themcalisters.net

Where's my Taylor blog?!?

Never fear, it's still here, in its entirety. Since Taylor's blog was the only part of the site we ever updated, I have moved it to the front page of the site and updated the design somewhat. The blog will still be dominated with Taylor pictures, but maybe we'll throw in some other points of interest along the way.

And to kick off the new site design in style, here's a truckload of Taylor pictures and a couple new stories from Elizabeth, plus a bonus entry. Enjoy!

Wat's they're stand awn ed-you-kay-shun?

Watching football Saturday night, I had to take a second look (how did I ever survive without TiVo?) at the end of an anti-Bush commercial:

Someone else must have caught this, as Monday morning they were running corrected versions of the spot.

Miss the error? "Who is side are you on?" It's a grammatical pet peeve, and I'm always amused when one appears in media outlets.

Bouncing on Momma

This is usually a game I play with Taylor, but tonight Elizabeth played the role of trampoline in one of Taylor's favorite after-dinner games.

More posing for the camera

Daddy, can I play?

After posing for the last Bouncing on Momma shot, Taylor decides to come play with Daddy and his camera for a while.

It's hard to aim when you're getting help.

Hello? Anybody home?

Smile!

I love this shot.

Carnivore

A strange habit - Elizabeth and I notice that Taylor doesn't like eating meat at dinner. At school, she will devour everything on her plate, starting with the meat first. At home however, she has mostly refused meat for the longest time. One evening while Elizabeth was out, Taylor actually ate her chicken at home, and I had to take pictures for Elizabeth to believe me.

The second picture in this batch begins a new theme - Taylor has started to smile when the camera is aimed at her. It's cute. Glad to see after 1,199 (yes, I counted) pictures, she's getting the hang of it.

Church on Monte Sano

An old tradition was revisited last weekend, as St. Stephens, Huntsville held Mass on the Mountain. It was a cold morning, but Taylor donned her big jacket and took it all in stride. A cold Elizabeth chased Taylor around with the camera.

Taylor, when you read this one day, I want you to know that the hat was your mother's idea.

Good buddies Aaron and Gracie kept Taylor company

Peace out, Aaron!

Potty time

While we haven't actually used it yet, Taylor loves her new potty. She's getting pretty good at undressing herself too - thankfully, not in public yet.

Taylor stories

It's been too long and I'm sincerely sorry! I have two stories for you that will hopefully redeem me. One we are actually trying to get "on tape."

They sing the ABC song in her class at daycare - she's one of the younger ones in the class but the teacher says she tries valiantly to sing along. This came up because, one day, she started singing and it sounded kinda like the ABC song so we asked. Here is a rough version of, well, Taylor's version:
..something that sounds kinda like "A B C D yayayaya.... P ...la la la la.." Do the "la la" a little bit longer and then it's followed with, "Yay!" and she claps. :)

The second story happened this morning as I was trying to get her out of bed. She stretches and kind of wakes up and I pick her up and move her to the changing table. This morning, she promptly rolled over onto her stomach and stuck her little bottom in the air and proceeded to go back to sleep. I rubbed her back and said, "Taylor.. time to get up..." She responded, "No mama! Night night." and turned her head away from me. Needless to say this morning was a little difficult. There were moments of laughter as I tickled her to try to get her to wake up. Then, as I tried to undress and dress her, the laughter was followed with fussing ranging from crying to grunts/screeches that would've included a foot stomp had she been standing.

.... but she's not 2 yet!!! Oh well, we're still enjoying it and even though prolonged bouts get annoying, they're still kinda cute.. in a weird way. :)

Columbus Day weekend in Georgia

It had been too long since our last Georgia visit, so we packed up the minivan and took off for Mimi and Papa's house for a fun weekend. Taylor had a blast (as did we), especially with her 7-year-old cousin Alyssa. The two of them shadowed each other practically the entire weekend. And of course what would a weekend trip be without the camera along for the ride?

We start off with Taylor playing with the broom. She definitely had the right idea.

It's way too early in the morning! Here she is just after waking up, with her blanket, then enjoying a delicious Mimi-made breakfast.

Playing piano with cousin Alyssa - cousin Darrin was busy playing video games in the background.

What's Daddy playing with? (Or more appropriately, "Wassat?") Oh, just that thing that beeps and makes a bright light. Nothing new there.

Big helper! One of Taylor's new favorite things to do, find scraps of paper and throw them in the trash can. Aunt Kerin supervises.

Community playground in Huntsville

On the last trip to Huntsville, we took Taylor over to a very nice community-built playground and let her run wild. Poor girl ran herself silly. I forgot my camera this trip, but as always, Grandpa was there to bail me out.

First two pictures are of a T handle attached to a track, which you can grab onto and slide down. Taylor didn't do it alone, but you should have seen Grandma! Then comes a Big Kid slide Taylor really didn't like, and a Little Kid slide she spent an hour climbing up and sliding down. After this and a big lunch, Taylor slept all the way back to Birmingham.

Letter magnets

Taylor can now reach the letters we had pushed way up high on the refrigerator, once way too tall for her. After realizing she could reach them (and with a little guidance) she spent the rest of the evening taking letters off the fridge and putting them in the bowl, then out of the bowl and back onto the fridge. Notice how she lined the letters up to begin with and how they trail off the farther along they go - as she realized her line wasn't straight anymore, she got madder and madder until I put the camera down and showed her how to "fix" her line.

Hard lesson learned

Stuck on my own to cook dinner for Taylor last week, I learn the hard way that she isn't quite ready for Chef Boy-R-Dee.

The long lost September pictures

We took an unplanned month off of picture posting it would seem. Here are a few that we should have posted but never did - in one of her new dresses, and using her new favorite toy, a real live telephone. She has a good grasp on the concept of picking up the receiver, dialing, saying hello, talking, saying goodbye and hanging up. I can almost hear the phone bills creeping up already.