My first bout of refereeing sibling love/hate??

So Taylor really wanted to me to record her singing "Jingle Bells" to her brother, to which I obliged. As I was watching and thinking how sweet it was to watch him watch her and slowly put his hand on her face, that little hand quickly realized there was a handful of hair in it and how interesting it would be to pull it? And just like that, that sweet moment in time turned into high drama. *sigh* This is most definitely the first of approximately 1 million times I will have to intervene in a sibling-related drama :)

Taylor's new toy

So this gift is proving to be money well spent!!! She is on this thing every single day----laughing and carrying on like a brand new 3 year old should :)

The Self Confident Years :)

Who doesn't spend the morning walking around in ruby slippers, a pajama top, and not a stitch of anything else??

Taylor Supporting the Runners

We had a marathon run a couple doors down from our house so we bundled up the kiddos at 7am to go and watch them. Taylor wanted to give a high five to one of them, but ended up wanting to offer a high-five support to every runner that went by. Some were too focused to notice her, but most were pretty excited to see an adorable, smiling toddler offering encouragement. She also started saying "Good job running!" to all of them :) Later that day she said when she grows up she wants to run, too. Maybe we'll run one together? We'll see.

Halloween 2010

Me, my Dorothy, and my shark heading out to get some candy loot. By the way, we totally scored in our new 'hood. We headed up the street from our house, where MANY houses gave out full-size candy bars!! Woot woot! Some elderly ladies even gave straight up King-size, can you believe it?? Times have changed since the gross little orange and black wrapped peanut butter nougat things we used to get :-)

Beckett Finding His Voice

Grandma Z was over last week and got a little clip of little Beckett trying REALLY hard to tell us a great story!! It's exhausting just listening! And don't let the pacifier fool you, we've been trying daily for weeks to get him to take it, to no avail. He prefers instead to suck/chew on his index finger while his hand is curled into a fist----so now both hands have big red blisters on them that look very painful :( Time to pull out some mittens.

Beckett's First Playdate

A couple weeks ago, one of Josh's friends came over to watch a sports game of some sort and he was on kid-duty so he brought his daughter. We thought is was about high time Beckett started having playdates, being 6 weeks old at the time and all. Well, about 45 seconds into the visit, this is how it all ended :) These two party animals really know how to keep the party jumping on a Friday night!! So, alas, I thought it was a pretty adorable picture to show how babies roll on a weekend. By the way, Beckett is the little dude in the green stripes and jeans----bald and chubby aren't exactly distinguishing features on a baby---although little Breelyn is actually 3 months older----little cougar that she is.

Ski-Hi

We went to Ski-Hi for apples, apple cider, and of course, caramel apples!! Last year, Taylor let me cut hers into little pieces to eat, but this year she was all about just diving right in!! Consequently, she ate off all the caramel and when it came time to actually eat the healthy part--the apple--her "tummy is too full". Hmmm. Anyway, here's the end result of the caramel consumption and we went home to brush all the "sugar bugs" off her teeth :-)

Beckett: Born weighing 9 pounds, 5 ounces. Here at 7 weeks old, he weighs 12 pounds, 3 ounces. Gained a respectable almost 3 pounds.


Taylor: Born weighing 7 pounds, 8 ounces. Here at 7 weeks old, she weighed 13 pounds, 5 ounces. Gained an astonishing nearly 6 pounds!! Hmmmm.........which of these monkeys enjoyed the breast milk more?? Taylor today: a string bean STILL weighing only 29 pounds (has for months and months) at nearly 3 years old. Who knew?

Smiles and poop :)

Beckett Jameson

So he's finally here, as you all know!! It has been a long road getting here, but everyone is happy and healthy :) My little tub-of-lard was 9 lbs 5 oz and 20 1/2 inches tall. Taylor is madly in love with her "Cookie Monster", although we are still working on gentle touches with baby! Sleep and me-time is now a thing of the past for me, so I'm not sure how often I'll be updating the blog in the next couple of weeks until the dust settles. Also, not sure what I should do with the blog? Do I add Beckett to Taylor's? Do I start a new one for Beckett? Hmmm........

Mini-Baker

Well, when it's 95 degrees outside and you're 9 months pregnant, you solve the problem by staying in the air conditioning and baking yummy cookies :) Taylor loved to put her apron on, put all of the ingredients in one by one, watch me use the mixer, then as soon as the beaters came off, she was no longer my little "helper". She was off to watch Wizard of Oz with a cookie-dough laden beater in each hand, leaving me to finish the work of baking the cookies :)

Whoa, Mama!!!

