Taits' Weblog

Welcome - Taits' Blog

Welcome to www.taitsblog.com, Sara Tait's personal blog. Mostly I post about adventures with Fergus and Milo, although I post more often to Facebook and Flickr. I recently changed my flickr settings (many items only available to "friends and family"), which means some things might be weird in past posts where I've incorporated flickr pictures. Twitter, for me, is mostly for my work-related interests.

Disneyland, Legoland, Lila, Christmas, Resolutions

The holidays are over and I'm not quite sure what all happened.  We went to Disneyland and Legoland in mid-December, had a lovely Christmas in Dundee and recovered pretty well in time to get back to real life.  Here's a link to a Snapfish photo album I put together (wait, that requires a registration; here's some on flickr).  It covers the Disney-adventure, plus a bit of Legoland.  I wrote down a lot of notes about what we did because it went by in a blur.

On a sad note, we lost Lila, our approximately 17 year old black lab.  She passed away during our trip while being boarded at our regular veterinarian's office.  We got her as a very large puppy when Jason and I had only been married a few years and had many good times with her over the years.  It's still hard to see the garage go up without seeing her rush through it to greet us, but she lived a long and happy life and it was time.

I've been working on converting our downstairs area into a play area for the kids (formerly Lila's domain), which has been fun.  They have a hotwheels track on the wall (thanks to Grammy Kathe and Hoppy), lots of legos, books, crayons and I'll be painting a pretty blue chalkboard wall (look at these colors from Hudson Paints) up on a large wall soon.  Milo loves to draw (Fergus, not so much), so I think it'll be a hit with him.

What's up with Milo:  Milo continues to develop his motor skills.  He loves to stack pretty much anything he can, and plays with duplo bricks quite a lot.  He's also a fan of puzzles, both in our 3D world and on Apple products.  He is starting to talk more, although he still prefers the tug and point mode of communication - he and Fergus are definitely different in their developmental paths.  He's learned to point to various body parts (nose, head, toes, tongue, teeth, eyes) etc. and knows a fair amount of abcs (again, pointing).  We've had to enforce more limits on iphone/ipad/etc equipment because they love their apps.  The Monster at the End of the Book app is a special favorite of both the kids.  They are also very into the Kinect xbox 360 games, although Milo's still a bit to short to do anything but backseat drive.

My New Year's resolution is attempting more playdates, particularly at our house, for our extrovert Fergus.  Part of this is because he invites people over, a lot, and I'm afraid I'm going to get home one day and discover a bunch of people expecting a marshmallow party that I know nothing about (if he asks you to a marshmallow, donut or any other kind of party, let me know 'cause such requests are often not passed on to me directly from Mr. F. Tait himself).  He really likes having people over, and seems disappointed in his parents lack of sociability at times.  We've had a couple of playdates at our house so far in January, so I think I'm off to a good start.

 

Happy Half Birthday to Milo (18 Months)

Weekend at Kahneeta with Swimbabes

This weekend we went out over Mt. Hood to the Kahneeta Resort to participate in some swimming events  (through Swimbabes) with the kids.  The "Village" part of the resort has a huge pool area with very lovely nice warm water (so much better than many very cold hotel pools) - and a large section that is only 2-3 feet deep.  It also had a slide Milo went down over and over again, climbing up himself (not to mention a couple of tube slides the kids couldn't go down due to height restrictions; Milo kept gesturing to them hopefully).

We did a short practice Friday night, followed by a costume parade and swimming show/games Saturday.  Fergus "rescued" Milo and helped rescue another girl during the show.  We also participated in a family water tube race.  Saturday night, we went to a salmon bake/buffet and saw some of the people we first met in Japan during a Swimbabes trip there in 2008.  Sunday we swam a bunch more before hauling the kids out of the water (Milo kept escaping and diving back into the water).  Since Jason and I were actually in the water, we didn't get any pictures involving swimming, although there were lots of pictures taken by others, so hopefully we'll acquire some in the future.

Milo at 17 Months & September Happenings

 
Mom reminded me that I forgot to record Mr. M's first overnight sleepover without a parent - he and Fergus stayed over at Grammy Kathe's on September 14.  Things went well, although Milo's been cutting a lot of teeth all at once.  I mean, a lot (more than 5, at which point I stopped counting).  Grammy & Hoppy have also been taking the kids to 3d movies, like The Lion King.

Milo now likes to tug me over to whatever he wants until I get a clue.  Often he wants red vines, or whatever Fergus is eating.  His speech is still sporadic, but we get "no," "Lila," "kitty," "up," etc. pretty consistently, mixed in with a whole lot of baby talk that sounds like he's talking in a foreign language.  His "no" actually seems to represent "no" now, although it'll be more convincing when he learns to say "yes" as well (he does nod occassionally).  He runs, walks backward, climbs & jumps way too well, plays with cars with Fergus, and likes to play with a shape sorting toy (and sort kitchen items like cocktail picks and stack spice jars).  He particularly likes to make a mosh pit of pillows/stuffed toys and jump off a couch or equivalent. 

Other things happening in recent weeks:  we watched The Incredibles at the Vancouver Amphitheater, which was fun.  It was for staff (Jason occassionally works there), and Fergus got to wander around on stage afterwards while Jason shut things down.  We went to the Curious Garden show again, and Fergus did a "kung fu" demo and recited Hickory Dickory Dock during the talent show portion.  We've also been doing a lot of swimming, getting ready for an upcoming event where Fergus is going to "rescue" Milo.  One day I  took both the kids around the Portland streetcar, and we took the tram to OHSU.  We briefly went to OMSI and went through the Narnia exhibit.  I've been making cutesy lunches for all the boys, some of which I've taken pictures of here.  We went to an open house at Fergus' school, the Uno Dos Tres Academy - he seems to really like it, but is regularly asking when he will start kindergarten.

Took the kids up to Tacoma this weekend; we drove Sue up (stopping at the Children's Museum in Olympia) and went to the Puyullup Fair. Fergus rode a camel (all by himself), did rides, loved a robotics demo (huge smiles), saw really big pumpkins, lots of animals and ate cotton candy. Milo took Fergus' bubble gun and wouldn't let it go for most of the weekend, even when the bubbles ran out. Fergus was very nice about sharing the bubble gun, and even shared his cotton candy with a very cranky (teething) Milo, who was unimpressed with the Fair.

I think Milo, who turned 17 months old over the weekend, had the best time at Port Defiance Park, running around the pond, looking at the ducks and running around the rose garden. We also went to Wapato Park, where he scared me by constantly climbing up equipment not meant for toddlers.

Meanwhile, Jason has suddenly taken to bicycling miles and miles at a time, starting last Saturday (about the same time I left for Tacoma).

Fergus' Candy Cane Kids - 'Lil Rockers Summer Camp (Music Links)

I'm having trouble getting the video off my frozen camera, but here's the songs (Wall-E and Eva, The Candy Cane Kid Jam, etc).

Download 01 Track 1
Download 02 Track 2

Download 03 Track 3
Download 04 Track 4
Download 05 Track 5
Download 06 Track 6