Tate: 8 Months

Tate is 8 months old today! Here's his 8 month update...

EATING:

He nurses at 6:30 am, 11:30 am, 4:00 pm, and 8 pm. He also does three "solid" meals with us (generally at 7 am, noon, and 6 pm). For his meals he usually eats baby food with little bits of table food: smashed bananas, watermelon, strawberries, bread, scrambled eggs (his favorite!), avocado, pasta, homemade soups, etc. He also LOVES water. He goes nuts whenever he sees any of us drinking water, begging for a sip from our cup. He drinks little bits of water from his sippy cup, too. He still spits up all day. We're hoping he grows out of it soon - this was about the time that Bryn stopped doing it.

 SLEEPING:

He sleeps from 8 pm to 6:30 am, then takes two naps each day. He generally naps from 8:30-10:00 am and then from 2:00- 4:00 pm. His naps somewhat flexible as we have to run errands and be out and about with friends. We don't swaddle him any more. We just stick him in his crib with his blankie and his pacifier and he falls asleep on his own.

 Tate got 3 new teeth this month, so now he has three teeth on bottom, 2 teeth on top. He had some rough days when the teeth broke through, only napping for 45 minutes max and waking up at 5:45 instead of 6:30 am. I think he might actually have one more tooth about to break through on the bottom, but we'll see! He loves to chew on everything! He puts everything in his mouth, so we've had to baby proof a lot this month. No more barbie shoes on the floor :)

He loves to sit up and play toys. He loves to shimmy around the room and roll from place to place. He gets up on his knees all day, but isn't doing a regular crawl yet. He just rocks back and forth and then does a little army crawl to get around. He also loves to stand up with help. He's super wiggly and he bounces his knees everytime you stand him up. Tate still likes playing in the exersaucer and bounces like crazy in that thing, too. He's definitely more physical and active than Mya was. He reminds us of how Bryn was at this age.

 Tate likes reading books together and giving us cuddles. He loves pulling hair and poking and squeezing our faces. He is getting more and more talkative and loves to babble and squeal. He is a really smiley, happy little guy and we sure love him!

Bryn, Mya, and Tate at 8 months old

The Great Swamp

For Family Home Evening on Monday we went to the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge. It's only about 15-20 minutes away, but we hadn't been there before. We went with our friends the Thomas family, who have been to the Great Swamp many times before. Josh has been travelling so much lately, so it was a rare moment together as a family and we loved it!

Usually Mya is extremely quiet and cautious, but for whatever reason she was feeling brave on Monday and was tagging along with all the other kids. It made me so happy!

Eliza was trying to get a closer look at a snapping turtle by being lowered down to the water. She was lowered down several times and it was cracking me up!

 Of course, little daredevil Bryn wanted to follow Eliza's example and she was begging to be lowered down. She was so bummed that she wasn't long enough to reach the water. 

Lest you think we are horrible parents, we never would have actually touch a snapping turtle! We knew she wouldn't be able to reach it! :)

These two!!!! 

We had such a fun night. I'm grateful to live in such a beautiful area and for the great friends we've made in New Jersey. 

Mya Turns Three!

Our sweet Mya turned three years old on June 26th. She is the kindest, sweetest little girl and we love her so much. She gives the best hugs, loves to snuggle up and read, can draw for hours, has the best laugh, and gets surprisingly loud and sassy when she belts out pop songs or Disney love songs. 

 She wanted a "bright pink cake with bright purple frosting". Cakes are really not my thing, and all that bright purple food coloring gave the frosting a really strong taste. Oops. We kept this cake for Mya, but I ended up making a basic chocolate sheet cake as a back-up since cake #1 was kind of a flop!

 Mya is super into princesses and barbies lately, so this was the dream gift for her. 

(I scored this set for half off at Target a few months ago and have been giddy for Mya to finally get it! Her reaction was kind of anti-climatic, but she has played with these barbies nonstop since her birthday. Success!)

 Jake and Tyra's family joined us for dinner and cake and ice cream. Mya loves her cousins!

