Taylor Becomes Domesticated

Here is a video of ONE of Taylor's favorite Christmas gifts! (We'll have to send a video of the other favorite later) This kitchen was from Grandma and Grandpa D and Aunt Rebekah. Man, I wish there would have been cool kitchens like this when I was little! The stove makes sizzling and boiling sounds when you put the pans on the burner. The microwave makes real beeping sounds and the phone (which of course is her favorite) makes real sounds too! She has already had so much fun playing kitchen...cooking food, stirring things up, bringing food to mommy and daddy on plates, giving us pretend bites and putting anything she can into the oven, fridge and microwave. We have more videos to share, but we'll just start you off with this one!

Our Top 10 of the last few weeks!

Well, the last few weeks have been a complete whirlwind around here! We will catch you up with a top 10 list of things that have happened since our last blog:

1. We traveled to Ozark, MO to visit my family (Amanda) for Thanksgiving. It's a 5 hour drive and the first 3 1/2 to 4 hours Taylor did fine....the last hour she did not. Needless to say, when we arrived I was not in the mood for any hugs, welcomes or chatting for quite some time!

2. We went shopping on Black Friday for the first time ever! We didn't go until early afternoon and it really wasn't too bad!

3. Taylor started walking ALL over the place the weekend of Thanksgiving! Of all places, she decides that Target (on Black Friday) would be where she would master the skill.....it's amazing how shopping can be such a motivator.....this is probably a sign for what's to come!!! At least Mommy will have a shopping partner!

4. Taylor moved into a big-girl car seat and is now facing forward and seeing the world from the car in a brand new way! She loves it!!

5. We had a late Thanksgiving with Dave's parents which ended up just being us and them. Stef, Steve and the kids couldn't make it b/c of kids being sick! So we had lots of food to eat!

6. Just this past weekend, I flew to California to get my sister started in Premier! Dave and Taylor stayed home. It was a fun trip and the best part was that I found a ticket for $235 and I get $200 from Premier to do her training show....so $35 to California and back made for a nice weekend!

7. Taylor is now into purses and loves to carry one around on her shoulder and put anything from balls, play cups and her milk or juice in it!

8. Dave has officially finished redoing the railing to our stairs and fixing part of the wood floor where we took another railing out. It must have been built before code because the spindles were far enough apart that Taylor could fit her entire body through. So we now have spindles that are the appropriate distance apart and our new wooden baby gate up. This was one of those projects that we knew needed to be done since she started crawling and is just now getting completed, just in time for #2!!!

9. One of Taylor's newest talents is her "cheesy" smile that she will do on command. All you have to do is tell her to smile and she will give you this squinty-eyed, full-out cheesy smile! Then if you laugh, she will do it more! She has already been caught doing this smile to strangers in the store and airport. We know what she's up to (even if we can't see her face) when total strangers are looking at her and laughing! So now the problem is that when we do want to get a "good" picture, we can't tell her to smile, or this is what we get (see below): 10. Lastly....during many times of the day, you will find Taylor enjoying her most favorite thing to do....read her books! She will sit on our laps and grab book after book for us to read to her. She will still grab the book and get another one if the book seems too long, but her attention span is definitely getting longer. We find her in her room LOTS just sitting and pulling out books from her basket and flipping through them! Her vocabulary has now expanded to the following words: dog (OF COURSE), blanket, ball, bath, duck, pig, cracker, cookie, dada, mama, book and she will use sign language for "all done", "milk", and "please" (this is her favorite...she uses it to get anything she wants!)

Look who can walk!!!

Here are two of our latest videos! I'm warning you, they are adorable!!


In the last week, Taylor has taken more steps than ever! Still no many unprompted, although a couple of times we have caught her beginning to walk to something on her own, but she still prefers to drop and crawl! Not sure why this video has a black screen, but push play, I promise there is something there!

Happy Fall!

We took Taylor outside to play in leaves for a good photo opp. Here are 2 of our favorites! She's growing up so much!

Life after the Flu

We are finally ALL recovered from quite the nasty flu that pretty much EVERYONE we know has had! Taylor took quite a bit longer to get back to herself than Dave and I did. Today is the first day in a week and a half that she has had a normal appetite! I've gotten quite behind on pictures lately, so here are a few to get everyone caught back up!

After throwing up all night the night before Halloween, Taylor was feeling well enough to put her giraffe costume on and go trick or treating at Gma and Gpa's, Aunt Barb and Uncle Jim's, and our friends the Smiths. It may be a good thing we didn't go anywhere else...the amount of goodies she got at just these 3 places was CRAZY!!

Last weekend, we took our first REAL trip to the park for Taylor to play! She LOVED it! She had to play on everything possible, but swinging was her favorite!

Yesterday was Great Aunt Barb's birthday, so today we made cupcakes and Taylor helped frost them! Well, she discovered she liked the frosting so it was hard to get her to "work" anymore...she just wanted to eat! Here's a picture of her first baking experience in the kichen with mommy!

Yucky Yucky Flu!

No picture this time, it would make you too sad to see Taylor so sick! Yes, she caught the flu! Yesterday, I picked her up from the babysitter who watches her once or twice a week and we went to wake her from her nap to find that she had thrown up all over during her nap! We headed home and the minute I put her in her car seat she threw up tons! So I had to drive with the windows down, gagging...I had to call and have Dave come home to help! My stomach was not handling it very well! After getting her cleaned up she continued to vomit all afternoon and evening. It was SO sad watching her gag, dry heave and cry! We expected it to be a ROUGH night but luckily she slept all night as usual. I called for a sub yesterday evening expecting she would still be that sick today. Fortuneately, she has not gotten sick at all today! She isn't quite herself, but I can tell she is much better. The one good thing is that she has been cuddly and wanting to lay around with me, which doesn't usually happen at all! We are hoping to still be able to take her to a few places tonight in her costume and of course we'll post pictures if we get to! Happy Halloween!

