The beginning of August greeted us quite warmly. Tatum stayed cool by eating popsicles outside in just her diaper, because who wouldn't?
When Brennan got home he was cleaning something off with the hose and since she was already naked we let her play in the hose. And she was apparently quite thirsty.
Something really exciting that happened was that Brennan got released from his calling as assistant clerk which required him to stay after church about every other Sunday for the last 3 years. I took some pictures of Tatum's last Sunday having to hang out at the church late.
Luckily it wasn't until one of our last Sundays waiting that she discovered the drinking fountain.
Mom and dad had some old small roller skates hanging around their place so Rich and Macy helped Tatum take them for a spin.
Tatum does a lot of this with her doll and stuffed animals lately. She asks for a wipe and then lays it across them or under them. Obsessively. And it has to be just perfectly or she gets upset.
We had a fun play group at the splash pad. I thought this teeter-totter-like toy they had at the park was cool. And I love the look on James' face in this picture.
One day Tatum decided to get in the bag for her blocks. She thought it was the coolest thing.
The town neighboring my hometown had their own carnival in August, Sauerkraut Days, so we headed down for their ice cream social and family night. We also hit up a fun little store up town where my mom tried on this lovely mask. :)
And Papa had what he called a "prototype" of a rocking horse he is making all ready to go so Tatum got to try that out.
At Sauerkraut Days they had train rides that took you around the block. Tatum really loves trains (but lately gets scared when she hears one) so we thought this would be great. She was clearly a little apprehensive but she was smiling and waving by the end of the ride.
More face painting!
And a bounce house. This girl loved this thing. Luckily she has a really great Aunt who will wait in atrociously long lines so she could enjoy this twice. Love that face.
Here is the rest of July in pictures mostly, with a few explanations.
We tried to stay cool with the shade, mom's water bottle and popsicles.
Grandma, Papa, Caden and Macy came down and joined us at the pool one hot afternoon. It was a lot of fun and Tatum kept Papa busy taking her down the slide over and over again.
And Tatum insisted on drinking lots of pool water. Awesome.
One night we rode our bikes to Orange Leaf for a little treat. Tatum thought she should get one all to herself.
She loves bike rides.
A local mom's group sponsored a little health fair. Tatum got to get in a firetruck and had her face painted for the first time. I wasn't sure how she would do but she held quite still.
Tatum became obsessed with climbing ladders. At the playground mostly but also at home whenever we had our ladder out for anything.
I continued to get bigger. And bigger and bigger. Here I am at 25 weeks.
One day Tatum was a crazy towel monster.
At some point Tatum had some serious bedhead. I can't remember where we were going but we had to wake her up to leave and her hair was crazy.
Tatum built a fort one Sunday afternoon with Crystal and Caden. Don't mind the horrible picture quality.
Tatum loves to pretend to be a baby. We bought a little rocker for the baby and when I wouldn't help her get in it she just figured out a way to get in herself.
Just like the rest of the summer, we spent a lot of time at the park. We are lucky to have one very close and we go at least once a day.
This video makes me laugh. Tatum was climbing up this ladder at the playground but couldn't quite get her body all the way on the platform. She sure does try though!
I wasn't paying attention for a few minutes and Tatum got a bag of chips that was left on the counter and then climbed in this box to eat them.
Haha, love the face, Tatum. She likes to have her towel wrapped on her head like I do.
The local library had a little show with Ronald McDonald so Tatum and I decided to check it out. She loved the show but wasn't so sure about getting so close to the clown.
One day Tatum's nap was coming up on 3 hours, which never happens, so I went to check on her. This is what I found. Looks comfy eh?
Brennan finished up his ultimate frisbee league in July. We went to a few games throughout the season and we were able to go to the first game of the last night. Brennan's team went on to win the whole tournament later that night! Way to go Brennan! Tatum has some mini frisbees and can say "frisbee" which I think is super cute. Brennan was trying to teach her a thing or two between games. She might need to open her eyes to be very successful though. :)
There was plenty of silliness to be had in July as well, of course.
