Where are you Christmas

Our little RudyGingerbread lighthouse that took 1st place at the Brandt Family Xmas Party
Me and Tate by the tree
Dont worry, I keep the heat up nice and toasty so she can hang out in her diaper if she wants

Thanksgiving Photos

Getting things ready

Josh and Greg sampling

The buck that for some reason I have about 20 pictures of

Greg's amazing bird

Mom and Baby for most of the day

Natalie and Flint playing dress up, very entertaining

4 Months

Our Tatum bug is getting so big! She had her 4 month appointment yesterday and had to get some shots :( Never fun. She was really brave though, only yelled when they poked her. Then she was fine and happy for the rest of the exam.

Stats:

Height: 25''

Weight: 14 lbs 4 oz

Head circ: 40 cm

We've Moved!

When we first moved into our apartment at "Hidden Ghettos" it was supposed to be a temporary home. 6 months at the longest...

just about 2 years later we've finally moved!

Our new apartment is a lot nicer and about 50 years newer then our last one. We have carpet that I can bare to think of Tatum crawling on, central air, and a DISHWASHER! Man oh man have I missed having a dishwasher.

So we have been pretty busy unpacking and getting done with this semester of school.

Our Thanksgiving wasn't the greatest, at least for me. The day before I got food poisoning and spent most of the weekend hovering over the toilet or in bed.

I had one bite of potatoes, a bite of stuffing, and a small piece of turkey. Very depressing.

At least I got to eat leftovers.

Tatum started sleeping through the night!!! I think we're on day 7!

The trick is to wrap her up soooo tight that she cant wriggle her little arms out, or even move. If she is truly straight-jacketed up she will stay asleep 10+ hours! It has been bliss.

Library

Tatum's first trip to the library was a success! We first took a stroll through the very large children's section. We found the cute stage where they have story time, and are looking forward to going to that when Tate gets a little bigger.
Next we picked out some books. Tatum listened quietly and intently as I read to her :) She liked the Dr. Seuss book.Then we read one called Ill Always Love You which turned out to be very sad. It was about a boy and his dog, and the dog got older alot faster then the boy did. Soon she got very round, then didnt want to go on walks, and couldnt make it up the stairs. Then she dies. And the boy is so sad, but he knows that Elfie knew he loved her because he would tell her every night, "i'll love you always". I think Ill sensor the next books we read. Your dog dying is a pretty sensitive subject and I didn't have any time to warn Tate.

After that we went into the adult section and she got a little cranky. I tried to tell her you have to be quiet in the library but she wanted to yell. So I didnt get to check out anything, Tate got two baby books : Everywhere Babies and Ziggy's Blue Ribbon Race.

I had wanted to get some tiny baby pictures of Miss T, so when she was 2 weeks old we went to JC Penny and got a few shots, but she started screaming and crying before the 2nd pose was over. We planned to go back later that day to finish but never made it back. Then she got really big.

The other day JC P emailed me the pictures they did capture and I was so excited! She looks so tiny and slouchy and cute! Im glad they gave me a second chace to see them. Here's one I downloaded. Too bad it is so small and poor quality, I guess Ill have to buy a few sheets so I can see her clearly!

3 Months Old

November 18th marked Tatum 3 month birthday! She is so big!

Wait how old am I again? Oh yeah 3 months.

She is a very happy baby, as long as she gets her naps.

She loves to stand up and sit up with help.

Her fists have turned into lollipops, apparently very tasty.

Depending on the day she'll either sleep a full 8 hours at night, or sleep for about 5, wake up and have a bottle, and then go back down for another 3-4 hours.

I can live with that!

She loves to watch her Baby Genius movie (thanks Mimi!)

Loves loves loves her bath!

Hates hates hates getting out of the bath.

Likes to listen to classical music,

And most of all likes to rock in the rocking chair with mom.

My guess is that we rock for a combined total of about 3 hours a day.

She is so cute with her chubby cheeks and a chubby little belly! She loves to be naked.

Here she is dressed and watching her baby movie so mom can blog a little :)

Getting out of the bath, she just looked so cute in her towel I had to take a pic.

ps. i made sure to put a diaper on before i snapped any shots, remember what happened to daddy? :)

Tatum the Fashion Plate

Church dresses

Tatum likes to match her dad when she goes to church. Of course the good pictures are the ones that dont show the green tie, or were taken after dad changed out of his church clothes. Oh well, they still look super cute together.

This weekend we went to Heber twice, had a movie date at home, and had birthday cake at Yoho's. Talia loves it when Tate comes to visit her. She cant wait until Tatum can crawl and play with her. For now she is working on being soft :)

Ikea Date

Tatum got to spend the morning with her Dad while I went to work for a half day. I got off at 2 and we all took a nice family nap. Then Greg took me and Tate on a date to Ikea! We had so much fun looking at all the small couches and other great Swedish designs. They have the coolest things for kids rooms. I need to remember that I like their stuff when Tatum gets a little older and needs a big girl bed, or a mini table and chair.