Happy Birthday to ME!!

Hello everyone! Mommy and Daddy have decided that since I am one now, I can post my own blogs. In case you didn't know, I turned ONE this past Saturday! So yeah, basically, I am a big girl now! I had to wait for my party to be on Sunday because we went to a wedding in Marysville, KS (near Nebraska) on Saturday. I think Mom and Dad thought they could move the party to a different day and I wouldn't even know...but I did!! It's okay though, I had lots of fun at the wedding reception also! I wore an adorable pink dress with black leggings with a ribbon that said "I'm 1 Today!", that way everyone knew it was someone else's big day besides the pretty girl in white! (I think mom should post a picture of me at the wedding, I'm telling you, I was darn cute!) I'm not really sure who the girl in the pretty white dress stealing my attention was, but mommy and daddy knew her and her new husband from college. She was really nice to have the DJ announce my birthday and everyone at the reception sang happy birthday to me! WOW...I was on spotlight....and it was fun!! I tried to keep everyone's attention by showing my moves on the dance floor. I had quite the crowd around me at one point! We got home really late that night and I had to get some major sleep for my big party the next day!



Mommy and Daddy tried to pretend that Sunday was my birthday also... I let them, cause it's fine with me to be the birthday girl 2 days in a row! I had lots of guests show up for the bit "princess party": Grandma and Grandpa Balzer, Grandma Dippel (Gpa had to fly to the east coast for work), Great Gma/Gpa Parker, Great Aunt Barb and Uncle Jim, Aunt Stefanie, Uncle Steve and cousins Tyler, Jaden and Paige (boy, I had to work hard to keep the spotlight with those crazy cousins!), Cousin Terry (the rest of his family couldn't make it and I was sad about that), our friend Jeremy (Wally) and our great neighbors the Laniers. Daddy cooked chili for everyone and I could tell they all really liked it, cause no one really cared too much about me for awhile. But I stole the attention back in no time at all! No one could resist me in my Birthday Girl tshirt, my princess sash and tiara!!! I can definitely get used to this princess stuff! Here are some pictures that I am pretty proud of:






















I also got my very own little cake! I didn't realize that I was going to be stripped down next to nothing and made to eat it in front of a crowd. I think they all were expecting much more of a show than I gave them. People kept pushing my hand down into the cake and messing it all up. I was fine just picking at the frosting and tasting it...I can't help it if I'm such a princess...I just didn't want to get too messy! But I still got bath in the sink afterwards.

I do have to admit that my favorite gift was from mommy and daddy...my Disney Princess car! I LOVE IT! But I got lots of other presents that I love too. I guess mommy and daddy think I got spoiled by everyone. I just thought that's what life is like when you're a princess.

Don't they know, they don't have to spend a lot of money, the boxes are just as fun if not sometimes more fun than the toys that came in them!

What a party! I had so much fun and loved having all of my family and friends with me! I think mommy and daddy are having a hard time believing I am one already, but hey, princesses grow up too....the only thing they have to remember, is that I will always remain a princess!

Something besides Taylor!

Here are some recent changes in our house. For my birthday I asked Dave (with the help of his sister) to get all of our pictures we had from Taylor's photo sessions throughout the year put in frames and arranged on the wall in our dining room. As well as a picture from my sister's wedding that needed a frame and a place in her nursery. This was something that had been on my to-do list for some time and I just wanted it done! When we were gone to Bluegrass over my bday weekend, Stef and Steve came and did this picture collage behind our couch in the dining room and rearranged the wall above Taylor's dresser to make room for a picture of her. I came home and was VERY surprised! I have been trying to wait for the final touches before posting, but I got impatient. We have two black words "Blessings" and "Family" that are being placed in 2 of the spaces above pictures to tie it all together!

















This weekend, we finally picked up the couch and love seat we got from Dave's sister and rearranged our basement. We hadn't really done ANYTHING to our basement since we moved in. Here is our new set up. The 2nd pic is what you see right when you come down the stairs. The TV is now on the wall in front of the couch. The back area where we used to have the TV and sitting area will now be for Taylor's toys! We like it MUCH better than the way it was all arranged before. The room is still pretty bare, but I think for Christmas I will be asking for gift certificates and $ to decorate the entire basement.

Cheerleader and Football Player!!!

This past Thursday, we went to the Doctor for a sonogram and found out that we are having a BOY!!!! We are SO very excited to have one of each and have that feeling of "complete" family!! They narrowed my due date to March 2, which is earlier than expected. March 2 is a Sunday so the doctor said we'd do a scheduled c-section (b/c the first was a c-section, this one has to be also) the last week of February. My first thought, because Fridays are always nice, was that we'd choose the Friday before. Come to find out, that Friday is February 29. So our little boy's birthday would only happen every 4 years! So the question is....do we pick that date or not? It's kind of fun getting to choose which day will be his birthday! He would be awfully unique BUT I'm wondering if we would hear about it for the rest of our lives!!! Let us know your thoughts on a leap year baby!!

Here are some of Taylor's new tricks! We got this little push-walker from Dave's sister yesterday since her kids are done with it. She loves it and maybe she'll be walking soon! You also get to see her do a few more tricks as well. Enjoy! She's starting to pick up on a lot of stuff every day! Today, she heard a telephone ring and someone say "hello" on TV, she put her hand to her ear and I SWEAR also said "hello"!!!