To be young again...

One week ago, we went to Stone Mountain for the fun of it, taking advantage of the beautiful fall weather. We hiked up Stone Mountain, that was the first time in oh about six and a half years. The kids were really good sports, and were making us (nudge nudge wink wink), making us take breaks about every twenty feet or so. So, it took us a while to get up to the top, an hour or so. The kids and I took the sky lift down the mountain, which was great and all only they were singing this really obnoxious song the whole way down, I am not too sure where they heard it, but allow me to share it with you. And if it is your kid they heard it from, gee thanks. It goes "Inky pinky ponky daddy had a donkey, donkey died and daddy cried inky pinky ponky". Yeah, they would sing the song and then laugh hysterically. It was pretty funny the first five times or so, but then not so funny anymore, especially not for the people riding on the sky lift with us. Ahh can't you remember being a kid and annoying people for the joy of it all. Oh to be a kid again. The native american festival was going on that day too, hence the teepees. The other pics are of the kids hanging in their jammies. Aren't they cute?

Well, as usual it has been a busy month or two. We have been having lots of fun. This season is always a busy one with Gideons Birthday, Halloween, our Anniversary, and then of course Thanksgiving and Christmas. Gideon is five can you believe it? Richard and I have been married for six years... Crazy... So, here are some cute pictures of my sweet babies. I always have to throw in the goofy faced pictures of my kids because I get about ten goofy face pictures to one cute shot. So, the goofy faced pictures depict their true personalities that not too many people have the opportunity to see. They are really a lot of fun! Gotta love kids.

Apologies...

I am really sorry about waiting three months to blog and then unloading five million pictures with five million stories at once. It is just the way it goes. My hell is paved with good intentions. If I had a blog for all of the times I think about blogging... I just needed to add a few pictures and stories of my little peanut. Spencer is such a sweet baby. Can you believe he is already 2 months old? Ugh. He already looks and acts so grown up. I know that sounds so crazy, but it is so true. They just grow up right before your eyes. Look at how big he is getting. He is holding his head up so well. He just loves to look around and see what is going on. His favorite thing in the world right now (other than his brother, sister and milk of course) are his fists. He holds them in the air like he is ready to punch somebodys lights out, and when they aren't just hanging in the air, he has them in his mouth. He is so darn sweet. We just love having him around.

What's Happenin Hotstuff?

So, we in the Ta household have been super busy. We took a trip up to Nashville back in September. We went to the botanical gardens there, it was really beautiful.

We also recently went to Six Flags, I really cannot remember the last time I was there. We were able to take Gideon and Audrey and have a really great time. There is a new part of Six Flags dedicated to Thomas the Tank Engine. One of the highlights of the night, in addition to Superman and Supergirl capes.

Gideon has started preschool. He loves it. He has a little friend named Annetta, that he cannot stop talking about. He came home one day and said "she is as beautiful as you mom. She has red hair and cute little dots on her nose" Isn't that the sweetest. He says he likes her because she thinks he is funny. I just love that. Here is a picture of him on his first day of school. The one on the left he is pouting because he didn't have time to play with his toys before school. On the right he is holding toys in his hands, because I told him he could play with his toys in the car for the two minutes it takes to get to school. It made him smile, isn't that what it's all about in the end anyway. Look, who knew the boy would want to get up thirty minutes earlier than he has to, just so he can play with toys before school. Forget that, I just want to be in my bed. Oh the stress of being a four year old. While Gideon has fun at school, Audrey, Spencer and I do a lot of shopping. Or shall I say, browsing. Target is one of our favorite places to visit.

We like Old Navy and next to it is an Ulta store, ie. women heaven, Audrey likes to call it the lipstick store. The last time we were at Old Navy she kept asking me if we could go to the lipstick store. I asked her what she likes about it and her response with a huge smile on her face was, "that place is AWESOME". What have I done? Hopefully you ladies know better than to try on any of the samples out on the floor that are within a three year olds reach. While I am obsessive about my kids having clean hands, she had her fingers in every last one of the makeup samples at Ulta.

To my dismay however, Audrey no longer wants to be a dancer. She wants to play soccer. So, another thing we do while Gideon is in school is play soccer. She is quite good at it too.

So yeah we have been busy, a fun busy. It can't be beat.

Gratitude...

What more can I say to having a third child, and all of the adjustments that come with having a new baby in the home. These are truly Gods children, and are so innocent and miraculous, and beautiful. There is really nothing like having a newborn around. It is heavenly. They are so snuggly, and cuddly and let you hold and kiss them all day without a complaint. Nevermind the lack of sleep, and dirty house, their toothless grin just makes it all worth it. I just love being a mother, and am so grateful to have been blessed with my beautiful children. Spencer is really a very mild mannered baby, I better not say that too loudly. He is so sweet, and just content. I love it. I would love to take all of the credit for how lovely his disposition is, only I am sure it is just how God made him.

