a really long Easter post

Easter weekend was a busy one. First it was Brennan's birthday on Friday, then I had a church activity Saturday morning and we had a birthday party to go to Saturday afternoon. Brennan had a test to study for and we were planning on going out to eat Saturday night for his birthday. Add to all that trying to fit in Easter traditions and it felt like a whirlwind. 

Saturday night after we went out to Outback (It was delicious. Tatum was a pill though, next time we are leaving her at home. :)), we got busy dying eggs. We thought it would be fun to include Tatum in this tradition this year but it didn't work out so well. She colored on a couple eggs with crayons but when we tried to get her to put them in the dye she would just take the cup and try to drink it. Luckily we used Kool Aid for dye this year, but still she wasn't exactly 'getting' it. So we sent her to bed partway through. :)

Brennan's looking a bit tired in this picture. Like I said, it was a long weekend.

And I'm looking...I'm not sure how I'm looking, like a weirdo doing a weird pose. :)

Pictures of the two of us together don't seem to happen often these days.

What a guy...playing with fire.

We decided to head to Mt. Vernon Easter morning and go to church with my parents. It was nice but made for a busy morning. We got right to the traditional egg wars when we woke up.

Tatum did seem to grasp the concept of this tradition. She was more than happy to smack her egg against ours. It was pretty cute.

Then of course we all had to find our Easter baskets. I was surprised by how much Tatum loved this part. As you can see we  the Easter Bunny hid hers under her slide. She was pretty thrilled when she found it but instead of grabbing it she just decided to crawl under there with it.

Trying out her new water bottle. Now she doesn't always ask to drink from mine-yay!

Reading her new book, Dear Zoo. I really stressed about what book to get her. I choose to stress about the strangest things. I was quite relieved that she seemed to really like it!

And then there was the Easter dress fiasco. I tried to make her one. I was actually somewhat successful but it is a little large and once I realized that I lost motivation to finish up the last few things. So I grabbed a couple at Target for us to choose between. But I don't know what I was thinking because I grabbed them both in 24 months which she totally isn't in yet so she was drowning in them. Luckily we had a springy colored dress in the closet. It was 9 months but with some leggings underneath I think it worked. I'll do better next time. :)

All of our goods. Brennan surprised me and went way overboard with my Easter basket with tickets to see Mat Kearney when he comes to Iowa City. Once I got over the extra money he spent I was pretty excited!

So all of that happened before 9:30 in the morning. Then we were off to church in Mt. Vernon. After Church mom did a little Easter egg hunt in the yard for the kids. Once again Tatum surprised me with her interest.

And she's off!

Found an egg.

Enjoying her spoils.

We ate a delicious Easter feast and enjoyed time with family. It was a great day and we are grateful for our Savior who died for us and we know He lives again. And because He does, we will too. How wonderful!

15 months

I think it is about time for an update on the Tater Tot. We'll call it the 15 month update since she just had her 15 month doctors appointment last week, but she is really closer to 16 months now. Oh well.

Up first, her stats:

Weight: 23 lbs (78th percentile)
Height: 30.5 inches (50th percentile)
Head circumference: 45.5 cm (50th percentile)

She is no longer a shrimp! And she no longer puts up with doctor visits. At her 12 month check up she cried for the shots and that was it. At this last one she started crying when they weighed her and pretty much never stopped except for when there were no nurses or doctors in our room. I guess there is definitely more stranger anxiety now.

What else is Tatum up to?

-Walking is no longer good enough, she runs. Typically away from mom and dad. I took her to the mall playground yesterday and the thrill of the escape was just too much for her to resist. I was constantly chasing her down the mall.

-She has 6 teeth! She is clearly currently teething and looks like she will be getting some molars next. It will be awesome once they finally come through but I sure feel bad for her.

-She is addicted to baby Vicks.  She had a really long cold and we would use it at night to help her breathe. But now she asks for it every time we rock her. Oops!

-Talking is probably the biggest change in Tatum in the last three months. She wasn't saying much at 12 months but I feel like we hear new words from her all the time now. Often she will say a new word a few times in one day and then you won't hear it from her again for several days. And some of these words she will never say independently, only repeat them after us. She says mama, dada, papa, grandma (ga-ga or ga-ma, depending on the day), shoes, milk (ma), uh-oh, hi, Jade, Jesus, Caden (She has said it a few times but never for him to hear!), baby (bay-bu), hot (she always whispers this one), eyes, moo, vroom, yum, no, okay, ball, go away (this is a favorite of hers, but she doesn't appear to know what it means.)

