Our Little...

Our Little Climber

I'm sure I don't know the half of things since she's a girl and she's only the first, but a few months ago I was answering the door and she was by my side. Then I'm shutting the door and seriously within minutes I'm not sure where she went and then I find her in the bathroom and here is where I find her...

You know she's got skills because this is a pedestal sink! She only had minutes to get up there. She is climbing up bar stools and I think I've already displayed her in one of her drawers. I think she's bummed I settled for a water table instead of a pool in the backyard so why not just make the water table her pool so she climbed up into that as well. The list goes on and on. She can pull herself out of the pool. But the ultimate climb thus far came last week when she went down for her "nap". I put it in quotes because she doesn't really nap. Maybe once or twice a week, If I'm lucky. I more or less just put her down in her crib and then she talks and rests so that I can have some "Jamie" time and she can have some quite time. I had put her down and it had been about 25 minutes or so and she was still talking away in her room. I happened to be in a nearby room when all of a sudden I heard the doorknob on her room.... no way! So we had her reenact later that night...



(There was no crying during the nap, probably this was only because we made her do it 10 times because the video camera wasn't working and we had to do it on Dustin's phone... we're so mean!)

Our Little Ute

For those that know our family, especially Dustin, we are big University of Utah fans... Go Utes! A couple of months ago, Taylor got a hold of a key chain that played the Utah fight song. She would hit the button repeatedly and I would clap along to it. It got to the point where Dustin would sing the fight song and Taylor would start clapping. Then later, we noticed sometimes that Taylor would start clapping and singing na na na na and it sounded kind of like the fight song. It seemed random the times when she would do it. Little did we know that she was way smarter than us. We were in the car going somewhere and she started doing it in her car seat and I was like Dustin, she's doing it again and turned to look back at her. I noticed the car next to her had a big sticker of this

on the back window next to her. That little stinker. The logo was on the key chain so every time she saw the logo she was clapping out the fight song and processed the fight song along with the logo. Dustin has a cycling jersey so every time he puts it on same thing. She was even doing it to the US flag. I have no idea where that came from. She has now toned it down and now just says na na every time she sees the logo. But now it has gotten to the point where little miss smarty pants associates it with sports so the other night we went swimming and she saw people playing tennis and pointed to them and said na na and then when we took Quique for a walk and people were playing soccer she pointed to them and said na na. It's amazing how their brains process.


Our little Foodie

I thought we were going to have the pickiest eater and I'll be honest, it depends on the day. But then sometimes she will eat some of the craziest things. Especially when my mom and sister are around! Whenever I go home to Cali there is a Sushi place that we always go to, I think we've been going since my sister was like 5. They know my mom by name and even though they just changed ownership, they still give my mom her “discount” when she goes. Although I have introduced Tay to seafood, I'll probably hold off on the raw stuff for a little bit longer, but here is my (at the time) 21 month old eating seaweed salad and sipping miso soup from a straw. She was also digging the crab and cucumber salad. More like she ate the crab off of the cucumber (and loving it!)....




Then there's another Italian place I love to go. It's so hard because Taylor is at such a hard age where sometimes she does a great job and sometimes she is just a pill. Of course she was being a pill so we had to go outside which was actually nice. Pasta is actually her favorite, but I wasn't sure about the Gorgonzola sauce and the certainly not the peas, but she wasn't even eating off her plate, she was just eating off her Grandma's and she couldn't eat fast enough!


Here she is eating some Mexican. Nothing like some guacamole, enchiladas, black beans, rice and who knows what else all over your face. How would it be if we all ate like this? At least she seems to be enjoying it (in a psycho kind of way)???

But I will say that her very favorite is dessert. She can be the bottomless pit when it comes to chocolate or ice-cream. Wow... just like her mom! Maybe she needs to learn some control from her daddy. :)

You don't know how much her love of food makes her mommy and daddy happy. Sometimes I joke with Dustin about how we may not have ever gotten married if we both didn't love food as much as we do. There is nothing we enjoy more than enjoying a fantastic meal together even if it means a hefty price tag at times, so we are so excited to see our little one following in our footsteps.

(INTERMISSION, Potty Break, Lunch Break, whatever)


Our Little Flirt

There is something about the red hair that seems to lure the little boys at her gymboree classes in because she has had a couple of different boys give her some sweet hugs. But thus far, there are just two boys with whom I have actually seen my sweet little angel flirt back. Have you ever seen a one year old flirt or be smitten? It is actually quite sweet. The first time I saw this was when we were at that sushi restaurant in Cali in March, so Tay was 18 months. It was adorable. What was crazy was when I went home 3 months later and she was still smitten with him. He was so sweet with her. And she would just watch his every move and would always want to give him a high five. At least she has good taste!

