And Baby Makes 4

We are so happy to announce that our little Tate family is now complete with the arrival of Thomas Erick Tate.  Thomas was born on Friday, March 16 at 1:18 PM in what was a very short and uncomplicated delivery. Sara's due date was actually March 11th, and needless to say we were all ready for him to make his appearance.  She was actually scheduled for an induction on the 19th, but we are very grateful that Thomas arrived on his own. We arrived at the hospital at 11:20 AM and before we knew it Thomas was in our arms.  He weighed a whooping 9 pounds and was 21 inches in length.

Admitted and Waiting on the Epidural

Welcome to the world Thomas!

Getting his vitals checked

Sara really felt great during the delivery and was up and walking about an hour after.  Colby was such a big help during the short delivery, and really helped Sara when she realized the epidural wasn't exactly working. The doctors and nurses were fantastic, especially the baby nurse that had to literally run to the operating room to grab the physician who delivered since Thomas was ready to meet the world a little quicker than expected :) We are just so excited that Thomas has finally arrived.

Thomas and Daddy

After a little bit of quiet time and getting to meet Thomas it was time for big brother to finally meet his little brother.  William arrived at the hospital around 5 PM with Memaw and Nana.  He was so excited to meet Thomas.  His first reaction was "Awww. He is SO cute.  He has a pudgy little nose."  Thomas picked out some gifts for William and he was so happy to have some special treats while everyone came to visit us at the hospital. We really couldn't be more proud of William.  He has been adjusting so well to having a sibling in the house.

William meets Thomas

We have a ton of pictures with all of our family that came to visit us at the hospital, and I've added just a few to this blog.  We can't thank our immediate family who came to the hospital to visit us enough.  It was nice to see all of our family together and celebrating the newest addition.

The boys and their grandmothers

Aunt Jolie and her nephews

Pawpaw and Thomas

Aunt Samantha and Thomas

Nonno and his grandbabies

I am missing a few pictures and apologize for not getting them up on this blog (sorry Uncle Mike and Nina!)  We have been home for about 8 days now and were lucky enough to have Colby stay home a whole week with us.  It was so very nice to have him home.  Luckily Nana is here for the week to help out and Memaw is coming next week.  Hooray!

We have some big things happening all within the next month.  Thomas arrived, William turns 5 on Easter Sunday, and we will be closing on our new home in The Woodlands in mid-April.  We are REALLY very excited.  We met our new neighbors yesterday when we took Nana by the house.  They are a family about our age and have a 3 year old and 9 year old sons. We also found out that there is another family with 4 and 6 year old sons and a fantastic babysitter just a few doors down.  We are even more thrilled about this neighborhood knowing there are some kiddos Will's age to play with.

We will try our hardest to keep this blog updated the best we can.  Hoping everyone is doing well!!

Hugs,
The Tates

Oh What A Day!

Well the Tate Family sure has had an interesting day today.  It all started around 3:30 this morning when Sara woke up with strong contractions every 5 minutes.  This was exciting in that she already had a scheduled appointment with her doctor this morning, and has been having these contractions for the past few days.

Sara at 39 weeks (hopefully one more week!)

Colby originally was going into work this morning, but given the circumstances decided to go with Sara to her appointment.  Hoping for some great news about having Thomas soon she was instead greeted with "Nothing new to report." and if Thomas hasn't arrived in 2 weeks (one week past her due date) we could then consider an induction. Her poor doctor.  He felt really bad to give her the obviously disappointing news, and to say Sara was disappointed would be a MAJOR understatement.  We know that Thomas will come when he is ready, but William had already arrived at this point in pregnancy and given our earlier scare we were all convinced he would be here already.

Colby was sweet and decided to help Sara with some errands after the appointment before heading back to work, which was VERY nice.  On our way home from picking up Will we noticed the low tire pressure light turned on in our family car.  No big deal, or so we thought.  Colby was going to fix the low tire when we arrived at home.  As Sara and Will got out of the car all they heard was a "PSSSSSSSHHHHHH" from the tire.  That's not good!  No big deal, right?!  WRONG!  Colby goes to the trunk and proceeds to get out the jack and the spare so that we can change the tire before he goes back to work.  He thought it would be best not to leave the pregnant one alone at home without a working car. :) So as he proceeds to take off, or try to take off, the lug nuts we realize that the dealer never supplied us with the key to the anti-theft lug nuts on our tires.  What does that mean you ask?  Well...we can't get the tires off of the car without that key.

