Happy Birthay

Another (almost) week has come and gone.  We had a lot of good adventures together.  A few awesome events from this week are... Tate slept 8 hours straight in the night.  He started crying and Josh and I just immediately started getting his bottle ready and deciding who would pick him up.  Then I looked at the time, expecting it to be 2, 3, or 4 am and it was 6!  So we fed him and he went back to sleep.  It was great.  It hasn't happened again, but it was still great.  And Tate is getting a tooth!  It is a bitter sweet experience.  It's great he's moving up in life and getting some teeth, but it is a painful process.

Wednesday we had a stake leadership dinner.  It was just a get-to-know-you dinner.  But the Stake President, President Neiger asked everyone to email him an interesting fact about yourselves.  Josh and I had a really hard time coming up with something interesting about the both of us.  In the end, this was our fact: We like eating salsa plain and peanut butter plain and we both have a bowl of cereal before we go to bed.  At the dinner, President Neiger read an interesting fact and then called out three couples' names and had them stand up and everyone had to guess which couple they thought it was.  It was a fun game.  Except that everyone's interesting facts were actually interesting.  A few were "this person hunts sharks," or "this couple went hiking in Israel and excavated a painting that was later used in a museum," or "this person is a professional jump roper and his wife goes swimming during hurricanes." Seriously, those were the facts.  And ours was about what food we ate.  Luckily, we left before they read ours, because Tate's diaper leaked all over his clothes and we didn't have anything else for him to wear.  I'm hoping President Neiger saw us leave and decided to not read our not-so-interesting fact.

Thursday was my birthday.  And it was a great day.  My friend Stacy dropped off a little goodie box when she left for work (which is really early), so I saw it a few hours later when I was up.  It was so nice and full of things I love, like her homemade bread, fruit, and frosted flakes.  Does it get any better?

 The birthday sign on the front of the box said "Happy Birthay" so that was funny too.  Josh wasn't feeling well in the morning, so he went to work a few hours late, which was a great birthday surprise for me.  When Josh was about to leave he said, "wow, you and Tate play a lot."  That's about all we do...play.  Tate and I spent the day together when Josh was at work.  We went for a jog, that was a birthday present to myself from myself.  I love jogging in the fall.  Tate wasn't really excited to do it, but it worked out.  Tate and I went to my friend Brooke's house.  She has a 1 year old named Charlie.  Tate loved all of their toys.  He was in baby heaven.  Charlie and Tate like to see each other.  At one point, they would look at each other and smile and laugh.  When Josh got home we went to the park and Tate tried out the swings for the first time.  I think he liked it.  Sharon and Kenzie met us there and Tate loved that.  He loves loves Kenzie.  And he loves Sharon.  But he loves seeing and looking at Kenzie.  So Tate watched Kenzie wherever she went at the park.  He had a hard time following her when she was swinging, because the sun was in his eyes and she would go super high and he would try to keep watching her, but it was almost like he would forget what he was doing and look at something else.

Then we went back home and Stacy made us dinner too.  She makes awesome corn bread (which I love), but it is more like corn bread cake and it is delicious.  After that, we went to the BYU v OU soccer game.  We got there at the end of the first half.  We had great seats, because Stacy let us use some of her parents' season tickets.  And actually, we had another pair of free tickets, because my old assistant coach Aleisha called to sing me a happy birthday and she said she could get us some tickets.  So we got to the ticket booth and we had two pairs of tickets.  We gave one pair to this couple who was behind us.  They were pumped and it made me happy!  The game was crazy!  When we got there BYU was losing 2-0.  In the last 7 minutes of the game BYU came back and scored 3 goals to win it!  Josh and I were jumping up and down and screaming and going crazy.  It was a great birthday gift.  We got home and when I got into bed, an envelope was on my pillow.  Inside was a letter from Josh,  It was the nicest letter I've ever gotten.  It was the best birthday present.  So it was a super great day!

Tate and I have created a hide-and-seek game.  I crawl and hide behind something and he comes and finds me.  Then I crawl and hide somewhere else and he comes and finds me.  He likes it and I like it too.  This video kind of shows the game, but we had been playing it for a while, so Tate was losing interest...