She's already started the "I'm not into you" act, even though she is... wow they learn early!

Taylor's other crush is a bit closer in age, but she still goes for the older ones... watch out daddy! Camden is one of Dustin's best friends' sons. If you could see how sweet he is with her, you would have a crush on him too. He dotes on her and plays with her and just makes her feel like she's a big kid and somebody special. It warms my heart just watching him with her. In church he'll hold her on his lap and play games with her and even I wouldn't even be able to tear her away from him. Camden is one person who can cheer her up when she's sad and she'll run to him if she sees him from a distance. She has a very special place in her heart for him and it's very apparent.

Current Obsessions

Airplanes/Helicopters – This has probably been for the past 7 or 8 months but whenever she hears one she always points to the sky and now she usually says bye as it flies away

Babies - Probably obvious from my previous post

Elmo - Probably obvious for most kids this age

Shoes – Tay doesn't say a lot of words yet and this was probably one of her first, she's also a girl, there are probably many reasons, but she loves pointing out shoes yours or hers

Bugs – This is a newer obsession. She will crouch down or lay on the ground and look at them.
Izzy would pick them up and put them on her hand so now she'll even pick them up. She loves them!

Flies/Butterflies/Bees – To Tay, anything bug that flies is a fly. She doesn't really like flies. She does like butterflies but she doesn't always say butterfly and sometimes can only say fly. If Tay can see that it's a bee, she does like bees, which really scares me because she wants to touch it. It's all a learning curve right now.

Swimming – She loves going swimming or as she calls it fwim. She has no fear. She jumps in, pulls herself out. She can't actually swim, but she loves being in the water.

Cats and Cows – She loves animals but most recently she loves cats and cows or as she usually calls them meow and moo. I really don't understand the obsession with cats since Dustin and I really don't have any interest in cats. My mom has one that she somehow inherited so that must be how, but it's mow or neoooooow. She also loves roaring when she sees pictures of bears, lions or tigers. Apparently she's more into sounds than names.

Singing/Dancing - She sings at during the day, in the car, at church and she dances when she hears music and during sytycd on tv. She LOVES to sing and dance. But again, normal for any kid her age.

Rocks – There is a pond where we take Quique to swim. Sometimes we'll hang out there for 30 minutes or so and Tay is totally content just throwing rocks the entire time. In fact, the girl may be developing quite an arm. Time will tell, I guess.

The Moon – When we go on our walks later in the day or evening, she will point up at the sky over and over again pointing at the moon. She loves looking at the moon, knowing where the moon is and showing everyone where the moon is. When we were walking down the street the other night it went behind the tree for a second and she got so sad and when she saw it again she was so happy. It was so cute.

Well... very long post, but there's a bit of an update on Tay!

Precious Moment

I'm baaack. Well kind of. Hopefully later this week with a ton more updates and pictures because sweet Tay has grown up so much in the past few months. My biggest downfall is my laziness in downloading pics and video. And really that's the fun part. So between Dustin and my mom nagging, I will have that by the end of this weekend. However, since my blogging and journal writing is terribly lacking, I had to quickly write down just a sweet story from yesterday. It will probably go down as one of those "you had to be there moments" but I'll do my best to try to capture it.

Currently Taylor has an obsession with babies whether it's human babies or dolls. When we were in California last month, my mom's friend Barbara gave her a cute baby doll and since putting that doll in her hands, she rarely puts it down. It's actually really sweet to watch because when she carries the doll, she is usually cradling the doll whether it is with one arm or two. There is the occasional throwing it over the banister down the stairs (one of her favorite past times with her toys). Or like yesterday, throwing the doll into her best friend Lily's pool or as she now calls her Lala. (so cute!) But for the most part she is very nurturing towards this doll.

Anyway, yesterday we were running a few errands, she was in the back seat jibber jabbering away. She is saying some words, but for the most part when she is singing or talking a lot it's jibber jabber. I was tuned into my talk radio so it took me who knows how long to realize that she was kind of sing songing these 3 syllables over and over again. The third syllable was long and ascended as she sang it. Of course the words to me were unrecognizable. When we got to the stoplight I turned around to see what she was doing. There she was sitting in her car seat. She had her baby doll laying on her lap looking up at her with her head at her knees. It was just like I would hold Taylor when she was a few months old. When I would have her head on my knees and I would kiss her feet and play with her belly. And then I looked up at Taylor and she had her hands over her sweet face. There she was playing peek a boo with her baby doll.