Betcha didn't know a belly could get so big, huh?? AND I still have over 2 weeks to go!! The top picture is the day I got my henna tattoo from an old co-worker who hadn't ever done a pregnant belly and offered to do it for free! It's really dark because that's the actual ink being applied. Later that day, you scrape off the ink, and then it actually takes a couple of days for the dye to really settle. The middle picture is just to show how big I am.......which is why the other day Taylor pulled up my shirt and said, "Whoa, Mama!! Your tummy is getting too big! It's always hanging out of your shirts." Oh, and the last picture was taken because Taylor wanted to show how "huge" her tummy was, too. :)

BROTHER SASHA

If any of you have wondered how much a 2 year old really understands the coming of a sibling, allow me to shed some light :)
So for months, I've been asking Taylor what we should name her brother when he gets here and her reply has always been, "Sister". So recently, when I've asked her what we should name him because he'll be here soon, she said, "What you mean, Mommy? His name is Sasha!". I've told her that Sasha is her cousin and that her brother is another little boy that will be here and he'll be really tiny. There are perks to her not understanding though; lately she has taken to actually helping me pick up her playroom while saying, "Hurry, Mommy! Let's pick up toys so when Brother Sasha gets here we can play!! He's coming soon!" Hmmmm....
So I imagine there will be some blatant disappointment on her end when a little ball of pink skin, squinty eyes, and non-stop hunger ends up being brought home and not her fun-loving, huggable, playful cousin Sasha :(
I am also getting to peek into the window of my actions by watching Taylor. The other day Taylor went and sat down in her Scooby-Doo chair, sighing dramatically, and rubbing her belly. When I asked her what was up, she said, "Sasha is kicking again. I need to rest a minute."
Good lord, this little girl is going to be mighty confused for a while when her brother finally gets here! Although, she seems excited and tells me often that she has a "big job" to do when he gets here because she wants to change him and feed him and scritch his back :)

Happy Independence Day!!

So, we went up north (only an hour north :) and stayed in a cabin over the 4th, which was....interesting. The "cabin" was actually a double-wide trailer, and would not be considered clean. Most everything in the "cabin" was uncomfortable and half-broken---and made the term "toddler-proof" very much just an ideal. The first day, we missed the napping window so it was a long day already, then we ended up at the Waupun Urgent Care for some crazy infected spider/mosquito bites on poor Taylor's body. They were swollen to the size of golf balls and getting redder by the minute. So we left with an antibiotic prescription, Caladryl, Motrin, and Zyrtec. So after the first day I was thinking the rest of the weekend was going to be a bust, but she ended up sleeping for 12 hours/night and taking 2-1/2 hour naps each day----and since her not sleeping was my main fear, I was much more relaxed!
The rest of the weekend was just running around outside, going into town for ice cream and parks, and, eventually, swimming. Taylor talked about going "swimeem" all weekend, and since the town we stayed in is literally surrounded by a lake (as well as correctional institutions, but I digress), I assumed there would be at least one public beach.....there was not. So I finally found out the town has a public pool which we went to and that was probably Taylor's most favorite hour of the weekend :) They had a big pool that was beach-entry and never got above 2 feet deep so she was able to run around like crazy and she had a blast!! So, needless to say, we won't be going back to Fox Lake anytime soon, but Taylor had a good time and she at least got one little family vacation as an only child before her world turns upside down with Junior Pants coming into the picture :)

Ear Tube Day!

Okay, so these pictures posted in reverse order. The bottom one is when we first got assigned out room and she thought it was pretty sweet to get her own bed with various medical things attached all around that she could try to rip down or destroy in some way. The next one she is showing off her hospital bracelet, and the next one up she is showing off the hospital bracelets that were attached to Big Monkey, Little Monkey, and Penquin. Yes, the cool nurses actually printed out bracelets for all of them (one of the perks to using an actual Childrens Hospital). Then they took her vitals---check out the adorable little red-light thingy on her toe!---and off I went with her to the OR. Oh, first I had to put on the god-awful yellow gown and cap, at which point Taylor said, "Oooh, Mommy, you're a princess now!". I was able to sit with her while she was put under, then I left and they called us back to recovery in about 1/2 hour. When we got back there, the nurse was holding her and Taylor was telling her all about Big and Little Monkey. She was happy as could be and the nurses said if all patients were as sweet and cooperative as her, their jobs would be much easier :) We were told to expect her to be disoriented and really cranky for a while after anesthesia and maybe the rest of the day, but in her case, she was in the best mood I'd seen her in a while! We had a great rest of the day playing tea party, Play-doh, and going to the park. Maybe the pain in her ears was more bothersome than we knew? Anyway, the last picture (on top) is after everything was over with and right before we headed home. Her face was a little puffy, but overall, she was fine and the doctor said they sucked quite a bit of gunk out from behind her ear drum---or wherever the tube is actually placed. Now our biggest challenge is getting her to sit still and let me put ear drops in her ears 3 times/day----much easier said than done with a 2-1/2 yr old.

