Bouncing a Ball

Taylor thought bouncing a ball with Gammy and Mommy was hilarious!

Halloween 2010

Taylor's first real Halloween (she was 6 days old and struggling to survive in the NICU at UAB on her first Halloween) was wonderful.  Is there anything cuter than a little kid dressed up in some animal's outfit? 

We originally fell in love with a lady bug costume, but were disappointed to find it was out of stock.  Rebecca found an adorable bunny rabbit costume for Taylor instead.  Carrot in one hand and milk duds??? in the other.

.

First, we went to Gammy and PawPaw's house.  She loves Gammy and I think the feeling is reciprocated.

Next, we went to Faith Baptist Church's Truck or Treat to see Aunt Bethany and Uncle Steven.  From there, over to Mama Bo and Papa's house so she could hang out with her buddy, Tigger  . . . I mean, Rylee.  Don't ask me what toy lit up her face like she was on Star-trek.

Finally, we visited Uncle Chris at his house.  Look at the innocence on this little face . . . Doesn't that just make your heart melt?

Taylor Turns One!

I have been a serious slacker updating Taylor's blog as of late.  Today, I'll update on her birthday party and Halloween.  Rebecca actually posted on her birthday party so I will let her do the rest of the talking (note you can follow her blog here).

My daughter turned ONE!! My two pound ten ounce bag of bones that I have blogged about so many times before, is ONE YEAR OLD?! Someone please tell me where in the world the time has gone? I've been taking it a little harder than I thought I would. I've shed LOTS and LOTS of tears. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that she is growing up healthy and happy. I'm thankful that she started out so small with the odds stacked against her, yet she is and always has been healthy as a horse. I'm just sad that it seems to be happening at warp speed. I had such a horrible pregnancy and if you know me or follow Slide Rule then you can understand. I fear that I may never get another child and I'm trying my best to hold on to every second of baby Taylor has left. She loves me right now and I am her whole world. I'm certain the day is coming when she won't want to snuggle with me so much and I won't seem as cool to her. That breaks my heart. However, this weekend we celebrated Taylor's first birthday. We had a small party at our house with just family and one set of friends, who might as well be family! We had a blast. Taylor absolutely adores playing with other kids and so Sunday, she was in heaven! She wasn't exactly excited about playing in the cake...she's a girly girl and playing with our food is obviously for boys! Right?! She got lots and lots of sweet presents and the help opening them was endless. Thank you to everyone for coming and partying with us! Below are some pictures from the festivities!

One Year Pictures

Ok,  I know I haven't posted about her birthday party or Halloween yet, but I had to post some highlights from her one year pictures because they are awesome!  Our great friend and wonderful photographer friend, Rachel McPhillips (website here) took these wonderful photos.  She obviously does a great job and she is reasonably priced.  Check her out.

Taylor Races Daddy

Taylor challenged me to a race and who am I to say no to a challenge.  Alas, she won:

Taylor Waves "Bye, Bye"

Rebecca has been working with Taylor to do some pretty cool things.  One thing she is starting to do is wave "Bye, Bye".  Here is a little clip:

Taylor's First Auburn Game

Rebecca, Taylor, and I loaded up and headed down to the plains to watch then 10th ranked Auburn take on one of their biggest rivals, Louisiana-Monroe.  Ok, really, we knew it was going to be a blow out, but this was the first game of the season that was scheduled before 6 PM over 2.5 hours away from our home.  Getting home at 1 AM doesn't sit well with a baby who is asleep by 9 PM every night. 

So, we got on our Auburn gear and hit the road.  Taylor wore an Auburn dress that her Gammy (my mom) got her.  It is magic unparalleled by David Copperfield how Rebecca gets that bow to stay in such a small amount of hair.

We didn't have time to tailgate because the game started at 11 AM so we went right into the stadium.  Here's us in our Auburn gear.  If Cam Newton got hurt, Rebecca was ready to go right into the game with her Auburn jersey.

Taylor was amazed by the stadium, field, and all the people. 

