Tate at 18 months

Hi everyone. Thought I'd say a few things about Mister Tater at 18 months, but I guess he is almost 19 months! Well, as cute as he is, I think the terrible twos are starting a little early. He is a little moody and gives lots of people dirty looks--he seriously scowls!!! It is a cute face but no way to treat the people who are smiling and talking to him! Silly goose!

Gma Debbie and Uncle Cole came for a visit, and Tate had a great time! He loves them both, and he even knows how to say "cul Cole," meaning "Uncle Cole." Those are the first two words he has tried to put together! Go Tater!! Last night was the funniest, Cole was laying on his stomach in the living room and Kade, Tylar, and Tate were basically playing dog pile on him. Too cute!

Tate is definitely having a hard time learning to share. He gets very frustrated when his cousin Mason, or even his favorite person, Tylar, tries to play with the same toy he has, and he often takes toys away from Mason!! Last night Tate was crying just because Mason was standing next to him in the bathroom as I filled the tub up for his bath! And poor Mason, he is just a sweetie and trying to play where everyone else is! Little does Tate know that he is picking on his future best friend!! And Mason is getting big--if Tate doesn't watch it, Tate might be getting tossed around by the little fella!! :)

Tate has a book by Sandra Boynton that goes something like this: "Red hat, green hat, yellow hat, oops!" Basically it shows 3 animals each wearing a different colored hat, and the last animal is a turkey wearing the hat wrong. So it says "oops" under the turkey. Well, Tate has been read this book so many times that he knows where to say "oops"! It was hilarious when he started doing that!

He also likes a cartoon character called Caillou. Caillou is on IPTV, for those of you who have cable and are not limited to public broadcasting! He loves to sing Caillou's name and dance during the song at the beginning of the program. Too cute!

Tate is really starting to talk--his list of words is getting longer and longer. Also, it is unreal to me when I ask him where something is ("where's the elephant?") and he points to it. So cool!! Most recently he has been interested in umbrellas. I would love to hear him say that!

Today something funny happened--I was cooking dinner in the kitchen (there's a first time for everything, people) and Tate was standing by the tv watching Baby Einstein. I heard a knock at the front door and knew that Cael was home. Apparently, though, it scared Tate! He took one look at the window, saw someone standing there, and started bawling and running into the kitchen. He obviously didn't recognize it was Cael, and while we comforted the scared little pumpkin, we were giggling about it. :)

Well, come September 3rd, Tater will be 19 months! Time to get him into the photo studio and pray he will smile a little for the photogs!!

Back from San Antonio

Howdy y'all! We are back from our trip to San Antonio! We had a really good time visiting Anner, Tyler, and Izzy, and of course, their "cat" Louie. They have a great, spacious house and the Tater tot was running all over the place.

Cael, Bob and Tyler played a lot of golf--one day they played 36 holes! In the incredible heat and humidity! Unreal. But I think they enjoyed themselves, so that was great. After their day of 36 holes, Mom and Bob were kind enough to watch the kiddos so Cael, Ann, Tyler and I could all go do something without them. We wandered down to the riverwalk, which is just so awesome! Basically there is a small-ish river running through an area that is lined with hotels, businesses, and restaurants on either side. It is so neat. We stopped at Rita's and had some Mexican food right next to the river. It was great! We also got to see the outside of the Alamo, which was also great--so much smaller than you would imagine!

We went to Sea World one evening and saw Shamu the killer whale do all sorts of incredible things. Most impressive was the performance Shamu and a trainer did together--the trainer was literally standing on the tip of Shamu's nose, holding onto her fins, and hanging onto Shamu while she jumped almost completely out of the water. Pretty sweet. We also stood next to a tank with dolphins who swam inches away from our hands and caught the end of a show with seals and a walrus. Shamu was far and away the coolest!!

We had a great time! Loved seeing my sister and her family. We flew into Omaha on our way home, so we decided to stay overnight and go to the zoo the next day. Well worth it!! Besides being inexpensive, there were so many great animals and exhibits. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!! Cael and I both loved the gorillas. So huge and impressive! I personally think they are so human-like it is eerie. There was a really fun exhibit, Kingdoms of the Night, that was underground and featured tons of nocturnal animals in very dim lighting. Tate didn't really display too much excitement until we got to the aquarium. Then he was just fascinated with all the fish and did not want to leave. Next time, I think we can skip the whole zoo and just let him check out the "ish". Or maybe we can just go to the local pet store. ;)

The only downfall of our whole trip was that Tater started getting sick on the plane ride out to San Antonio, and kind of battled a bug the whole time we were there. He ended up having pink eye, and today his doctor confirmed that he has a double ear infection. Poor buddy!! He sure did well during the trip, considering he must have been feeling pretty icky. Little angel!!

Anyway, we are home for a little while. Cael is planning to do his annual fishing trip, I think at the Boundary Waters in northern Minnesota, during the last week of August. I believe I will get to go with him and Tate will be getting spoiled by Gma and Gpa Hranac. Talk to you later!