blah blah blog

8/19/10

Tate turns 1!

Tate Michael Brownstein

August 29, 2009. 5:02pm

You were born on a Saturday, 2 days before Mommy's planned induction. After eating a late breakfast at I-Hop with Grandpa, Daddy & Max Mommy announced that the contractions she had been feeling since early in the morning were now regularly coming at about 15 minutes apart. We all went to a nearby park to call Grandma & let her know that we would be going to the hospital well before her Sunday night arrival. We then called Aunt Krista and asked her to meet us at the hospital as official photographer & coach. We arrived at the hospital after 1:30 & the Dr. arrived at 3:44 to break the water & get the ball rolling. It rolled WAY to fast & you were born an hour and 18 minutes later before Mommy could get get her epidural, a fact she doesn't let Daddy forget :) You were not breathing well and were whisked away quickly and swarmed by Dr's and nurses. After a quick injection you let out a large scream which got lots of applause. To this day you make a fabulous entrance with a giant smile for everyone in the room.

We are so thrilled you joined our family.

About you:

-Mommy has always loved the name Tate & since Daddy officially named Max, Mommy got to name you.

-Other names briefly considered: Van, Ace, Emmet, Ryder, Nash

-Nicknames: 'tato-bug, bubbalicious, tater-tot, big'uns, cheekers, 'tato

- Started officially crawling on Friday the 13th of August, 2010.

- Love to throw things, go get them & throw them again.

- Smile a lot. You have this little nose crinkle when you smile. It's one of the cutest things I've ever seen.

- You always wake up with a smile, particularly if your big brother is there to greet you.

- You are a little stubborn. When you want to be picked up, you refuse anything else. I have no idea where you get this.

- You have 3 teeth. 2 on the bottom, 1 half-way in on the top & 3's 4,5. & 6 are taking their sweet time.

- You are my snuggler. I love walking you to your naps becuase you just snuggle and play with my hair as we stroll back to your crib.

- You try to play with anything your big brother is playing with, much to Max's dismay.

- You say "momma" & "dadada". For someone reason "momma" often comes out while crying or whining, much to Mother's dismay.

- Enjoy pushing cars around on the floor.

- When someone walks out of a room, you cry every time. You hate being alone.

- You can read "clap", "wave" & "point" from your flash cards and perform them.

- You like to eat and prefer to feed yourself.

- When you are done crawling, you high-center yourself on your stomach and refuses to let anything but your stomach touch the ground while you cry waiting for someone to rescue you.

- Anything with wheels is eagerly pushed around on the floor, particularly your brothers trains.

-You started standing on your own in Canada- birthplace of your grandparents. :)

We love you Tate! Happy 1st Birthday!

8/15/10

The EH Team

Holmes Family Reunion- Waterton, Canada 2010-- Round 1

So we've returned from our trip & just when we think we recovered nicely, we all got sick. Damn airline travel and all its germs!

However, we did have a blast in Canadia!

Day 1: Our first day was spent driving on Going-to-the-sun Road from Montana to Canada. Gorgeous drive that I will never do again. 75% of it you are driving on a cliffs edge. Oh, and the road was originally paved in the 30's- NOT for modern day SUV's. I spent a good portion of the drive trying to distract myself from crying. I have this nutty a fear of driving off a cliff that stems from my youth- another blog, another time.

Family at Big Chief Mtn.

(side bar: My mom told us a story that when the Cardston, Alberta temple was built, the Temple President, President Wood said that the temple would stand until Big Chief fell. Big Chief now has large fissures in it.)

Day 2: We did a hike up to Bear's Hump that Grandpa claimed was an "easy" one. As If!!! this hike was basically steep "s" curves for almost 2 miles. I'm totally out of shape & dragging Max while Mike had to carry Tate. We made it to the top where we met up with some cousins on the Holmes side of the family who were vacationing the same time as us. Fun to visit with them.

My mom really wanted a family picture at the top of this hike. So while we set up to take one, a lady noticed her coat was in our way. She ended up crashing our photo. can you spot her? she's our new friend Marsha from Jamaica who did the hike in flip flops!

Every time we get together for a reunion my parents are under the allusion that every family wants to share a talent. Do we want to see other families perform a talent? Yes. Do we want to perform a talent? No. So instead of a talent (Tate refused to read his flash cards & Max wouldn't sing one of his mash-ups) Mike & I split the family into teams for competing in Minute-to-Win-it games. It was h.i.l.a.r.i.o.u.s.