Josh and I watched the BYU v UofU game on Saturday.  I say this a lot, but I am a pessimistic BYU football fan.  Someone said it perfectly, it's like being in a bad relationship.  They just play with my emotions.  But I was uncharacteristically optimistic about the game.  But, by the third quarter I told Josh that I was going to go to sleep (on purpose) because I didn't want to watch anymore.  I feel bad for the team.

My little brother Cameron is on a mission (if you want to see his letters, you can read them at elderernst.blogspot.com-I love reading them).  For Christmas, my mom is making a book for him.  It is the "'Twas the Night before Christmas" poem with pictures of everyone in my family acting out the different stanzas.  Josh and I had to get creative, because Tate doesn't understand the concept of acting out a stanza.  Here are the pictures we came up with...

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads.


When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,


When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tinny reindeer.



He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly!



He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.


Here are some pictures and videos of Tate.  A lot of them are similar, but I love them all!

It's hard to tell, but Tate is wearing a tool belt. 

This is how Tate sleeps.  His little bum is up in the air. 

This is Josh showing off his skills...

Read More

Puppies and More

Time has been going by so fast lately.  The weeks fly by.  We have had more developments since I last wrote.  First, my sister Whitney is engaged!  His name is Warren and he's great.  He proposed to Whitney at a Harry Potter themed party.  The decorations look great.  And all of their close friends got to be there.  When I heard the plan, I wondered how it would go.  But it was awesome!

Also Josh got a new job.  So that is good.  He is going to work at a place called Security Metrics.  Our friend Stacy works there, her Dad is one of the founders or something, and Doug did consulting there.  We are excited because it will pay more and has better/more flexible hours.

We had a big Super Saturday Stake Relief Society event.  It was great! We set up for 3.5 hours on Friday night and we were there bright and early at 8am on Saturday and got everything cleaned up and packed away at 2:30.  So it was a long day.  But it was seriously so awesome!  We had every ward teach a class and the girls in the stake could choose which class to go to and then we served lunch.  The classes were on visiting teaching.  The only downside of the day was I wore these new wedge heels and after standing and walking for over 6 hours I had blisters and abrasions and sores all over my feet.  One of my blisters on my pinky toe was pretty bad and was really hurting one night, so Josh was looking at it and he kept saying it was so swollen.  After a while he said he couldn't believe how swollen it was and then he compared it to my other toe and said "it's not swollen, you just have weird pinky toes." I guess my pinky toes just naturally look like they're swollen. 

Sunday we went to my grandparents' house for dinner.  Tate was being so funny.  We eat outside on a picnic bench during the summer and fall, and Tate was loving it.  He was crawling and playing with these little bouncy balls they had.  A majority of the time he played under the table.  He would just go under the table for a while and then crawl out and then go back under.  Then he hit his head on a bar and we held him.  Tate was being so funny and was talking a lot.  We were all listening attentively.  Then he stopped and my grandma started saying something to me and Tate started yelling and was looking at my grandma.  He was trying to get her attention.  She stopped talking and looked at him, and he started talking normally again.  It was so funny!  I have never seen him do that before.

We have been using this chair to feed Tate that attaches to the table.  Tate is getting too big for it, so Josh's aunt Heather let us borrow her high chair.  It is so awesome!  I think Tate enjoys it too.  There is this little toy that is attached to the tray that he likes to play with and it has a nice cover.  I really like it too.  Heather has been so great and has let us borrow so many things!  She let us borrow her swing and I don't think we would've survived the first 3 months of Tate's life without it.

Friday night our neighbors rented a puppy.  You can rent a puppy for $15/hour from this place called Rent a Puppy.  So they brought this incredibly cute puppy to our house.  We got Tate and showed him the puppy.  He was so cute!  He would smile when he saw the puppy and would touch it.  Unfortunately he doesn't know how to be gentle yet, so a few times he grabbed the puppy really hard, but the puppy was great.

Tate has gained a new and exciting skill set!  He can now pull himself up onto things.  Before, he could only push himself up onto something if it was short enough.  Now, he can pull himself up .  He was with Sharon on Saturday and he pulled himself up on the couch (into a standing position).  I had never seen him do it, but the next day he did it on our couch.  And today I caught it on video. 

Read More

Pears on the Run

We had an alumni game before the BYU v UTAH soccer game Friday.  It was fun!

