Deer Season

All that hunting wore him out. He is still wearing his camo though...

4 weeks

Tate at 4 weeks...
-You love your pacifier, not just any pacifier, the gum drop pacifier they gave you in the hospital
-Even more than the pacifier, you love for someone to hold it in your mouth
-You love to grunt and pant like a dog. You open your mouth and talk all day but haven't quite figured out how to make a sound come out
-You love your car seat and your vibrating lamb seat. Mommy feels so guilty leaving you in them for extended periods of time and has reserved the lamb seat for desperate times only
-You can snore louder than Daddy
-You really dislike bath time and anything that makes you cold
-We still swaddle you all night because you can't control your swinging arms
-You have the cutest smile ever and you're starting to show Mommy more and more every day. If only I could catch it on camera

A month of pictures...
When he is out, there is nothing that will awaken the sloth...
This is the, "I'll open my eyes if you give me my pacifier" face... We are in love with these eyes... Ok, time to sleep again...

Mammoth Springs

Levi has been on vacation all week. While it has been great having him home to hang out and help with Tate, he is going stir crazy! He was begging me to pack up all our stuff, book a flight, and head to the beach somewhere. I am terrified to put Tate on a plane with all the flu going around so we had to settle for some good old ozark entertainment. Monday we drove to Mammoth Springs to picnic in the park, and stroll around the lake with Tate. Here is our miserable attempt at a family picture...

Feeding the Ducks

My baby is growing way too fast! He was 21 days in this photo and it will be the last photo of him wearing the outfit he wore home from the hospital. He is officially out of newborn size and in 3 months. This seems to have happened over night and makes me so sad.

We Love Our Baby

We love our baby...

Lil Hedge Hog

Tate's first Halloween was very uneventful. Levi can't wait for him to be old enough to go trick-or-treating but 2 1/2 weeks old is a little young. Maybe next year. We couldn't even find a costume in newborn size and he is still too tiny to fit in 0-3 months. We did make him wear his hedge hog hat all evening...

2-weeks

Tate is 2-weeks old Today. It seems like time is going so quickly in one sense, but so slow in another. I can't believe he is already 2-weeks, but I also can't remember what it was like without him. Levi started back to work this week which means that I now have baby duty all night and all day. Tate has been the perfect baby this week for me. He is still sleeping 2-3 hours at night between bottles and rarely cries. He still HATES having his diaper changed and will scream every time and just recently he has learned that the quicker he cries for his pacifier, the quicker he will get it. We have received a couple products that have helped diaper time go a little smoother...

Pumpkin Patch Part 4

We took Tate to the Pumpkin Patch on his 1-week birthday for some pictures with his cousin Ainsley. I have to say that it was not a fun experience for him or myself. Poor little guy was so cold and we kept torturing him over and over. He was crying so hard his face turned the shade of a pumpkin...

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Lots and Lots of Pictures

I wanted to take the classic naked newborn photos, but Tate was having no part in that. He hates to be naked and have his diaper off. He is a perfect little model for his mama and as long as his diaper stays on and we keep him mostly covered up. He is such a sleepy head that usually he doesn't even know I'm snapping away

Friday, October 23, 2009

Welcomed by the Neighborhood Dogs

It has been so wonderful to have Tate home with us and to have him as part of our family. Here is our first official photo of the three of us on our front porch. The photo session was abruptly interrupted just seconds after this picture by our nasty stray dog chasing two of the neighbor dogs....

Dog number one sprints up the steps, circles around us, and sprints down the other side...
Dog number two gets side tracked and stops to sniff baby as Levi is more concerned about the speed of the 3rd dog...

Dog number three also decides to stop and welcome home the baby before quickly running off with the others...

We were a little in shock and a little disturbed, but they were all gone just as fast as they came...

ok, picture time again...

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Figuring It All Out

When the nurses wheel your baby into your room and leave him the first night, you realize you have to figure this parenting thing out pretty fast. We were terrified, plus we were already exhausted from a very long day. Levi looked at me about 10pm and asked if we should "put him away" so we could go to sleep. I agreed, we laid him down, and went to sleep. Luckily, we have a very easy going baby who took it very easy on his mom and dad the first night. We have learned a ton this week!! I never imagined how many times a baby could kick his socks off during the day, or that a newborn could manage to create an entire load of laundry. Mom came down and showed Levi how to wash and make up all the bottles which he doesn't mind doing as long as he doesn't have to change all the diapers.





A couple of things our one-week old loves:


And here he is modeling his own swaddle me blanket. I'm not sure if we would make it though the night without it.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Lack of Sleep and Lack of Time

Until more time and energy roll in my direction, I'll just post a couple pics...

A Busy Week

We can't believe Tate is already 1-week old. As we sit here tonight trying to get him down to bed, it's hard to imagine what it was like only a week ago when it was just me and Levi. He has already had lots of visitors. I'm pretty sure he is going to be one spoiled baby.

Great Grandma McWilliams

Great Aunt Kathy

Madison

Great Grandma Spurgeon & Sheila

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Tate, Day One

We are so happy to finally have baby Tate home with us. We have waited for him for so long. Here are just a few of my favorite hospital pictures. I promise there are many, many more to come.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Tate Bennett McWilliams

Tate finally entered the world on Tuesday, October 13th. He is absolutely adorable (but I'm a tad biased). He has lots and lots of brown hair and chubby cheeks.

I'm working on getting some pics uploaded but until then you may be wondering how
we came up with that name? Naming your child isn't an easy task. It took us months and months. Actually, I've been naming this child since I was in like second grade. We very quickly came up with a girls name (before we knew what we were having) but coming up with a boys name was much more challenging. I put way too many stipulations on the name.

-Absolutely no family names.

-Absolutely no two syllable names that ended with "n" no matter how much I liked the name. I just didn't want to do that because that trend is so common. For example, Ryan, Logan, Justin, Aiden, Kaden, Jaden, Collin, Jackson, Aaron, Morgan...

- Also, I really, really wanted my baby to have a one-syllable name or at least a name that could be shortened to one syllable - like Gus, the otherlove of our lives. This is how we came up with Bennett. We liked it because we could shorten it to Ben. The only problem with using it as a first name and shortening it to Ben is that I already have a cousin named Ben (Benjamin)

- Levi absolutely would not have anything to do with any super common names...like Jacob, Michael, Matthew. Because of this "rule" we went on a baby naming strike and wouldn't discuss it for several months. I wanted Nathaniel so we could shorten it to "Nate" but he absolutely would not agree. Way too common for him.

-Finally one day I gave up on having a baby Nate and started fighting for a baby Tate. Surprisingly, Levi agreed. It was uncommon enough for Levi to like it and it fit all my rules.


So, there ya go... Tate Bennett McWilliams

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