Tagg Singing

I've gotta have a post just dedicated to Tagg singing. Love it! All of it! Reece is a good singer too, but I haven't been able to catch it on film yet--she just ends up being more interested in the camera than her song!

Taggie

Tagg is such a trooper--he has had a LOT of dental work done in his 4 little years, including 9 fillings, despite crazy amounts of brushing... oh well. I remember my jaw aching as I tried to keep my mouth open for way too long as a kid, and it makes me so proud that he is calm and obedient even when he doesn't like what's going on with all those tools inside his mouth.

Which came first, loving Daddy and everything Daddy does, or loving Star Wars? The galaxy may never know.

Tagg's first year of preschool was shared with this little girl: Izzy. Allegedly, the two would hold hands while walking to music time and have other such sweet interactions :) Our little sweetheart got to go to her house to play once, which they both seemed to enjoy! He was careful to get ready properly for his play DATE by applying the cologne Daddy took him to pick out. Well, he sure knocked my socks off!

They played a dance game on their wii and had some good times outside...

They were playing tag (it's hard to spell the actual word with one "g" !) and at one point, Izzy was "it" and Tagg had run pretty far away from her. They both stopped running, and Izzy said, "Tagg, come here!" I thought she might want to show him something, but Tagg caught on to her little ruse before I did: she was just trying to get him to come closer so it would be easier to tag him!

Tagg-a-wag loves his Game Time. Especially in the winter, he enjoyed beating all the levels of many of the Lego video games and has even done really well on some much more advanced games.

I've always got to get pictures of this boy sleeping! He loves having his "friends" with him, and for a while there, it was to help him feel better about sleeping alone, which he Really wished he could change. I guess it's alright that the only ones seeing him snooze are his stuffed animal friends, because it gives him the privacy he needs to sleep in the buff: his sleepwear of choice, followed (but not so closely) by play clothes :) --oh yeah, or baby pajamas. He gets on kicks like sleeping in baby (2T) pajamas (even the footie ones, and he has to bend over just to walk around in those tiny things!) and I really get a kick out of them!

Okay, here we have the birthday party we threw for his teacher at church, Sister Dettman, and the snowman he made out of TP while we were waiting for it to snow this winter, a group of boys hanging out at the kids resale shop I love to shop at, and Taggie posing by his "level" of mac n' cheese (or, as he calls it sometimes, Macken :) . When he started playing video games, one of the first was Pacman. I thought that arranging his food in a Pacman-like maze would help him eat more, and sure enough! It did! So we've been doing levels for quite some time now :) I love our little idea machine!

We took Taggert to a tumbling class at the community center, and from that, graduated him on to a gymnastics class at the local gymnastics training center. He loved both of them, and is learning a lot! The gymnastics center offers a Hollywood Stunt class for boys ages 6 and up, and I'll bet he'll love that! It sounds so cool, but unfortunately grown-ups aren't allowed...

Tagg's preschool's Winter Sing.

Taggie saved up all his chore money from LOTS of chores and filled up this light saber chart so he could get an Obi Wan blue light saber. He was so proud of himself, and so were we!

So, our house was broken into twice last year, while we were asleep. Yuck. The only things that got hurt were our wallets (although I did get Much cuter wallet and purse replacements, on the bright side ;) and a window screen.

For a while, Tagg said that "the guy who toll [stole] our tup [stuff]" was the only guy he didn't love in the whole world. And we would find contraptions like the one above, which were designed to trip that guy, should he break in again (which is, thankfully, unlikely, since he was caught and we now have a security system). But now he's to the point where he has forgiven that guy and even says he loves him. Today he told me he loves forgiving people. What a good boy :)

When I had to go in to have my fingerprints done so they could rule them out on the evidence, the detective did Tagg's too, just for fun. She was really nice, and although I am of course very happy to have all that mess over with, I do miss her stopping by every once in a while :) So many good people out there!

Speaking of good people, the night after the first robbery, we went to Applebee's for dinner and ended up talking about it with the server: He said he was sorry if he was acting weird, that he was out of it that day, and we said we totally understood! The server brought balloons for Taggert to cheer him up :) And after our food came, the manager came over and told us he was so sorry to have heard about what happened. He sympathized with us for a bit and then told us that he wanted to buy us dinner. He told us to pick out a dessert and chalked it up to it being a neighborhood place. That was perfect timing for resurrecting our faith in people.

