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Something cute

This past week, whenever we say, "I love you" to Taylor she says, "I love me."

She's also learning new songs. She now is singing "Are You Sleeping" and there's another song they're doing to the same tune apparently. I don't understand what she's saying. I keep forgetting to ask her teacher. They also apparently had a birthday last week because she came home singing the Happy Birthday song (or at least her version of it!).

So we have ABCs, Twinkle Stars, and I think she calls it "Sleeping." So far she doesn't ask for the birthday song, she just starts singing it.

Another fun game we do was picked up from The Wiggles. There's a character named Jeff who's always falling asleep. They say, "1... 2... 3 Wake up Jeff!" We were reading a book of Taylor's that the little angel sees that it's becoming spring and, oh no! The flowers and birds are still asleep! Taylor: "1, 2, 3, wake up birds!" We'll also make the rounds of mommy sleeping, daddy sleeping, and Taylor sleeping. Daddy'll "go to sleep" and we wake him up. Then she looks at me and says, "Bye bye mommy." The first time she did this it took me awhile to realize that meant it was my turn to fall asleep. After I get woken up she puts her head down and starts snoring. It's really cute and, of course, I'm not biased.

Mommy/Daughter Day

My original plan was to drop Taylor off at daycare this past Friday and then use the day to clean up in the apartment in preparation for the upcoming move. Considering she's screamed bloody murder every morning I've dropped her off this past week, I decided it would be a Mommy / Daughter day instead.

We started the day by going to her pediatrician's to get her blue card (immunization) and say bye bye to Dr. Malone (unless she gets sick between now and the move, we won't be back there). From there we went to her new daycare (beginning Apr 18!). We showed up at playtime and played outside with her class. From two boys, she learned that it sounds really really neat if you get a bucket of pebbles and pour it down the slide! I apologized ahead of time to the teacher. The teachers started herding the kids together to go inside and she went with them. I took it as a good sign when she was screaming mad at me when we left (she didn't want to leave! She likes it!).

From there we went to the playground that is down the road from what will be our new house and she had LOTS of fun. There's a really really tall slide (over mama's head) that she, of course, loved. There were stairs up to one level, climb up two levels then slide down. Lots of open space on the sides for her to fall and, well, I almost had a heart attack several times. One time in particular was when she decided to climb up the ladder that goes all the way up to the top level. Surprisingly enough, she didn't need mama's help! She got a little uncertain close to the top (it was a little difficult, after all) but she did it! And I let her. Oh my God. I let her?! Thankfully, once was enough for her. She took the stairs the remainder of her trips up.

From there! We went to McDonald's for lunch and afterwards hit their playground as well. Mommy learned that she should take Taylor's shoes off prior to letting her go inside the play thingy. I learned this when Taylor got inside and took them off then refused to bring them back out to me. A dad there got his son to get them for me.

After that we went to see daddy for a few minutes then hit Walmart. She rode in the main part of the basket and thoroughly enjoyed trying to put on her new shorts and shirts. I enjoyed trying to figure out where to put groceries since she was refusing to sit in the basket (I put them in the basket and on the bottom underneath). And I was wishing I'd had a camera. When we got to the checkout, I had to take her new shirt off of her as well as both pairs of shorts. She had managed to put these on over her shirt and jeans.

Oh... and how much nap did she get during all this? She fell asleep on the 15 minutes ride to daddy's work from McDonald's. She somehow managed to stay awake during the 30 minutes trip from daddy's work to Walmart. Thankfully, she also fell asleep on the way home from Walmart. It was a late nap but a badly needed one.

I went to bed at 8 that night and, as I understand, Taylor wasn't far behind me.
All in all, it was a VERY good day. :)

Hunting for eggs

By the time church ended, and the egg hunt organizers started preparing for the one egg hunt for all kids age 1 through grade 5, Taylor was way overdue for her nap, and pretty much unbearable. We skipped the egg hunt in favor of a nice long nap. About an hour ago, we got the egg hunt in, and Taylor discovers she really likes Easter-colored candy corn.

Happy Easter

Taylor in her Easter dress, with her pretty purse and bunny rabbit Easter egg basket, about to leave for church

Taylor moves into her house

No, not THE house, but even Taylor is getting excited about moving into a house. She got the party started early Saturday night, building and moving into her house.

Outgrowing the crib

Elizabeth grabbed the camera for some random shots of Taylor playing in the crib. Yes, that one picture does look like she's about to bounce out of the crib. Soon as we move, this crib is headed back into retirement.

Taming the dinosaur

Elizabeth found this tie-dye dinosaur in her wild & crazy college days, and scooped it up. Now, Taylor has found it, and appreciates her mother's foresight. Here, the so-far-unnamed dinosaur is getting a bath.

Domo Arigato, Miss Roboto

One night last week, Taylor put the empty box of baby wipes on her head, turned it around until she could peek out, then chased us around the apartment, growling. It was cute.

My & Taylor's morning

Taylor did pretty well this morning considering I was rushing her (Brian had to go in early so I had 2nd shower which makes me run a little later than I'm used to). She woke up, I went into her room and said, "Good morning." No response. Went over to her crib and when I went to pick her up, then she fussed. She fussed while I dressed her (no crying, just general fussing because she'd rather be in bed... something we can ALL relate to).

Our routine is that we snuggle a little, her head on my shoulder, in the recliner while she wakes up. She eventually turns around and says, "want Wiggles." I turn it on, watch a little with her then put her in the chair and go fix her breakfast. We did a sort of speed version of that this morning. At one point, I started singing to her.. I had sung the song to her when I first went in her room and she was wiggling to it. Not this time. This time she sat up, looked at me and said, "Mama, hush." So I did.

I know there will be times when "Mama, hush" won't be cute but, for now, it is. :)

House! House! House!

I know it's Lent but I'll say it anyway! Hallelujah!!!

I must admit that I'm a little nervous about putting this excited of a post about this. This is the 3rd offer we've made on this particular house. First one he refused to negotiate. I'm not totally convinced he got our 2nd one. I don't know what was different about this one (other than we asked him to pay all closing costs on the others) but we just found out about 2 hours ago that he was on his way to his agent's to sign it. He did want to make one change, however. He'd like to close a week earlier. Um, sure!

As of right now, ownership is to pass on April 18th, we'll have carpets cleaned on the 19th and start moving in. I ask your prayers for this all to go smoothly and for the daycare we have in mind to still have a spot open.

Taylor made me cry...

In a good way! We went to Applebee's last night. It all started a little rough. It was 5 o'clock and she hadn't had a snack since lunch. After she'd gotten some goldfish crackers in her belly and some of her daddy's salad croutons, she put her hand up to me, pulled me down toward her so my head was resting on her shoulder (sort of). Her hand was behind my head, playing with my hair the way I do hers. I told Brian what she was doing and we were both all, "Oh how sweet!" Then she said, "I love you."

I was already tearing up from the above when, a little after that, she said, "I love you" again then puckered for a kiss. It was really really sweet.

The blog doesn't do the moment justice but it was one of the most wonderful moments to date.

Congrats Paige and Theron

Cousin Paige (of Paige's Belly Buttons fame) and Theron had their baby today, a little girl named Silvie Lorelei Wallis. Check their sites (linked on the left) for more stats and pictures, whenever they get around to posting some (what is Theron doing, staring at a baby or something?)