Tate - 15 months

Holy cow I haven't blogged in 2 months!?!?  Well, I have over at Adventures at Naptime, but not here!  And I haven't even kept up the other blog very well this season either.  Monogram Cafe is keeping me incredibly busy when I'm not hanging with my munchkins!!  

I haven't even been good about uploading pictures to Snapfish.  So I uploaded a ton today, but they are all out of order and I don't have the time/patience/care to go through and organize them!  However- I'm sad that these won't be in sequential order from 12 months-15 months.  Because I love to see how time progresses!  Maybe I'll have a rash of free time in the near future (HA!) and come back to re-order these photos.  

In the meantime, I will just pat myself on the back for blogging about how adorable Tate is at 15 months before he actually turns 16 months in about a week and a half!

Speaking of how ADORABLE he is.  Seriously.  Adorable.

He is talking like CRAZY.  He attempts to mimic every word you say.  These are the words he's officially incorporated into his vocab (plus many more; but these are his frequent ones... or at least ones that I find particularly adorable).

 I'm putting his pronunciation in parenthesis b/c that's obviously the cutest part!

Jump, giraffe (jaff), lion (i-lon), tea (tees), juice box (bu-box), thank you (tu tu), no-no-no, YEAH!, outside (ow-sye), DID IT!, I want that, night-night (nye-nye), bye-bye, truck (tuck), papa (baba), mimi, mormor, Ada (this was like his first word! Now he says it very loud and very deliberately), Dax (finally saying it right), cookies, banana (nana), backpack, box, turtle (tuh-tuh), dog, cheese (sheez), shoes (chuhz), 

Other adorable facts:

1) He runs SO fast!  Like lightning fast!

2) He calls for Ada in the mornings from his crib.

3) Pretends to be a dog.  A LOT.  Dax and Ada call him "T-Dog."  In fact, all you have to do is say "T-Dog" and he instantly drops and walks and pants like a dog!  See picture-

4) Pretends to talk on the phone.

5) LOVES this alphabet "show" on my phone.  Whenever it gets to "Z" he shouts "AGAIN!"

6) He's super particular about what books he likes.  He seems to be a non-fiction fan...

7) DEMANDS whatever the bigs get.  Every single thing MUST BE EQUAL.  It's cute most of the time.

8) He LOVES the Zoo.  And Sea World!  Animals in general.  He just gets a huge rush from seeing animals he's read about in books up close and personal!  And don't get me started on dolphins.  

9) He loves the Frozen Soundtrack.  He does non-verbal sound effects RIGHT on cue from his carseat.  And a few dance moves.

Here are some pictures of him form 12-15 months!  You will see from these how much he 1) loves to swim 2) loves to eat 3) play at splash parks 4)loves bath time 5)loves his big brother and sister!

13 months-

14 months-

14 months-

12 months-

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12 months-

15 months-

13 months- 

14 months-

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14 months-

14 months-

14 months- OMG I love this picture.

13 months-

15 months- 

14 months-

13 months-

14 months-

15 months-

14 months- first time playing in the rain!

15 months-

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I have a few more adorable videos of him over the last 3 months, but I'm having issues uploading them to YouTube at the moment!  I'll post those in a separate post soon :)  This is Tate at Sea World last month.  He LOVED it!  He was so into the animals and shows.  Was even a total trooper when we sat in the Splash Zones!  This is a short compilation of his adorable excitement at the Dolphin and Beluga show "Azul".

Dax Belting Out "Let It Go"

Like every other family in the United States of America- we do a lot of jamming out to the "Frozen" soundtrack in our car.  Here's Dax belting out "Let It Go" from the backseat!  He's such a ham!

Tate- Walking

I post a video of Tate's first steps in my previous blog post about him turning 12 months- but this video might be even cuter!  This as a few weeks ago, so he's not so wobbly anymore.  I'm behind on posts! Check out this wobbly little sasquatch-

Tate- 12 months

Hhhhhooooowwwww is he 12 months old!!  I'm actually faring much better now that a week or so has passed.  But I did NOT HANDLE his 1st birthday well at all- lots of watery eyes throughout the few weeks leading up to March 4, 2014!

But guess what?!?  He's still JUST AS ADORABLE and PRECIOUS and AMAZING as ever now that he's 1... so I am going to survive after all!!!

I realize this post is about a week and a half late- but I just couldn't bring myself to write it until now.  

Once you write it on the blog, it's OFFICIAL!  Haha :)

Anyway- like I said.  He's still terribly cute and smart and loving.  He's added lots of new words: "Look!", "turtle" (he says it tuh-tuh.  so cute), "up", "bye-bye", "eyes", "duck", "quack quack" (he says a duck says "duck duck"- lol!) - and he can identify so many more things that you ask him about by pointing at/to them.  It really is amazing watching his brain grow with every tiny experience.

He nods and shakes his head for yes and no sometimes- his nod is to-die-for-adorable. 

Very very deliberate and smiley!

He gives high fives like it's his job.

He blows kisses- selectively.

He loves to sign "milk"- he does it the whole time he nurses.  He'll sign "more" and "all done" more often now, and is learning "water" & "thank you". "Please" is next!  I had taught him "sleepy" at one time but we've both quit using it.  There's no denying when he's tired, anyway!

He's been paying attention at Ada and Dax's soccer games- because he totally scales the couch or table and will kick a ball as he goes.  So cute.

