Us Against Them

     And so it begins!  The, "Why" questions.  I thought that this didn't come about until about 5 years old.  I swear I just brought her home from the hospital, now I'm being irked with "why?".  It's not like they are even pertinent either.  Nothing like, "Why is the sky blue?"  I remember learning why in physics and thinking, "I need to remember this so that when I have annoying little children constantly asking me questions, I can answer it in a completely scientific manner."  Instead it is just always "why?".  She'll ask me a question, I'll answer it, she'll ask why.  Example: "Should I give this to Tate?"  I answer her something like, "Sure, if you want to."  "Why?"  Well, jeepers, Bays, I don't know, because it sounded like you wanted to and it won't physically harm him in any foreseeable way.  Earlier today Baylee was playing with the printer a little bit and I told he...

I really do try to keep up on things, and sometimes find myself thinking, "Man, I should get that on the blog before I forget these things." But then I think, "Well, I want this video and that picture from Dustin's phone... Too much work right now. I don't want to get the cords and computer out. I'll do it later." I want things in chronological order and I am hindered by my laziness to do it properly. So, I will not put up the video of Tate's new game, or the pictures of the kids playing at the mall (from Dustin's phone). Maybe they will show up another day and maybe they won't. Ultimately I want to be able to recall memories and look back at the silly things the kids did, chart their growth, etc. Tate is officially crawling. I willed him to stay my baby long enough. He goes up on his knees a lot more but doesn't always crawl that way. He still reverts back to his army crawl a lot. But, he can crawl! That just happ...

Tate has had so much fun discovering some new, big toys. It's so fun to watch him light up and play with new things! Have I mentioned lately how much I love my kids? Because I'm seriously crazy about them! Dustin went into Baylee's room this morning because she was yelling for him. I laid in bed and listened to them for a minute before I got up. I love how smart Baylee is! I love that she is able to articulate and think through things on her own so well. As she talked with Dustin, her questions were, "Where's Tate?" (Still in his crib). "Where's momma?" (Still in bed). "Is it dark in the living room?" (I close all the blinds at night as part of bedtime prep, then open them all up first thing in the morning. So if Baylee wakes up first, I haven't quite made it to opening the blinds in the living room. So yes, it was a little darker than norm) As for the new toys with Tate, I got out Baylee's piano for hi...

     Conference was wonderful, as always.  I especially enjoyed it because I had a cool experience that I hope to always remember.  We went up to the Fausett family for conference and spent Friday and Saturday nights there.  I got caught up in the fun of being around family again and conference ended up skipping my mind, until Friday night as I started saying my prayers.  I knelt down and realized, "Oh my goodness, conference is tomorrow.  I should probably pray for something."  Then I knew exactly what I wanted and needed help with.  I finished my prayers and went to bed.       Conference started and I was tired, but willed myself to listen and leave the kids be for awhile.  I believe it was the very first talk when I heard a line that was like an answer to my prayers.  It stuck so peacefully in my mind, I knew it was meant for me.  It didn't even seem very relative to the rest of the talk....

     It was brought to my attention that I do not have a video up of Tate's crawl.  Thank you, Cam, I wouldn't have realized that I didn't have a video of it until it was too late, I'm sure.  Tate is now starting to get up on his knees and rock a little, but ultimately he still does the scoot thing.  He's pretty slow in the video, but when he sees something he wants he can be pretty quick!

Have I mentioned that Tate is crawling and Baylee is reading. Sort of. To both. Tate's crawl is not traditional. He's still never been up on his knees, really. He army style commando crawls. It gets him where he wants to be. He's getting into more and more now that he can move forward without having to do trial and error rolls around the whole room. I have to watch him a bit more closely now. He also says dad and dada. It's the sweetest thing ever! I'm also convinced that he's been saying mom since he was about five months old, though it's reserved only for when he's upset. I could've sworn he said "hi" the other day and "hat", when I gave him Baylee's hat to play with. It was probably just my imagination. He also had his first flu bug a couple days ago. Super fun. I felt so bad for him, still do:(. I was feeding him some cereal, he'd probably only had about 1/4 a cup when he just started spewin...

It seems that my and Baylee's little chat about not killing people didn't take too well. I guess it has become more mild in the sense that she no longer says she's going to kill me. Now, it's just violence without the killing. The other day she was playing with some drumsticks, pretending they were her violin. I walked past her as she's "playing a song", and she said, "I'm going to cut you." It must sound worse reading it. It was not in a creepy, horror film kind of way. It was said in a joyous manner, teasingly, if you will. Even still, a little scary. Then, today, we were playing dominos, rather building towers and things with dominos. I didn't have enough for my tower because Baylee kept taking my tiles. She noticed this and said, "If you take my dominos, I'll punch you in the face." Again, in a joking sort of a way. Hopefully we'll pass this phase soon (and hope it is, indeed, a phase). I...