Day 3: Was supposed to be the tough crew hiking up to Crypt Lake. Crawl through a 4ft wide tunnel blasted out of a cliff wall? Hiking a cliff wall while holding a safety cable? All while dragging Max... No, thank you. turns out the weather report was for rain so we decided to head into Magrath & Raymond- my parents home towns about an hr. away.

We stopped for a picture on the front porch of the house where my mom grew up & drove by the farm & barn where my dad grew up. We then visited the Magrath Cemetery where my Maternal Grandparents, brother & family members from my mom's side are buried. We found a headstone for a young Max Hindley (my mom's maiden name). We didn't know we had Max's on both sides of the family.

On the drive home Our car swung by the Alberta Temple where my parents were married for a picture. It's a beautiful building.

Here's a sampling of the fauna to be found in Waterton. Literally our first 48 hrs in the park we saw: a grizzly bear & her 2 cubs, a black bear, a mountain goat & her baby, tons of deer & squirrels so tame you could feed them.

Stay tuned for days 4-6 :)

7/22/10

Rebecca & the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.

The 22nd was not a good day for me.

Terrible 2's & teething suck.

Looking at these pics again helped...a little.

p.s., If you haven't read Judith Viorst's book, you should. It's a great one from back in the day.

7/8/10

4th of July in Pleasanton

Right after I heard that my sister Gina and her fam were making the drive down from WA, I knew I was gonna convince Mike into driving us up to the bay area (& by "convince" I mean manipulate & fast talk). My sister Krista and her fam were on board, so Kim and her fam agreed to host us all! Lucky them!!!

It was a fabulous long weekend of swimming, sliding, eating, shopping, fireworks, & tons of good gab. I'm still recovering, particularly from the "accidental" groping from my used-to-be-favorite-brother-in-law. Yup. That's right. He grabbed the girls while hugging me from behind during the fireworks. He claims it all happened so fast he didn't realize what he did, but me thinks it's pay back for when I accidentally put my hand on his knee. Honestly, it was an accident. I was trying to prevent his son from falling off the bench and put my arm out to stop it. Can I help it if his knee was there?

Anyway...

Unfortunately Mike got sick, but lucky for him there was plenty to entertain the boys and I so we let him sleep in 'til noon each day. You couldn't drag Max off the slide once he got the courage to go down. Pretty much everyone had to take 15-20 turns going down with him. You'll get the idea from the small sampling of pics below how obsessed he was. Then he got the courage to go on his own & try jumping in. Thank goodnesss he tuckered out after 4 hrs.

I love how Jared (top middle pic) is so serious

about his job of helping Max down.

He wanted a piece of cheesecake in return for "babysitting".

Tate got in on some of the leisure activities by floating around in the kiddie area. There were plenty of pop-in visits from his cousins to keep him happy.

"fireword scaaaaary Mommie".

I think he was using it as an excuse to cuddle his cousin Whitnie.

It was so fun to see them all. I can hardly wait for the official reunion in August!

6/23/10

Sometimes Mommy cries

Last thursday was Max's last day of "school" at Parent Ed. He is usually fantastic but for some reason this day he felt like disobeyeing EVERYTHING. To top it off Tate screamed for about 45 minutes. I had to take him outside and walk around in the stroller so he wouldn't disturb the farewell the Teacher was trying to give. By the time I was loading the boys in the car I was choking back the tears.

Some days are just rotten & sometimes it makes mommy cry. Then, Max says this in the car...

Don't worry, I still held the grudge the whole way home.

6/18/10

A tricky game of Hide-and-Seek

Max loves to play Hide-and-seek. It's not that difficult to find a giggling 2 yr old, particularly when he's yelling "I'm in here!". He has a few favorite spots, but today's were hilarious.

This one is my favorite; his head in the dogs toy basket.

It epitomizes "I can't see you, you can't see me"

Not hard to locate when you're head is peeking out from under the crib.

Where, Oh where could Max be?

Here I am Mommy!

6/15/10

Busy & Lazy

Here's a quick recap of the last 1 & 1/2 mos.

We went to Disneyland.

Max really enjoys the rides now & its hard to drag him away when its time to go home. I should have taken a picture of them both passed out in the car before we even left the parking lot.

I love how serious Max is about his coaster riding

We had farewell Philly cheesesteaks with our friends the Andersons.

They ditched us for Tulsa, OK. I still can't talk about it.

Max & Weston @ Philly's Best

We tried out a children's restaurant called Giggle's n Hugs in L.A.

Mike and I stole away for our anniversary and went to Morro Bay. Basically its famous for this giant rock, but it also had great seafood, fun shops and... ...this really cool elephant seal preserve up the shore. I'm not kidding, there were thousands!