Tucker vs. Taylor

Here is what's left of the Tucker vs. Taylor battle scars. This is a day or two afterwards so it doesn't look too bad, thank goodness!!! She's got some more bite marks up under her hair, too. The shiner was only there for about 2 days, turned yellow on day 3, and was gone by day 4---they are freakishly quick healers, these kiddos!!

Anyway, they are the best of friends again and all is forgiven from both parties involved :)

Cousin Love!!!!!

Here Comes Santa Claus, Here Comes Santa Claus....

'Tis the Season!!

Here's a little ditty to get you in the holiday spirit (in case you need a translation, it's Jingle Bells:).

A couple more translations....after the first round, she says "see? see?" because she thought I was taking a picture and in her generation, they can see the picture instantly on the screen. Also, the main distraction at the end was Bailey simply sitting up on the couch armrest, but Taylor---seeing the dire urgency of the situation---dropped everything to yell, "Bailey! Careful!!".

Aaahhhh......the attention span of a 2-year-old :-)

Santa!!

So we took Taylor to see Santa Claus for the first time and it went as expected: she wanted to keep him near her and in her vision, but don't even THINK about trying to put her in his lap. But hey, I see nothing wrong with being uncomfortable with sitting on a strange man's lap who is saying "HO HO HO!" and has an enormous amount of facial hair! Mrs. Claus suggested I sit on Santa's lap to see if Taylor would be comfortable then, but I sweetly declined that generous offer. Ewww.
But in the end, she got to frost and sprinkle her own cookie, so in her eyes, it was a huge success:)

First Big Snowstorm!

Well, today was the first real snowstorm so we took Taylor out to see how she liked it. She seemed to find it pretty fascinating (i.e. delicious), she loved to help shovel, and liked watching Tucker jump around, but she wasn't a huge fan of the freezing little morsels raining down upon her face while being pulled around on her pseudo-sled.

My sick little Bug :(

For those of you that didn't see these sad little pics on Facebook, I thought I'd post them here. Yesterday (Thursday) she woke up whimpering quietly in her bed with tears silently rolling down her cheeks, so I knew something was up. I still went to work later in the day, but then got a call from Josh that her fever was climbing to 103.2, even with Motrin. So I left work and we took her to the doctor, where they told me it was most likely a virus going around that would take 3-5 days to run its course. They said her throat was really nasty looking with blisters on it and blisters inside her cheeks (apparently a clear sign of a virus). So, sadly, the only thing we were told we could do for her is keep up on the Motrin and try to not let her get dehydrated---which is easier said than done when she won't even take her bottle. Anyway, we assumed her birthday would be canceled; however, she is Super-Immune-System-Girl and woke up today with a lighter fever (100.1), and with her usual sassy attitude in full effect. She hasn't eaten yet today, but at least she drank a little water and some rice milk. As much as I secretly loved how she snuggled into me all day yesterday and last night, I love even more that she's feeling better :) That was the first really scary experience of being a mom with a REALLY sick kiddo and I'm glad it's over!! It was literally as if she was in a coma with her eyes open yesterday! She was just a rag doll, staring straight ahead, drifting in and out of state of wake, and not eating, drinking, or saying a word. I'm not even sure she was aware when she was in the car all the way to the doctors office in Madison--she just stared straight ahead with her mouth hanging open. Poor baby!!! ANYWAY, it seems to be over and we will still celebrate tomorrow and hope for the best :) Oh, and as you can tell by the pictures above, Bailey LOVED the heat emanating from Taylor Bug!

Playing in Leaves!!

Well, I was struggling to figure out what to post since with me working and TG having an ear infection, we haven't really had many photo op-worthy days lately; HOWEVER, after seeing Sasha's blog pics of playing in the leaves, I remembered we had a similar day last month so I thought it was a cute way to show the universal love of leaf piles!!! Hope you don't mind me stealing your idea, Sandy!

In Case Anyone Needs a Good Laugh :-)

This picture always cracks me up, so I thought I'd post it for fun. This is just an afternoon in the life of a toddler......no inhibitions and no need for symmetry (hence the one sock).

Love from my baby girl....

Okay, so as much as Taylor is overly affectionate to pretty much every one BUT me (no explanation for that sad fact...I just tell myself it's because she sees me ALL THE TIME so the novelty has worn off); so the other night when she was hugging and kissing on me, Josh actually grabbed the camera to get proof!!
FYI--don't worry I'm getting my roots highlighted on Friday :-)

Sasha Steals Aunt Carrie's Heart

The Reunion!

