Good Bye 2009. HELLO 2010

"For last year's words belong to last year's language and next year's words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning." ~T. S. Eliot


Wishing you all a very happy and safe New Year's Eve. As always we will be gorging ourselves on food and games. We always have cheese fondue and yummy snacks all evening while we play different games to welcome in the New Year. Then to celebrate the New Year further we have some chocolate fondue and more games! :-)

We're not sure that Will can hang until midnight, but we will probably have a special New Year's countdown just for him before he goes to sleep. He did however find his official new year's hat while shopping yesterday. Will is a trend-setter and decided that the new look is the sideways top hat.




See you all in 2010!

Hugs,
The Tates

Merry Christmas To All!

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

"Let us keep Christmas beautiful Without a thought of greed, That it might live forevermore To fill our every need, That it shall not be just a day, But last a lifetime through, The miracle of Christmastime That brings God close to you."

We have had so much fun the last few days. Tia flew in from St. Louis and she and Nana are at Samantha's house today. We will see them again tomorrow when our second Christmas celebration will begin! Yesterday Memaw, Pawpaw, Aunt Jolie, and Uncle Mike came down to spend Christmas Eve with us. We had our first annual Elf Dinner. All of the food was red and green and we even wore elf hats. It was really fun! William enjoyed playing with everyone last night. It sure is amazing to watch Christmas through a 2 year old's eyes.


Pawpaw read all of us "Twas the Night Before Christmas" and William really enjoyed it.


William was so excited this morning to see what Santa brought him. He must have been an extra good boy this year because Santa brought him a train table!




It was such a fun sight to watch him get so excited about his gifts and shout "Thank You Santa!" He is also enjoying saying "Merry Christmas" to everyone. We all got some really lovely gifts, and have had such a wonderful day. Today we are relaxing and enjoying our day together as a family with a yummy afternoon meal planned. This evening we may take a drive in Pawpaw's "hiccup" aka a pickup to look at some Christmas lights.

Although this has been a difficult year at times, as we look back at 2009 we can't help but feel truly blessed this year. Wishing all of you a very Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year!

With Love,
The Tates

What A Month

Happy November Everyone!

We are so sorry for the lack of posts, but October was a very busy and hard month for us. October started off pretty well. Daddy was doing well at work, and Mommy started to get very busy. Luckily for all of us Nana was here to help us out. In mid-October we traveled to Austin for the weekend to visit with Aunt Jolie, Uncle Mike, Memaw, and Pawpaw. Not only did we enjoy seeing all of them, but we got to go for a ride on THOMAS THE TRAIN!!!! Unfortunately for William, that day marked the beginning of a very long week of being sick. Despite not feeling great, William still enjoyed his day with Thomas. He really enjoyed spending time with his Aunt Jolie or JoGi as he calls her.

Our little family on the train


Will, Pawpaw, and Uncle Mike


William and his Aunt "JoGi"


Thomas!!!


We thought we were having a rough week with William being sick, but it was even harder :-( Mommy's dear grandmother Nanny was put in the hospital and passed away on October 14th. It has been very hard on everyone, but Mommy really misses her grandmother. Nana just arrived back this weekend from getting everything settled with Tia in Iowa. Luckily, Mommy was able to fly up to Iowa to be with family and help Nana and Tia. Here is a link to Nanny's obituary which has a very lovely picture of her. Nanny's service was beautiful and it was everything she would have wanted. Yesterday Mommy saw this quote at a store and immediately reminded her of Nanny. It sounded like something she would say to Mommy during some of their talks.

“Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think." (Christopher Robin to Pooh Bear)

Yesterday was Halloween, and we had a wonderful day. After Nana arrived we watched "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown." and had popcorn. Then Mommy made "Mummy Dogs", homemade mac and cheese, and green beans for dinner. After dinner we put William in his engineer costume (minus the handkerchief) and waited for our friends to come and trick or treat with us. This was the first Halloween that William was very excited about the festivities. He did such a great job, and really wasn't frightened by much. We decided that next year he should dress as a cat burglar because he kept walking into people's homes. Such a silly little man! He had a great time trick or treating with his new BFF Jeremiah (our next door neighbor about 3 months younger than him) and Lucas. Here are a few pics taken of our little man. A big thank you to Nana for handing out candy while we took Will out!!!!!



Will and Lucas


Trick or Treating


Today Mommy and Daddy are going to spend some time together this afternoon celebrating Daddy's birthday tomorrow.

Look for more updates this week and month!

Hugs to all,
The Tates

Long Overdue!

