McKinley

Okay so I just realized that it's been several months and we haven't updated pictures of our newest addition to the family. She had her four month appointment yesterday and I feel bad because I have family that have not had the chance to see her progress. So here is a video we took of her a couple of weeks ago.

This is my first attempt at putting a video on the blog so if it doesn't work I apologize.

McKinley is by far the most talkative lof our children. Madison never said a word, Carter was not very vocal either, but McKinley, at an early age loves to talk and she even laughs...not just smiling and stuff but she will actually laugh out loud and it doesn't take much to get her to do it. For the most part she is a wonderful baby. She loves waking up in the morning and tends to give really great smiles while stretching. She loves being taken out of her car seat and whoever has gets this pleasure is treated with big smiles. She loves getting her diaper changed and the smiles and talking make even the most unpleasant diapers almost okay.

If McKinley has one flaw its this...let me explain it this way...have you ever seen "How to lose a guy in 10 days"? The uncle in this picture is said to 'fart like a howitzer'...well that's our little McKinley. At stake conference a couple of weeks ago, McKinley had three whole rows (ours, the one in front and the one in back) in fits of giggles because she was going number 2...For those who know her...you know it's true...for those who know those who know her...just ask...it's kind of embarassing (especially in my family where that kind of thing should be done in private behind closed doors with the music blasting).

Well I will keep this short and hope everyone enjoys!

The last game...

Madison is playing soccer this year. We started in the fall, and she had the most wonderful coach in the world! For those who didn't guess, yep it was me. I had the opportunity of working with a bunch of 5 year old little girls trying to teach them soccer in a mere 30 minutes per week. When we signed Madison up, I decided that I wanted to make sure that she had a coach who was really good with the girls, who wouldn't just teach them to have fun and not teach them soccer basics.

So with some hesitancy I checked the box that says I am willing to coach. Well Saturday was our last game of the season. It was sad because I had worked with some girls throughout the year and finally at the end of the season, my girls got it. My little girl scored like 6 goals during the game and we blasted our way to a victory...of course the season is now over and I wish we had a few more games so I could really start teaching them how to play the game.

It was a funny experience. I have always wanted to coach my kids when and if they were ever interested in sports, for some reason I thought I would be good at it. I was never really very good as soccer, baseball or soccer, but I always felt like I could coach it well. I was okay at basketball, but for some reason I don't think I would do a good job coaching it. Anyway...It was funny because I found myself getting very frustrated, not because we were losing, or because they girls didn't have the skills. I was frustrated because I didn't feel like I was doing a good job. I had girls begging to take a break...they didn't want to play! I will admit that weather probably had an impact. I think it was either freezing cold or really hot...there was never a sunny cool day during any of our games, but I had always felt that it's the coaches job to motivate their players to play. I found that motivation is different for each person.

Madison was easy to motivate, she wanted to win, and that was motivation enough for her to
play.
For Ashley it was very important to her to look good for her family (after she would kick the ball she would look over at her mom and family with the biggest grin on her face).
For Zehmiah, it was just about being on the field. It didn't matter what she did, she just wanted to be out there.
Olivia needed to be the best. She was probably the most frustrating girl on my team. She had bursts of energy in which she dominated everyone on the field. But those bursts were few and far between. When she wasn't successful immediatley, she would quit.
Yelitza was just happy to be there. She liked being on the field, but was a little behind. (she didn't start on our team until spring soccer.

In all I wasn't sure if I enjoyed being soccer coach. I actually had started to prepare Madison for the day when I wasn't the coach (like next year). But when registration came up I found myself signing up to be the coach again.

I guess I'm just a glutton for punishment and frustration!

Madison

Madison is quite the character...really she is something else. One time she was beating Carter up and I called her inside and had her put her nose in the corner to think about why she was in trouble. I had her come and talk to me and I asked her "do mommy and daddy hit?" a sheepish no was her reply...do grandma and grandpa hit? no again then I pulled the Jesus card..."would Jesus want you to hit carter?" she looks down as if in deep thought and then she looks up as if for divine inspiration and says to me: "I think the aliens were distracting me." As a parent I pose the question how would you react? How can you remain calm? I quickly told her to go and give her brother a hug and tell him that she was sorry...as soon as she left the room I burst out laughing...aliens?...what an imagination.