Our ward was having a movie night that night, so we ended Mya's birthday with the outdoor movie. It was a great day celebrating our favorite three year old!

June

 Below is the recap on our happenings in June. But first, let's look at how cute Tate looks chilling on that little lawn chair!

Tate's new trick with his pacifier. He thinks it's pretty funny.

 We went on a nature walk, gathered rocks, and then painted them (after getting the idea from cousin Braden).

 My little babe is growing up quick, so I'll take all the cuddles I can get!

 Two sleeping beauties. The second picture is when the two sleeping beauties pricked their fingers on the spinning wheel, of course.

 Our yard is full of so many random fairy houses.

Crazy times. The picture on the right is Bryn or Mya (I can't remember which) and Tate both in that tunnel thing. Poor Tate is bombarded with "love" and he just goes with it.

 Cutie girl proud of her duplo creations

Playdates with the sweet Ure girls

 I love this picture so much because it reminds me of a super fun date that Josh planned for us. We went to the roller skating rink (hilarious and fun) and then we tried out a delicious new-to-us Vietnamese restaurant in Florham Park.

These two are such good buddies. 

 And these two are great buddies, as well. They have played so well these first few weeks of summer. It does my heart good to see them giggling and running around together.

Oh, Tate.

 We've been going to the park about every day, sometimes with cute friends.

Every time Tate is teething he makes this expression with his mouth. He got three new teeth the last week of June, so we saw that expression nonstop. On the right, he is squirrely and cute all the time, but especially after his baths!

 I was gone from the room for a few minutes and in that short time Bryn had gotten out the craft box, made these antennae, and made Tate into "her very own Love Bug".

Two of Mya's favorite things lately are "princess hair" and doing dance moves in front of the mirror.

 The girls love spying on all the deer and bunnies that live in our neighborhood.

One of Bryn and Mya's favorite games is to put tons of buckets and bowls at the bottom of the stairs and then bounce balls down the stairs into the buckets. Random game, but it keeps the girls (and Tate!) entertained. They've also playing marble tracks lately.

 I love our library so much. They had a "Stuffed Animal Sleepover" last week and the girls were so, so giddy about it. Their stuffed animals got to spend the night at the library, then we picked them up the next morning. The librarians were so cute and took photos of the stuffed animals "eating cookies", "doing puzzles" together, and "reading books" in different spots throughout the library. The girls thought it was so fun. 

(At the last minute, Mya got too protective of her stuffed animals to leave any of them at the library, so she took one of Tate's baby toys instead. Ha ha!)

And one last photo of Tate and his chubby little legs doing standing practice.

CFA

The first Saturday was a big day for Josh: he finally took level III of the CFA exam! He'd been studying this test since January, studying on his long train commute every day, during his lunch break, most evenings at the library, and all day Saturdays at the library. It was a long few months! He won't find out til August whether he passed or not, but we are just relieved to have it behind him and to have our husband/father back!

The girls had fun making him a little sign.

The exam is 6 hours, so he was gone most of the day, but when he got home we celebrated by ordering pizza and spending the evening at the park. So so so fun to have Josh back!

Goodbye Kindergarten

Bryn finished kindergarten two weeks ago. The year really flew by and I can't believe she will be in full-day school this fall. There were some fun end-of-year activities during her last week of school...

Field Day! Bryn was so excited for field day that she ran around our yard all morning, "practicing for field day". (I remember thinking field day was the very best day of school when I was a child!)

Bryn's class had a darling choir performance and a "writer's conference" where Bryn presented a book that she had written and illustrated this year. Every child wrote about a favorite lift event. Some children wrote about going to Disneyland, going to a Yankees game, and so on, but Bryn wrote about "The Lost Pigeon": a story about Bryn and her grandpa rescuing a pigeon that escaped from the pigeon coop last summer. It was so funny to me. :)

   School Carnival

 Tate!

 The girls got tired on waiting in lines for the carnival rides, so they finally decided to just head to the regular playground.

 My little poser on her last day of school.