Tagg (and I!) got to drive in Farmer Bingham's combine again last harvest season! It's so fun to do that, we're really grateful that he takes a bit of time out of the busiest time of his year to let us join in :) In other news, Tagg and I walked around in the Hopkin's park woods, and he also enjoyed trying on glasses with me. Most everything's more fun with Tagg around :)

Road rash from falling out of a bounce house at a free event in the Target parking lot last summer. Everyone was really nice about helping him feel better--he got lots of promotional toys that day :) Also, after church sometimes, Tagg will get up on the concrete block holding up the lightpost and will pretend to be Luke-when-he-got-his-hand-cut-off. And Reece (Princess Leia) and I (Lando) will go back to the Jeep (the Millenium Falcon) and then drive back to pick him up. As I carry him to his carseat, I make sure to be very careful of his stub because, as he tells me very solemnly, it really hurts. :)

A smorgasbord of sweet pictures I had on my phone. Can you find:

• Tagg cuddling the pale orange hooded towel my Mom made for me while she was pregnant with me?
• Tagg doing the bear crawl to avoid touching the grass with his skin as much as possible? (Something both I and Reece did as babies, too)
• 4 pics of a handsome boy in his Sunday-go-ta-meetin clothes? (As my Dad would say :)
• Tagg and his cousin Cohen sharing a moment while we were in NY for a visit?
• A seriously l--o--n--g tongue?
• An adorable crinkled nose?
• His full-of-milk satisfied nap pose?
• A sleeping newborn that looks like a tiny man?
• Sumo arms?
• Tagg chewing a pacifier (all he ever did with them) on the beach in New York on the aforementioned Alanna & Cohen trip?
• A pretend mad face?

In the hospital, on his first day, I think.

Tagg and Sophia... She used to live with her grandparents, whose house is right behind ours. Tagg saw them playing outside one day soon after we moved in and that was the first time he ventured out to meet neighborhood friends. Sophia still goes to their house just about every day, so now that spring is here, they play a Lot. The funny thing is, her aunt Hatigje was my friend in elementary school and Jr. High! Sophia's grandparents and their daughters, Soph's mom and aunt, lived on the street behind me growing up :) I love what a small world Sycamore is! And it's fun to get to know Hatigje again now that we're adults; she has 3 kids and we get together with them sometimes, too!

These videos are:

Tagg being sweet to me

Tagg doing a karate move for Gabi, Daddy and me

Tagg hangin out with Frankie the Frog (who is the namesake of every frog toy he has ever owned since)

Tagg playing soccer with a random kid at one of Jed's Chicago soccer games by the Lake

Tagg doing something crazy on Gabi's bed

Mommy

Taggert finished filled up an obedience chart with stickers on November 29th, so on the 30th we redeemed his prize by taking the train up to Chicago to ride the Ferris Wheel at Navy Pier! It was totally wonderful! Reece even got her naps in on the train, and Taggert got to ride next to a guy he thought looked like Superman :) (When he told the guy that, he said he got that all the time!)

When the train arrived in Chicago, we walked to the bus station and took that to Navy Pier. We rode the Ferris Wheel once and came back home! It was chilly, but so delightful and peaceful, too!

Top left: Riding behind Taggert as he drives the little 4 wheeler. Bottom middle: Cheese dinosaurs I carved for Taggie!

We trucked it back up to the city (driving this time!) to go to the Museum of Science and Industry--to see the plastinates! Taggert is fascinated by the human body and how it works, so we took advantage of the opportunity to check out the real deal. It was amazing--another good trip!

Delivering May Day baskets to our sweet neighbors!

For some reason, I made up this silly little tune that I would sing to Reece all the time--I don't know where it came from! But she loved it!!

Taggert and Reece, being your mommy is so wonderful! I've always felt like it's what I was born to do; I have been preparing to be as good as I can for you ever since I was a little girl. There is truly nothing I would rather do than take care of you-- I love you with all my heart!

Daddy & Taggert

Light Saber fights, yard work,
fire, frogs... what more could you ask for in a daddy?

Little boys need a daddy-- To teach them magic tricks, guitar skills, martial arts, love for Star Wars and Indiana Jones, how to properly remove a lizard gizzard... Taggert loves his Daddy and can't get enough of him!

