Tate's Birthday Bash

Tate's birthday party was last night, and he is so spoiled! Chris' parents and sisters were able to come with their families, so it was fun to see them. My family was all there as well. In case you don't know, I am the oldest of nine, so just between our two families there were a lot of people. So with all these people there, Tate just thought he was the center if the universe.

We ate Hawaiian haystacks, and then walked down the street to my uncle's pool and swam for a bit. Tate and I did swimming lessons for a couple of weeks in June, and he LOVES swimming, so we figured that would be fun for him to do on his birthday. My uncle has two dogs, and Tate swims for a minute, and then he gets out and looks at the dog, and then he gets back in the pool, and then he keeps going back and forth the whole time we are there. He loves it! Here is my handsome little guy in all his glory:


Tate's friend Parker was able to come too:


Eating with Chris' youngest nieces, Justice and Presley:
Eating his birthday cupcake:Our little family:

If you'll notice, I have my ears pierced and my hair is colored...I'm getting quite liberal these days. haha But really, I got my ears pierced for the first time over spring break, and I have never had my hair colored except for my roomates experiments when she was in beauty school. I think my dad thinks I am going the way of the world! Now all my sisters have their ears pierced too, and I think it's all my fault! We're pretty hard core.

ANYWAY, Tate got a ton of presents, including one that looked like this:

And said, "I'm going to be a big brother!"

So yes, that was the surpise at his birthday party. Tate and the baby will be about 18 mos apart. I'm due Feb. 4th, which makes me a couple days shy of 12 weeks. When I was at the end of my pregnancy with Tate, and the first couple of really crappy weeks after he was born (mastitis twice) I thought to myself, "I don't know if I could do this again." But, courage take, I don't feel that way anymore. Chris keeps telling people, "we're taking it nice and slow." haha I'm excited for Tate and the baby to be so close in age, and hopefully good buddies. Chris thinks it's a girl, and I might agree. We'll see in a few weeks!

One Year ago Today...

This is what I looked like: (Just ignore the chipmunk cheeks. )

One year ago today I was at the hospital waiting for Tate to be born! Chris and I went to the hospital at 7am on 7/17/07 to be induced with Tate. I wanted him to have today as his birthday, but he thought otherwise. So I was started on pitocin, and had wimpy contractions all day (they didn't even hurt). My Dr. came in about 5 0r 6 in the evening and told me he was going to let me keep going, and that he wasn't going to break my water because...I don't remember, but he said it would be best if he didn't. Then he went to check me to see if I was progressing down there, and he accidently broke my water. Ooops. So keep in mind I haven't eaten all day, or been able to walk around. So he let me have an hour break to walk around and go to the cafeteria and get chicken broth or something, and then I came back and got back on all the monitors and started the pitocin again. By this time the contractions were starting to hurt. I labored until about 1030pm, and then glory halleluiah I decided to get an epidural. I didn't want to have an epidural leading up to this point, but having been induced I wasn't getting any rest between contractions. I mean usually you get a break for a minute or 2 between contractions, but there were no breaks. One would stop, and then almost immediately another would start. Anyway, so I got the epidural. You should too. The anesthesiologist was probably all done about 11pm, and then I fell asleep until 2am on the 18th, when the nurse came in to check me and said, "oh, you're ready to deliver. Let me call the Dr." It was pretty cool to miss that whole last part of labor. I don't even feel bad about it at all. So, the Dr. got there about 0230, and Tate Patten Smith was born at 0245. The End.

First family photo:

So his birthday is actually the 18th of July. Today is my sister Kaley's birthday (16!) but I guess Tate didn't want to share a birthday. I think of how my life has changed since he was born, and how much I love that little rascal, and I feel so blessed. I read a quote somewhere once that "a baby is the tiniest thing I ever put my whole heart into" and I think it's true. He takes so much work sometimes, but it is so worth it when he kisses me, or when I can see all the little things that he learns everyday. It's true, I can't sleep in until whenever I want, and he pretty much monopolizes my attention a lot of the time, but I love it! I mean there's ups and downs, but the journey is fun. I took these pictures this morning:

I love those little teeth!

We're having a little Luau birthday party on Saturday with my family and Chris' family. I'm excited. The part I am most excited about is we are going to have a Tate talent show. I wrote down a list of some of the things he has learned or done over the past year, and he is hopefully going to show off. He probably won't do anything I want him to, but I think it will be fun. Some of his talents include: walking, clapping, dancing, shaking his head "no", saying "dada", combing his hair with a brush, brushing his teeth, giving kisses, and waving "bye". And he's going to show off his 3 teeth as well. Pretty boring, normal stuff, I know. But I am still excited. There actually is one more part of his party that I am really excited about...but it's a secret! And since some family members are blog readers and may be attending the party, I will have to wait to disclose. I can't believe that he will be one already. Time flies!

Happy birthday Kaley! (On the left) Sweeeeeet Sixteen!

Back to Reality (thankfully!)

Our crazy month of June is finally over. It was fun, but I hate feeling like I'm away from home all the time. It's been quite a month! A quick recap:
My parents went to Hawaii for 8 days at the beginning of June and Chris and I were watching the kids. 12yo Daniel (below) decided that it would be a good time to have his appendix removed while they were in Hawaii, so I had to call my parents from the Emergency room, finally getting a hold of them while they were on some catamaran ride in the middle of the ocean to get permission to do surgery. He stayed in the hospital from Mon-Thurs, and Chris had a business trip in Georgia from Tues-Thurs, so it was an adventure. Luckily my 21yo bro and 18yo sister were able to split time with me at the hospital, and the younger ones watched Tate.

The next week was girls camp on Mt. Lemmon. My friend and I were in charge of camp decor, so I had this company my dad works with make this huge star out of styrofoam- I thought it turned out so cool! It had to be duct taped together a total of 3 times during camp, but when it was standing, it was pretty neat. I was the camp nurse, and let me tell you, it was a full time job. I handed out more ibuprofen, tylenol and ice than I ever could have imagined. It was actually pretty fun. One of the girls got lost on her hike..now when I say lost I mean she was lost for 4-5 hours and search and rescue had to find her with a helicopter. Luckily it was a happy ending and she was able to return to camp that evening. That has never happened to me at girls camp before.

The next week we went to the annual Smith/Gable Lake trip at Apache Lake. I unfortunately forgot my camera, but Tate took his first real steps while we were at the lake. He loved the water at the lake because it was pretty warm. It was so fun. The week after that, Tate and I went to San Diego with my family for a couple of days. Tate hated the water (too cold!), but he loved the beach. He loved smashing these sand castles:
My little brothers built this big tower that they called "Tate's tower". Chris wasn't able to come at the last minute and we missed him!

Chris recently switched companies that he works for, and he now works for a company called "Medical Office Brokers" He has been really busy with all of the changes, and we are excited for the future with this company. He still is selling commercial real estate, and lately his main clients are dentists. He has gotten pretty savvy about the dental field, and he also recently started representing dentists who are looking to buy or sell a practice. It's called "Practice Transitions." The training in Georgia was for that. His new office is in Scottsdale, so it's even better that we're moving to Gilbert! The commute from Casa Grande to Scottsdale would have been even longer than the commute to Mesa.

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Our house is coming along. Over the 4th of July we worked on the house all day Friday and Saturday. We were able to get the entire thing repainted, and we had a guy come and fix all the holes and do all the other drywall repairs. Hopefully we will be moved in a couple of weeks. I am excited to post some before and after pics...stay tuned.