Jedi Warrior

The Tater dressed up as Princess Leia for Halloween. Here she picks a flower before going Trick-or-Treating:


And then she goes Jedi Warrior on some imaginary foe.


You gotta want it. Tate braves the chilly weather to cheer on her team (and read her book):





Rockin' the Pebbles Flintstone hairdo:

Somehow she decided it's fun to take a swig of water and let it run out of her mouth. Mom and Dad are not impressed.




The Mother Of All Bed Head:



The Tater takes on the Apple...

And wins!

Famous and Tate share some good times.

Snow!

Bath time is still fun...

You better believe we fried a bird for Thanksgiving.

I don't mind telling you, this was my best fried turkey yet.

It's not all sweetness and light!


Kids are cool,

Tater's Skinny Pa

Birds!

Dad took the afternoon off and we all went to the zoo. All kinds of cool animals at the zoo and what does the Tater enjoy the most? Ducks. We start and finish our zoo trips with the ducks. The following avant garde cinema came about when Tate decided to go off on her own in search of the ducks. She managed to scatter a group of peacocks in the process. She is fearless. Good stuff!



Here's Tate and Famous posing in front of a waterfall.

And here's a happy Tate on her way to see the flamingos (more birds!)

She can't take her eyes off the flamingos. Neither can the Tater.

Famous caught these two Asian elephants rough-housing. It looked pretty aggressive to me. When they broke from this stand-off one elephant chased the other at a heckuva gallup. When the first elephant stopped, the chasing elephant jabbed the other in the coolie with a tusk. No wonder they keep them trimmed...

Sippy cup? Who needs a sippy cup?

Modeling the new jammies with a power slide on the polished floor.

The Tater has an "Elmo" book that makes sounds when you press the pictures. When you press the Elmo picture you get a short musical tune. Tate dances to it by bending at the knees in time to the music (sort of). Lately she's taken to spinning in circles to the same tune. What a hoot! We'll keep trying for some video of that.

She also danced at the football game when the band played. Too cute!

Note Baby the Cat in the stroller, and the Tater pushing the stroller.

Check out my toofs!

Tate and Famous sharing some happy times:

"Don't ever drink from my milk cup again. Do I make myself clear?"

"Good, now let's play!"

--

Lately we're into "outside." If either Famous or I go outside and the Tater doesn't, there is T-R-O-U-B-L-E trouble! It doesn't matter what the weather conditions are. Our favorite activities include looking at birds (points and says "bird?" or "oooooh"), planes (points and says "bird?"), and the moon (we don't know if she's saying "moooooon" or "ooooooh"), moving dirt, and swinging in the tree swing ("weeeeeee!"). She's even helps pick up leaves --- one at a time, but every bit helps. Dad has developed the magic touch for putting the Tater to sleep at night: we go outside to look for the moon and after a few minutes of walking, she's out.

---

When we're inside, our activities include flipping through books and magazines (or at least taking them all off the shelf), talking (she knows lots of words that we don't), dancing, stacking blocks (and knocking them down!), and stalking the animals.

One last pick of the Tater and her Pa. Like peas and carrots!

Until next time,

Sweet Potato and family

Grammy Wants Pictures

We had a few urgent messages from Grammy (DD?) asking for more pictures. We haven't been too busy with the camera lately so we only have a few, but here they are...


We went to the football game on Saturday night. The game was a blowout, so most of the entertainment came from the Tater. The popcorn was a hit. Here Tate tips back the bucket to get the last kernels of goodness.

The result:

Dad and Tate mugging for the camera:

---

Here's the Tater Gator playing with her buddy Baby the Cat. Tate is quite rough with Baby but Baby takes it like a champ.

--

-

---

Walking continues to go quite well. She's more given to walking that crawling now. She can also stand herself up without holding on to anything. She falls quite gracefully. The instant she becomes unstable, she buckles her knees and lands on her diapered coolie.

---

We had the 1 year check up a few weeks ago and found that the Tater is in 50th percentile for weight and the 90% percentile for height. Her parents are so proud! When I commented that she looks chubby to me, the doctor replied "not at all." Another noteworthy point is that her head circumference is in the 50th percentile, up from the 15th percentile at our last visit. I guess that puts her somewhere between Mom's pea and Dad's watermelon.

Until next time,

Sweet Potato and family

These Boots Are Made For Walking, Part 3

Well, the director has finally learned to hold the camera correctly and now debuts the result:

Did you catch Lucy in the background, racing to keep up?

One more:

Until next time,

Sweet Potato and Family

These Boots Are Made For Walking, Part 2

We'll see how this video upload goes. The videographer (yours truly) shot this with the camera tilted 90 degrees to catch the Tater in all her walking glory. I can't seem to rotate the image on the screen before or after upload. Since the Tater has gone to bed, we'll have to wait until tomorrow for another chance to record her walking.

Remember that she started walking just three days ago and note the quality of her walk already. Scary.

Kids are cool,

Tater's Skinny Pa

These Boots Are Made For Walking

The Tater finally decided it was time to start walking on her own:
---

"I'm one year old and it's Saturday, so I think I'll walk on my own today." Easy as that. Two days after her first birthday. Speaking of birthdays, here's the whole family with Tater not too happy about all the attention. The cake would hit the floor shortly after this picture was taken...

---

But here's the Tater opening gifts, looking cool as can be.

Here she is showing Nanny Dani how to use her camera.

Here's Pa and Tate lakeside, high in the mountains.

My old pal Sweet Ass and I did some dirt bike riding a few weeks ago.

We took this pic near treeline.

PICK ME UP, PLEEEEASE!

Crawling still has its uses (good for pictures!), but its days are numbered.

Famous and I will sit a dozen toddler paces away from each other, and Tate will stumble from one of us to the other and giggle and carry on, full of hugs when she reaches Ma or Pa. Such a sweetheart.

Here's one more of her stumbling around the back yard:

And one last close-up. Note the bruise on the forehead. I guess we're in for a lot more of those now!

---

Kids are cool,

Sweet Potato and family