Then there's her foreign language. Marla and Brian were watching the kids and Madison was just chatting up a storm. Well she told them that her daddy could speak Spanish, and that he had taught her how to speak Spanish... so she now knew how to speak Spanish... and did they want to hear her speak Spanish to them? They said sure we would love to hear you speak Spanish...OK ....Bonjour! ...what fabulous Spanish! and as soon as she left the room they cracked up over her "Spanish"

Another thing that cracks me up about Madison is that every since she turned five her favorite thing to say is..."when I was four"...or "remember when I was four we did..." Hello?! We must have done everything when she was four because that's all she remembers and since she turned five we've done what? nothing? life must have been so much better when she was four.

She's also smart as a whip and she doesn't fall for anything. One time Lindsay was trying to get her to be happy (almost impossible to do when she doesn't want to be) and one of their favorite things to do as girls is try on shoes and pretend their queens and princesses. (start the shoe obsession early I say) Anyway Lindsay was trying to get her to be happy and said they should go try on her new high heels...Madison said no and Lindsay said oh come on I hear them calling your name...then she talks out of the side of her mouth in a falsetto voice..."Madison come try me on" Madison then gives her ...THE LOOK... and blatantly states...Lindsay that's you talking..shoes can't talk and then stalks off in an even fouler mood than before.

She is sweet though. Daniel helped her pick out the most perfect mother's day card for me. It said: "The grace, I got from you, But the attitude... Well, I probably got that from you , too."

Isn't that sweet and absolutely perfect because...well ...I must admit she does get her attitude from me. At least I admit it.

Well Friday like I mentioned was Kindergarten round up where we go sit and they tell us about the school and we have to turn in a copy of their birth certificate and immunization records...and all that fun and exciting stuff. Well for her it was pretty neat they gave her a bag with a workbook and crayons and a DVD about words. We walked through her classroom and me her teacher. She is so excited to go to school where mommy works. Well after we were all done on the way out to the car i asked her what she thought about kindergarten round up...her reply...."I didn't have to ride a horse." obviously I didn't explain what it was clearly but her years of going to the rodeo and toy story she knew what a round up was and I couldn't tell if she was relieved that she didn't have to ride a horse in front of everyone or that she was bummed because she didn't get to ride a horse....go figure.

Mothers Day

Here is what I put together for Mothers day...don't I have the cutest kids....I'm not biased at all... really. :) It's fun now that McKinley is starting to smile. The bottom one of McKinley I love because ever since she was born she loves to stick out her tongue as if she is tasting the world. And the bottom one of Carter is his sly, trouble look...mischief should be his middle name. And i can't believe that tomorrow I take my little girl...my first born in the wilderness...to kindergarten round up...I'm not old enough to have kids in school....well hope you enjoy the pics.

Turtle Trouble

As you can read in Daniels' post we have turtle trouble. You never realize how big a 1500 sq ft house is until you try to find a 6" turtle in it, or how it may look clean but underneath stoves, furniture, etc it's really not clean! I do not understand how this turtle got out, seriously the cage it's in is taller than he is and the opening he got out of is in the middle of the cage. He is one talented turtle. Well as Dan said we searched last night, I mean we searched and searched: upstairs, downstairs, in the crawl space, in with the water softner, water heater, furnace, under everything. We had flashlights, we even employed the services of our dog to try and find this turtle, but since she hadn't seen or smelled the turtle she couldn't get the scent to find it (she did find the celery in the fridge though) We finally gave up and hoped it wouldn't die in a few days and we'd be trying to find it by smell. Hopefully it would come out during the night and be waiting happily for us in the morning....Not the case. we wake up and first thing I do is call Daniel at work and ask "Any turtle news?" nope ok I guess the kids and I will keep up the search. The kids were very upset last night they ssooooo wanted a turtle and I figured okay because obviously it's survived outside in Utah so it's survived the weather, foxes, cats, dogs and the like so it should be able to survive at the Tate household. Well the kids go outside to scooter (their most favorite past time) and I sit and read the paper while McKinley sleeps (she's not feeling well...fever, runny nose...swine flu...NO probably teething) so anyway she's kind of fussing because the door is open so I start to take her upstairs to her bed, as I am walking up the stairs I glance downstairs and in the middle of the room there is a snake! no there is this thing that looks like a rock and I just had the kids clean up so it has to be the turtle...so I quickly dump McKinley into her bed and quietly run downstairs and as I get onto that floor the legs and head shoot back inside its shell and woo-hoo I caught the turtle. Yeah!! No dead turtle stink. The kids will be thrilled and now we have a name for the turtle....Houdini.