Here is a video clip of me and TayTay reuniting at the airport Sunday. By the look of my tears, you'd think we'd been apart for months! At one point, she runs her fingers down my cheek and says, "Mommy?" as if she can't believe I'm real---sooo cute! Sorry the quality of the video is so poor, but something was wrong with the original video so Josh used a different camera to tape the video playing on the tv :)
I'll soon post some pics and vids from my time with my sweet, gorgeous, loving nephew Sasha (oh, and I believe Sandy and Nadya were there as well ;-)

The Martinek is shining through!

The other day I needed a couple minutes to finish cleaning the bathroom so I told Taylor Bug to go play in the living room and I'd be in to play in a little bit. After about 3 minutes I realized it was TOO quiet in the other room so I snuck in to see what she was up to and this is how I found her; she had pulled herself onto the chair, positioned the pillow under her head, and was reading herself a book :) Love her love of reading!!

Halloween 2009

Walking into someone's house to check out their toy selection---while we were trick-or-treating.
Helping Dad carve the pumpkin--and not really understanding why her baby butter knife wasn't working properly.
We let her have a mini Tootsie pop so she was in a slight sugar coma in this picture.
This is the look of terror......she had already tossed the candy and was trying to jump into Grandma's arms.

So this is Taylor's 2nd Halloween and she--I think--finally got the concept of knocking and saying Trick or Treat!! Of course, when she was actually looking at someone she would whisper it. Then she would put her head in her bag and stare at amazement that someone just gave her something for no apparent reason. Of course, Josh and I were more excited about the candy because we'll be the ones actually eating it :)
On Friday night we took her to Boo Fest in Baraboo where she helped Grandma Monica hand out candy to all the trick-or-treaters downtown. She was hilarious because it almost looked as though she was making everyone "earn" their candy. She would hold out the candy, look at everyone up and down, stare at them a little longer, and then finally drop the candy in their bucket. If you were one of the costumes that happened to have your face completely covered, well, then TG would drop whatever candy bucket she was holding (throw it actually) and jump into the arms of whichever of her people were close by enough to grab. It was sad that she was scared, but hilarious at the same time!!

YOU TALKIN' TO ME??

Pumpkin Patch 2009

Meeting the Sesame Gang

So Taylor got to meet life-size versions of the Sesame Street crew at the Faire on the Square in Baraboo last weekend. She enjoyed the festival itself---she would go to every random person under 3 feet tall and give them a hug and kiss---except for the freakish cold. It was around 38 degrees and super windy, so I was miserable and we didn't stay as long because TG was getting too cold, too. But I digress.....
So last year when Taylor met the Crew, she hugged and kissed all of them, but apparently this year she is older and wiser because she was totally freaked out. On the one hand, she was REALLY wanting to hug them (well, she said she did), but as soon as we got close she would cling to whomever was holding her and say "ALL DONE!!". Then when we started walking away, she would start crying, "HUG ELMO!! PEEZ!". So we did that little dance a couple times until I finally told she had one last chance to hug Elmo, she cried, we left, and she screamed "Elmo!!" for approximately 2 blocks.....which wasn't too bad since the other kids that had just left were doing the exact same thing :-)
Later that night during bedtime story time, she looked at me and said, "Mommy? I scared of Grouch!" So I finally deduced that Oscar the Grouch is who she was afraid of so she never got to hug Elmo, because Grouch was apparently too close for comfort. Josh and I talked about it later and decided that Grouch was kind of scary, due to the fact that it was clearly an annoyed, bored teenage boy in a crappy costume. You couldn't really see the faces of the other...um, things?, so they didn't seem so scary.

Latest Obsession

As you can see by these pictures, Taylor's newest obsession is Band-Aids, or, "dandaids" if you speak Taylorese. She craves the need for one so badly that sometimes she'll come into the room, look to make sure I'm looking, and fake-stub her toe, run over to me, say "I sad! Dandaid?", so I give her one, and she smiles and says, "OH! All betta!" Since I've decided many months ago to carefully choose my battles with my headstrong toddler, this is one of those things I don't mind giving in to. I went to the Dollar Store, stocked up on Band-Aids, and let her have one if she's feeling the need. You can also see that she is also very concerned that Bailey, aka The Worlds Most Patient Cat, may need a Dand-aid for anything that may ail him as well. *No animals were harmed in the taking of this picture; in fact, strangely, he was purring and flexing his paws in ecstasy. *