I can't even begin to describe the emotions that went through my body at that moment. I started talking to her and telling her how precious she was and how much I loved her and on and on. Her big blue eyes just stared at me through this rant and looked at me like what is wrong with you?

But after my little rant she just went back to playing peek a boo and I just parked and waited in the car and watched her some more just trying to soak in every minute, hoping that this was one of those moments that I can burn into my memory and never forget.

A Beautiful Day

This is just one of those random days when all I can do is laugh. This blog post is mainly for me, but since I'm not great about writing in my journal, I'm posting it on the blog. Lucky me had the 24 hour flu beginning Monday night and I was worthless yesterday so I was ready to get out and get things done today. After a morning trip to the grocery store, I was unpacking groceries listening to Taylor talk and sing to herself when I went into her room and this is what I found...

You can't really tell from this picture, but she is actually in the middle drawer, not the bottom drawer, so she had to crawl up into it. As if that wasn't enough, I go to grab my phone and I tell her to smile (which as I have said before, she never does) and she pulls out this fake, cheesy smile. What is that scrunchy face?

The day only got better as it went on. We went to her Gymboree class (our 2nd week) and apparently she was quite the hot commodity. There was one little boy Talan who was watching her rock in the wooden boat. Instead of wanting to get on the other side and rock back and forth with her, he decided to get on the same side and rock with her. He already has the moves and he's not even 2!

As if that wasn't enough, when we were in circle time, there was another little boy, James. It was like he looked at Taylor and it was love at first sight. He just kept going up to her and not only staring into her eyes, but kissing her. And then not only kissing her, but trying to hug her and kiss her on the lips. Honestly it was one of THE CUTEST things that I have ever seen. His mom was laughing and getting pictures because she had never seen him do this before. I wish I had had the video camera for this one. I guess the red hair has some affect on the boys at an early age.

The other highlights of the day were her singing constantly (even while watching American Idol), going down the slide head first (the girl has NO fear) and hanging out with her cousins, Tate and Bryson. And the weather was absolutely perfect. What more can you ask for?

Tour de St George

As always I am weeks behind. March just flew by and was over before I knew it. I'll probably be a bit out of order, but I was so proud of Dustin that I had to talk about our trip to St. George 3/26-3/28 so that he could do the Tour de St. George. It's a bike race where you can choose between 30, 75 or 105+ miles and he did the 75 miler. I was supposed to go for the 30 miler, but that definitely didn't happen (gosh I'm lazy!)

Anyway, we went with the Peterson's and Dustin and John are so amazing. John hasn't been on a bike since the ULCER last year and Dustin has been riding on his bike hooked up to his trainer downstairs (thanks to Connie for that!), but hasn't been able to train much (especially outside). For the first 30 miles of the race they his a really strong head wind, which is probably pretty obvious when you're going 6 mph downhill. But they pushed through and they finished the 75 miles. I figured that was enough to do Dustin in for a few days, but he wasn't even sore after that. WOW! I know I couldn't do it. I don't think I've gone more than 12 miles on the bike. Anyway, they did awesome and we had a really fun weekend.

My favorite picture of John and Dustin during the race. Dustin said it was so beautiful while they were riding. I think this gives you a good idea...

Dustin after the race... Yes I will explain why my child looks white trash in a sweater and a diaper...

One of the added bonuses of the trip was that Taylor made a new friend. Not that she hangs out with a lot of kids, but she's at the age where she doesn't really engage in playing. She is more of an observer. John and Steph's boy Cole (who is just a few months older) pulled her right out of her shell. He was like her best buddy all weekend. They would just mimic each other and laugh at each other. It was adorable! When Steph and I were waiting for the boys to finish, there was a water fountain there where the water shoots up from the ground (hence the video below). So Cole and Taylor with nothing better to do decided to play in the water. Anyone could have seen that I was a mom of 1 and Stephanie was a mom of 4 because I was freaking out that Taylor was wet and that she was getting cold where as Steph just let Cole play and play as calm as could be. I didn't think that I was "that" mom, but I guess I am.

Here they are nestled between two couches just giggling with each other. We can never get Taylor to smile for pictures so you can tell she's a happy girl!

At one point Cole stepped on a hole and some of the water shot out into Taylor's face and she made one of the gasping breaths (like when she comes up from underwater in the pool) and then with a big smile started clapping. I finally took her shirt off so before the sweater and diaper she was white trash with her sopping wet jeans and no shirt. I decided not to document that :)

Oscars Gift Show

Dustin called me at home a few weeks back to see if I wanted to go to LA with him to do a promotion thing for Del Sol. He had me sold at the thought of going to LA to visit Ashley so I was in. The whole movie star thing has never had me completely intrigued, I think I'm more star struck by my favorite radio Talk Show Hosts or some athletes. But I got into it and had some fun.