Sorry faithful Tate Blog Readers but this post is very LONG overdue and very LONG! We have been trying to catch up with everything since Sara has gone back to work and with William starting school full-time. Slowly but surely we will get there :-)

Here is a fun little look as to what we did 2 weekends ago. :-) We were so excited that Memaw and Pawpaw decided to come for a visit. They came down Friday afternoon and picked William up from school. He was SO excited to see them when they picked him up. Once Mommy and Daddy got home from work we all spent some time together and then Mommy and Daddy were able to go out on a date night! Thank you Memaw and Pawpaw! We SO SO SO enjoyed that! Saturday morning Mommy headed out to spend the weekend with her friends Lea and Shannon. They had a fun girls weekend in Gruene. She really had a wonderful time!!! While Mommy was away, Daddy, Pawpaw and Memaw did what they do best. They had FUN! They went for a ride in the pick-up truck, played with William, and did a bit of gardening. On Sunday the 4 of them headed to one of our favorite state parks, Guadalupe State Park, for some fun by the river. Here are some fantastic shots of them together. The river is actually up! Thanks to all the good rain we got about 2 weeks ago, and we should be getting some more tomorrow. Yeah!

Pawpaw and William Reading


Memaw and William Playing


Pawpaw teaching William to throw rocks


Good Throw Will!


Memaw and her little man!



And now a more current update...This past weekend we spent the majority of the time trying to get William better. William has been having terrible allergies lately and on top of that we think caught a virus. Poor Baby! By Friday evening he had a 103 fever. Most of Saturday was spent snuggling while Mommy and Daddy took turns moving furniture out of the guest room and into the master bedroom. For those that may not know Nana is moving to San Antonio! WOO HOO!!!!! She will be living with us until she settles on something more permanent in the area. We were able to get so much accomplished! Nana's room is all ready for her to move into. Hooray!

This will be quite the week for us as well. Colby is in St. Paul through late Wednesday night on a business trip, which means Momma and William are solo for just tonight. Colby arrived safely, but is now feeling poorly AGAIN! He was sick last week with allergies/sinus infection and now he is feeling like he has the flu :-(

Nonno and Nina sat with William tonight so that Mommy could teach her evening class. They were such a big help and we are very thankful for that! Nana is driving down tomorrow to bring another load of her belongings, and will be here until Thursday morning which means we get to celebrate her birthday with her! Hooray! Friday Daddy gets to fly solo since Mommy will be at an all day conference in Austin. Saturday we will leave bright and early to head to Patillo. We will be celebrating cousin Neil's second birthday in Weatherford while Daddy and Pawpaw drive to Sherman to help Nana move. Saturday night William and Mommy will drive to Sherman to help the boys load the rest of the goods up and then we head back to San Antonio on Sunday. What ride! :-)

We know we say this all the time, but we do feel very blessed to have the best family and friends around! Thank you to everyone who helps and supports us! Y'all are the best and we are constantly reminded of that!

Wish us luck this week :-)

Hugs to all,
The Tates

School Time Fun

Hi Everyone!

William's school now has a website for parents to check out pictures of their kiddos during the day. We are just loving it and I thought I would share a few pictures of William and his adventures at school. He really seems to be enjoying his time and school, and absolutely adores his teacher Ms. JoJo. Mommy and Daddy couldn't be more pleased with his school. Our latest few daily reports from Ms. JoJo are really proving to us that he is becoming more comfortable at school and letting his personality show. Today for example we were told that he is becoming more "rebelious." When asked to help clean up William replied "Oh my goodness!" and then walked away. What a silly little boy. He also decided he thought it would be a great idea yesterday to try and cut someone's hair with his kiddie scissors, but Ms. JoJo stopped that ASAP! He told us about it at home. "Momma me cut hair." He really didn't, but we had a little talk about how we don't do that. What a little monkey. Good thing he is cute ;-)

Indoor Fun


William and his OCD outside ;-)


One of his favorite activities...driving the cars!


Such a happy boy!


Enjoy some snacks with Nonno and Nina at Grandparent Snack Time


Painting with his nose...a fun activity all the kiddos did.


Love this one!


Hope you enjoy the pictures as much as we do!

Love,
The Tates

Dress Up Like A Grandparent Day

Today is Dress Up Like A Grandparent Day at William's school. They are celebrating their grandparents all week. We asked William who he wanted to dress as and of course the answer was "Pawpaw." We found him a button down shirt and jeans just like Pawpaw wears. William doesn't have boots, and we thought that might not be a great idea at school. Momma hunted for a black cowboy hat just like Pawpaw's, but only found a straw one. William actually has a matching Pawpaw cowboy hat, but it is at Pawpaw's house.

This morning we get William up and get him ready for school........and he decides he DOES NOT want to wear a hat. The response was actually "No Momma! Hat GO AWAY!" So glad we hunted for that yesterday ;-) Then we tried to get him to pose for a picture and that didn't go very well either. This is the best we could do at 6:45AM.



