Tucker's Birthday!

We celebrated Tucker's 2nd birthday over 2 weekends.  First, the weekend before his birthday, we celebrated with my parents who were still in town for Tate's birthday.  It was St. Patty's day so we ate corned beef and potatoes followed up by a fun dinosaur cake made by Grandma Jane!  Here are a few pictures from that day:

New cars from Gramma and Papa!

The following weekend on Tucker's birthday, we had all of Jared's family over to celebrate again.  This time we ate Tucker's favorites: hot dogs, strawberries, and of course, another dinosar cake!  Tucker had so much fun playing with his cousins!

Helping Mommy make cupcakes!

"I bite it?"

Adorable cousin Ellis!

Lukey playing with cars

Party time with Dellie and Will

Shopping cart from Grammie and Packa Gary!

New castle with knights

Tucker and Tate Comparison

 Since many people tend to ask if the 2 boys look alike, I figured I post a few comparison pictures: 

Papa arrived!

My dad flew in from Arizona for a week after Tate was born.  Tucker loves Papa and hadn't seen him since Christmas so he (and all of us) were very excited for his arrival.  Here are some pictures from this week:

Thank God for Moms!

I have been incredibly blessed and spoiled to not only have Jared home with me for the first 2 weeks of Tate's life, but also to have my mom here.  She arrived on Tate's birthday in the afternoon to Milwaukee and drove up to Appleton just as Tucker was arriving at the hospital with Gramma Lauri to meet Tate.  She then took Tucker back to our house and stayed with him there the two nights we were at the hospital.

My mom helped us out tons by cooking, grocery shopping, doing countless loads of laundry, cleaning, and so much more.  Probably the best thing she did for us was get up with Tucker every morning.  Tucker is an early riser (usually around 6-6:30) and she got up with him every day for the last two weeks, allowing Jared and I to catch a couple more hours of much needed sleep.

Another fantastic thing my very talented mom did was sew curtains for Tate's room and for our dining room.  She'd always wanted to make curtains for the new baby's room but we needed to know the gender of the baby first before she could do this.  And then our dining room has 2 huge windows that have had nothing covering them since we moved in almost 4 years ago (we recently just got a new neighbor next door for the first time and our tv glares through the dining room into his house, I'm sure he appreciates our new curtains as well).  My mom found an idea online to make roman shades from mini blinds and she started crafting away.  Here are the new curtains:

Another thing my mom and I (and Jared, but don't tell him that I told you) did was get very hooked on the PBS show, Downton Abbey.  We watched 1-2 episodes every night and did everything we could to make sure we got our hands on all the discs from all 3 episodes and pushed to finish them before she left.  Needless to say, we loved this show and are looking forward to season 4 starting up again.

Thank you Mom for being here! We loved it and are so appreciative of everything you did for us!!

Finished playroom!

We finished the playroom!  Thanks to a very surprising and needed snow day, we were able to finish the basement playroom! Jared worked so hard to get it done and did an awesome job.  We really pushed to make this happen before the baby came and since Tate ended up arriving a week early, it's a miracle this happened.  Here it is:

To gain a little perspective, here's what it looked like before:

The playroom in action:

I have this great video of Tucker and his 5 cousins running around like crazy but it won't seem to upload..I'm sure you can picture it though- 4 little boys and 1 little girl, all 3 and under, up past their bedtimes, running, laughing, singing, and playing. :)

2 week/2 year update!

I can't believe I have a 2 week old and an almost-2 year old!! We took both boys in for their checkups this past Friday.  Aside from a little diaper rash and eczema, we have 2 healthy boys!

Tucker- 2 year stats (he's not 2 till the 24th, so there will be an upcoming post on the birthday festivities)
       Height: 34.5 inches (51%)
       Weight: 29 lbs 10 oz ( 81%)
       Head circumference: 49.8 cm (87%)

Likes: Tucker currently looooves dinosaurs.  Jared and him recently visited a thrift store and came home with a giant bag full of dinosaurs.  Mickey Mouse is still a big favorite but Thomas the train is getting pretty close to the #1 position.  He loves to laugh and especially loves to ride around the house on Jared's shoulders.  In fact, over the last 2 weeks, Jared has spent a lot of time running circles around our house with Tucker bouncing around on top.  He likes to cook in his kitchen and play with his trains.  A new favorite activity has been playing "shoots and scores" (basketball) on his new hoop in our basement.

Favorite foods:  Tucker could probably eat an entire pint of blueberries in one sitting followed up by a pint of strawberries.  He loves fruit! He's also a fan of cheese, pb sandwiches, and anything he can dip in peanut butter, ranch dressing or ketchup.  He's not a huge eater and really only eats when he's hungry and when he's done, he's done.  His favorite meal is probably breakfast because that's when he gets to eat MUSSINS (aka- muffins- he's still working on pronouncing that ffff sound)! He could probably eat muffins and pancakes all day, every day.  We try to get veggies in the little guy and are most successful with getting him to eat peas and broccoli. 

Language: Tucker is a talker.  He impresses me with his vocabulary. He has an amazing memory and will repeat things we've talked about only once.  He's putting 3 and 4 word sentences together and working really hard on correctly using the pronouns (when wanting to be carried, he usually says to me, "I carry you." :)

Reaction to baby Tate:  He's done really well with Tate (or "Tape" as he sometimes refers to him).  There's been a lot of activity around our house having my mom here and Jared home for the last 2+weeks and then my dad for the last week, so at times, I think he's gotten a little overwhelmed.  But on the whole, he's not overly jealous of Tate and really truly loves his brother.  Yesterday, he came home from the grocery store with Jared and Tate was upstairs sleeping, he started searching frantically in the swing, the bath tub and the other usual spots for his brother.  He kept saying, "Tate all gone?" It was very sweet.  He loves to kiss and give Tate "nosies" where he rubs his nose all over him (I'll be shocked if Tate doesn't get a cold in the near future) and point to all of Tate's body parts.  Tomorrow is the first day that I will be on my own with the boys.  I'm looking forward to getting into a little bit more of a routine.  I think this will help Tucker too. 

Tate-2 week stats: (here's Tucker's 2 week stats)
     Height: 20.5 inches (37%)
     Weight: 8 lbs 15 oz (59%)
     Head circumference: 37.9 cm. (91%)

What Tate's been up to: I feel like Tate spends the majority of his day sleeping. I don't remember this being the case with Tucker, but Tate basically sleeps most of the day. He's definitely starting to have more awake time and is starting to let us know when he's displeased.  He's done pretty well at night, he usually does 1 four-hour stretch but then is up every 2-3 after that.  I usually get up 3 times with him at night to eat, but he usually goes right back to sleep after.  He's a big grunter and grunts and wiggles around a lot at night.  We swaddle him at night when he sleeps, but that's usually it.  Tucker (as you can tell from pics when he was little) was swaddled the majority of the day.  He had to be like this or he was unhappy.  Tate is more mellow, he'll sleep anywhere or on anyone.   He's been a great eater.  He latched right away and is a very efficient eater- completes the job in under 15 minutes! 

Here are some of my favorite photos from the past 2 weeks:

      

Tate and his future girlfriend, Olivia.  My teacher friend, Tasha had Olivia 6 days before Tate.

Cousin time! The cousins all came over when Tate was a week old for dinner and lots of playing!

Showing little brother his dinosaurs