Yesterday Tate was cracking me up all day long.  He was being so funny.  We did laundry and grocery shopping yesterday.  As our clothes were in the wash, Tate and I went to Smiths.  Tate is so funny in the cart.  I am not quite sure what it is, but he looks so funny sitting in the seat and is so amazed at everything we pass.  As I was checking out, some of the pears fell out of the bag and started rolling away.  The bagging dude, he's an older guy, was helping me unload the cart and he grabbed them.  I said "oh no, we have pears on the run."  He thought that was really funny.  Then, as he was putting the bags in my cart, he said "Pears on the Run" would be a great song.  And then we both sang "Pears on the Run" to the tune of "Band on the Run."  It was a weird moment.  And for the rest of the day I had "Pears on the Run" stuck in my head.

Tate woke up from his nap yesterday and I heard him cry a little and then for a while I didn't hear him.  It had been a good nap, so I went in to see if he had fallen back asleep.  I opened the door and Tate was just sitting up in his crib, holding his blanket in both hands and looking down at it.  He looked so funny.  When I said something, he looked up at me and smiled so big.  Then I got him out and we usually look at ourselves in the mirror as we leave the room.  He loves it.  He smiles at himself and touches it.  Yesterday he kept putting his forehead on the mirror and would slowly drag it down the mirror (so his forehead would go "thud thud thud thud" against it).  I tried to video it, but he didn't do it as well.  It's still funny...

Throughout the summer I've been doing work at home for a guy named Steve, who does consulting conventions for businesses.  I know his daughter Anne, and Steve funded and managed a summer soccer team I play on.  He is a really really nice person.  And he has done really well in life.  A funny story about them is they decided they wanted to rebuild their home, so they donated their house to the fire department so they could burn it down and then the Shallenbergers would just rebuild their house on their property.  The fire department uses those times to train and practice.  My friend Dana, who also knows the Shallenbergers drove by their house and saw it completely on fire.  She freaked out and called Anne and told her that her house was on fire!  Anne calmly told Dana she knew that already.  Anyways, I went by their house to pick up more things to work on.  As I walked into their office, Steve stood up and put his hands in the air and said, "Georgia how are you doing!"  Tate was startled by his enthusiasm and started to cry pretty hard.  It was so funny.

So Anne gave me these papers from the conventions her dad did.  They were rating slips and people could leave comments about the presentation.  I was supposed to copy the comments into an excel spreadsheet.  They were organized into groups according to the convention site and the company that attended.  There were nine groups of these papers.  Anne put them in my laundry basket and we were on our way.  When I got home I opened the door and the laundry basket fell and the papers fell all over the ground.  I just had to laugh because it was so lame.  I called Anne and told her and she told me to come back up and they would try to organize them again.  Unfortunately they were all grouped from when they originally collected them, so it would be hard to know which paper went with which group. I felt terrible.  When I got there, Steve was so nice.  And everything ended up working out okay.  I was so grateful.  I learned a lot actually.  Sometimes I can get so frustrated with people.  Steve totally could've gotten upset because I messed things up for him.  But he just rolled with the punches and everything worked out fine.

Tate is starting to pull himself up onto things.  It is actually pretty exciting and crazy!  He is better at pushing himself up than he is pulling.  Here's a video...

Last night Tate didn't wake up to eat!  Well, usually we put him down around 7 or 7:30 and he wakes up around 10 or 11 and then again around 3 or 4.  The first feeding is that big of a deal because we are up anyway.  But the second one is killing me.  I think the past 7 months of not getting a good night's rest is wearing on me.  So last night he didn't wake up until 11:30 and then he woke up at 6:30, but stayed in his crib until 7.  I was so confused when I woke up, because I thought it was the middle of the night.  So way to go Tate!!

And here's another video of us letting Tate taste a lime.

And saturday we had a crazy storm and a large majority of our front lawn was flooded.  Here's a video and a few pictures.

And here's a long video of Tate playing with his toys (yes an empty container of oats is one of his toys)

Read More

Baby Friends

Yesterday Tate and I went over to my friend Heather's house.  She had a little girl, Gwen, a week after Tate was born.  She has been in Boston with Gwen and her husband over the summer.  I am so happy she is back!  Heather and I talked and talked while Tate and Gwen "played" with each other.  Gwen hasn't crawled, so she laid on the ground and looked cute while Tate explored the apartment.  We took pictures of them and it was so funny, because Gwen would pose and smile at the camera and Tate had no idea what was going on.  He was either chewing on a toy or crawling over Gwen in almost all the pictures.  Then as we were leaving, Tate tried to chew on Gwen's arm and Gwen poked Tate in the eye.  They are definitely going to get married.