It is raining here in San Antonio!!! Hallelujah!!!! It should rain some the rest of the week. Thank goodness...we are only 13 inches below normal.

Hope everyone has a great Wednesday!

Love,
The Tates

Our Labor Day Weekend

We had a nice and relaxing Labor Day weekend this year. Nana came for a visit, and we loved having her here with us. Poor Daddy was sick so he spent most of the weekend playing video games and sleeping. Not his picture perfect 3-day weekend, but he is slowly starting to feel better.

We went and had BBQ at Cooper's in New Braunfels on Saturday, and then Mommy and Nana made King Ranch Chicken casserole for dinner Saturday night. We just spent most of the day playing with William and running some errands. Mommy made William a train cake for being such a good boy at school the previous week. He was so excited about his cupcake cake. It has been hard on him to understand that he can't have a cupcake every 5 minutes :-)


On Sunday, Nana and Mommy took Will to the park to play in the morning so Daddy could rest and try to start feeling better. We really just relaxed the rest of the day and evening. William, on the other hand was his silly self all day long! Nana and Mommy found him a new Cars water bottle and snack cup at Target in the dollar bin, and William just went crazy with it. We laughed so hard because he kept "chugging" the water. Thank goodness he is 2 and not 21!!! ;-)


Nana left on Monday and the three of us worked on cleaning up the house before the work week started. William is such a big helper. He loves vacuuming! Who knew?! It was nice to spend the day at home with each other. We love days like this!

(Side note: Yes William is wearing the same shirt 2 days in a row...Sunday was laundry day and he picked out the same shirt on Monday.)

This week William is celebrating grandparents at school, and tomorrow he has to dress like one of his grandparents. Any guesses on who he will dress as? Check back tomorrow to see :-)

We had such a nice weekend that it was sad to see the work week begin. Thank goodness for the 4 day work week this week :-)

Love,
The Tates

Our FIrst Week Back at School

Well here it is already Sunday and we are just getting around to posting something about last week. It seems like we are all adjusting to our new roles. William started at his new school last Monday. He was able to stay the previous week in Grandpa daycare ;-). Pawpaw came and took care of him for 3 days and Nonno (and Nina) took care of him for the other 2. Needless to say he was having a great week with them. He just loves his grandfathers!

On his first day of school he got up at his normal time, which luckily for his parents gives them enough time to feed him and get him dressed before they have to hit the road. When we made it to his school he was so excited! He kept saying "Me school Momma! Me school!" When Mommy and Daddy took him to his room he gave one of his teachers, Ms. Roschelle a big hug and then started playing with the other children. We just gave him a big hug and kiss and said our good-byes quickly. The teachers really prefer that the parents not make a big deal about leaving, and I completely agree. As we were leaving Will shouted "Bye bye Momma. Bye bye Daddy!" Daddy called at lunch time to check in and see how William was doing, and Ms. Jojo (William's assigned teacher) told him that Will had a pretty typical morning for a child who has never been in school. He cried for Momma and then would play with the other kids and then cry for Momma again. He really didn't want to participate in much, but he sure was happy to see Momma when she picked him up. He has been improving all week though! On Tuesday he played more, but cried for both Momma and Daddy. Wednesday through Friday he did a better job of adjusting to his parents being gone.The hardest time for him is after nap which is his last hour at school, but by Friday he was participating in all of his morning learning activities. He gets along beautifully with the other children, and the only problem is nap time. He has a hard time falling asleep at school, but we imagine by next week he will be doing just great! All in all we think he is doing a great job with this BIG change in his life.

Here are some pictures from William's first day.
William and Daddy before school


William and Mommy before school


Playing at the indoor park at school


Talking with Ms. Roschelle


A long first day of school deserves a nice, cold celebratory drink


Mommy's first week of school (with students) went very well. She has kind of an odd schedule this semester (Mondays and Wednesday 10-3 and 7-10PM, and no classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Fridays just 10-12PM.)Luckily she is really enjoying her students so far, and her co-workers are great. Tuesdays and Thursdays are harder on her because she has more time to think of William. We are very sure she will get use to him being at school though :-)

We have had a very quiet and relaxing weekend at home. We are mostly prepared for next week, and are counting down the days until next weekend! Hooray for 3 day weekends!!!

Wishing everyone a very happy week!

Hugs,
The Tates

A Big Boy Deserves A Big Boy Room

Time sure has flown by. We have been saying that a lot lately, or at least it feels like it. It seems just like yesterday, Sara was 9 months pregnant and she and Colby were frantically trying to put William's room together before he was born.