Gideon and Audrey still love having him around as much as the day they came to see him for the first time in the hospital. He is the first thing they ask about when they wake up in the morning. It is so sweet. They really are the best big brother and sister a kid could ever have. They really take care of him and love to hold him. They even look out for their mommy, Gideon and Audrey have been my brain at times, and it is their responsibility to ask mommy if she has her diaper bag before we walk out the door. I am just so grateful for these little blessings that I am able to call mine.

Baby Spencer Has Arrived!!

Baby Spencer was born on July 21 at 5:15 am. He weighed 8lbs 7oz, and is 20 1/2 inches long. He arrived happy as a clam.
Here are the incredibly proud big sister and big brother.
We are home, we came home yesterday, after one long day, and one very, very looong night. There is no place like home.

Baby Shower

Kids taking over my bed. Audrey for some reason was passed out under the sheets. I thought this picture was pretty cute so I had to throw it in.
Here are a few pictures of the baby shower, my coworkers had for me. It was at a quaint little cafe and bakery, very cool place in Lilburn called the Blue Rooster. Audrey was really helpful in bringing gifts to mommy, and finding the cards in the bag.

Grandma joined us for the afternoon at the baby shower, we had a really great time together. There was a 5 week old infant at the shower and Audrey could not get over how tiny she was. She just watched the babys every move. She kept talking about her small nose, and feet and piggy toes. It was so cute. She is going to be such a great big sister.
The kids are very excited about baby Spencer and his arrival. Hopefully he will be here by tomorrow. Will let you know when he gets here. TTFN

SUMMER FUN

Okay a bunch of you have been asking to see a picture of the baby bump (mountain), so here it is. Ugh, only 7 days until the due date. I am feeling pretty great other than my left foot looks like a huge sausage, and my cute little toes look like lil' smokies. For those of you who have seen my foot when it is swollen, you can verify that my description is completely accurate.

Let's see we have been trying to stay really busy and do lots of fun stuff before #3 gets here. We went fishing on Friday and Saturday, the kids had a great time trying to catch tadpoles, they are not real patient when it comes to the fishing pole part. I had fun, I caught three fish it was great. Here are a few pics of the Ta fishing experience...
Gideon is just happy to be outside near water, where he can be messy. Richard would be happier if he were catching fish, instead of baiting hooks. He is the best hook baiter ever, I would not have been able to catch anything without him.


Audrey, still a dancer, even in the woods. I wish you could see the faces on my kids when I caught this fish. They thought that it was the coolest thing ever. They went from the previous day asking for a new mom (Audrey that is), to mom you are awesome, I guess for now she will keep me after all. This is a brown snake that Audrey was oh... face to face with when she ran by it on the path, and then stopped and turned around to see if what she thought she saw really was a snake, and got really close to get an even closer look, and then screamed mom it's a snake. Ewww. Creepy.

On the 3rd of July we went to Stone Mountain and had a great time. The weather could not have been more perfect, and the crowd was the perfect size too. The fireworks fantastic.


Audrey and I took my mom to paint pottery last week as a girls day out, but also as a birthday present to grandma. It has also become somewhat of a tradition to go and paint pottery a week or two before our baby arrives, in the past we have done tiles with the new babys name and nursery colors on it. So, #3 has a tile with his name on it, which is tenatively Spencer Garrett Ta. Subject to change on the birthdate. This is what his name tile says on it though. We had a lot of fun, as it was moms first time painting pottery. Usually Allison is my painting partner for this tradition, only she is spending time in Indiana, going to school. WE MISS YOU!!

Otherwise our time has been spent hanging out with friends at the pool, playing spiderman (Gideon and Ethan), going to the mall to splash in the fountain. All of the super fun things to do in the summer. Hope you are all well. As for Spencer coming, no contractions at all yet. We are trying everything just short of the castor oil trick. Don't think I really want to go there. As with Gideon and Audrey, my kids come when they are good and ready. We will keep you all posted.