We helped out at Kelbie's birthday party which pretty much entailed hanging out at a park with Grandma on a beautiful evening.
My parents' branch had a pioneer day activity that we were able to go to. And we needed jackets in July in Iowa! How crazy is that?! Brennan gave lots of handcart rides.
Brennan made some delicious breakfast sandwiches, as he often does. But we don't always get a cute shot of Tatum biting it at the same time he is haha.
And to finish off July, Tatum climbed in a duffle bag just to hang out. She loves to sit in boxes and bags or behind the curtains or under the covers. I wonder what that says about her? Who knows?
Back in mid July my hometown had their summer celebration/fair/carnival, Heritage Days. We headed down to participate in the festivities on Saturday. Luckily Gretchen got us a really good spot for the parade so we went home with quite the loot. Too bad I'm not much of a candy eater and Tatum is too young for much. But we appreciate it all the same Gretch! :)
Tatum being shy.
Wondering why candy isn't currently falling from the sky, no doubt.
She had both hands as full as she could and she wasn't letting go. At the end of the parade we discovered that she had put a tootsie roll in her mouth with the wrapper on. She had been working on it for quite some time. That was nasty. Good thing her dad was the one to dig it out of her mouth.
With her loot. She loved having it piled on her.
After the parade I headed to what was apparently the world's largest baby shower. It's hard to believe that no one could top it with a bigger one, but it claims to be the largest. Gretchen, her sister, Kadera, and I decided to check it out. We signed up to win a lot of neat stuff but sadly none of us got a call or an email. :( The day was not wasted, however, because they were giving out cupcake samples from Scratch Cupcakes. So good! It will be dangerous when we get one of those closer to us.
Later in the afternoon we headed up to the family fun zone at Heritage Days. There were several free games and activities for kids to do and they got a stamp for each one. After they got a certain number of stamps they could have an otter pop. It was a fun idea. Kelbie and Caden were running the ice blocking station so we tried it out. Tatum watched Caden and Brennan once and when they got set up to go down again she started scooting down the hill on her bum. Silly girl.
Tatum's turn.
Since it seemed to go so well the first time, Brennan decided to let her go down without him holding on.
Woops.
Crystal was nice enough to watch Tatum for awhile that evening so Brennan and I could go play some Bingo with friends. Sadly none of us took home the pot but it was good to see friends and be child-free for awhile. While we were gone Tatum helped the Eskelsens rediscover their small trampoline in their basement. She thought it was the greatest thing and Crystal just sent it home with us! After falling in love with trampolines on our trip to Utah, Tatum thought this was the greatest thing.
This post is probably just a little random, but that's okay. We were home from Utah for a week before my parents came back so we took over the care of good ole' Duke. Tatum loved it of course. And she sure gives Duke the royal treatment so I'm not sure why he doesn't love being at our house more than he does. As the following pictures and video show, she shares everything she eats with him and when she gets concerned that he isn't eating his dog food she will bring it to him in the living room. The dog didn't even have to lift his head to get nourishment! Now that's the life, folks.
So proud of herself for sharing. Too bad it's much harder to get her to share with other kids.
Around this same time Tatum had an obsession with salsa. That ship seems to have sailed, but here she is dipping a PB&J in salsa. Yum! Everything had to have salsa.
Brennan and I did our first yard project. These bricks were horrendously weedy and uneven so we relaid them with plastic and sand underneath them. And we have plans to make that open space a little flower bed. They aren't perfect by any means but they look a lot better than they did.
Tatum really enjoys her baby these days. Here she is pretending to sleep with her baby on the deck.
Duke's favorite spot at our house? In the closet on our shoes. Maybe it's just me but that does not look comfortable. And yes, we have a lot of shoes.
The city we live in celebrated it's 100th birthday this summer so we got to see fireworks. I was pretty excited about it since we missed them on the 4th. We found a pretty ideal location where we were close and had a good view, but we weren't by huge groups of people and we weren't too close so the sound wasn't scaring Tatum.
She loved them. As you can tell from her face in this picture. :)
So that was some more of our summer fun. I'll catch up eventually!