Fast forward to now, and we are trying to create a fun and happy room for William to grow in to. A room that we can change if we becomes obsessed with new things, and we all know he will. We have been trying to decide what to do for about 6 months now, and we could never decide on colors, themes, etc. To tell you the truth it became a bit overwhelming.

William is obsessed with the cars, trains, and trucks. It all started with his fascination with the movie Cars. We use to watch it everyday, but now William likes to talk about the cars and play with his replicas of the characters. He knows all of them!!! With that in mind we decided to create a Cars room for him. Mommy found some cute fabric at a craft store and Memaw made William some curtains. That's really where this room started about a month ago. We decided to match some of the colors in the fabric and paint his room yellow and red. We used a deep yellow on top and a bright red on the bottom. We think it looks AWESOME!

When we finished painting the room we opened the door to show William, and he was so excited!!!! He loves the colors. He was even more excited when we added the Cars border that Memaw and Pawpaw got him.

Here are some pictures taken during the whole process.

Before..plain white


The Yellow is Up!


Finished Painting


With the new border



Will's new entrance


And some of his room completed









Memaw and Pawpaw also got him the wall stickers. The rest of the "Cars" pieces were either purchased or given to us by the Mattison family. Their oldest son had a Cars themed bedroom. Thanks Mattisons! He has been talking about the different cars since we put the stickers up. So cute!

We think William really loves his new space, and we are excited for him. We aren't completely finished with it yet. Mommy is working on his name that use to hang on the wall. When it is all done it will look like a racing flag that spells out his name! Mommy is also working on a few little extras to put in his room, but for the most part it is done! We are waiting for a toy organizer that should be here sometime next week, and a picture board that Memaw is finishing up with some extra fabric!

Hugs to all,
The Tates

Our Trip to Iowa

We have been back from almost a week, but have had a busy one so this blog is a bit late. William, Nana, and Mommy had such a fabulous time in Iowa visiting Nanny. This was William's second trip to Iowa. The first was when he was about 6 months old. We are still in shock as to how well he did in the car. Nana was brilliant in getting him a portable DVD player, and Mommy had the car stocked with lots of activities for the little one. The best thing was a cookie sheet and magnets. He played with that for hours. We had alphabet magnets, animal magnets, and even firefighter magnets. He really loved that!!! He also played with his various cars and trucks on the drive. He got upset one time on the way up, and we were already in Des Moines! What a trooper! It took us 11 hours to get there from Nana's house. His drive to and from our house to Nana's was not as pleasant, but by the time we were back in Texas the poor kiddo just wanted to be home. Who could blame him?! He is such a creature of habit that we are surprised he did as well as he did for so long. :-) William and Mommy logged about 2000 miles total, but it was well worth it.

Here are some pictures from the road.


Naptime


Busy with his AquaDoodle


We always have such a nice time at Nanny's. We always eat well and have so much fun visiting with each other.

Will happy to see his Nanny


We tried to go on an outing every morning for William. We didn't want him to get bored. So the first morning we were in town we spent some time at a park. The trees are so much bigger there, and William was just amazed. It is also VERY green compared to Texas. We sure wish that rain would head this way. Summer time in the Midwest is the best! Especially this year when the weather was abnormally cool. We really were spoiled with the mid 70 degree weather.

Some pictures from the park


Nana, Mommy, and William went to the Iowa Science Museum one morning. It was awesome. A 2-story science museum with a ton of stuff for kids of all ages. William really liked it! Mommy also loved it, but we will chalk that up to her being a complete science nerd.

Will and Nana in front of the center


Playing with Gears


So cute!


The Awesome Ball Wall


The following day we headed to the Living History Farms. This is a 500 acre farm the recreates farming from about the late 1700s to the early 1900s. It was really fun, but we didn't quite realize how much trail walking it would include. William loved seeing all of the animals.

Part of the late 1800s town


Machine Shop and Will churning butter


Sheep!


Cows!


Walking the Trails


During our visit we were also able to see some family friends, the Updegraffs. We love being able to spend some time with them. Actually, it was lovely to spend some nice quality time with Nanny and Nana. We sure wished Nanny lived closer. William really enjoyed spending time with them, and Mommy loved the fact that we have these memories to cherish.

Four Generations


We missed Daddy terribly while away, but we are so glad we were able to get to spend some time with Nanny and Nana! Thank you Daddy!!!

This weekend we are painting Will's bedroom and trying to get the house organized. Mommy goes back to work in T minus 10 days. Be on the look out for some pictures of Will's new big boy room! Mommy packed all the baby stuff away a couple weeks ago (insert tears). We can't believe how big he is getting! In just a little over 2 weeks he will start school for the first time. Time sure is flying by.

Hoping everyone has a safe and fun weekend!

Hugs,
The Tates