Yes in the second pic there is something on top of the cage so he won't escape again...also we will put him in a bigger aquarium..once we clean the aquarium out and make him a good home there.

The turtle

Okay so here is a story of the bizarre, sad and funny kind.

First, yesterday Jenn was up at her mother’s house helping her some neighbors of her parent’s with some photo editing for their daughter’s senior pictures and the graduation announcement.

So our family is up there and I had to go help them move the photos onto the laptop (I guess an Olympus memory card for a digital camera is different than an SD card…who knew). When I get there I am met with the following story.

THE BIZARRE
My in-laws live on an acre of land, and are bordered by fields on the south and north sides. As a result, my father in-law exercises his hunting dogs by simply letting them out and run around rather than taking them for a ‘walk’. This way he doesn’t have to hook them up to a leash and because of where they are, the dogs running around do not bother anybody.

Well he had let them out to run, and the German Shorthair named Ruger (more affectionately known as Booger or Boog), all of a sudden goes on point. Well, he does this standing in the field in the southern most corner of the acre of land. Well in normal circumstances when Boog goes on point, he stands there and waits until someone comes to get whatever he is on point for. But because they weren’t hunting, Randy had no interest in walking down there to see what it was. Boog kept looking at Randy as if to plead…”I got something here…please come and get it”. He would look at Randy, then go back to point and hold…then look back at Randy. Finally Boog lost his patience, and just picked up the ‘thing’. Randy commented that he couldn’t figure out what it was. Because it’s a field, there could be many things. There are mice, rats the occasional game bird, and there’s even a family of foxes that live in that field. But it wasn’t any of these. Upon command Boog released his captured prisoner and Randy looked in astonishment at the TURTLE lying on it’s back alive and well.

For those who have never lived in Utah, don’t know biology well or geography well. Turtles aren’t too common in Utah. In fact in my 30 years of life, I don’t think I have ever come across a ‘wild’ turtle in Utah.

THE SAD
Well Randy, recognizing the rarity of the situation, decided to put the turtle in a little cage type thing, so the kids could come and enjoy it. Which they did, so much in fact that Jenn decided that we would keep the turtle. Now for those who have followed this blog a bit, you probably read Jenn’s post about our poor lost bunnies. What she isn’t telling you is that she is really just scratching the surface. We have lost bunnies (3 at the last count), 2 leopard geckos, 1 bearded dragon and countless fish. Not to mention that we have also given away a couple of bunnies (we got them before we had children). That is just in the time we have been married. In addition to this I personally have lost about 10 hamster/gerbils (we had one hamster give birth to a litter of hamster pups), and countless fish and my family could add to the list a couple of birds, a few salamanders, a hedgehog and have given away a couple of dogs. Needless to say I have little luck with pets. The only luck I have had was with a couple of goldfish (one when I was in High School lived for like 2-3 years and only died when we left it outside in the pond during winter) and the other we got for Madison when she was very young, we tried killing that thing but he wouldn’t not die…we ended up giving it away after 2-3 years. NOW WE HAVE A TURTLE!

THE FUNNY/SAD
This chapter is yet to be finished…but this part begins with…last night we all went to see Monsters vs. Aliens (not worth the money)…we left the turtle in his little cage for a couple of hours. We intended on putting him in the aquarium we have when we got home. We got home from the movie…the turtle was gone. The lid to the cage was off, and the turtle was gone. We spent 3 hours last night looking for the turtle…he is gone, disappeared. I guess I now know how a turtle ended up in a field in the middle of Layton. He is magic…he probably escaped from some poor owners home. I can’t imagine he got out of the house…but we sure can’t find him. Of course…I couldn’t have imagined him getting out of the cage either…