Zach's 8th Birthday

Zach had a full week of birthday celebrations this year. We started off with a little family party the Sunday before his birthday. We had Nana, Papa, Ashton, Branson, Aunt Kylie, Uncle Jedd, and Libby all here to celebrate. We had dinner, opened presents, and had cake and ice cream. It was the perfect kick-off to a fun week. I didn't get any pictures because things were just crazy, but here are the fun presents he got:

Nana and Papa - Scout shirt, sports trading cards
Kylie, Jedd, and Libby - Scout belt, scout pencils
Ashy and Brans (and Aunt Shell and Uncle Brian) - sports trading card set

On Friday, Zach's actual birthday, we started out the day with a special birthday breakfast. Yes, those are blue crepes you see! We seem to have started this tradition of a special colored breakfast for the birthday person. This year Zach wanted blue crepes, so blue crepes he got.


And what would breakfast be without an "AAAARRRR PIRATES?!?"


Yes, he was pretty excited to have such a special breakfast before school!


Tate wasn't sure what to make of all the craziness that morning. He sat in his highchair for a bit just looking at his silly brother and sister. Of course, he seemed just fine with everything once I started giving him little baby bites of crepes. Yes, I think he's found a new favorite breakfast!


After breakfast and getting everything set, we sent Zach off for a fun day at school where he said they had a little party for him and he got balloons (which were apparently so much better than the ones I had hung for him at home - go figure!). Later that afternoon, Nana and Papa came back down to have dinner, cake and ice cream, and open presents again. This time I was able to get quite a few pictures:

For Christmas, Jeremiah did a fun little scavenger hunt for me and ever since then, Zach has been telling me he wanted a treasure hunt for his birthday. So I decided to put one together for him and make all his gifts from us as the treasure. He started out with one clue and then once he figured out the place he was supposed to go, off he went giggling in search of the next one.


He didn't quite get it, but every clue I came up with rhymed. I still can't figure out why I spent so much time getting the clues and rhymes just right - he was just excited to run around finding clues.


Once the "treasure" was found, it was time to open them up.

* Nana and Papa gave him a scout book
* Uncle Bubby and Aunt Afton sent him some monster trucks and some basketball shorts
* Hailey gave him a Buzz Lightyear Operation Game (I'm not sure who was more excited to play it, her or him)
* Tate gave him a whole bunch of sports trading cards
* Jeremiah and I gave him a mp3 player/microphone, Trios, and a tie





Tate spent most of the present opening time with Nana and Papa because that wrapping paper was just too tempting and he kept putting it in his mouth.


Once we finished opening presents and had everything cleaned up, he wanted back on the floor, so that's where he went and proceeded to roll ALL OVER THE PLACE!


A little bit later, it was time for cake and ice cream. This year Zach just wanted a simple cake with blue frosting and red sprinkles (what a relief, I'm definitely not a fancy cake decorator!).


After lighting the candles, singing Happy Birthday to you, it was time to blow them out. Zach can not seem to do that without smiling!


For his birthday, Zach decided he wanted to have potatoes and gravy for dinner, so instead of going out to eat, we just had dinner at home where we could make it just the way he liked it. Jeremiah of course had to do something wacky, so he put green food coloring in the mashed potatoes. I meant to get a picture, but they were gobbled up before I even had a chance!

He also decided he wanted to go to the Nickelcade again (the same as last year). Instead of trying to go on Friday night, we decided to go on Saturday afternoon in between Tate's naps so that we all could go and have fun. It was really loud, but Tate didn't seem to mind. He loved riding the little merry-go round, ...


... the truck with his brother, ...


... and numerous other driving games with his dad.


The kids just love to do the driving games. It's so fun to see the two of them sitting there playing. Hailey was hilarious though, she spent more time watching Zach, Tate, or anything else than she did to watching what she was doing. Ironically, she took 1st place more times than Zach did, go figure.


One of their favorite games to play is skeeball. They probably got this from me, becuase it's one of my absolute favorite games as well. I was really impressed with how well Zach did - he got the ball in so many high point areas, he's really got good control with rolling it up the ramp. He definitely takes his time and makes sure he's good and set before letting the ball go. Hailey on the other hand, is much more spuratic. In fact, I don't think she was even looking half the time before she threw the ball. Notice I said "threw" not "rolled" - she hit the outside cage more times than not. Another few trips there and we'll probably owe them a brand new skeeball machine!


Another favorite is the air hockey game. The kids loved playing this. Zach won by quite a margin, but that's only because accidentally hit the puck into her own goal a couple of times. But regardless of the score, they had a blast!


After finishing up at the Nickelcade an hour and a half later (that felt more like 10 hours later), we drove down to the Krispy Creme Donuts to watch donuts being made and get a little treat.

And thus ended another birthday for our big boy. He kept telling us how much fun he had and how he can't wait until his birthday next year.

I can't believe he's 8 already - where did all that time go? Next up for him is his baptism next month. He's so excited and can hardly wait!

Tate Is Nine Months Old!

Yes, that's right, I said nine months. Where on earth did all that time go? Our little baby has really grown up, in fact, he's not so little anymore. Just ask the doctor, here were his stats at his nine month appointment:

Length: 29 1/2 inches (~90th percentile)
Weight: 24 lbs, 9 ounces (~95th percentile)
(Yes, I have to lug around a 25 pound little bundle of chub everywhere I go!)

I knew he would be big and I was right, just about 25 pounds. I wish I could say it was beefing up my muscles, but all it's seemed to do is make my arms really, really tired all the time. Good thing I love that little monkey!

Here are a couple of fun new things that Tate is doing or about him at nine months:

- He now has 3 teeth, two on the bottom and one on the top. He's the cutest when he smiles and you see these tiny little teeth popping up from his bottom gums. Getting them in wasn't the most fun, they all 3 popped through in about the space of 2-3 days. Luckily other than being a bit cranky, we didn't have too much of a hard time, although I'm sure it wasn't very much fun for Tate. Now that he's got some teeth, we are on to the fun part of eating, namely teething biscuits. Both Zach and Hailey loved these and it seems Tate is not exception. He loves to eat them, smear the goo all over everything, and make a tremendous mess!



- Tate absolutely loves being in his megasaucer. He will jump up and down and spin around in that thing for quite a while, which is nice if I need to get something done and need to have him stay in one place. He also loves this little singing monkey toy Hailey gave him for Christmas (I love that smile!).



- He discovered his tongue quite a bit ago, but he's just recently figured out he can twist it around in his month. It's darling to watch because he always has the funniest expressions on his face.



- He is really mobile now. Even though he doesn't crawl, he's figured out how to get himself around by using his feet to turn his body and rolling to get where he wants to go. He spends a lot of time on his belly and sometimes wiggles himself backwards, so we're probably on the verge of crawling.



- I quite often will lay him down in the center of the floor and will look back maybe 2 to 3 seconds later and he will be all the way across the room. His favorite thing to do is get himself situated near a wall where he can kick it. He will usually lay there and kick the wall forever!



- He is finally done with his acid reflux! Something I am so grateful for since it seemed he was going to be spitting up into his 30's! Now that he's off his medication and not spitting anymore, it's been so much less stressful even doing some of the ordinary things in life!

- He loves to eat big people food. In fact, the doctor said that he's now able to have some table food as long as it's small and soft. This means more potatoes and gravy, ice cream, and his recently discovered love: crepes!

We certainly are having fun with him and seeing him do all these new and exciting things. He is such a joy to our entire family, we are just loving everything about him!