Pictures

...One day I will remember to attach the pictures to the blog.. but until then...

Tatum likes to cuddle the dog bed...and loves an audience when she does it

This is her 'concentrating' face!

She loves the outdoors

Our little Ranger! Daddy is proud!

Wispering

This is going to be a very random post comprised of sweet Tatum stories that I do not want to forget…

A few weeks ago Tiny Princess was sick with a little tummy bug and a sore throat and couldn’t sleep at all one night. After trying rocking her in her chair, laying with her on the couch, her swing (yes, she is 10 months and we JUST now stopped using her swing…what can I say- my girl loved her swing J) I decided to bring her into my and Brian’s bed at about 5 am. Brian woke up when we crawled in bed and I was whispering with him about how I had tried everything to comfort her to sleep but she was still awake. Sweet Tatum crawls up to where her head is even with ours and starts whispering with us! Brian and I just thought it was the most adorable thing ever! Tatum will often ‘talk’ with us when we are having a conversation by babbling and looking back and fourth between us. If we don’t pay her enough attention during these ‘conversations’ she raises her voice or growls until we look at her. Hilarious. On a related note- this precious little girl felt bad enough that she couldn’t sleep at all, but was not even fussing as long as I held her. It is so hard for me when I know she’s hurting. But I know she is in God’s loving hands. And we are so grateful that she is so rarely sick!!

Tatum loooves to be chased around the house- she crawls away from us while one of us follows her on our hands and knees humming the Jaws theme song. The other day she crawled around a corner while I was chasing her and when I reached the corner and poked my head around she was sitting up looking back at the doorway excitedly waiting for me. When she saw me her little face lit up and she yelled “Hiiiii” and turned to crawl away.

This one isn’t necessarily a story, because it is something she does often, but it cracks me up every time. Tatum is really ready to be able to stand up without assistance, but is not quite there balance-wise. So when she is playing with a toy on the floor she pushes her legs up to a standing position but her hands stay on the ground with her head looking down at the toy. She often does this with toys that play music so when her little tooshie is in the air she starts ‘dancing’- bouncing her booty up and down.

Hope these images brought a smile to someone elses face today too J I intend to keep posting little stories like this so I can remember them forever!

A few pictures

From our trip to Destin, Fl.

cutest bikini ever

the face that melts my heart!

All Things Tatum

Before I attempt to do any catch-up from the last 10 months of our lives, I guess I will start with a current update on Tiny Princess. She just hit 10 months!! Golly… I cant believe shes in the double-digit months already!! Someone asked me yesterday if she would be one next month, to which I intelligently replied “No, not until October”. Waaaaait…THAT’S NEXT MONTH!! Holy cow! Tatum will be one year old next month!! Still wrapping my mind around that… and yes, October is next month.

She is currently sleeping like an angel in her crib. I am watching her on the video monitor- she is flat on her back with her arms and legs sprawled out. CUTE.

She is crawling like crazy and getting really fast too. When she really moves her little tooshie wiggles and it cracks me up. She is a champ at pulling up on anything and everything. She can even do it one handed now. And against a wall…so theres not really anything to pull on, just the balance. She has stood without holding on to anything after pulling up a few times.

She talks up a storm, but only when she has something to say. Sometimes she will go a full hour without making a sound, just giggling. But sometimes she is non-stop babbling. She looooves other people, especially kids and babies. She is not at all shy around other kids- she will crawl right up to them and start playing with them. Sometimes even when the other kid is a little frightened or uninterested. J And she smiles and waves at everyone who will look at her at restaurants or in stores.

I still nurse her four times a day. And she is of course eating all kinds of other foods too. I have made all of her baby food, and she still eats lots of her foods puréed even though she is getting really good at feeding herself finger foods. She eats: carrots, green beans, yellow squash, zucchini, broccoli, sweet potatoes, peas, cauliflower, winter squash, black eyed peas, bananas, grapes, apples, peaches, prunes, watermelon, cantaloupe, nectarines, strawberries, kiwi, mangos, pears, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, asparagus, and yogurt. Prunes and yogurt are favorites. She also loves mangos and any kind of berries. She does NOT like avocado or potatoes.