To be honest, the weekend was a bit of a disaster. Things can always be worse, but it just seemed like one thing after another kept going wrong and it was so frustrating. I wouldn't use "relaxing" to describe the weekend, but it was so great to see Ashley and it was fun to have a weekend with Taylor and Dustin even if Taylor wouldn't nap or really sleep that much for that matter.

Friday night Ashley took us to a great Thai Restaurant called "House of Thai". Pretty much a tiny little hole in the wall, but so good. The Coco soup was so good and they give you so much food! Even Tay joined in eating Chicken Satay and was loving it, even at 9:30pm which was 10:30 her time.

Saturday was spent at the Gift Show for most of the day and minus a few setbacks which is so not worth getting into, things were great. Now that I've been wearing the Stay at Home Mom hat for the past 18 months, it was actually nice to kind of feel like I was a working mom for the day (not that I would trade the SAHM thing for anything!). Virtually everybody was so nice and fun to talk with. A lot of the actors were more "blasts from the past" but that was right down my alley. Here are some of our favorites...

For all of you Sex and the City or White Collar fans, Willie Jarson was so nice, but his son stole my heart. He loved the Del Sol products and was even a little salesman going around to others like Dave Delouise telling them that they had to go by the Del Sol booth to see the products. Adorable!

Joosten from Desperate Housewives so personable and so much fun!

Dustin with Jerry Mathers aka Leave it to Beaver.

For all of you foodies out there, how cute is Marc Dacascos' (Iron Chef) family?

This cutie comes up and sticks out her hand and says "I'm Ariel Winter from a show called Modern Family". Before she even finished her sentence, Dustin and I were like "Of course we know who you are; we love that show". She was a sweetheart!!!

If you are my age there is no way you never watched Scott Baio in Charles in Charge.

While talking about CIC, one of Dustin's crushes from growing up; Nicole Eggert. What guy didn't love her?

Speaking of heart throbs, what girl wouldn't want to take a picture with Gilles Marini?

Dustin and I are usually aren't ones to watch the Oscars lately because there is way to much political soap boxing going on, but we decided to this year. All of a sudden we see this guy walking up to the podium and we were like we saw him yesterday. Oh yeah, just the Pete Docter, the director of Up receiving his Academy Award. We had no idea!

I saw Fred Willard down the way a bit and almost choked on my sandwich trying to get Dustin's attention. Although we both love him, Dustin definitely has a man crush. He even told Fred that his favorite line of all time is "How much do you think I can bench press?" Not sure if these guys like their lines being repeated to them or not, but Best in Show is one our absolute favorites!

Cloris Leechman - I'm not even sure where to start. I wasn't sure if she wanted another frisbee or what and then she was taking off the packaging and I was so confused until she posed for the picture... Mind you, she was all happy and full of smiles until she took the picture and then made the above expression right before the picture took. She said she messed up and wanted another picture, only to do the exact same thing. Favorite picture of the day... she is hysterical!

As I mentioned before, athletes are still some of my favorites. Maybe it's just because I'm an athlete at heart (even though I'm not a very good one) but I have complete adoration for athletes. There is something very special about them. I was glued to the Olympics for 2 weeks and the Winter sports aren't necessarily my favorites. Whether it's watching a sports movie, NFL Sunday, college games or my 3 year old nephews play soccer, there is something special about sports which is why probably when I saw each of the guys in the pictures below, my heart sped up. Here is when I got a little start struck...

Dustin had to virtually beg TO for a picture, but here we are with him and his super sweet and beautiful girlfriend. Love him or hate him, he is an amazing athlete.

And then there was Chad Ochocinco. He was so awesome! He was so quiet, which is not at all what I would expect from him, but so nice. Dustin and I were on cloud nine!

Of course I don't have any pictures with my sister... what do you know? But it was so great to see her even if it was super short. Thanks to her for all of her help and getting us through the day and to her roommate for taking Taylor for the day! So here's a pic of Ash...

Here is my adorable sis with Amarosa (The Apprentice). She of course gladly took the Del Sol product we gave her, but declined taking a picture with the product, however said she would be willing to take a picture with Ashley. Why would Ashley want to take a picture with her? I'm not even sure why Amarosa was even there??? I don't recall seeing any other Reality Show peeps.