Holiday To-Do List

I'm having a hard time believing it already almost December 1st. Which means if I thought I was prepared for the holidays I'm just kidding myself as I am obviously not. Decorations to put up, presents to buy and cards to send.
This is always a challenge for me as I love looking at all the options on Shutterfly but have a hard time picking my favorite design. In the end I usually spend so much time deciding that it's after Christmas before I get them addressed and sent out!
As I stared at all the different design possibilities I came across this sweet deal where you can get 50 free cards through Shutterfly by blogging about it so I figured it was worth a shot. Especially since I've loved my past photo cards, books, announcements from Shutterfly. So here it goes...
The flat photo Christmas cards are cute, fun to make, and easy to send: http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/holiday-cards. Hopefully with this great deal I be able to get organized and send mine out before New Years this year.
And yes this post is cheesy but I love a deal like free Christmas cards. Even more when it  from a site I love like Shutterfly. 
In the meantime I'll continue to try and capture a picture of Tate that would be fitting for his first Christmas card...Here are a couple from today including some video--now that you won't find on Shutterfly.

 

Auntie Jo

Lindsey stopped by after the Utah/BYU game to see Tate's latest tricks.  He loves his Auntie Jo and showed off all his big boy moves for her like crawling and eating sweet potatoes, black beans and avocados for dinner. We love it when she comes over to play!

Tate was too busy playing to smile-this was the closest we could get.

Saturday fun

We started the day with a nordic ski and then had some lunch before helping daddy turn the leftover turkey into a potpie and a delicious soup for the week. 

Eating some lunch

And hanging in our long johns and ski socks

"Helping" daddy in the kitchen

Tate pushed the Bumbo across the floor to right here

"Who me?"

Hi Mom!

Happy Thanksgiving

We had a great afternoon filled with turkey, treats and playtime with Uncle Ndi.  A fun day all around!

Tate was too hungry to wait!

After dinner playtime

Early Morning Ski

We started our Thanksgiving with a little cross country ski in order to work up an appetite for some afternoon turkey.  It was a beautiful day-clear and sunny but cold!  Tate loved looking at the tracks and all the snow covered trees.  Hopefully now that we've found all our gear we will make ourselves go more often.

Getting ready and having a quick snack.

Skiing with Daddy

Mommy's turn

Crawling

Just this weekend Tate's  figured out how to go from rocking back and forth on his hands and knees to actually moving forward.  It's so cute and reminds me of a little bear cub.  Watch out he's on the loose now!

Snow!

Saturday a big storm rolled in so we stayed in and played with all our toys (at once!)  Sunday we woke up to a beautiful white blanket covering the neighborhood.  Tate and I went for a walk in our new-to-us backpack.  We wanted to see how well it worked before we try skiing with it.  Looks like it did the trick!

In the swing trying to push the Jeep

Having so much fun!

All bundled up and ready for the snow

At the end of our walk

Fast asleep!

Go Team Go

We had free tickets to the Utah Grizzles hockey game on Friday night so we went for a couple of periods.  Tate was a little unsure of the whole thing at the beginning but was cheering right along with everyone else by the time we left!

9 Months Old

Tate is growing and growing!  Today he's 9 months old and trying hard to learn new tricks.  He's so close to crawling; putting one hand out and then the other.  He's almost got it all figured out but then he gets tired and rolls to his back which is still his favorite position. And he wants to walk but I'm not in any rush for that! We are trying to introduce new foods at meal times-some days Tate gets more on his clothes than in his mouth but that's all part of the fun.  

Montana!

We jetted up to Bozeman last weekend for a quick trip to see the Poehling sisters and the new baby boys.  Ross Bowman and Henry Tate are three months old and three weeks apart and ever so cute!  I hardly remember Tate being so little.  It was a short trip but so fun to see everyone and catch up.  We did lots of hanging out and playing.

Tate (9 Months) , Ross (3 months) Henry (11 weeks)

Former teammates

 

 

And future teammates

Big (Casey) Tate and Little Tate

 

 

On the move

Snuggled in and ready for a walk to the coffee shop

Rylie was such a good sport about playing with Tate; she tried to teach him to crawl and  when that didn't work, she picked up his toys from the floor multiple times!

 

Helmet or Hat?

It's was a very rainy/snowy day today; I think winter will be here soon.  Grandma Skinner got Tate these cute slippers and hat at the Patagonia outlet this fall and today was the perfect day to try them out.  It kind of looked like a little helmet when he was in his Jeep!

My favorite even though it's blurry.

Game Day

We were ready to support the home team this weekend but all our support didn't seem to help--Utah lost to TCU very badly.  We still had fun cheering from the couch!

Tate's shoes are even red & black U's!

Bath time is Play time

Tate loves to play in the bath just splashing, splashing, splashing until there's no water left in the tub.  He still loves bath time. 

Jailbird

Tate's newest is pulling himself up onto things.  He's figured out how to pull himself up by the bars of the crib and is so proud of himself.  I sat him in his crib to play the other morning and pretty soon it was very quiet, I looked in and there he was standing and smiling!