My new camera skillz!

I took a camera class this weekend and these are my two best shots so far! Pretty good huh? I am loving that I am learning how to use my new camera.

Trip to San Antonio

Scott had a conference in San Antonio this week so Taylor and I tagged along. He took the day off on Monday and we spent the day at the zoo. We did have a stroller, but Taylor spent most of the day on her Daddy's shoulders. She likes her new way to be carted around. Who needs a $400 stroller when your Daddy can just carry you everywhere!

Taylor didn't know what to think of the petting zoo. She tentatively reached out to pet the goats and made the funniest face! The San Antonio zoo is so cool. They have two sections dedicated to kids under 5. It was beautiful weather and we had a great day!

This is a picture in a park outside of the zoo. We have a happy girl! I was trying out my new camera and all of the new tricks I have been learning. I think I am getting pretty good if I do say so myself!

Taylor and I have put some miles on the BOB strolling all around downtown San Antonio. This morning we are at a Starbucks on the riverwalk enjoying breakfast with a view. In a minute we are going to check out the San Antonio Children's Museum. Yesterday we did the Alamo, RiverCenter Mall and hiked all the way to the farmers market. I was so excited to buy her some Mexican Marracas from the farmers market because she loves to shake things, but it broke before the day was over!

Although it has been a great trip, I am looking forward to being home so Taylor can sleep in her own bed. I have been sharing a bed with her for the past two nights to keep her from screaming and waking up all of the other hotel guests! She definitely takes after her mommy in sleeping! She is a thrasher and a bed hog! Can't blame her though, I like my personal space too!

Touchdown!

Taylor is 9 months old and I can't believe it! Went for her checkup today and she is 20 lbs 7.5 oz and 29" long. This puts her in the 78% on weight and 90% on height. Such a big girl! She got a shot and a finger stick today and didn't shed a tear or make a sound. I was so proud of her!

This is a wooden puzzle piece of a ball and Taylor loves to put in in her mouth just like a pacifier. She crawls around with it in her mouth while she plays. But she won't keep a real pacifier in her mouth! Go figure! Why fight it?

Taylor's favorite toy these days is her LSU football. She raises it in the air when you yell "Touchdown Taylor!" She likes watching football with her daddy. She went to her first Texans game last weekend and we made it to halftime before she had a melt down and we had to leave.

My two front teeth!

Taylor loves playing with her Daddy when he gets home from work! She has unfortunately gotten to the point where she prefers climbing and clinging to mommy, but she is so excited to see her daddy when he gets home from work. I try my best to pass her off to daddy to climb on, but she inevitably crawls back to me. I feel like a human jungle gym and she is a rough climber!

So this is Taylor's new smile. About a week or two ago she started to crinkle her nose and snort when she gets excited. My mom said I used to do this when I was a baby too. She started cutting her two front teeth and it gives her facial expressions a whole new look! Scott and I were just commenting how she doesn't look like a baby anymore and is starting to look like a little person with a BIG personality! She may not say any words, but she definitely gets her point across. Her tantrum stage has started too, where she throws her arms and back backwards so you can barely hold onto her and then she cries the most pathetic cry. I am so not ready for the tantrum stage! Where did my sweet little angel go???? She is trying to talk so hard and wants to repeat words we say, but everything comes out with the "G" sound. "Ga, Gu, Gi" for everything! It is really cute! She will be walking and talking before we know it!

Getting into Everything!

Caught on camera before I fussed at her to get down! Taylor is climbing up on everything these days! She listens "relatively" well, but sometimes wants to test you to see if you are really serious before she stops doing something. Her favorite thing to do is play on the bed and the couch where she throws herself backwards into the pillows or tries to take a nose dive over the side. Yesterday was the first time I missed catching her before she hit the floor! I was devastated, she cried but was ok. You would have thought that would have taught her a little something about gravity, but no, she was at it again later that day. I have to keep a hand on her leg at all times. She is a fast little booger!

The Little Gym

Taylor with her new friends Tristan and Chloe at the Little Gym today!

Fun with balls at the Little Gym!