Will making the best of all this waiting

Enjoying an old toy :)

A minor set back, but lucky the dealer we purchased our car from in San Antonio has a sister dealer in Houston near our home.  So we call them to see how they can help, and they kindly send someone with the master key out to our house.  Hooray!  Surely Colby can make that 2:30 meeting he has scheduled..um...NO!  So the poor guy that brings the master key kit quickly discovers that none of the masters works on our car.  The one that should fit is all muddied up and won't work.  Fantastic!  SO..he suggests we call Subaru roadside assistance.  Surely they can help.  Another hour later and the poor guy from Subaru roadside assistance arrives at our house (after being given the wrong street name and address) and says..."Oh.  I don't have masters for tires."  He felt so bad, and suggested we call Subaru roadside again and tell them to figure something else out.  So Subaru roadside then sends a tow truck to our house, another hour later, to tow the car to the dealer.  Mind you this is all for a FLAT TIRE!!!!  In the meantime Sara calls the San Antonio dealer to discuss her disappointment in them selling us a car with no key.  What if we had been on the side of the highway?!  (also mentioned in the phone conversation).  The unhelpful service associate gives Sara the run around, and unfortunately for him it is not good to press a pregnant woman's buttons.  Needless to say after speaking with the sales manager Subaru will be sending us a key for no charge.  Poor Colby had to finally get on the phone for fear that Sara's blood pressure would go too high ;)

This is how WE fix a flat ;)

So at this point we are thinking...surely we are almost done with this insane day.  The tow truck driver arrives, loads up the car, and off he and Colby head to the dealer.  We seriously can not make this stuff up...the tow truck is about to run out of gas and has to stop to fuel up......the gas stations won't take his fleet card. SERIOUSLY!!!!  So they essentially make it to the dealer on fumes.  WOW!

Now Colby is at the dealer trying to get them to change the tire and when he starts checking out they start charging him for a new key.  Really?!  Haven't we just gone over this about 50 times?!

Hopefully Colby will be home before tomorrow :)  At least we can laugh about it, right?  This has really been a crazy day, but at least it was gorgeous outside.  To really make this day better we think Thomas should arrive late tonight.  :) We are going on a long family walk later to see if we can encourage the arrival :)

We hope everyone else is having a fabulous Monday!

Hugs,
The Tates

Sibling Class

William took his sibling class tonight at the hospital. He was so excited to learn how to become a big brother. He kept asking to go to class all day. He did an amazing job in the class, and we were really impressed with his actual interest in the class. He first learned how to hold a baby, and the rules involved with that. When we first walked in the room and saw all the baby dolls he did ask "Momma, are those real babies?"

He then learned how to change a diaper. He thought that was really fun, but later told Colby that he would not be helping with that because it is "ICK". :) The kids then watched a little movie about being a big brother or sister and learned about the umbilical cord, feeding (the breast feeding part of the video led to some interesting comments from our son LOL!), sleeping, and what they should do if they are feeling sad or angry. After they finished their snack we went on a tour of labor and delivery. He seemed a little anxious when looking at some of the medical equipment, and did ask a few times if Mommy had to stay tonight.

We are amazed at how excited he is getting about the arrival of his brother. This morning he sat next down to Sara, leaned over to her belly, kissed it, and said "Hey Thomas! How's it going in there? I love you." He is so sweet and is going to do great!

With love,
The Tates

Building for His Cousin

Tonight Will decided to pull out his legos and build some new things while I was cooking dinner.  His cousin Lauren came over for a sleep-over last week and they ended up building a fire truck, police car, and fire station together.  As I was watching him build the police car he says to me "Mom.  I'm gonna make Lauren impressed."  His little memory is fascinating to me. We really haven't talked too much about Lauren's visit in awhile, and I was just so impressed with what he remembered the most.   

Working on the police car

As he continued working on it he says "I'm making it more better. She can't believe her eyes when she comes back."

Most "awesomeness" police car

The new and improved fire station

New and highly modified fire truck

I had such a fun time watching him recreate what he and Lauren made last week.  He can't wait for his cousin to come back over so he can show her his new and improved creations!

Good night all,
Sara

A Morning at the Zoo

Colby had Monday the 2nd off, and we decided to spend the morning together at the Houston Zoo.  Sara's former colleagues gave us a family membership as a going away present when we moved.  Such an awesome gift!  The Houston Zoo is beautiful, and has some really interesting exhibits that they don't have in San Antonio.  Those of you that know us, know how much we love the San Antonio Zoo.  We had a wonderful morning exploring the majority of the zoo.

