are brown but are a little too big. This kid is 6 months old and has more converse than I do.

Tater was a rollin' stone...

Two weeks ago today, on February 27th, Tate learned the art of rolling over from his back to his tummy. Unfortunately, David and I did not get to witness this milestone. You see, we had put Tate in his bed for the night when we heard a frantic cry coming from the monitor. We both went up to see what was wrong. Lo and behold, there he was on his tummy looking up at us like "help me!" We turned him over and went back downstairs only to hear the same frantic cry a few minutes later. We took turns turning him over until he finally fell asleep.

The next day I broke out the sleep positioner. I hated to use it because I wanted to encourage his new activity, but I also wanted to encourage sleep! It worked for maybe 24 hours and then he was back to his old tricks of escaping the positioner and rolling to his tummy. So we returned to the old ways of turning him over, over and over again, until he fell asleep. Until one day I peeked in on him, and he was sleeping on his tummy! He has not mastered rolling from his tummy to his back so from now on, he is a tummy sleeper. (David and I are both stomach sleepers so we welcomed him to the club.) He has accepted this and falls asleep after protesting for just a minute or two.

Now, Tate cannot stay on his back. It's like he has this overwhelming feeling that he MUST turn over. Yet, he doesn't like being on his stomach so I'm not quite sure why he feels such a yearning. If you want to see his new trick, just put him on his back and immediately he will roll to his tummy. But since most of you cannot be here to see it, I took pictures of him in action and posted them below. Enjoy....

Tah-dah!

Snow Day

We woke up this morning to quite the snowstorm. As this is the first time it's snowed since Tate arrived so we had to get him out in it and play. (Never mind that Mandy and I would still play in it as we did before children). Here is Momma and Tate on the front porch right after we woke up.


Tate looks quite warm. He somewhat resembled the little brother from the movie "Christmas Story" when he couldn't move his arms or legs because he was so bundled up.

One thing we forgot...baby snow shoes. He does have on shoes, you just can't see them because they are buried in the snow.

Super-Tate...

We put him by the window as it was snowing hard and he seemed to be very entertained by the falling snow, just sitting quietly watching.

He even drove his little car (walker) back over to the window and watched it some more. This is also a great representation of his driving form. He goes all out no hands as they are straight out in the air as he scoots along.

On our way to church, we were attacked by an ambush of neighborhood kids armed with snowballs. Hmmm... maybe Mandy, Tate and I will have to do that next time.

Rockwood: The place to be in Tennessee (according the the sign on the highway)

Our latest adventure included a whirlwind trip to Rockwood, Tennessee. Rockwood is a small town in East Tennessee is where both of Mandy's parents grew up. Most of her Mom's side of the family still live there including her Grandmother. We got to eat lunch with most of her extended family and go visit her Grandmother. Below is Mandy's sweet Granny who now lives in a nursing home suffering from Alzheimer's. While she doesn't really recognize anyone anymore, she did mention Mandy and her mother and uncle at one time. This was the first time she got to meet here first great grandchild, Tate.

In other big news, Mandy's mom is engaged! We got to meet her fiance Ray in Rockwood while there. Both of them grew up in Rockwood and knew each other since they were kids. They both have lived in Nashville and reconnected last year and are now engaged. Congratulations Becky and Ray!