Gideon, Entomologist

Isn't that what a bug collector is called? That's my boy. Every time we are outside playing, riding bikes whatever, he is always on the lookout for bugs, caterpillars, worms etc.. It is just lovely. In fact we had a caterpillar (Harry) that spun itself into a cocoon, (Gideon was not real happy because he was only able to play with the caterpillar for a day before it started weaving and spinning the white shell, very cool to watch though). Try explaining that to a 4 year old that this is just something that caterpillars are supposed to do. About a month later it was a moth flying around. No worries, we let hairy go when he was out of his cocoon. Well, we are now the proud owners of three tadpoles that look as though they will soon be sprouting legs. I think that with our new additions Lacey (a 12 year old cat, my brother is allowing us to BABYSIT for him while he is in Iraq), our three tadpoles Shee-shee, waa-waa, and doo-dah, and baby boy Ta (due in July), our family is finally complete. Yes that is poor Lacey my sweet overly loveable daughter is hugging.

Can we say Of Mice and Men? Just kidding, we have taught her to have limits in the loving department. Even since this picture was taken. :0) My sweet boy is also really good at dressing up as various superheroes. I forget what this ones name was, but he looks really cool doesn't he? Just for kicks here is another. The picture on the right he is Super Elder Ta. He is gonna baptize a lot of converts looking like that. Gotta love kids.

So I just figured out this afternoon how to download pictures to my blog. I think I am rather beginning to enjoy this now. It definately helps to have pics to narrarate just how much fun we really are having. I will try to write more often, so it won't be so long between blogs. So, TTFN.

Spending time at the park

My tiny dancer. Kinda weird to put makeup and lipstick
on your three year old. She was still the least made up of all
of the girls.

Busy, Busy

A lot of great stuff going on since my last post. We are working on rearranging the kids rooms. Gideon is going to sleep upstairs, and baby boy is going to sleep in Gideons old room. Gideon is very excited about his big boy room, its theme will be airplanes.

Audrey has her first dance recital this weekend. We are very excited about it. She had her dress rehearsal on Monday and did beautifully. She is a really great dancer, and she loves it. In letting her know the plans for the day last week, I told her she has dance class later, and she said "Dance class, I LOVE DANCE CLASS!!" It was too cute.

We have been spending a lot of time outside at the park and at the swimming pool. Gideon is now able to swim across the pool all by himself. He is doing really well with it too. He loves to swim and is just like a fish. Audrey is getting more adventurous with jumping and once she is in the water she allows herself to float up instead of swimming up.

Here are a couple of pics of spending time at the park and my little dancer.

Am I really doing this?

For those of you who really know me, the computer is really not my thing, aside from the occasional email, and looking for something online... Computers and I do not get along. So, this is huge trying to figure this out, so far it seems pretty easy. Hopefully this will save some of you a phonecall as it seems the only time I have time to really talk on the phone is after 9:30pm, and then I am beat so I am probably actually falling asleep while talking to you anyway. No offense. Just being honest. Let's see so much to say, where do I begin? This past weekend was interesting to say the least. It was indeed Easter weekend. However, we spent the weekend with Cori, and her dog Ellie. They were here visiting with us, and we had a wonderful girls day out shopping on Friday, we went out and had our toes done, Audrey had her nails painted she is such a girl. I will post pics of that in the AM, she was really hamming it up at the salon. Richard and Gideon spent the day doing guy stuff, moving trees, riding bikes, playing Peter Pan and Captain Hook and Star Wars. Saturday was another fun filled day until Audrey stepped on a splinter on our deck. Only we couldn't get the splinter out despite our best efforts at surgery at home performed by none other than Dr. Richard Ta, ha ha. We had to stop torturing the poor girl as she was screaming "your choking me and I can't breathe", while holding her down trying to get out a splinter, we were just waiting for the Grayson PD to show up at our door and arrest us for child abuse. As the weather was nice and the windows were wide open, I am certain the neighbors heard every bit of her dramatic pleas for help. I am not doubting that the splinter hurt as you will see in our pictures I am throwing around the word splinter very loosely, after going to the Urgent care center first thing Sunday morning to have the wooden shard removed from the poor childs foot it is huge. It seemed to go on forever as the doctor pulled it out. Even at the doctors office my daughter had the opportunity to show her talent for drama as she again was very vigilant that she was being choked and could not breathe. She is so funny. The doctor kept calling her very tough as there were the three of us, Richard, the doctor and I holding her down. Despite all of the dramatics, Audrey survived the retrieval of the splinter. I did have to save the thing because it is huge. For you parents out there, make your children wear shoes anytime they are outside, even if they are just on the back porch. Gideon is so sweet after it was all over and Audrey decided she was going to be okay after all, we were loaded up in the car to head to grandmas for Easter lunch and he looked at Audrey and said "Audrey, I am so glad you are okay, I was really worried about you." Such a sweet boy. Audrey is okay, she is actually putting weight on her foot again instead of walking around tippy toed. So, I have a lot to say to you folks after all. Hopefully it is not too overwhelming. Will post more soon.