Saige has something to tell you...






Baby Mortenson #2 coming your way New Years Eve!

We are very excited! Saige's birthday is Dec 30th so new baby will be almost exactly two years younger which is the spread we were going for sooooooo yay!

I'm almost 11 weeks along and cant WAIT to be done with the sick phase.  I don't throw up (which I'm thankful for), but I do feel nauseous, fatigued, have frequent headaches and light/noise sensitivity. It's almost exactly like it was when I was prego with Saige: I usually feel decent in the morning, but by about 2pm the sympots hit and get worse throughout the day. It's not as bad as lots of women have it, but it bites nonetheless :)

So there you have it! My guess is it's a girl (Saige even calls the baby her sher-sher (sister)) but you just cant be sure!

Pregnancy updates to follow!

Here are a few summer fun pics (even though it's about 55 degrees on average here in Portland, not your typical summer weather):

 Bike ride along the Willamette.
 Hose water is still my favorite kind of H20.
Cute Tegeder grand kids with their Opa.

April Showers...


Long time, no blog!

As usual, so much has happened in the last few months so I need to hand pick the things to write about. First and foremost, Saige updates!

Little Saige Mackenzie is 15.5 months old and a bundle of wiggly fun. We just had her 15 month appointment and her stats are as follows-

Weight: 24 lbs (70%)
Height: 32 in (86%)
Head circ: 18.6 (84%)

Growing up fast and healthy!

This little girl is a talker. Wow. From the moment she wakes up till the going down of the sun, she is chatting. Brad and I counted her words (because that's what first-time parents do, right?) and she says somewhere around 90. Its pretty fun to hear her try to say new words throughout the day. This is not to brag, just to share fun info with our family and friends.
(She loves sitting on the toilet and pretending to wipe. She wipes her kitty's and dolly's butts, too)

Some of our favorite words of hers are 'meow', 'yo-yo' (yogurt), 'boots', 'ketcha' (no, not for Ke$ha, but ketchup), 'bubboh' (bubble) and others. She also is working on “I love you” and “I dont know”. We still sign with her, but she has taken more to talking now. 

(Helping daddy plant flowers. Saige had a little too much fun letting her me-me swim)

If you have been around Saige for more than 5 minutes, you will find her love for cats (or 'me-me's as she calls them) is more than obsessive. I'd say 90% of the time when I walk into her room to get her from her naps/in the morning, the FIRST (and 15th) word she says is “ME-ME!” She carries around her stuffed cats basically everywhere and loves to share them with people. She does a great cat impression and loves to watch trailers for “Puss in Boots” and “Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties” (I know, I know. Such a ridiculous title). All her favorite books have cats on lots of the pages. I can just see her on the show “Hoarders” when she's 82, hoarding hundred of cats and eating nothing but Fancy Feast.

She loves playing with water and rocks. She also loves her swim classes we have twice a week and seems to have a crush on 'Ky' (Kyle), her swim teacher.

She is a mommy's girl and a daddy's girl. She takes 2 decent naps a day with white noise blaring. She is a pretty light sleeper and wakes up to Brad's alarm clock most mornings. She doesn't throw fits (Im knocking on wood like crrrrrrrAZY as I write this) but can get whiny when she wants something she cant have.
(Saige with her best friend Kaleb. Kaleb's parents might be moving to Klamath in the Summer! Saige and I are sooo hoping!)

I could go on and on, but I'll tell you whats happenin' with the grown-ups (well, only by definition of age) in the family.

Brad is wrapping up his last year of dental school (YIPPEEEE!) and then we will be headed down the Klamath Falls to work with his dad. I look forward to the sunshine and getting to know Brad's extended family better. I'm desperately trying to get my sister 'she-she' (Sonja) and her hubby 'jo-jo' (Jordan) to move to K Falls for a few years....fingers crossed for me....

I am a happy full-time mom and enjoy playing with Saige.....which I do about 95% of the time she is awake. She doesn't enjoy playing without me much at all. It will be nice for her to have a sibling eventually. When Saige is napping, I usually write in her journal, clean up, read books (haven't read many good ones lately, sadly. I'm open to suggestions!) and try to avoid wasting time online.

There's an update for ya. I hope to post again soon!

