Family Pictures

So, obviously, we had some new family pictures done. Tori, normally an extremely happy baby, was super sleepy during the entire photo session and we couldn't squeeze more than two smiles out of her. So we'll be back to do more pictures of her another time. But here are the results of our photo session. (I'm not sure why I really needed to post these. Most of them are displayed somewhere on the blog already.)

Rodeo Weekend

We spent the weekend in Idaho, enjoying the festivities of rodeo weekend: sidewalk sales, cotton candy, parades, the rodeo itself, etc. We had fun, but Tate's favorite part was just riding in the tractor with Grandpa. All this wild and crazy rodeo stuff kind of freaked him out.
Just waiting for the parade to start. Everyone looks pretty happy, right? You just wait.

The sirens started blaring, the tractor engines started roaring, the horses started trotting, and Tate started wailing. Even the flying candy freaked him out. What am I going to do with this kid?

The rodeo wasn't much better. Apparently he wasn't a fan of watching horses buck off innocent cowboys. He was pretty nervous throughout most of it, but he really got into the barrel racing and the mutton busting.

Tori stayed home with Grandma and missed the rodeo. But isn't she cute?

And we also celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary. Yay for us! (The light over our heads kinda looks like we had a bright idea or something, huh? Pretty fitting because the brightest idea I ever had was marrying this guy seven years ago.) Love you, Phillip Lane!

Four Months Old

Hi. I'm Tori. I'm four months old and I'm usually a happy, good natured baby girl. I'm very patient and rarely voice my complaints. And when I do, I do it as quietly as possible. I thought my mom appreciated this about me. But now I'm not so sure. She took me, happy and unsuspecting, to my four-month check up. I played happily with mommy while we waited over thirty minutes for the doctor to come. I smiled and cooed at the nurse when she measured my head and weighed me on the scale. I let the doctor look in my ears and check out every part of me to make sure it was working properly without so much as a whimper. I thought all this good behavior would earn me a sucker or something. But no. All I got were several shots in the leg. Painful ones, too. Well, I just can't take something like that laying down. I screamed good and loud for several long minutes so that everyone would know that I was not okay with that. I mean, look at this face. Do I look happy???

You know me. I can't stay mad for long. :)

Oh. By the way, I'm now 24 1/4 inches long (50%) and 14 lb 3 oz (60%). So right about average. Don't worry though. My doctor knew that every mother knows that her baby is more than just "average" so he used the word "perfect". And that suited mommy just fine.

Life According to Tate

We had a busy weekend, as you can tell by the plethera of pictures. I'll let Tate tell you all about all of our crazy fun.

"The Fishies Place"

"Tate looking at the fishy. I see a fishy and Tate."

"There's Tate and Mommy at the fish place. Tate sad."

"Huh?"

"That's Tate playing the xylophone. He's playing noises. Boom. Boom."

"Tate playing with the blocks. The blocks shake and I turn that on and the blocks shake and fall down. I build a house and it fall down."

"Tate singing songs."

"That's Tate riding the car and drive it. That's the beep, beep."

"Tate putting the ball in and ball going up. I need to go play ball again."

"That's the zoo place. That's the place I go to the zoo."


"That's Tate and that's daddy and the birdies. And the birdies are flying."

"That's Mommy and Tate smiling."

"That's Tori sucking her 'fum'."

"That's the zoo place. Tate smiling by the turtle."

"Tate riding the kangaroo. Tate is sad cuz he don't like the kangaroo. Tate is making the kangaroo sad. I scared the kangaroo and he's sad."

"Whoa. That's the tiger. He's roaring at Tate."

"Mommy and the giraffe. Mommy and Tori and the giraffe. The giraffe is standing on his legs."

"Those are the zebras and Tate and Daddy and the zebras are eating hay."

"That's the lady."

Editor's note: This exhibit is on display in the "Hall of Primates". Yes, that is a human being in there.

"The elephant. That's a big elephant. Wow. It's cool. Or what."

"That's the elephant. It's made out of wood. It peed. Mommy sitting on his nose. He's making sounds. I don't like it. I've got some feelings."

"Dexter monkey. He's on Larry show (Night at the Museum). He's eating his carrots and he's sharing with his brothers monkey."

"That's the birdy place. That's the zoo place. That's the dinosaur place. That's the Rexy place."

"Baby Tori is sleeping."

"I see Rexy. And little Rexies and the big Rexy dinosaur. Roooooaaaar!! I want to make Rexy down the rocks and scare him and get Larry and bite him. Rooooaaaarr! Sniff."

"Tate getting a dinosaur bone. Tate using a paint brush, digging the dinosaur bone."

"Tate and Daddy getting the dirt. Played with plants and little dinosaurs."

"I need to see Bruce (from Finding Nemo). Those are his teeth. He brush his teeth. He's gonna not eat daddy. Stay there. He's gonna hit dad down the ground and bite him and knock him down again."

"Tate playing with the dinosaurs. Little dinosaur says "Rooooaaaaarrr! I'm a dinosaur." That's what he says."

Bald is Beautiful

I love my three baldies! The only one in this picture who is naturally bald happens to be the only girl, Tori. But I thought they all looked pretty cute with their matching hair styles.

Oh, and Happy Father's Day to the best daddy ever! Phil is such a great, hard working, patient, loving, gentle, firm, hands-on, playful dad. It's no wonder that the kids in this house prefer daddy to mommy, hands down.

Fun in the Sun . . . and wind and rain

What's better than a day of family fun? A day of FREE family fun! We decided to head up to Park City to spend a few hours shopping at the outlets. (Just to clarify, the outlets are NOT free) Anyway. Don't tell Phil I told you this, but we got a little lost because we didn't know exactly where the outlets were. We happened to stop at the visitors center to ask for directions and the lady there told us to head up to Olympic Park where the Australian National Ski Team was practicing their free style jumps, making their landings in a pool of water due to the lack of snow. She also told us there was a little museum we could tour and that it was all free. Awesome.

This is Tate and Daddy watching one of the skiers do a cool arial trick. (The skier is pretty much too tiny to be seen in this picture)

You can see this skier got some major air. It was so cool.

Tori was way impressed.

Who makes the best extreme skier face? Phil?

Tate?

Shanon?

The Tate and Daddy bobsled team.

The next day turned out to be really rainy and windy so we decided to spend the day inside and repaint Tate's room. Well, I decided and everyone else went along with it. We painted his room just a few months ago when we moved in, but the colors were just too dark. Too cavelike for a little boy. So we brightened it up with some white and "Deep Space Blue". I think it turned out really cute.