So since Taylor started crawling a few weeks ago, she uses all of the furniture as a jungle gym to pull up on. It is so hard to keep up with her and keep her from letting go and bumping her head. I had the idea to take her to the Little Gym to give her a safe environment to play and climb. Today was our first class and she LOVED it! She was a little social butterfly. All of the kids were supposed to sit with their moms in a circle on the mat while we sang songs and did different exercises. My Taylor didn't think that sitting still and singing songs was such a great idea. She crawled around the circle to say hello to all of the other kids! The Little Gym was more of a workout for Mommy than Taylor. For one I had to chase her around the circle and two, all of the songs required some sort of lifting of the baby by the mommy. Our favorite part was climbing on the mats, swinging from the bars and learning how to do a tumbleset. My little girl was probably the youngest in the class, but definitely one of the fastest and the strongest! Both Mommy and Taylor made lots of new friends so I think that it was a success!

Taylor's Photo Shoot

Taylor is 7 1/2 months now and we just went to get her 6 month pictures. Better late than never! I wish we would have gotten them 2 weeks ago before she was on the move because it made picture taking a whole lot harder! But our photographer Kelsey Call is great and got some great photos. Taylor is a supermodel all hamming it up for the camera and in all of her smiles you can see those two cute little teeth. I don't have the pictures back but she did post some sneak previews on her blog at kelseycallphotography.com. Look at the entry for August 4th, Miss Taylor to see the cutest baby ever! My favorite is the first one of her sitting in my wedding dress. I was having an artisitic moment, rarely do I ever have an artisitic moment, and I thought it would be so adorable to have her playing in all of the tulle from my wedding dress. Not like the dress is going to get a whole lot of use for anything else, so why not?

We took pictures for an hour and Taylor was so good right up to the very end. I can't wait to see the rest. I will let you all know when the disk is ready so you can view and pick your favorites.

A Week with My Cousin Katie!

We loved having cousin Katie visit us for the week. Taylor had a playmate and since she is newly mobile, that was a huge help to me. Katie had her own little baby doll for the week and Taylor had someone to play with all week. We went to Nasa and the Health Museum and Taylor loved being around all of the people and the colors and lights!

I kept forgetting that Katie was just 10 and probably shouldn't be left alone with Taylor because she was so good with her and was always the first to get up the stairs to get Taylor when she cried (my legs and feet just don't move as fast as they used to!). One morning I had gone back to sleep after the 4 am feeding and woke up to footsteps above in the gameroom. I figured it was Katie waking up and watching TV and I turned on the baby monitor to see if Taylor was still asleep (I have taken to turning it off at night because if she really needs me I figure I will hear her without the monitor!) and the baby bed was empty! I figured that Katie had gotten her out of her bed and they were playing in the gameroom. I didn't really like Katie picking her up out of the bed by herself, but like I said, 10 year old legs are much faster than 32 year old legs! So I thought to myself that I better get up there and for a fleeting second I thought, "Katie's up there with her, they will be fine" and almost rolled over and went back to sleep, but my better judgement made me get my butt out of bed and go up there. It was a fun week, but I was pretty darn exhausted by the end of the week. Two kids are definitely more work than one!

Weekend in New Orleans

Throwing a birthday party for my Great Papa and Great Grandma!

Taylor and Grandma Janet

Playing with all of my cousins! Taylor thought she was a big kid just like everybody else. I don't think that she get's that she is just a little baby. She had a great time playing with all of her girl cousins!

We went to New Orleans two weekends ago for our newphew Bradley's wedding. This was Taylor's second wedding in her short little life and we discovered that she really loves to dance! She did so good for it being a night wedding and way past her bedtime. Everytime she got cranky I would take her out to the dance floor and she would start waving her arms, kicking her legs and smiling. She loves music and loves to dance, just like her momma! We were even out there line dancing together to Footloose! I thought I was rather talented to be able to hold onto her and keep up with Footloose in heels! I love this picture of us all dressed up. Of course this is pre-wedding before it got hot and then none of us looked this good for the wedding! I couldn't keep her shoes or her bow on, but at least we have this beautiful picture! It was a beautiful wedding and a fun weekend spent with family.

On the Move!

Taylor has been trying to crawl for a couple of weeks now and she is soooo close! I have mixed feelings between wanting her to be able to crawl and wanting her to stay in one place! She already gets around by scooting to where she wants to go. She can lay on her belly and use her legs to propel her across the floor. She seems to have reverse down, but forward is taking a little longer. She tries to get up on her toes to crawl and hasn't been able to take more than two are three crawls before falling down on her belly. It is the cutest thing watching her want to get somewhere. She concentrates so hard on things! Sometimes she backs herself up under the furniture and then she gets stuck so she whines until you move her out into the open again.