Californ-I-A


Since my oldest brother Andy and his family will be moving from Seattle to Vermont in June for his dermatology residency (and staying there for 3 whole years!), he and Julie decided to take their chillens to Disneyland since they are old enough to really get a kick out of it. Once he told the rest of the family and invited anyone of us to join in on the fun, it was no surprise that every single family member started making plans to go... everyone but Brad, that is. There's just nothing you can do when you are in the middle of a quarter at dental school.

Did Saige have a good time? Yes and no. She was very overwhelmed by the crowds, nervous on the rides, and extremely clingy to her mama. My whole family was willing to help carry her and watch her, but she cast the deciding vote in whether she wanted another set of arms to hold her. I think because it was such a new, busy experience, mama was the only person she felt could give her the comfort and familiarity she needed. Plus, trying to get her to take every nap in the stroller proved rather unsuccessful....and frustrating on my part. Oh, and she needed her pacifier 98% of the time to give her extra comfort. You'll see that in the pictures.(Meeting the fairies. I have no clue what any of their names are. Does anyone, really?)

Having said that, she DID warm up to going on the rides (she loved the carousel and The Little Mermaid ride- new in California Adventure). She sometimes was content to wander around a little nook we found without many people. She looooooved spending time with cousins (evident in the following pictures), she liked dancing to the music that would play in the streets, and she LOVED Splash Mountain!(Love how her long shirt was basically a dress)

I kid. Brad even believed I took her on Splash Mountain. Not for a few more years.(AT Sea World next to Summer, her cousin. You can see tiger sharks in the back ground)

Some of you may know my other brother Troy has his own business making apps for i/pod/pad/phone and Andriods, too. His website is tegtap.com and we sported shirts that he made for us, turning my family into walking adds for him. That punk brother didn't pay us a dime for it, either. :)

Maybe my family looked incredibly LDS (latter-day saint-ish) at Disneyland, but, boy, we were not the only ones! I was amazed at the amount of young, LDS families hitting up the theme parks last week! BYU and U of U shirts and hats everywhere! Then there are families that just screamed "I'm Mormon" (not literally, though that would have been awesome). There was lots of exchanging "Go Cougs" with passers-by. Funny shtuff.
(Whats with the punk fairy? She looked like a living Bratz doll).I have a Jaws picture like this and from this very spot in Universal Studios from 1998 with my high school friends. Once I find it, I'll scan it an upload it. Just for fun.

Our feet were KILLING us by the end of each night. Despite the hardships, it was about 73 degrees most days and we were in such good company. I'd go again tomorrow if I could.

Maybe.

Saige and her Bunnies!

I won the award for "Laziest Blogger" last year, so I am determined to avoid that honor in 2012! We will see how I do...

I obviously have a lot to catch up on, but for a teaser I wanted to post this video of Saige.

Saige loves plush animals, particularly bears and bunnies. I sewed a few bunnies for room as decorations when I was pregnant with her, but as soon as she was old enough to figure out what they were, these fabric bunnies became her favorite cuddle animals. This video is proof!

Here is a picture of our cuddle bunny with daddy.

Saige Updates!


Man, so much has happened since last I blogged that I don't even know where to begin! Let's start with some Saige updates (most the posted pictures don't have anything to do with the list of things Saige does):

-She turned 10 months old Oct 30th! Waaaaa! This stage is so much fun, but she wont be a baby much longer! I have dreaded that since day 1. Oh well. You have to live in the present and soak up the joy in each moment, am I right?

-She crawls around the house like a puppy and pulls up to standing on everything she can. She doesnt cruise yet, but she enjoys using a walking toy to go across the living room.

-She signs "all done" and recognizes the words/signs "mama", "dada", "Saige" and maybe a few others.

-She sleeps pretty great at night, but naps are still hit and miss. The last 2 weeks, each nap has averaged 45 minutes. I hopefully can chalk that up to her 2 top teeth coming through. She had a nap over an hour thus morning, so that's promising!

-She takes 3 naps a day which I would love to condense to 2 longer naps. She is just not ready yet. She cant stay awake for more than 2.5 hours...and that's pushing it.