Taylor is now at the age where she can use her imagination a little more and the other morning she decided to host herself a tea party. It was so fun to watch and I tried to take pics without her noticing so she would keep playing :-)
"Like more tea, Froggy?"
"Oh, okay. Like some sugar? Okay!"
"How 'bout you Monkey?"
"More milk? Oh, okay!"
"Wait!!! Don't drink! Too hot!!"
"Now listen, Froggy and Monkey. I blow on it, then you can drink it. Want more?"
"How 'bout more sugar?"

Okay, I know it's been forever since I've posted anything, so I apologize! With moving, unpacking, a wound-up toddler who thinks sleep is for the birds, and being pregnant, I haven't exactly had the blog at the top of my priority list :) I have some backlogged pics that I can post over the next couple of days----I will post only a couple of Sasha and Taylor though, because I realized after looking at Sandy's blog that we must have both frantically grabbed our cameras at the same time when they were looking extra-adorable because most of my pics are eerily similar to hers :) Here are a couple of them at Vilas Zoo; pretty much all the animals were put away for the evening, but who needs animals at the zoo when you've got your cousin and a wagon to push/pull together?

Awwwwww..... :)

My very first hand-crafted Mothers Day present from Taylor :-) Obviously her teachers did the writing, but the painting and planting was all TG!!

Some days you just have to pick your battles..... :)

My Only Sunshine!!

For months, Taylor has demanded I sing "Sunshine!!" to her every night when she goes to bed. I've always sang that song off and on since she was a newborn because it always makes me think of Grandma Martinek, who sang it to me many times over the years. At Taylor's age, you realize they are listening, but you're never really sure how closely :) But then last week, when I put her to bed she said, "No, Mommy, I sing it to you!". I thought, ummm....okay, we'll see what comes out of her mouth, and sure enough if she didn't sing a perfect toddler rendition of "You are My Sunshine"!! It was heart melting, and so the next day before swimming lessons, I was able to grab my camera as she was belting it out again.......well, truth be told she now busts it out ALL the time!! The other day when we were in the check-out line at the grocery store she happened to steal a glance at a sun balloon in the distant floral department and threw her head back as if she was alone in the room and starting belting out the song. Pretty much everyone in every line stopped to watch the American Idol audition happening in my arms.........luckily, everyone was very kind and I might even venture to say Taylor made a couple people's day that afternoon :)

First Bowling Experience!!

We took Taylor bowling last weekend as a way to burn off some of her crazy energy.....thinking she would totally not get it, but would find it intriguing nonetheless. She ended up loving it!! Luckily there are bumpers to block the gutters and a slide-type thing for her to just push the ball down so there was little room for too much frustration on her end :) I also figured she'd be running up and down the lanes and I'd be chasing her the whole time, but she was really good about waiting her turn and her inner cheerleader came out full force. Every time anyone bowled (even if it was a gutter ball), she would run up, say "good bob!! five?" (good job! high-five?). She seemed to like being supportive and proud of people more than anything else........I'm also grateful there were only a few people there besides us :)
Oh, and yes, they had bowling shoes in her size-----freaking adorable!!!

Just Random Cuteness :-)

Ummmm....not sure about a title for this.

All I can say is that no matter what you may think, your kids are ALWAYS watching you!! The other day, she came out of my room with my bra on....correctly. And before any of you laugh at the size, remember my "girls" are preparing for feeding a human being!!

The Hills Are Alive.....

Here is TG enjoying her favorite 3 minutes of television EVER---the yodeling puppets from The Sound of Music. Glad to see she appreciates one of the best classic movies of all time!! Notice her attempt at yodeling towards the end :-)

Refreshing Snow

So a couple weeks ago, when we had some snow left, Taylor was on the deck and I went in to get her a snack. When I came back, this is what I saw her doing: desperately trying to get her last taste of snow before it all melted :) Perhaps I was a little late on the snack time?? And, no, I'm sure that snow was not exactly clean----I don't think yellow, but still not clean. Oh well :-)

Child Labor laws be damned!

