hair one day, gone the next

Well, Tate got his very first hair cut this past week and has officially lost his baby status. It is surreal to see him looking so grown up now but here in the "before" photo you can see he was in desperate need of a trim.

Drum roll please.......taa daaa! T looking so dapper in his new big boy hair do. He continues to melt our hearts every single day and to us, only gets cuter and cuter.

Oh yeah, and did I mention he is walking everywhere?? He took his first steps around his birthday two months ago and ever since then it has been a rapid progression into full on steady walking. After a few weeks of needing to "spot" his every move, he is now thankfully stable and sturdy and ready to get his little hands into everything!

Fall Festivities

This post is quite delayed but it has been a busy couple of weeks with fall festivals, Halloween and to my delight, an extended birthday celebration. The most recent photos are of my loving husband and I during a wine tasting day that he so graciously set up for me. It was absolutely beautiful out as we enjoyed lunch, wine tasting and being toddler free for a few hours.

Someone received a special balloon for Halloween but we had no idea that he would become so attached to it...you literally couldn't pry his little fingers from that orange string for days!

Can't let go of the balloon while playing....

...and definitely can't let go during bath time! That would be ridiculous.

And nothing says autumn more than fall festivals. Here we are with our wonderful friends and neighbors and Tate's play date buddies. Too bad we couldn't get everyone to face the camera but we'll take what we can get.

pumped up mix

well, this post is hopefully the first in a string of ones to come that include a little more than just photos of our sweet boy (although I may have some complaints from a few grandparents on that). I want to give the blog a bit of a makeover that may not fully come together until the new year but I'm envisioning adding more recipes, home projects and anything else worth sharing.

so as much as I enjoy to bake foods that require a lengthy recipe and extra time...I also can appreciate the ones that are completely the opposite and just as yummy. I got the simple recipe from a blog I love who got it from a post on pinterest so I decided to pay it forward and share with you. all you need are 3 ingredients...maybe 4 if you want to include chocolate chips.

1 box yellow cake mix
1 16 oz. can pumpkin
1/2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
chocolate chips (optional)

mix ingredients well then either pour batter into a loaf pan or muffin cups like I did. bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. I actually added chocolate chips to only half my batter and thus, a breakfast option and dessert option. duh...winning.

* note: do not make the cake mix according to package directions...the canned pumpkin replaces all eggs, oil etc!

two words:
dee lish

Weekend with Aunt Em!

Well, the Rosenthal three was lucky enough to get Aunt Em all to ourselves this past weekend! Activities included lunch at In n Out while watching planes land at LAX, playing at the park with Tate's friends, going to a movie, lots of shopping and a fun dinner out for the sisters. Truthfully, however, it wasn't the activities we enjoyed most but rather just having Em here with us for the day to day that mattered most. Now we just can't wait for the rest of the Herring clan to come visit!

We even had Tate try on his Halloween costume a little early so Em could see him in all his orange pumpkin glory.

A BIG shout out as well to the daddys over the weekend...both Brandon and Uncle Monty get awards for taking care of the kiddos while Em and I had some solo time together. It was such a treasured time for the both of us but we couldn't have done it without them. Thank you!

Gettin' Fancy

So for Tate's big milestone of turning one we thought we'd take the opportunity to get some professional shots done of him. Of course we sneaked into some of those as well and I thought they turned out beautifully. Our little ham loves the camera and did great for the photo shoot!

the pumpkin patch

Well, it's fallish in L.A. so the perfect Saturday afternoon activity was heading to the local pumpkin patch. That "patch" is a grocery story parking lot covered in hay but alas, we do what we can in the city. Tate seemed to love the outing and we enjoyed taking a ton of photos of him on the outing. A perfect kick-off to my favorite month!

Tate as of late...

As expected, a lot of change comes with turning one. We have a very busy little man on our hands but it is so much fun to watch him coming into his own. I don't have an action shot of him walking by himself just yet but as of the past couple of weeks Tate can take anywhere from 8 to 12 steps all on his own. In the pictures below he is going to town with one of his birthday presents that is basically a glorified (and quite colorful) walker!

The older Tate's gotten the more he is also backing up the popular phrase of "like father like son". Not only does he already favor doing things with his left hand but he also gravitates toward all things sports. Enter the baseball bat! It's a habit he has that once he likes something he drags it all around the house and now that desired object happens to be a bright red bat. It's almost as if I have my very own security guard with me all day.

He just seemed like such a big boy to me in this picture standing up in his crib which is hard to fathom considering he barely took up any room in that bed the first night we brought him home. Other tendencies of his new "big boy" status include: understanding words and phrases that we say to him, clapping and/or bouncing when he hears music, "talking" to people in public places to get them to notice him and pointing at anything he wants more of.

Thank you Lord for this precious boy!