-After 9 MONTHS, she FINALLY sleeps unswaddled! I totally thought I could wean her off the wrap around 3/4 months, like the book says, but I have been learning that MOST babies are NOT by the book. I wish I would have recognized that earlier. It would have saved me a lot of undue stress. Brad and I love to sneak into her room and see all the funny/uncomfortable positions she gets herself into now that she isn't sleeping in a straight jacket.

-She loves trying to eat junk off the kitchen floor (old peas, Doritos, dust bunnies, etc) so I need to sweep more, as tempting as it is to let Saige be my personal Rumba.

-She LOVES opening drawers, cabinets, bins, hampers, what have you, and pulling everything she can possibly reach OUT. DVDs, pens, and batteries are her favorite things to pull out and play with. Don't worry, the batteries are D's so there is no possible way she can swallow them.

-She laughs a lot, both at Brad and I and when she does something she thinks is funny. We love it.

-She is still pretty dang bald. She has some longish hair on top, but it's sooooo fine on the back and sides still!

-She has recently discovered the wonders of the bathroom. She loves the toilet and the tub. We now have to keep that door closed.

-She just started "sharing": handing us things, then taking them back, then handing them again. Its so cute! (ps. those are Brad's duck calls that Saige is playing with. If I wasn't married to Brad, I wouldn't know what they were either :)

-She is a happy baby girl! She brings us so much joy. I recently saw this framed saying that you can hang above a baby's bed that says, in the parents voice: "First we had each other. Then we had you. Now we have everything." I just love that. Sums up how we feel about our little Saige.

Family Fun in Seattle

Man, it's hard to come back from vacation, especially when you have to come back from 12 days in Hawaii...post soon to come. Right now I would like to give you one more Seattle-themed post because the last trip we had to Seattle before our tropical vaca was soooo much fun! It just HAS to be documented! :)

All the Tegeders (excpet my bro-in-law Jordan, poor guy) were in Seattle for my cousin's wedding the first part of September. We took a day long trip to Blake Island, an island in the Puget Sound that is entirely a state park. Its sweet. We took a ferry from downtown to get there.

We Tegeders are definitely over-packers. Evidence in the proceeding picture:

No, we werent moving to Blake Island. All that stuff was for ONE day.

The fam on the ferry:

My bro Troy, his wife Nancee and their adorable daughters Sadie and Erica. It was so awesome of them to fly up from Arizona!

We got to the island and set up shop. It was a perfect, sunny summer day!

Saige still takes 3 naps a day (She will be 9 MONTHS OLD in a few days! Waaaa!) and would definiely be needing her beauty rest while at Blake Island. There was no way we were going to bring the pack 'n play along with the 3 tons of other stuff we brought, so we had to improvise....

It turns our suitcase sleeping aint so bad! Here is Brad getting Saige to sleep. He is the baby whisperer in our family. He can get Saige to sleep basically anytime, anywhere. He is a fantastic father!

We found this sweet teeter-totter made from drift wood on the beach, Admittedly, the adults had almost as much fun on it as the kiddos. Here is me and Erica:

My sister Sonja (visiting from Oklahoma) sandwiched between my nieces Lovi and Summer.

Who says the beach is a bad place to show off cartwheels? My only nephew on the Tegeder side of the family, Noah, having a blast in the sand. Poor boy. The grandkid order on the Tegeder side of the family is as follows: boy, girl, girl, girl, girl, girl. Noah is left at the top with no other boy to wrestle with. Luckily, he plays great with his girl cousins, his sister Lovi and he are best buds, and he loves babies. Its not such a bad line up after all.

Saige and her daddy walking on the beach! How cute is this pictutre, really? I just love it. Little does Saige know that a week and a half from that moment, the water she will be walking in will be muuuuuch warmer....

My lovely sis-in-laws, Julie and Nancee holding my wee one.

Brad was having a blast taking pictures of family members with the Seattle skyline in the background. I really miss my Washington home when I see pictures like these.



The trip was a total blast. We rode bikes, ate a HUGE lunch, went hiking, built sandcastles, built a driftwood fort, and enjoyed good company.

Brad had to take his second round of dental boards a few days after this trip. The test was a big deral, spanning over 2 days. Guess what? He passed! We got the results recently and we are stoked for him. Its nice to see hard work pay off....with more than a little help from above :)