I love this...it's as if Tate is struck by Gwen's beauty

Yesterday Tate also had a doctor's appointment.  We were going to get shots, but there was confusion with the insurance, so we just did a general checkup.  He is 27 7/8" (79%), 19 lbs 11 oz (74%), and his head is 44 cm (42%).  The nurse was measuring his head and Tate started to fuss a little and then he looked up at us with this measuring tape around his head and started laughing.  The nurse and I started laughing so hard.  The doctor asked me if Tate could sit up if I propped him up.  I said yes, and then I said, "well, he can get himself up."  The doctor was amazed and asked if he could crawl and I said yep.  He couldn't believe it.  After that he thought Tate was awesome.  There was a little pony in the room and while we were waiting I helped Tate ride it.

Today I vacuumed the house.  Usually I do it while Tate is asleep, but today Tate was awake.  I plugged in the vacuum, not knowing it had been unplugged last while it was on.  Tate was touching the vacuum and when I plugged it in, it came on.  He crawled away so fast it was impressive.  But he cried and was scared.  So I held him while I vacuumed.  Every time I had to turn it on again, he would freak out, but while it was on he rested his head on my shoulder.  It was so cute.  It makes me want to vacuum all the time, because Tate normally isn't very cuddly.

We went to the park today and Tate discovered he loves eating leaves.  Well, he mostly licks them.  He also likes to pull out the grass.

This is another long video

Read More

Getting Caught in the Rain

We've had a lot of exciting new things at our house over the past few days.  The first is we got a new couch!  Grandma and Grandpa Clark got a new couch and they gave us their old one and some side tables!  Our apartment looks so nice!  We rearranged our front room.  We got rid of a little black TV stand and moved our chair and put the side tables on either side of the couch.  It was actually Grandma Clark's idea, and I loved it so much I rearranged the front room as soon as we moved everything in.  I really like it.  We put our old couch on the front lawn hoping someone would take it.  Sunday night it was still there, so Josh and I escaped the heat of our apartment by sitting on the couch on the front lawn.  It was fun.  But I was worried cats would start infesting it or something if it was out there for too long.  Monday someone left a note on the couch asking if it was free.  I called her and said yes and they could pick it up anytime.  This morning it was gone so I assume they took it.  Luckily it got rained on twice, so if cats did infest it the few days it was out there, it got a nice wash.

Monday night I went running and I was almost home and all of a sudden it starting pouring.  I was only a few blocks away and by the time I got home I was drenched.  My shoes and socks were sopping and my hair looked like I had just taken a shower.  Josh was about to get in the car and come get me when I came home.  So that was exciting.

Tate has officially liked his first vegetable!  He likes and consistently eats sweet potatoes.  We are very proud.  We are trying to get him to eat these things called little puffs.  They are like really puffy cheerios that dissolve easily and help babies learn to chew.  Tate doesn't quite get it.  He doesn't move it to his gums and chew it, he just lets it sit on the back of his tongue and so he gags a lot.  But he is getting better.

This morning I came home from running and I found Tate in our little hallway outside our room with some toys around him.  But he was all by himself.  I looked in our bedroom and didn't see Josh and I called out his name and he didn't answer.  I called him a few times and he didn't pick up his phone.  I was shocked that Josh would just leave Tate home by himself.  I was also confused as to where he would be.  I thought maybe he decided to go jogging and thought he would make it back before I got home.  I was thinking about how I needed to tell him that he can't leave Tate alone in the house and that someone could call the police.  I was calling him and then all of a sudden he walked out of our room.  He had been in there the whole time.  When I had looked in the room he was by our closet and I looked right past him, even though he was right in front of me.  He was so confused at first he didn't say anything.  Then he waited a bit to see if I would start saying things out loud about him.  Luckily, I did a good job keeping my cool and not freaking out or cursing his name.

We have taken a lot of videos, so here they are! (they are all pretty long and nothing really spectacular happens in any of them)

Tate at breakfast

Tate taking a bath

Tate's first time eating sweet potatoes

Tate making his rounds around the front room

Tate's Little Puffs

Read More

It's Cooling Off

This was the sky on Saturday night.  It was awesome.