Waiting for Reece

Sweet Taggert... "Baby Reece... Come out of Mommy's belly... Play?"

I loved being so close to home so we could share little moments like these with my family :)

This is a long video, but it's got a lot of belly action goin on :)

{for myself and the grandparents ;) ... I know we're the only ones who will watch this! }

Tagg Singing

Turn your volume down for this next one:

We went to our friends' house for Christmas Eve breakfast, and it was so wonderful! We all sang Christmas songs together, and Tagg wanted to lead us all in Jingle Bells, his favorite! I love it that he's not shy!



Tagg just likes to make up silly words and change songs up, which is just what me and Jed do! Ha!

In order to teach Tagg songs, I started playing a fun game where I sing a song and at random parts, I'll stop singing and make a silly face like I can't remember the words, and he fills them in for me! It works really well, and it's even more fun when the roles are reversed! The video below is fantastic!

Tagg at ABC

Taggert started preschool at the end of January--Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9-11:45am. It's the preschool I went to as a little girl! He really likes a lot of things about it! And we think it's just right for him right now--he excels in every area we have introduced him to, but we haven't given him a lot of opportunities to interact with other kids. He has a hard time with the inconsistent and not adult-like reactions he gets from children, but I'm sure that soon he'll learn to look past that and just enjoy the magic of childhood with other kids. He had no separation problem with the drop-off whatsoever, and was so excited when Grandma Kim came with Reece and me to pick him up on his first day! We followed his first day of preschool up with a trip to the bakery :)

On his second day, each kid brought a teddy bear to spend the night at school, and when they came back the next preschool day, the bears were all caugh in the act--they had obviously come to life the night before! These pictures were taken by the teachers during class and posted on their website--when we were looking through them all, Tagg pointed out the same little girl in three pictures, saying that she's cute and that he likes her... With Jed and me as his parents, he was destined for a life of romance, and he's off to a great start! ;)

Tagg's overall assessment of preschool is that he especially likes gym time and his teacher, but that home is his favorite place to be. Wouldn't change that for the world!

Tagg

Tagg is going to be a farmer when he grows up... a farmer who grows field corn! So I got in touch with a farming family we know during last autumn's harvest season and asked if Taggert could ride in the combine while the farmer harvested his corn. They were so nice and agreed immediately! When we got there, it turned out that there was room for all three of us in there! It was one of the most fascinating things I have done in a long time! It was very peaceful in there--you could see so far because it's So Huge!

We learned that the eight things that stick out in front of the combine are called snouts, and they somehow husk the cob and strip it of all its kernels, which it deposits in the back of the combine (see bottom-right picture). Reece slept for most of the ride, and Tagg even got to steer it for a little while! He did a really good job--the farmer asked if he had ever done anything like that before :) At the top-right, you can see the field they worked so hard to harvest.

Random snippets--Tagg likes to build "houses" with pillows and blankets. Also, he made that yummy treat for me one day. A cold, uncooked hot dog wrapped in American Cheese. Here's the conversation that ensued:

Tagg: "Eat it." Mommy: "Have you tried it?" T:"Nope." M:"Why not?" T:"I don't know, I think it might taste nasty." Mommy eats a bite... M:"It was kind of nasty. I don't want to finish it." T:"But if you don't eat the stuff I made for you, I'll have ta throw it in the trash, and I know that would make you sad if you don't eat the stuff I made fo ryou cuz it tastes nasty, so that's why you have to eat the whole thing of it. Eat. It." I don't even remember whether or not I ate it. The important things are that he was cooking for me! And that he says funny stuff! :)

That Baby Rancor at the bottom-right has had a long run as Tagg's favorite toy. Amazingly, it hasn't been misplaced (for very long at any one time ;) even though it's so tiny. And, Tagg really likes movies... and racking out on the couch to watch them.

I love these pictures. Loni, a girl from church who stayed with my parents for a while, raked us a pile of leaves one day and Tagg had a heyday! There is just something about the smell and crunch of fallen leaves. SO glad we got to do that this year! I remember my sister and I used to make houses out of leaves... like blueprints of houses, really, with small lines one after the other to make the stairs and all different kinds of rooms... It might have something to do with the birthday, but autumn has always been my favorite!