Checking out the meerkats

Pretty Asian Elephant

Cheetah

The Houston Zoo has a wonderful giraffe exhibit

The boys checking them out.

Will and his favorite animal. 

The zoo has a fantastic carousel, and Will was able to ride it today for the first time.  He had so much fun. 

Getting ready to go

Mommy watching :)

Will and Daddy

After his fun ride!

After his ride on the carousel we headed to the Children's Zoo.  They have a great petting zoo.  Will loves to go and brush the goats.  The funniest thing about the petting zoo is that the animals are literally asleep as all these kids run around brushing them.  We are convinced that they may be narcoleptic. 

The goat was SOUND asleep!

Pretty Brown Goat

So Gentle :)

  We were also able to watch a keeper feed the fruit bats in the Children's Zoo cave area, which was really interesting.  William did verify with the keeper that the bats were fruit bats and not vampire bats because "I do NOT like vampire bats". LOL!

Checking out the cave drawings after the feeding time for the bats.

Funny looking meerkat.

2 Funny Looking Meerkats.

Another awesome cave to explore

After our cave exploration Will played on the playground for a bit before we checked out some more exhibits.  We really enjoyed the African Forest area where we could see several chimpanzees.  Very neat!

Rhinos

Watching the chimps

Cool Masks

Such silly boys

Beautiful fish

Neat Jellyfish

After the African Forest Will and Colby checked out the aquarium as we headed for the car. 






























We plan on checking out more of the sites around Houston after this weekend since we will not be traveling until after Thomas is born.  We can't wait to see some of Houston's spectacular museums and attractions.

We are heading to the farm this weekend to visit with Colby's family for his Mom's annual Epiphany party, and to celebrate Christmas with Memaw and Pawpaw.  Wishing everyone a great rest of the week!

Take care,
The Tates

Our Montessori Lessons

I have had a few friends ask what lessons I work on with Will at home and I thought it would be nice if I just explained his winter lessons.

We just love the Montessori method and how kids so naturally gravitate towards it that we have been implementing more of it at home since we moved to Houston.  William currently goes to a preschool that uses many of the Montessori methods, but isn't as traditional as the one he attended in San Antonio.  Every afternoon we spend about an hour on his at-home lessons.  Some days are great days and others he complains about "not wanting a teacher at home" LOL!  Too bad for him that his momma is a teacher.  Just wait until he starts chemistry! :)  Part of the Montessori method is that students can reach their work on their own without adult help.  All of these lessons are on a bookcase on the lower shelves.  Each lesson is compartmentalized in either a tray or some type of box that he can easily manipulate.  He has to treat his work with respect and he can work with it either on his table or on his rug.  It takes me about 3 hours a month to prepare the work.  That includes internet search time, printing, cutting, and laminating.  Now that I am building a collection it won't take as much time as we do this every month. 

This winter William wanted to learn more about snow and the season in general.  I try to change out his themed work every month or so, and we always have a moveable alphabet , number beads , and books as part of his lessons.  We have to help him with both of those still, but he is really starting to be able to put words together with the letters using the moveable alphabet.  We have really noticed that he is able to actually read words now.  The other day Sara was making a grocery list and had written kitty litter down.  He picked up the paper and said "Momma. Who is Katy?"  Pretty good for really just starting on this a few weeks before Christmas! 

We are going slower on the number beads than what the link above shows. Sara wanted to make sure that he easily understands the concepts of 0-10 before moving on to bead work with the teens and tens (20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, etc).  He has a great concept of 0-10 and we are working on teens and tens.  Then we will move on to basic addition and subtraction. While he and Sara were working on lessons today he just started counting on his own and was able to make it to 30 without any help or mistakes.  Woo hoo!!!

So here are some examples of what we are working on this winter.  Sara will probably add some Valentine's themed activities in February, and she has some more activities planned for later in January when his current work gets "too boring".   For now here is what we are working on...

Animals in Winter-Learning about hibernation, migration, and adaptation. He also sorts the animals by which category they belong in.

Sorting the Animals in Winter

Sound recognition with the letter S.

Choosing which objects start with "s"

Sorting colors and learning the colors in Spanish

Working on color sorting

Counting cards where he must identify the number of snowflakes.  He then adds a snowflake on the correct number.

Counting the snowflakes in action

Using probability to build a snowman

 These are just a few of the things we have planned this month.  Some of the pictures have links to the websites we downloaded the material from.  There are a ton of free websites out there. 

We really enjoy doing this at home because it keeps Will entertained and not wanting to watch tv or play video games :)

Enjoy,
The Tates