Easter weekend 2011

We had a fun Easter weekend, filled with family and celebration and (too much!) wonderful food.

On Saturday, all of the cousins gathered at CeCe and Gramps' house for an Easter egg hunt in the yard and turkey dinner followed by an incredibly delicious carrot cake (my grandma, MeMe's, recipe). Tatum didn't do a great job eating dinner, but he certainly enjoyed dessert, licking all of the cream cheese frosting off of mom's piece of cake!

Does Tatum fit in well with his Ross uncle and cousins or what? They're sort of a matched set there, Uncle Mike and Paige and the T-man.

Sunday morning the Easter bunny visited our house, and the T-man tried (and rejected) his first marshmallow bunny. Fortunately Easter candy isn't really his thing yet (unfortunately, that leaves mommy and daddy to either finish it off or exert enough discipline to throw it out!).

Following church we met up over at the senior Ross household for another Easter dinner (whew!) and more fun with cousins. We tried to get a few photos of everyone together, but it's not the easiest thing to accomplish when cousins range from 16 months to 6 years old.

These are my best attempts at cousin photos:

And a few sweet individual pics of the girls and Tatum:

Now mommy needs to get to the gym to work off all those jellybeans and Easter treats!

Channeling Chooch

Tatum recently started making a funny face every night when we brush teeth after bath. We call it his "brush face," and it reminds me of watching my dad shave when I was little. The way he'd stick his head out -- somehow Tate reminds me of Chooch a bit in this quick video.

What's Tatum up to these days?

Well, he's been helping dad in the yard a bit.

Lounging.

Reading.

He's a real cuddler. He loves his doll and will hold her and kiss her so sweetly (just before he throws her down and steps on her head, of course). He still has his special cuddle puppy that he sleeps with every night, and he adores stuffed animals. Such a lover, our little guy!

We visited my dad when he spent a few days in the hospital recently, and Tate got to bond with his great uncle Mike. It was special seeing them together. (And thankfully Chooch is on the mend!)

The T-man has decided that he likes baseball hats, and will now willingly puts his hat on (and off...and on...and off) throughout the day.

His vocabulary has taken off! Every day it's something new. Yesterday he picked up "squirrel" and "purple", and now when he plays with his bath toys each night he tries to say "seahorse" and "octopus"! Amazing to watch his mind clicking away, picking up new information every minute.

He continues to bewitch people wherever he goes with those huge blue eyes of his, and he makes us all laugh daily. What a goof!

Future Tony Hawk

When Tatum first started to crawl, he would seek out things to hold in one (or both!) hands as he scooted across the floor. We called them his "sliders," and laughed about the fact that anything you handed to him would be tested for potential slider capacity.

As he became more upwardly mobile, he'd slide along with various things under his feet (pieces of paper, tupperware lids, magazines, toy cars...) and we started to worry a bit that his use of sliders might lead to a serious accident if we weren't careful.

Now he's graduated from sliders. Fortunately he seems content to run around without the aid of slippery foot-gear of his own creating. HOWEVER...

I recently witnessed him trying out his first pseudo-skateboard! I know I shouldn't have taken these photos, but he was so darned cute and his smile was so darned big, and the camera was right next to us on the table. I couldn't resist.

So here he is, our wee Tony Hawk. With plenty of drool on his shirt and banana in his hair. ;)