Birthday Boy

My baby boy is growing up! We celebrated four, fun-filled years with our Tater-Bug on Labor Day. We kicked off the festivities with lunch at one of Tate's favorite places, "The Restaraunt with the Grapes on it". Thanks, Grandpa and Grandma!

For those of you that know Tate, you know his favorite food is bread. So he LOVES Olive Garden for their never-ending breadsticks. I'm not sure if he knows that they do serve other food.

Tori agreed that the breadsticks were pretty dang good.

Some of the gang enjoying lunch.

After we had our fill of breadsticks, we met up at the bowling alley. Tate has been begging us for months to go bowling again and said that was what he wanted to do for his birthday. So we invited some of his favorite people and headed to All-Star Lanes.

It was a successful afternoon of bowling. The highlight was when Tate bowled a spare. His reaction was priceless; he was so super-excited. I was sad that I didn't get it on tape. It was pretty cute. He still talks about how he knocked all the pins over.

Of course we enjoyed cake and icecream afterward. This is Tate's "Dinosaur Dig" cake.

Tate waited as patiently as possible for a four-year-old to open his presents. I love his face in this picture. He is absolutely ecstatic to have received Lightning McQueen and a few friends. Thanks, Oma & Opa!

Just making sure he didn't miss any details of those fabulous gifts.

Don't you love how Tori is just going to casually walk off with a package twice her size?

Tate with all the loot. Yes, he is one spoiled kid. Thanks to everyone that helped remind Tate how much he is loved.

Success

I know. It's beautiful, isn't it?

My first attempt at making bread ever. Mixed and kneaded lovingly with my own bare hands. It was surprisingly simple, satisfying, and tastey. It left me feeling quite domestic. I may just try something crazy, like turning old curtains into kids playclothes or making brownies from scratch.

Take Me Out To The Ball Game

We headed out to the Bees game a few nights ago. The weather was cool, the ticketes were cheap, the game was exciting, the seats were good, and the Bees won. Not a bad night at the ball park.

Summer of Fun

To appease my brother, who seems to think that my children have entirely forgotten his existence since he has been in Texas all summer and that he will soon forget theirs if I don't post some pictures soon, I have posted just shy of a kajillion pictures, serving as evidence of our summer activities.

So here's what we've been up to lately:

Eating popcorn in our skivvies.

Keeping up on our summer reading.

Reuniting with the West Side Class of 2000. I can't believe it has been ten years! We had so much fun catching up with everyone at the reunion. There were actually two or three other classmates in attendance that aren't pictured here. Out of a class of 45, I didn't think the turnout was too bad. Besides, all of the cool people were there :)

Enjoying the Famous Preston Night Rodeo with Grandpa.

Enjoying the famous Preston Night Rodeo Parade.

Enjoying the Famous Preston Night Rodeo Parade in the rain.

Dressing up in our Sunday Best.


Running through sprinklers.

Drying off after running through the sprinklers.



Previewing the Pioneer Day Parade floats at the South Towne Expo Center. (Very cool and completely free)


More summer reading.

Participating in the Primary 4th of July Parade.



Keeping cool in the summer heat.

Loving the water.


Mowing the lawn - you're never too young to start.



More summer reading - and check out the hair. So cute, but extremely time consuming and frustrating. Haven't attempted it since.



Watching Uncle Matt and cousins, Lucas and Noah, in Peter Pan. LOVED it!

Racing in the Mountair Mile: A multi-sport children's race.


Running in the run/walk portion of the race.

Rolling in the bike/trike/scoot/wagon portion of the race.

Visiting the dinosaur museum.

Strolling around the neighborhood.

Giving dad a lift.

Watching Toy Story 3.

Celebrating Father's Day with Opa.

Testing the capacity of all household boxes, baskets, and containers.

Working up the courage to try the water slide at Mom's company's summer party.

Continuing the previously mentioned capacity test of all household boxes, baskets, and containers.


Trying to figure out what exactly Aunt Andrea does with her doll-head from beauty school.

Playing with our buddies at Wheeler Farm.

Sad Story

You know when you're headed home from a good day's work and you call your husband to see how things are going and he tells you he's taking your 15 month old daughter to Insta-Care because she cut her finger, but "she's fine" and "No, she's not covered in blood" . . . so you race to meet him at the doctor's office and the doctor has to put four shots in her finger to numb it and then takes x-rays and pokes all around inside and finds that a tendon as been damaged and sends you to Primary Children's ER to have it looked at and you spend 5 hours in the ER getting two more sets of x-rays and watching your daughter get her finger numbed up two more times and sedated twice while countless doctors, nurses, and specialists pull her finger apart trying to decide if the tendon damage is enough to require surgery and they eventually decide to just stitch it up and have you follow-up with a hand surgeon in a week so you get the same result you would have gotten nearly six hours and two-thousand dollars ago at Insta-Care, but don't worry, they go ahead and wrap her hand and arm up to her elbow so it looks like she either broke her arm or was hit by shrapnel, but it's okay because you feel like you got your time and money's worth except when people ask what in the world happened and you say, "Oh, she had to get stitches in her finger" and they look at you with pity and say, "For heaven's sake, how many?" and, although you don't want to disappoint them, all you can say is "Four."

I hate when that happens.

FYI: Tori somehow cut her right ring finger in the gears of an old exercise bike. She is doing just fine and was so tired from being at the hospital until nearly 1:00 am that she is taking a three hour nap! I love it when that happens :)