Tatum loves loves loves the water and anything water-related. She loves swimming, baths, washing her hands, hoses… anything. She also enjoys having her little teeth brushed, which is adorable. Speaking of teeth, she has her bottom two and is working really hard on getting some top ones in… it looks like it might be four top ones at once. Poor Taytay. On that note, she also recently started biting me while she nurses.. no fun! If any mommies have any advice of how to get her to stop- PLEASE help! J

Tatum is a very very sweet and affectionate little girl. She likes to share- toys, food, drink, anything. And she gives TONS of sweet kisses (especially when shes sleepy). She loves her Daddy!! It melts my heart to see the two of them together. When he gets home from work, she crawls to him and puts her arms up to be picked up. When he picks her up she wraps her little arms over his shoulders and cuddles her head on him. All the while she has the sweetest little grin on her face. Like I said, this little girl loves her Daddy.

Whenever Tatum wakes up from a nap or in the morning she wants to be cuddled for a minute, then she will look toward her window and start waving; which means she is ready for you to walk to the window and open the blinds so she can “say hello” to the world. Then its milky time.

There are so many more things I could say about my tiny princess, but this is a good start. I have loved the last 10 months so much. Being a Mommy is the greatest experience of my life. Having my wonderful husband and raising my sweet baby girl is unbeatable. God has richly blessed our little family.

Grand Re-Entrance

In celebration of my re-entrance to the blogging world, I thought it would be appropriate to post this blog that I started writing on 10/26/2009 (the day before my sweet Tiny Princess was born), and never finished.

So, as our sweet little Tatum could arrive any day now, I think its appropriate to do one (maybe the last) pregnancy update blog! With just 3 days left until our due date, I am still loving pregnancy (so suck on that haters)! I have found that throughout this entire pregnancy, people have always been ‘warning’ me about how sick of it I am going to get or how much I am going to hate _________ part- at first it was “just wait until it gets hot, you are going to be so miserable!”. Well, this was one of the hottest summers we have had in a while… and while it certainly was hot, I never hated being pregnant. Then, “oh, just wait until your belly gets so big you can hardly move”. Ha! In my opinion, the bigger the belly, the better!! Bring it on! Perhaps it does take a lot of grunting and a considerable amount of time to roll over in bed (poor Brian.. this happens several times a night due to discomfort and numerous potty trips), but its kinda fun. And perhaps I do get stuck in my car door or bump into everything in sight with my belly… still fun. Then it seemed that all they had left was “wait until the very end when you feel like you’re about to pop”. Pretty sure I’m about as close to the end as possible, but I am not anxious to ‘get this baby outta here’. As excited as I am to see what Tatum looks like and cuddle her in my arms, I am going to miss carrying her inside of my womb. I will miss feeling all of her movements (yes even the painful colon/bladder kicks and when she rolls her head around on my bladder). I really will miss being pregnant.

On that note, since there is really nothing left to “warn” me about regarding which aspects of pregnancy I am going to hate the most, people have switched to warning me about how much I am going to hate labor. However, I anticipate enjoying labor just as much as I have enjoyed this pregnancy. I am eagerly anticipating the experience.

I think that the only part of pregnancy that I have disliked has been all of the unwelcome advice I have gotten. Particularly regarding labor/delivery. The most common being that I absolutely must get an epidural and that I should get it as soon as I can upon arriving at the hospital. I am praying not to require an epidural, and to at least go as long as I possibly can without one. People just assume that because they or their wife had one, that epidurals are the only way to go and delivery simply cannot be accomplished without one. What is right for one person is not necessarily right for the next. I am happy that all of those women enjoyed their birth experience with an epidural, but that does not mean that is how I want my delivery to go.