Taylor LOVES to help with everything around the house: vacuuming, cooking, feeding the animals, etc. It means everything takes MUCH longer than normal, but it makes her feel so proud of herself and a part of the "grown up" world. Her newest thing is wanting to help take out the garbage. She wants her own garbage bag (and she actually prefers a heavier one to a lighter one) and she insists on dragging it all the way from the garage to the street--about 100 feet! Once she gets it there, she asks for "hi fi" and then trudges back to the house, pretty proud of her little self :) Oh, and waves at her Mommy in the window the whole way back.

FAREWELL, SWEET BAILEY.

This is why I never wanted pets......eventually you usually have to make the horrible decision of ending their life. It's a power that makes me feel icky and emotionally wrecked, but I know as a cat-mom, it's up to me to make sure he doesn't suffer. Bailey has had chronic kidney disease for 4 years now, and even though his blood work is showing that it's stable, there is something really wrong with him. He's severely dehydrated, weighs only 7 pounds (he spent most of his life at 12-14 lbs), sways when sitting, stumbles when walking, and just generally seems too tired to keep on keeping on. The vet said we could do more invasive testing, but we would probably have to bring him in on a regular basis to get IV fluids. The poor guy is 18 1/2 years old, there's no way we're putting him through that. He's had a great life and it will seem very strange not to see him out of the corner of my eye all the time, or see him in the background of every picture I take :) My heart is breaking for Taylor as well, since Bailey is pretty much her most favorite living thing in the world, and how do you explain to a 2-year-old where her Bailey has gone?? So as I sit here and shed tears and look over at him laying in the sun and taking his last nap, I want to thank him for the years of purring, cuddles, nuzzles, patience, and love he has brought to me. This afternoon he will finally be reunited with his beloved partner Sammy and his best buddy Ty---may they all be happy and pain-free for eternity!

My Budding Artist :)

This is one of Taylor's first attempts at drawing a face----so cute! I'm not sure at what age kids start to draw faces, but I'm convinced that she's quite advanced at 26 months. Hey, I'm a mom, it's my god-given right to believe she's advanced in all that she does, right?!
I believe the last facial feature she draws is the chin? From there, she proceeds to scribble over the whole masterpiece :)
She also got a new toy from the San Diego Xmas Elf (Aunt Mollie to the rest of us) that she loves! It's a drawing board that has music playing along while you color----the faster you color, the faster the music plays! For now, she's more into pushing the buttons for different instruments and doing a sweet dance move for each one, and whenever I have my camera handy when she starts playing it, then I'll post some video of that, too.

So here is one of Taylor Bug's newest, most favorite activities: staring at herself singing/talking/laughing into the camcorder. Our camera lets you flip the little screen around so the person in the video can see themselves being recorded. She likes to sing all her little songs all day long, but when the camera is on she forgets the words, gets distracted by her lips, her tongue, her smile, her voice, her eyes, etc. So some of the songs she sings here are Twinkle Little Star, Little Turtle, and the Peanut Song (the last ones from preschool). There are many videos of her admiring herself on camera, so it was difficult to choose only one, and I may post more in the future :) Please excuse the annoying football that's on ALL DAY on Sundays and the food on her face. This girl is a total ham and highly entertaining!!

Okay, Annika Sorenstam she's not.....but adorable and funny, she is!! (Annika is a golfer, by the way....I was going to say Tiger Woods, but now I think he's a creep, so there!)

She's moving on up---to the big girl bed!!!

Well, we changed the crib to a big-girl bed!! It took us a while to decide to do it because she LOVES her crib, but she was starting to straddle the top rail of her crib in an attempt to make the jump, so it was time. It was an afternoon that only her and I were home, so I decided to make the switch myself (easier than I thought it would be). She was in her room watching me the whole time and getting more and more excited by the minute. That night, Josh and I brought the video monitor into the living room to watch her stumble around drunk with freedom---but she shocked us both by doing what she always does at bedtime: she sat up and talked to her stuffed animals, sang Tinkle Wittle Star over and over, laughed at her own jokes, read many books, etc. but DID NOT get out of her bed!!! We were pleasantly surprised, to say the least. Nap times are a little different story some days, but overall, the switch was highly successful and she is pretty proud of her new status as a "big girl". :-)