Her favorite toy is the light up piano that she has to stand up to play. She can hold herself up on it and sometimes I thinks she is going to walk before she can crawl! She was using this toy as a walker to walk herself across the floor the other day and then another toy caught her attention and she let go with both hands while standing! Good thing mommy was there to catch her. She doesn't understand the concept of gravity yet because someone is always there to catch her.

Bath time for Taylor

Since Taylor is sitting up, we started letting her take a bath in the big bath tub and she really enjoys it. Here is a video of her first big girl bath. Please enjoy the vocals by Scott and Amanda! This is her favorite bath time song! Scott even googled the words so we could learn them all!

Happy 4th of July (and Happy Birthday to Me!)

This was the first year that we have been home on the 4th of July in a long time, so we decided to have a pool party to celebrate my birthday. Scott bought me a new digital camera and I am so excited to start taking professional looking pictures. Scott posed for my first professional looking picture with my new camera! Model ready right! Or is it just my awsome photographer skills that make him look so good! He kinda looks scary!

Taylor enjoyed playing with her friend JD. Couldn't get them to both look in the same direction at the same time!

Scott went all out and made me a birthday cake...from scratch. It was sooooo yummy and he was so proud of it. It was the moistest cake I have ever had. It had french vanilla coffee, buttermilk and 4 sticks of butter in it. Can't go wrong with 4 sticks of butter!

Let's get a close-up of that cake!

It was a great day with family and friends! Thanks to everyone who came and celebrated with us!

Look at me....I can sit up!

One day I had Taylor on the floor in the bumbo while I was doing dishes and the next thing I knew she had somehow crawled her way out of it. So, I figured it was time to pack the bumbo away. We started sitting her up on the floor and it only took about 3 days of falling over before she got the hang of it. She is so proud of herself.

She has also gotten enough hair on the top to pin a little bow in it! YEAH! She used to let me put headbands and hats on her, but has now learned how to pull them off of her head and now nothing but this little bow will stay in her hair.

Happy Father's Day Daddy!

For Father's Day this year we went out in the boat and went tubing and then had a picnic by the lake! Uncle Eric shared his ice cream with Taylor so now she has decided that she likes him. Prior to the ice cream, she has cried every time he looked at her. I think that they will be friends now!

Scott thinks he is Kind of a Big Deal now that he got the big promotion at work, so my mom bought him the T-shirt to match mine for his birthday. Since it was his first Father's day, he decided to be a big deal that day!
For my two favorite Daddy's, I decided to bake a cake! It was my first attempt at doing the icing with the writing and borders. Mom came over to help me and I think it came out pretty good. I have big aspirations now of becoming a master cake decorator and making all of Taylor's birthday cakes! I am pretty pumped up about it and getting all kinds of ideas for her first birthday! So, if anyone needs a cake for something, I need lots of practice so let me know!

All in all it was a great day! It was a hot day, but we enjoyed being out on the lake and in the pool.

I'm Such a Big Girl

Aunt Ginger and Grammie bought Taylor this adorable 4th of July outfit. Its a 12 month outfit and already fits her perfectly! We are styling and all ready for the 4th of July parade!

Ever since we got back from vacation (where we found out that Taylor was old enough for a high chair) we have been using her high chair for feeding. She seems to like her new chair and it makes it a little easier to contain the mess. We had been using the bumbo and it took two of us to contain those flailing arms while one tried to feed her.

Beach Baby!

So Scott and I decided that taking a trip to Mexico for his 30th birthday was a great idea! We figured taking the baby would be no problem since when we booked she was sleeping through the night and napping during the day fairly well. Well, as it turns out, taking a 6 month old on a vacation with ambitions of it being a relaxing vacation is not a good idea! We still had fun and she enjoyed the beach, but we have never been more happy to be home from a vacation in our life. Taylor decided that she needed to wake up 3 times a night and wouldn't nap unless one of us was holding her. So most of the vacation was spent holding a baby or trying to get a baby to go to sleep!

