Finally Finished

Well, it is official, the floors are done. We are still working on some finishing touches - base molding, transition pieces, and choosing rugs, but the major stuff is done! Here is a finished photo of our living room. I would have taken one of our bedroom, but it isn't quite all put together decoration wise! The floors look just the same though.

Here is a picture of what we found when we pulled up the carpet...

Yep...that's right. That is a slat made of concrete! It actually doesn't look too bad here other than the concrete slat, but it was awful! Good thing refinishing the floors wasn't in the plan!

Sweet Siblings

Morgan loves his baby sister. This week we have been working on installing our new floors and have been pawning our children off on family and friends for their safety and our sanity (thanks again to all of you who have been on the receiving end of this deal). Friday night, Morgan got to sleep at the Tates and Chloe stayed home since I am her food source.


Before Morgan went to bed he told Grandma Denese, "I want to go to my house and see Chloe." He stayed, but when we were on the phone with them the next day we heard Morgan in the background saying, "I want to go to my house and see Chloe. Where's Chloe?" When he finally came home later in the afternoon, the first words out of his mouth were, "Where's Chloe?"


And the affection is mutual. The second she heard Morgan's voice, Chloe smiled this giant grin and started giggling! Since we were still working on the floors, the two of them sat next to each other and played together for a while. Morgan wanted to keep his arm around Chloe and she was content to sit cuddled up to her big brother! They have the sweetest little relationship... here's hoping it stays that way!

Here they are sitting next to each other on the floor. Morgan kept sharing sweedish fish with Chloe - just a slight choking hazard! Can you tell that we were a little preoccupied with getting the floors done since they are both still in their jammies at 5 pm?

Quick Thoughts

I have been blogging like crazy lately, and I know I need to slow it down a bit, but my kids are just so darn cute, I can't help but share the cuteness!

This morning I pulled out the road map rug that I got for Morgan at IKEA (the link will give you a visual). He was so excited to drive the cars on the road, and make them crash into my cars of course. He was identifying all of the landmarks and he said, "Where's the temple, mom?"

Unfortunately, this particular road map rug does not have a temple on it (nor does any that I have ever seen). Luckily, it did have a castle on it, so I told Morgan that the castle was the temple (they are about the same right?) Now his little town is complete, ice cream shop, Uncle Stephen's football field, Morgan's house and the Temple.

Apparently something is getting through to him. What a sweet little spirit!

Sideline Rugby

Yay! Aunt Tif is going to the regional qualifying tournament with UVSC's rugby team and possibly on to nationals! We got to go see Tif play rugby yesterday down at UVSC and it was so neat to see her out there! Seth loved that he got to see a rugby game since it had been a while, I loved watching Tif do something she loves and learning a little about how rugby works in the process, and Morgan's favorite part was playing sideline rugby. After watching the game, I am not sure how I feel about him playing real rugby...it looks a little precarious for my taste, but he was so cute playing with Seth on the sidelines.

He started by running down the field kicking the ball (a little more in the soccer arena than Rugby, but whatever) and then Seth taught him to tackle. Whenever Seth had the ball, Morgan would "tackle" daddy and make him fall down. A couple of times Seth was too busy watching the game to realize that Morgan had just "tackled" him, but Morgan didn't give up, he just backed up and did it again. Here is the cutest video clip ever! Watching Seth play with Morgan made me so greatful for such an AWESOME husband who is such a good dad.

Here is a picture of Morgan when he missed the ball and went rolling over it, don't worry no owies. It looks like he is doing some fancy footwork though!

And one more video of him kicking the ball. Based on this, I am definitely putting him in soccer this spring!

MUSIC

I love music! Ever since I was itty bitty, I have loved to sing and still do. I go through periods where I do it more and periods where I don't do much singing at all, but I always love it! Music really touches me, in fact, making it through sacrament without getting teary during at least one of the songs is quite an accomplishment for me.

That said, I am very excited to announce the addition of music to our blog -- FINALLY (wow, it has taken a long time to get it working). You will note that this is very chill, hangin' out music, which is what I want and need to hear when I am blogging, so that is what you get to hear too :). Jack Johnson is one of Morgan's and my favorite things to dance to in our living room. Colbie Caillat is one of my most recent favorite musicians to listen to. Every time I need to calm down, get a mood boost or just need a good smile, I pop in Colbie and it works like magic!

Hope you enjoy the musical addition (even more because it doesn't blare at you when you first come to the site, you get to start it on your own!).

Good Morning Mommy

Now that Morgan is in his new room, he is so much better about sleeping. It used to take me up to 3 hours to get Morgan to go to sleep for naps and sometimes even at bedtime. Since the move downstairs there has only been one incident when he didn't go right to sleep and even though he was awake he still didn't get off of his bed - amazing since all of his toys are in his room.

This also holds true in the mornings. I have told him numerous times that he is welcome to get out of his bed in the morning and play with toys or come upstairs and get me, but when he wakes up he just sits in his bed and yells "Mommy, I wake up!" until I come downstairs and say good morning. Usually, when I walk in the room I say "Good Morning Morgan!" and he replies, "Mommy, I wake up" with a giant grin and little bit of laughter in his voice, but this morning, before I could even say Good Morning, Morgan smiled at me and said "Good Morning Mommy!" It melted my heart (particularly after being up with Chloe numerous times and not having a very "good" morning)!

Yesterday, Morgan and I ate lunch together after Chloe went down for a nap, and it was the first time I was able to actually sit down with him and eat lunch in the last few weeks. As we sat there dipping our apple slices in caramel - yum! - and chatting and giggling about silly things, I remembered why I love being a Mom (and I sure needed the reminder after this crazy week)! I love just hanging out with my little buddy.

And I certainly can't leave Chloe out. Last night after Morgan went to bed, I put her on the changing table to change her diaper and she looked right at me and started giggling and grinning. Maybe she was just extra ticklish, maybe I looked funny, or maybe she was just in a silly mood, but whatever made her laugh, it was another sweet moment to remind me about the joy of motherhood.

Parenting has its ups and downs, good days and bad days, long naptimes and shorter ones, but all in all, when I think that I get to be Morgan and Chloe's mommy forever, every morning is a pretty good morning!

October Pictures Posted

I have been kind of a slacker this month about updating our smugmug website with everything we have been up to, but they are up! Check them out here.

Who knows..maybe you'll find yourself in some of the pictures. Happy browsing!

The Tate Halloween Zoo

Here are some picts of our cute little Morgan the Monkey and Chloe Kangaroo. Since I was a slacker and didn't put together costumes for Seth and me, Seth got creative yesterday morning and decided to be a zookeeper, so I followed suit! Unfortunately we didn't take any pictures of the whole family together, but here are the cute kids!

Morgan and Chloe were so lucky to get to see all of their garnd parents (and even a great grandparent) on Halloween. We went to lunch with Grandpa Mark, had pumpkin breadbowls, soup and witch finger breadsticks with Grandma Becky, Grandpa John, and Grandma Colleen(Morgan loved that the breadsticks looked like witch fingers), and then we Trick or Treated at Grandma Denese and Grandpa Tate's house where Uncle Collin scared little Morgan.

Afterward we went to trunk or treat and Morgan got to see all of his buddies in their halloween costumes! Happy Halloween!