While I was trying to get Tate to lay down and take a nap today, I said to him, "I love you, Tate."

His response? "I love punching you in the face when you make me take a nap."

Today at sacrament the kids were being noisy and fighting while they were passing the sacrament around. I sat Tate down and said, "We need to be quiet now, so other people can think about Jesus. You should be thinking about Jesus now too." Tate responded, loudly, in the quiet and reverent room, "But Daddy, Jesus isn't real!" "Yes he is!" "No he's not! He's not here yet!"

Aubrey then whispered to me, "We are so fired."

We got new pictures of Jack and Noah taken recently and finally picked them up last night. I loaded them into the frames this afternoon and when I took Noah's frame off of the wall to put the new picture in Tate said, "Oh, sorry Noah...You're not in our family anymore, Mom took your picture down."

47 pictures left on the memory card after Tate got a hold of the camera this morning. 47. There were easily 250 pictures on it last night...maybe 300. They went all the way back to Christmas dinner last year...

Of the 47 pictures left there were 3 that had not been taken by Tate immediately after clearing the card. 3.

Luckily I just uploaded pictures last night. So they're all here. Not as high res as they would have been fresh off of the camera...but at least they aren't GONE gone. I'd probably have to throw up if they were all really gone.

So I guess that is one more thing we can add to the list of stuff Tate has destroyed.

Kindergarten countdown: 3 years 3 months 2 weeks and 3 days.

UPDATE: Dad was able to come home and work some computery magic and recovered 399 pictures in a few minutes! Yay Dad!

Yesterday afternoon Sam and the kids were hanging out here for a bit after Sam and I spent the day volunteering at the school. Dylan had the kids all grouped up running football plays in the hallway. He was handing out positions and I heard him tell someone "You be the quarterback." At which point Tate demonstrated his football knowledge by squealing "Our quarter is back! Our quarter was lost but now it is back!"

Yeah, that one would be my kid. :)

Jared pointed out after we left this appointment that it was the first time in the boy's entire life that we've had his pictures taken without him crying through at least half of them...Go Tate!

This afternoon Tate attached himself to a small, wannabe GI Joe type guy. Not literally attached himself, but he carried it around in his little hand all day and would get really upset when he couldn't find it. He brought it to me at one point in the day all teary eyed and held up the guy and his severed arm and asked me to fix it. So I shoved it back in there and saved the day. Way to go Mom!

He still had a good grip on Captain Piece O. Crap when he went to bed and he hadn't been in bed for very long when he came out all sad and teary because Captain Crap had lost his leg. Broke my heart. So I shoved it back in there and saved the day again and sent him back to bed. Problem solved.

NOT!

We repeated this drill at least four times before I got out the super glue and gave Cpt. Crap a medical discharge. I bandaged him up with one of Tess' hairbands and sent Tate back to bed.

There. That should fix it.

HA!

Not more than ten minutes later Tate came out again, in tears again, because the miserable oaf had lost his arm for the second time today. This time, however, the limb couldn't be saved because the little peg thing had broken off inside the body of the toy. Tate sat there all weepy and broken hearted trying to shake it out of there while Jared tried to get him to go back to bed with promises of a real GI Joe come payday...no dice Dad. It was so sad. He wouldn't be parted with his comrade in arms until Jared broke out a new Hot Wheels car, the last of the potty training bribes. He squealed, "This won't get broke?!" and raced to bed. "Noah! Look what I got!"

Poor Captain Crap cannot bend his right leg at the hip and his left arm couldn't be saved...the odds of him avoiding the garbage bag the next time it comes around aren't good.

Apparently, Tate was pulling up his adjustable waist pants by grabbing onto the elastic bands on the sides. All I heard though, was Aubrey yelling "Stop pulling on that thing in your pants!"

Grab your tissues...this one makes me cry.

"Tate! Don't stick your hand in the toilet!"

"Get in the shower and wash that off!"

"AHHHHH! Nooo! Don't rub it on Noah's towel!!!"