So now that we are back, little Taylor is in Baby Bootcamp to break her of her needing to be held ALL of the time! She has done pretty well crying herself to sleep the past two days for naps and night time. She doesn't really even cry at night. The first night we watched her on the monitor and she rolled around from one end of the crib to the other for about 45 minutes until she passed out! It was too cute! We stopped swaddling too! And she seems to like sleeping in on her tummy. We were so scared of when we would have to stop swaddling because it seemed like such an important ingredient to her sleeping through the night. Scott kept saying, we will cross that bridge when we get there. Well is seems we have come to several bridges this week. No more swaddles, no more picking her up in the middle of the night when she is crying and hopefully soon...no more breastfeeding. We are trying sippy cups and bottles and she is reluctantly taking to them.

Taylor's favorite thing these days is singing. She loves when we sing to her. It usually calms her down when she is upset and makes her laugh and dance when she is happy. Bathtime and swimtime song is "Splish splash I was taking a bath". Scott finally looked up the words so that we could sing it right.

Taylor is also trying all kinds of new foods. I know that you are only supposed to introduce one new food a week, but the resort had Organic Gerber baby food in all of these new flavors so I was a bad mom and just tried all kinds of new fruits and vegetables..Ooops! She had the worst gas the whole week and I can't begin to determine which food was the culprit. Scott and I were having pineapple all week and she wanted some too so I gave her the rind to suck on which she seemed to enjoy, but 5 minutes later threw up. Guess that wasn't the best idea on my part.

All in all it was a great trip, but we will be leaving Taylor with Grammie next time we want to go to Mexico!

Green Beans and Toes!

So it has been awhile since I have posted anything to the blog. so let me catch you up on what Taylor has been doing lately! She had discovered her toes and loves to snack on them. Occasionally she gets both feet in her mouth at the same time! She is also rolling over very well both ways. When I get her up in the morning she is never in the same place that we put her down at night. She somehow makes it to the other end of the crib, even in a swaddle!

We started solid food a couple of weeks ago. She loves the sweet potatoes, squash and peas, but hates the green beans. I had this lovely idea that I would buy organic vegetables and make all of her food. So last night I steamed some carrots and then chopped them up in my food processor, but they were still too chunky to feed to her. So Scott tried to mash them through a cheese grater and all we ended up with was a big huge mess. I tried to feed them to her and we just had carrots all over the counter and the floor. A few bites into my whole "make my own baby food experience" we ditched the carrots and went back to the Gerber peas which she proceeded to down. It is so cute, she takes your hand that has the spoon and brings it to her mouth if you don't get it there fast enough.

A Big Weekend!

We took Taylor on her first trip to the zoo yesterday. Uncle Eric came with us and we had a great day! Taylor slept through most of it, but we enjoyed the day anyway. It was a little hotter than I had hoped so we decided to heat up the hot tub and jump in when we got home. Taylor's first dip in the pool was a success. She seemed to like it and already does a great job kicking her feet!

Discovering New Toys!

I didn't think she was ready for it, but someone suggested that I try out the exersaucer. Yesterday, dad was late getting home from work, Taylor was fussy and Mommy was frazzled so I figured, "What the heck, let's give it a try!". She seemed to like it and was concentrating very hard on the toys but couldn't quite make the connection between her hand and her brain to reach out and touch the toys. Today she seems to have gotten the hang of it and it is so cute! She has only discovered the one toy for now, but I don't think it will be long before she gets around to the rest. I think the Bumbo is history. She has learned to arch her back and launch herself out of the Bumbo! So I am afraid to leave her alone in it. That was a waste!

Other milestones...Taylor loves to hold onto your hands and pull herself up onto her feet. She loves to be in a standing position and I think she is going to think for the rest of her life that every time she stands it should be accompanied by a "YEAH Taylor!" Also, in her world, every song ends in "YEAH Taylor!". She had her first trip to the Beach this past weekend and put her toes in the sand and immediately picked her feet back up in the air. She did take a nice long nap on the beach being lulled by the waves.

We took her 3 month pictures last week and I will post some soon. I have seen a few and they are adorable!

Taylor playing with Bailey

We were sitting outside this evening since it was still daylight (thanks to daylight savings time) and a nice night. I guess Taylor has never seen Bailey up close and personal before, but I think this is a sign that she likes Bailey. We have never heard Taylor laugh like this out loud before and didn't know she could. It was hilarious and we were lucky enough to catch it on video. She did this for about 3 minutes and then quit. We couldn't get her to laugh again.