-She has been in this phase of saying "no" whenever she hears a question. It used to be for any question, but now it's usually only if it's an unfamiliar question. We have asked her so many times if she is crazy that now when she hears it she won't say no. It's pretty funny, but we should probably avoid encouraging the use of that word too much. :)

-Grandma taught her to nod her head and sort of say yes. She'll copy us when we nod our head but then she gets a little out of control with it and it often ends with her biting her tongue. Sad, but kind of funny.

-She is getting hair! I still generally think of her as bald until I see pictures of her from even just a few months ago and I think, no that was bald, this girl has hair! I'm actually glad it's not long enough for me to fix yet, I'm pretty sure I won't be any good at that.

-She is a fairly good eater but we struggle with veggies. She will eat sweet potatoes, carrots and sometimes frozen peas. That's about it.

-She loves fruit, reading, playing hide and seek, Skyping, baths, music, animals of all kinds but dogs especially, and playing outside. We are excited for some warmer weather!

She is getting so old and life with her gets more interesting and fun every day.  I can't believe she is almost 16 months old!

Brennan's birthday

Brennan had a birthday! He is 26 years old, an old man for sure. He had to work on his big day so I made him a batch of monster cookies and Tatum and I took them to him at work. Tatum was, of course, the big hit in the office. (And you might be noticing that she is wearing her cute little bunny outfit in lots of the pictures I post lately. She may have worn that outfit several times in one week. Couldn't have her wearing an outfit just once! We had to get some use out of it :))

After he got off work he took Tatum to the park while did some dinner preparation.

Then we met my family at the tennis courts and played for a bit since the weather was so nice. It was really great because we have hardly been able to play tennis since Tatum was born but when she has cousins to run around with it's easy. Everyone came back to our place for avocado chicken enchiladas afterward. 

Brennan was pretty spoiled for his birthday. My parents gave him some new clothes, always a hit with Brennan. And the Eskelsens gave him an awesome mini frisbee golf set for the backyard. And Mara got him a helmet. That was to go along with his present from me (a road bike) which, unfortunately, didn't arrive on time. It came the next day and he seems to like it-yay!

Crystal and Rich share an anniversary with Brennan's birthday so I had to capture a picture of them celebrating. After 16 years of marriage I guess this is all the celebrating you do. :)

And we topped the night off with Brennan's favorite, Better Than Anything cake. So I emailed my mom earlier that day asking if she could bring some candles with her because I didn't think we had any and I didn't have a car. There were a few other things I asked for so when she got here she start rattling them all off as she got them out of the bag. I must admit I was only half listening. So a few minutes later when I turned around and saw these giant red candles I was quite confused and asked, "what are these?" She said, "you said you wanted candles!". Check them out.

Yes, knowing she was coming over to celebrate Brennan's birthday, when my mom heard 'candles' she did not think birthday candles. She thought I was doing a fancy/romantic dinner for my whole family and needed some candles to set the mood. Haha. We all got a big kick out of it. And as you can see, we still used the candles. :)

It was a fun day celebrating this guy that we are all lucky to have in our lives. Happy Birthday Brennan!

Tatum's first Easter egg hunt

 The picture is a little blurry, but it still does a pretty good job of showing how cute she is. :) We took her to the local Easter egg hunt the weekend before Easter. Since it is still freezing cold in Iowa, the hunt was moved inside and it was pretty much pure chaos. The gym floor was completely covered in candy and there were tons of people surrounding it. Without any warning they sounded the horn and everyone went nuts. In less than 3 minutes the entire floor was cleared. It was crazy! When all was said and done we were probably only gone from home for 15 minutes. I'm still glad we went. I didn't think Tatum would really get it at all. But she totally got the gist of it. She went around picking up the pieces and putting them in her basket. It is so fun to watch her getting older.

Daddy and Tatum making a game plan.

 She was a little slower than the other kids, but that was fine with us. The last thing we needed was a bunch of candy!

 I love when she stands with her arms behind her back like this.

 Enjoying half of a Reese's. We couldn't deny her the spoils of all her hard work. :)