Taylor (in Review)

A few weeks back we went to Dustin's family's cabin for a short 4th of July get away. We were there for less than 48 hours and I think it took me almost 24 hours just to get everything ready and packed. Having a baby more than doubles your load! Taylor had a great time with her cousins as you will see below, but one of the cutest things that happened was with Quique. Quique loves to go to the cabin, and even though she gets to roam free for the most part, she still seems to follow Dustin or I around wherever we go. One morning Dustin and I decided to go for a bike ride so we left Taylor behind with Grandma and Quique. When I got home, Taylor had been down for a nap for the past hour or so and apparently, Quique had been sleeping by the closed door to Taylor's room and had not moved since Taylor went down for her nap. I don't know if she went into protection mode or if she just didn't want to leave the one member of her immediate family that was left, but when I went downstairs in the dark to see her curled up by the door, I honestly wanted to cry.

I am always weeks and weeks behind, and I am so bad about taking pictures, but here are just a few pics and a few quick thoughts on the sweetest girl to enter my life. Although she hasn't been as sweet the last couple of days due to her top teeth coming in, but she is still a really good baby, so I shouldn't complain.

Apparently Mia was thinking "it's my party and I'll cry if I want to" as we celebrated her 1st birthday and all of the princesses each got to make a crown to wear.

Taylor's crown wasn't enough. I guess she wanted Allie's crown too.

The girls playing in the blow up pool on the deck

I know I am a little bias, but seriously... could she be any cuter? (Side note - the bracelet is not cutting off circulation, it is in one of her fat crevasses, however we have now taken off the bracelet).

The latest updates on Taylor are:

• With her top teeth coming in, she has been making this horrible sound as she scrapes her gums/teeth together and it sounds like nails down a chalkboard... ugh!


• Although she has been army crawling for a bit, she has officially started crawling like a big girl on all fours. This first occurrence was out front on the grass while I was attempting to ride a road bike and eating asphalt trying to clip out of the bike.


• She is pulling herself up on everything she can (as you will see below). She has no sense of balance, so I am sure it will be quite a few months before she's walking, but she loves to pull herself up and stand whenever she can.


• She HATES going to bed. After almost 6 months of putting her down without rocking her to sleep, you would think she would be able to soothe herself, but 99% of the time she kicks and screams and cries herself to sleep (whether it's bedtime or nap time). She has also refused a 2nd nap so for the last month or so we have been down to one nap a day. But I will say once she is down, she is a great sleeper, but the stubbornness is coming through strong!


• She plays peek-a-boo on her daddy's chest. She will nuzzle her head in his chest and then she'll throw her head up to look at him and he'll yell "peek-a-boo" and then she'll throw her head into his chest again.


• She LOVES little kids. Our friend's kids will dote all over her and they can get her belly laughing like nothing else. She just gets excited to see them. It's so cute!


• She loves the water. We have been doing a mom and tot swim class and she loves it. She never cries except this past week, when the instructor came out with a dive stick for one of the other kids and she had to have it and screamed and cried until she could hold it and put it in her mouth. See... I'm not over exaggerating about the stubbornness.
  

Taylor started doing a model pose. This doesn't fully capture the pose, but I think she's telling me to talk to the hand...

Great Grandma Jean, Taylor and Grandma TT. This is special to me, because I never had Great Grandparents, in fact I never met one of my grandparents and another one died when I was 5 and Taylor wasn't ever able to meet any of her great grandparents on my side of the family so I think that this is pretty cool!

The 3 Amigos/Cousins

Our newest G2 sponsor. I seriously left her for a minute or so as I was working in the kitchen and she managed to get herself up on the box. This is also the way that she says hello... she salutes you with an extended arm. (No Heil jokes are necessary ;)

Daddy and 2 of his favorite girls