That's right.  It is finally starting to cool off.  We haven't used our fan for 2 days, which is the longest we've gone without it since we got it.  It has served us well.  I can feel Fall coming.  I love Fall.  It is probably my favorite season.  And I love Provo in the Fall (well I love Provo every season, but especially in Fall).  I love the leaves on the trees, the cool weather, the excitement that comes with a new school year and football games.  It's the best.

The other day I went jogging with Tate...yes jogging with him in the stroller!  It's so nice to have it back.  It started to drizzle a little and I used an awesome feature I haven't needed up to this point.  A clear tarp that fits to the stroller.  It was great!  Tate looked so funny.  Like he was in a clear egg thing.  And he was completely dry and cozy and warm (well I don't know if he was cozy, but he was dry and warm).  He was wearing some hipster jeans and a hoodie.  The pictures don't do the jeans justice.

I am listening to this book called Iron War while I run.  I listen to a podcast called Another Mother Runner (or something like that).  It's just two ladies who talk about running and related topics.  One episode they talk about their favorite books and this was one of them.  Because I listen, I was able to get a free audible download from audilbe.com.  So that's where I got Iron War.  I really like it.  It is about Iron Man runners Mark Allen and Dave Scott and their race at the world championships in 1989. It has made me seriously consider doing a triathlon.  I will probably never do an ironman, but a triathlon sounds exciting.  We'll see how that goes.

Josh and I revamped our budget last night for FHE.  It got me really excited to save money!  I like having it because I feel accountable and we are saving for things to keep us motivated (like a trip to San Diego next summer with the Fab Four).

Tate is crawling all over the place these days.  He has now broken the crawling barrier and can go from room to room, and from one surface to another.  It's a big deal.  He can also sit!  Yesterday I was facetiming with my mom and she asked if he could sit.  I was telling her he can but he needs to support himself with his hand, and I looked over and he was sitting with out supporting himself!  It was great.  He is so adventurous and curious about everything.  His favorite things right now are his little piano, the door stopper (he likes to flick it), my sandals/jogging shoes and Josh's shoelaces, and his brush.  He loves the bathtub and can make some pretty good splashes.  I always get a little wet.

 Feeding him is always an adventure.  He loves pears, apples, and sometimes his rice cereal.  Last night we gave him some avocado.  He didn't really like it.  By the end he would cry if we brought anything close to his mouth.  But then a few minutes later he was able to eat some things he likes.  Josh is way more adventurous than me, I am always afraid he is choking.  But he is only gagging because of the taste.

Tate is so funny.  He makes me laugh.  He can get so hyper sometimes and all he wants to do is play and play and play!  Sometimes Tate will do something and Josh and I will laugh and laugh because he is so funny.  Our monitor is video and so sometimes we watch Tate put himself to sleep.  He is starting to notice the monitor and the lights and he tries to grab it.

I rearranged some things in on our apartment.  Very minor adjustments, but I think it has made a difference.  Doing that has gotten me in decorating and change mode.  I want to paint our room and get more pictures up and just make our apartment look and feel nicer.  So we'll see how all of this goes.

Our neighbors Phil and Laurel are moving.  I am so sad.  They have been the best neighbors we could have ever asked for.  They have been so gracious and kind with all of Tate's crying.  They are seriously the nicest people.  Laurel is by far one of the nicest people I know.  She is always so nice and makes everyone feel like a VIP.  I am really going to miss having them next door.

Last night I was feeding Tate and he was not having a good time.  He was crying and didn't want to eat (I tried to give him carrots and that made him really upset).  Sharon was downstairs looking at Nathan and Sarah's new paint.  She came up and Tate looked at her and smiled and cried at the same time.  It was like he was saying, "you can help me!"  It was so funny and kinda sad.  So Tate was saved for the time being.  It was great because once everyone left and we started eating again he did great.

This morning I gave Tate some banana in one of those mesh things attached to a ring.  You put the banana in a mesh container and it attaches to a ring.  Tate really liked it.  He actually ate it.  I tried avocado again and he did all right, but by the end he would cry if it touched his mouth like last time.  He was a mess!  So he had a mini shower under the bathtub faucet.

One of Tate's favorite games is called "Let's Scare Tate."  I hide and then pop out and scare him.  He loves it.

Read More