Nursery #2

We are quite procrastinators this time around...but we FINALLY got going on our little boy's nursery last weekend...with the help of Dave's dad and sister.

The toughest part was stripping the whole room of the wilderness wall paper from the boy's room who lived here before us.

We are lucky to get to have our nephew Jaden's nursery bedding that is SO adorable, so we don't have to buy new! It is a cute patchwork of red, black, brown, green and blue. I always wanted to do a western/rustic room for a boy, and this bedding worked perfectly!

Here's one of the wall colors going on...BROWN on 3 walls.

Of course, Taylor had to help with her little brother's room also!The 4th wall is the COOLEST! I got this idea from a Pottery Barn magazine. We thought a "barn door" look would go perfect with our rustic style room! We actually kind of thought the look of the wood boards without paint looked neat...but the plan is to paint this whole wall a deep red. You can kind of get a look at the window covering that matches the bumper.

We will post pics of the finished product soon! Wait till you see the dresser that Dave's sister painted for us...she painted it with a real antique style and roughed it up so it looks rustic! Now we need a crib, rocking chair and a NAME!!!!

Days of a Single Mom!

So Dave is gone for week #3....we are hoping next week is the LAST!! He's still in Greensburg building and is gone from Monday morning through Thursday night. Taylor and I are managing as best as we can!! Thank goodness for family nearby and lots of friends who have offered their help! Last night we went over to Joel, Kendall and Ollie's house for dinner and playtime! Here's a fun picture of the 2 of them on Ollie's rocking horse:

While we were there, the snow and ice came down making it quite a different adventure on the way home. I woke up at 5:45am to my phone ringing that we had NO SCHOOL!!! Just a day I needed...lounging and relaxing...just the 2 of us! We are STILL in our pjs!! Tonight Grandpa B is coming over to hang out with Taylor and put her to bed while I go to small group for the 2nd week ALONE!! We're doing a super financial study that I don't want to miss out on!! Dave will be home tomorrow evening...we can't wait!!

Here's a tribute to the guy we miss so much...here's a video of a usual bedtime routine...sitting down to read books before going to bed. Taylor loves to snuggle into daddy's lap and have him read to her. She is actually showing off her genious skills in this video...we are quite proud of how much she is learning lately! ENJOY the book!

The life of Taylor

Here are some pics from the last month or so....

Taylor playing with her friend Ollie!
Two of her favorite things...blankets and her Old MacDonald video!

We're trying hard to teach her how to kiss APPROPRIATELY!

Brushing her teeth!

Ready to play outside!

Home Alone

This will be a much more boring blog than usual...no pictures, no funny "Taylor" stories or anything like that. Instead, this blog will be a "pity party" blog for myself! Last week, Dave informed me that his framing crew would be going to Greensburg (where the tornado was, for those of you not around here) to help build. With it being winter, finding work is tough. There's plenty out there but concrete can't be poured so the jobs can't be done. SO, they have found work in Greensburg. With that being 2 hours away, he is gone all week. He left this morning at 6 am and will return Thursday night. So it's just me and Taylor...but tonight it's just ME. I had a jewelry show tonight so Grandma has Taylor overnight since I would have taken her there in the morning anyway. It's 11pm and I have NO idea what to do! I don't typically like being alone and haven't been alone AT ALL since we've had Taylor. So this is very weird...kind of hard. I think going to bed alone will be even harder...so I'm stalling. Dave will be home for the weekend and will go back to Greensburg next week (Mon-Thurs). I should just be thankful that he has work...so I'll try harder to be!

Christmas Recap!

Here is a recap of our Christmas...

This is the OTHER of Taylor's favorite gifts...her baby stroller! Once she opened this, she cared about nothing else! She marched back and forth in the hallway not even caring about more presents to open...we saved them for later in the day! Mommy and Daddy gave her her very first Cabbage Patch doll! She loves to feed the baby a bottle and take it on walks in her stroller!

Here she is making some yummy gourmet food in her new kitchen!

On Christmas eve, we spent all day and evening at Dave's mom and dad's house with the rest of the clan!! Taylor had so much fun playing with her cousins, although she had to get used to Gma and Gpa's house being taken over by other kids, when she is used to being the only child there...so she had to learn quick to give up her territory!

Here are the girls after the Christmas eve service...Aunt Stef and Paige, Aunt Stacy and Sydney and Mommy and Taylor....Gma bought all the granddaugthers Christmas dresses!

On Christmas eve, we always visit Santa at Drubers! Taylor wasn't too sure about the big guy....she wouldn't get too close!

We had such a wonderful time with all of our family.

Dave's brother and his family were here from Michigan for over a week, so we spent lots of time at Gma and Gpa's visiting with them. Christmas eve was spent with Dave's side, all 6 grandchildren, lots of craziness and the Christmas eve service, chili and presents that night!

We were able to be in our own home with my side of the family on Christmas day!

Aunt Rebekah and Uncle Steve (my sister) came from California and stayed for 4 days. My parents also came for several days as well! We had fun baking lots of treats and watching Taylor play! Later that day, Taylor got a 103 fever and was sick for a few days!

We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year!!

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!