A Tate update

Since it's been a little while since we've seen "everybody" I thought I would put a few updates on here about what Tate is doing/saying these days. It's so fun to watch him and really pretty crazy how much he picks up on a daily basis. In the last week or so he has taken a new interest in books. He is also more inclined to actually play with things for a period of time - the usual toys of choice are still his little horses from Christmas or balls and his tools. He plays in his room now w/o me in there and he will sit and look at books, actually turning the pages and studying the pictures. He has even started bringing books to us and saying read and climbing up beside us for us to read to him. He also really likes to play in his closet! Light on or not. His black and decker tool set (for the most part-some are scattered throughout the living room) is in there and he "works" on the dresser or the walker that is stored in the closet. He has really started pretending - making the horses walk or run along the hearth and on me and saying they are "eatin' apples." He also drives his trucks around making truck noises. One of the funnies things he does right now is pretend to sing/talk into the "microphone" (my cake beater). I have a trumpet on a sconce on the wall for decoration and he spotted it one day a few weeks ago and wanted it so we let him see it. He put it too his mouth and made a "dun-doo-du" (that may not be the best written description of the noise but it's the trumpet sound or the announcement sound---it's the best I can do w/o you hearing it). So now he carries around the cake beater and makes that sound. Or he'll stand on the hearth and pretend to sing. He also participates in the Razorback fight song! When we just hum the tune he says, "Go! Go! Go!" at the right time and at the end he says "Figh! Figh! Figh!" The t is usually silent. He also sings Zacheaus with me...to a certain extent. I sing the song and at the end when it says, "Zacheaus, you come down" Tate says, "Ge down" (again, t is silent) and then the end, "for I'm going to your house to pray" Tate says "Pay!!" really loud.
He is also saying many sentences these days. And tons of words. Here's a brief list of frequent wordage. Keeping in mind he is parroting EVERYTHING!! these days!!

Sentences he says...
More pease (more please)
Dogs baking (dogs barking)
It's a .... he fills in the blank with whatever he's talking about
Horsey eatin' apples
It's a dog running
I see you!
I get you
Daddy Where? with his hands held up in a question pose
I get the dog
Baby where? (baby is his blanket)
Is it hot?
...Readin' a book? (the first part of that sentence is still a little fuzzy but it's usally a question form)
Is '(t)hat Dean? Kitty in d' barn (our neighbor, Dean, has two kitties that stay in his barn)
What's that??
My shoe., My Daddy., My shirt


Some words he says - to name a few
cheese, yogurt, bite, fries, mouth
Choco dog
movie
bear, cow, horsey, duck, chicken, pig, sheep, adigator (alligator!!very cute!!!), dinosaur, monkey, kitty, butterfly, bug, buffalo, hippo, giraffe,turkey, deer, fish (he can pick out all of these and makes the noise for almost all of these too except for butterfly, bug and buffalo and a few others!)
Apollo (my mom's dog) Macie (Steven's mom's dog)
Frosty, Rudolph
Chair
book
bed
night-night
beans
apples
crackers
ookie (cookie)
tackle ball (football)
slam dunk (basketball)
soccer ball

There's a bunch more but I can't think of them currently and this has become a novel. So that's the latest, for the most part, on lil' man Tate! He's growing so fast!! Getting taller and is the ultimate of active!!!!