He ADORES his big brother and sister.  Dax basically tortures the poor kid in the bathtub each night, and Tate just giggles and giggles.  Although he has begun biting and head butting some- and I'm sure that has stemmed as some sort of self-defense mechanism with the two bigs around!  Tate would follow Ada and Dax all over night and day if he could- just laughing and squealing all the way.  And when he can't, it's because I've picked him up and he does NOT hide his frustration from me for ruining his good time!  Enter that biting and head butting.

And did I mention that he started WALKING ON his ACTUAL BIRTHDAY!?!?  I'm attaching a video at the end of his pictures!  It is ssssoooo adorable.

He makes this face a lot!

Here's a video of TATE'S FOR REAL FIRST STEPS!

He's been taking one at a time for about a week... and we were at McDonald's playing and eating ice cream on the afternoon of his actual birthday- and I could just SEE IT IN HIS EYES he was about to unleash his walking powers... So I grabbed my phone and caught his ACTUAL FIRST STEPS on film!  So special!

You can see his high fiving skills at the end of the video, too! :)

Tate thinks sneezes are hilarious- and will do an empathy sneeze after you sneeze!  Here's a vid. My sneeze is fake, FYI :)

Here he is blowing precious kisses:

And, I cannot remember if I've posted these videos of him trying to do Itsy Bitsy Spider.  So I'm posting them just in case.

You probably think I'm crazy, but I can TOTALLY see the motions in there.  Maybe because we've done it so many times that I know which movements he's doing on purpose over and over!

Itsy Bitsy Spider- Tate (Videos)

I sang Tate "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" for the first time about a week ago.  A few days later and a I SWEAR he knows the motions- just can't squeak them out perfectly with 11 month old motor skills!  Dax loved this song as a baby, too- I'll have to dig up a video!

This one's my fave! I mean, he really couldn't get much cuter....

Sweet Pa-Tate-ah

Snuggling and playing in the playroom on an icy afternoon- love this cutie!  He's been working on how to blow kisses- here are a few videos  :)

And he called me mama today!  He actually said it the other night when I went to tuck him back in after waking up fussing; but I wasn't sure if I'd heard him correctly so I let it pass- but he DEFINITELY said mama today.  Sitting in his high chair.  Eating his lunch.  Nothing like when a baby says "mama" on purpose for the first (or second- or third-or 100th) time!  So, I decided to take 100 pictures of him to remember exactly what he looked in that moment!  Naked and messy and snotty :)

Haha-

Hahaha-

Want some chewed up cantaloupe, mom?!

Monkey Joes

We've been cooped up a lot lately due to cold and icy weather- so we went up to Monkey Joes today to get the wiggles out!  

Dax on the slide- cracked me up!

Tate in the bouncies- 

Ridin' Bikes

Dax has begun riding a "big boy bike" lately- he's really getting the hang of it!  He loves to go super fast- something he just just couldn't manage on his lil ole trike :)  He we are at a park recently on one of those awesome Houston January days in the high 60s :)

Tate Giggling At Breakfast

Nothing special- just adorable Tate giggles :)

What does the puppy say?

Here's Tate attempting to woof like a puppy!  This was the very first day he did it- probably about 2 weeks ago.  Now he "oof oofs" pretty much everytime he sees a dog, and he will sometime attempt a monkey sound if you remind him what they say. :)  Love him!

Video- hanging out

Another random yet cute video of us just chillin' in the living room :)

Cutest Video EVER.

I can't believe I haven't posted this yet.  This is my favorite video.  Ever. I'm obsessed with them and days like this-

Video: Mommy and Dax

This is what Dax and I do while Ada's at school- ha!

Mommy joins in the fun-

Tate- 8 months

OK I'm wwwaaaayyy late in posting this monthly photoshoot update!!  I did however take the pictures on time- just haven't uploaded them and blogged about it!  So-- here's Tate at 8 months, 2+ weeks after his photoshoot.  I absolutely adore this little boy.  More everyday.  

He's getting to be quite the silly jokester.  He seems to think more subtle things are funny.  Not so slapstick like his big brother and sister, maybe?  Right around his 8 month birthday he began waving and "clapping"- you'll see the progression of his clap in the 2 videos at the bottom of this post.  Super cute.  (Now 2 weeks later he's working on blowing kisses- I can't WAIT for him to get that one down!) 

He's got 8 teeth and they are pretty much the cutest thing I've ever seen. 

He's showing interest in letting go of whatever he's holding on to- I'm not sure how long I have until he's walking, but I hope a few months still at least.  I am NOT READY to give up my crawling baby!  Speaking of crawling, the kid can make it halfway up the stairs in about 2 seconds flat. So that's a workout. 

He's coming around on the whole eating solids thing.  He wasn't sure about it at first, but LOVES them now, and gets cranky quick when his cheerios are all gone at mealtime!

Speaking of mealtime, we're working on baby signs.  And he seems to understand "more" and "all done" with some attempts at making the sign.  I vaguely remember Dax doing the same thing for "more" at first- banging on his tray! :)  He is pretty good at "all done"- especially if I do it first, he will return the gesture if he is in fact, all done.

Here is this sweet boy at 8 months- it gets more and more difficult with each passing month to get a good photoshoot in!

And videos of "If You're Happy and You Know It" with Tay-Tay-

This first one he is doing a spectacular with a "one-handed clap"- also known as pounding ;)

And this one he finally has his midline clap down, but he's not in such a happy-and-you-know-it kinda mood so I don't get much out of him!