Me and T getting ready to go

Our new living room :P
She did so good in her front facing stroller! I think she liked being able to look around instead of facing boring old mom. She did so good she got a little pink hippo as a prize

(only 45 cents!)
By the end of our browsing she was totally out :)

Here is a little video of "the queen" babbling and kicking for the Grandma's out there

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Bad Habit

This is something she picked up when we were visiting Mimi in Maryland. She spent alot of time laying in the living room playing and her gaze would just wander over to the big screen. When we got home we were over at our friend Amanda's to watch One Tree Hill and she was being so fussy, so I laid her down on the big love sac and her eyes went straight to the tv and the crying stopped.
She loves it! She laughs at it!
Now I really dont like to watch tv that much, so we hardly ever have it on. And I definitely dont want Tate to become one of those kids that watch television ALL DAY LONG.
But it is nice when I need to take a shower.

"What? I wasn't doing anything."

FYI I have only let her watch tv purposely twice. I usually take a shower before bed so Greg is home to hold Tate.

The money you could be saving with Geico

Ok this is what was on Jay Leno

apparently I dont know how to link things very well

Video Recaps | Full Episodes | Webisodes

Daylight Savings

I think daylight savings is ridiculous. Its only 8:00 and I feel like its midnight it has been dark for so long! Why do we have it again? So farmers can see to work? Dont they have spotlights now?

I didnt even get to sleep an extra hour for this fall back because Tatum is a good girl and sticks to her schedule.

This was on Jay Leno the other night, funny.

We had a fun Halloween yesterday. I didnt take any pics yesterday, but dont worry Ill dress Tatum up tomorrow and post her AMAZINGLY funny awesome costume so you can see. I was cracking up all day seeing her in it.

At work we were supposed to dress up as devils and angels, but I was the only one who came as an angel! It was pretty funny and almost everyone who came in to the salon commented on it.

After we both got off work we headed up to Heber to show Tate off to the grandparents and we went to a party with our friends Katie Rhode and Olivia. We played one of my favorite games Boxers or Briefs, ate yummy chips n' dip and dinner in a pumpkin.

We were super tired so we didnt stay for the scary movie (luckily, we were there for the first 3 minutes of it and I was already creeped out). When we got home we all just fell into our beds.

Then SUPRISE, this morning we didnt have any water! A pipe broke in our neighborhood and left us waterless for about 4 hours. I boiled some water to give T a bath but then had to drive all the way to Provo to shower at Andrea's! Thanks Ange! About half of our branch was late for church because of the incident.

Sotterly Plantation

While we were in MD Greg and I got to go on our first date post baby :) Mimi watched Tatum and got reservations for us at Sotterly Plantation for a ghost tour.
The plantation is one of the oldest in MD dating back to the 18th century with most of its original buildings, including one of the slave cabins.

First we went to a pizza place called Lido's where my sister Sierra works. She was our server, and was very nice to us :) I think they were pretty busy so she couldnt talk to us for very long, but we left her a good tip anyway.

Then we drove right down to the banks of the Patuxent River where our Ghost Tour awaited!
It was pouring rain and pitch black when we got there, and the tour was outside!
We waited for our guide in one of the barns I think, and then headed back out into the rain. They had two different tours, one family style for all ages, and one for 16 and up. I am the biggest chicken in the whole world when it comes to scary things, so we did the family style :)

The first ghost we met was a women hiding from the British whos husband and baby had been killed. The next was a slave. Then a British officer with these weird creeping crawling men/dogs? I dont really know what they were, but they came up from the woods with glowing eyes and really freaked me out!
Next was a British officer and then the son and daughter of the owner. Lastly we found out our tour guide had been dead all along too!
I guess it wasnt very scary, it was just kind of creepy because all of the stories were true, and the people had actually been there and died there.

Spooooooky :)

2 Month Stats

weight: 11 lbs 1 oz

75%

height: 23 inches

85%

head circumference:

25%

She is such a big girl now! Her weight jumped from the 25th percentile to 75th from weeks 2 to 10! I couldnt believe she'd almost doubled her birth weight.

She can hold her head up now

Sucks on fist

Wakes only 1 time per night

Smiles and laughs ALOT, especially at her Daddy

"Talks" a little

Likes to stick her tongue out

Loves her mama and daddy

And is so darn cute!

Pumpkin Patch

Tatum with Aunt Lucy in the patch.The little pumpkin princess needed a snack They had two little goats that were born just yesterday! They were so cute!