It's Bumbo Time!

Taylor is 12 weeks and boy have we had a big week. Sleeping through the night is now the rule rather than the exception...YEAH Taylor! And when I say sleeping through the night, I am counting sleeping until 5 am as through the night! We moved up to our 3 - 6 month clothes. It was so sad to have to pack away all of the 0 - 3 clothes that she has outgrown. But she is looking mighty cute in her new spring wardrobe! In about 10 more diapers we are moving up to size 2...again so sad! Noticing a theme from my 91 percentile daughter? We tried out the Bumbo today and I think she likes it. We tried last week but she still slumped over in it. Today she looked like a Pro. And I didn't even plan it, but she had her purple elephant outfit on to match her Bumbo! Look at that beautiful smile! We scheduled her 3 month pictures for Friday. Can't wait! Well it sounds like naptime is over.

Road Trip to Dallas

Since our first road trip went so smoothly, we figured a short road trip to Dallas would be no problem...WRONG!!!! She screamed from Kingwood to Huntsville. We fed her and changed her and then thought that things would be better from there...AGAIN...WRONG!!! She was so tired but wouldn't fall asleep. So we ended up having to stop again and hold her until she was asleep and then carefully put her back in the carseat. We were going to Dallas for a wedding so by the time we made it to the hotel it was time to change and head to the church. Luckily there was a nursery provided and we were all too happy to leave her in the nursery after that road trip. Once we sat down I said to Scott, "We don't even know the name of the people we just left our daughter with". When we went to pick her up she was snuggled up asleep in the arms of one of the nursery workers so I guess she was fine. The reception was great. She was the hit of the party and loved the music and lights on the dance floor. More strangers held her all night, but Scott and I had a great time! Mommy introduced Taylor to line dancing! She loved the dancing! Trip home was a little better, but it will be a long time before our next road trip with Taylor!

Taylor Meeting her Great Grandparents for the first time

We took Taylor to visit her family in New Orleans when she turned 2 months old. She had just gotten her 2 months shots and then we packed up for the 6 hour road trip. Taylor did great and slept most of the trip due to the Tylenol! She slept pretty good during the trip and enjoyed meeting the rest of her aunts and her great grandparents. We didn't tell Papa or Grandma that we were coming so it was a great surprise!

Taylor Smiles

Taylor is talking up a storm now. We sometimes have 10 minute conversations and she is just cooing and "oohing". It is the most beautiful thing ever. But anytime we get the video camera out she stops, so here is a rare snippet caught on tape. This was several weeks ago and she is talking much better now, but haven't been able to capture on tape.

Bailey discovers Taylor

Bailey hasn't had to interact much with Taylor but I decided to turn her swing around to give her more to look at and Bailey just stood at the window and stared at this little creature who has taken over her house. When we introduced Bailey to Taylor up close, she reached her paw out and tried to touch her. It was cute. It won't be long and Taylor will be riding Bailey like a horse and pulling her along by the tail.

6 weeks old

Our little angel is 6 weeks and has learned how to coo and smile. She will make eye contact and talk to you for a few minutes. But it seems like it is hard work because she is worn out afterwards! It mostly comes out as "ooo". Her best smiling and talking times are after a poop, but hey I take what I can get! She is getting so strong too. She can hold her head up and is using her legs to push up against things. My little butterball is over 11 lbs and has added several new rolls to her thighs! Scott calls her thunder thighs and last time he did she let him know just how she felt about that!

5 weeks old today!

I can't believe that my little girl is 5 weeks today! She is starting to focus on our voices and faces and will even smile at us sometimes. It seems like we are finally starting to get the hang of things. It's like I woke up from a haze this week and started feeling human again. We got out of the house to go and visit all of my co-workers and they all thought she was adorable. And everyone thinks she looks just like Scott. I keep joking with Scott that she is adorable despite the fact that she got all of his genes!

I am reading the Babywise book and started following it this week. Taylor is doing pretty well on a schedule and even slept 3 four hour stretches last night! Wahoo! We are so excited! The book says that by 7 weeks they are capable of sleeping for 7 hours straight! 2 more weeks! Let's keep our fingers crossed.