She loves to watch people.  Even the person behind me while I was taking this picture:

It didn't take long before she was completely worn out.  She needed some of the good stuff to fall asleep in such a loud crowd.

She missed the best part of the game.  Hundreds of high school cheerleaders messing up "Tigers"

She did wake up in the third quarter and enjoy the game until the 4th quarter when she had a class A meltdown.  It was just for a second, but it was fierce.  She recovered and had a great time though.

She Crawls!!!

Taylor turned 11 months old yesterday.  Can you believe it???  Let the 1st birthday party preparations begin! 

September 19th Taylor's first tooth broke through.  It's sharp and she's not afraid to bite you with it!  Since then, another tooth has joined the party.  Before long, she'll have a mouth full of teeth.  Thankfully for Rebecca, she is going to start to ween Taylor off breastmilk onto whole milk when she turns one.

In other exciting news, Taylor crawled for the first time!!!  I was so glad I was home to see it!  I was away on business this week and Becca told me that she was pretty sure Taylor would be crawling any day now.  I told Becca to not put Taylor down till I got home so I could be there to witness it.  The night I got home, it happened.  As you can see in the video below, it's not the most graceful crawl you'll ever see, but she'll get the hang of it.  She has been rocking back and forth and then diving forward.  A little odd, I know, but she's my kid, so I'd expect nothing different.  I apologize, but I didn't trim the video link.  The action happens about halfway through the video.  Enjoy!

Firsts

I'm so sorry it has been so long since I last posted.  In that time, Taylor has had many firsts.  It's amazing to see how much she is changing, growing, and learning these days.  Here are a few of those firsts.

Taylor got her first pedicure.  Which one of Taylor's parents do you think initiated this little exercise?

Taylor went to her first major league baseball game.  We saw the Texas Rangers play the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field in Tampa, FL.

She displayed her musical talent for the first time by playing fake drums and fake piano with Uncle Matt.



Taylor sat in a highchair at a restaurant for the first time ever.  She didn't mind Cracker Barrel's mashed potatoes either!

Speaking of eating, she fell asleep for the first time while eating.

And she sat up by herself for the first time ever.  We still haven't got the crawling thing going yet, but we're working on it.

Finally, topping the list of the coolest things Taylor has done in the past month is clapping by herself during patti-cake.  I'm still in shock she knows how to do this.  So cool!


How blessed are we!

A Few of My Favorite Things!

I thought I would tell you about some of Taylor's favorite toys. 

First up, we have Sophie the Giraffe:

Sophie is great because she has legs and a nose that can fit easily into Taylor's mouth.  You will notice a recurring theme in Taylor's toys: easily chewable, or easy to jump in.  Sophie sometimes provides such a great teeth workout that Taylor falls asleep with her:

Next up, is a little critter we partially see in the above picture, puppy.  When you pull on Puppy's legs, they rattle.  Her feet also make good chew toys.  One time, Taylor fell asleep in her car seat while holding Puppy's foot.  It was pretty adorable.

Mr. Crab is the final hand toy to make the favorites list.  Once again, he has provided hours of chewing enjoyment. 

Mr. Crab is also used as bait in crawling exercises which to date have failed every time.  You can check out one such example in the video below:



Now, on to jumpy toys.  She has a farm themed jumpy device that Rebecca and I can recite the words to.  Don't believe me?  "Lots of friends live on the farm, come along with me!  There's so much for us to do and animals to see!  Ducks and lambs and horses too!  Roosters crow and cows say moo.  We all love to play with you ON THE FARM!". 

Thank you, thank you!  I'm here all week.  Here is a video of Taylor in the aforementioned farm themed jumpy device checking to see if we are watching her jump.



We also have a jungle themed exersaucer donated by our buddy, Mr. Steve Washington! 

We took a picture of Taylor on the front porch in this exersaucer.  It looks like she is thinking, "Who, me?"

I hope you have enjoyed the tour of Taylor's toys.  I'm guessing it won't be much longer before the tour includes barbie dolls and tea sets!

Warrrrr Eagle, Hey!

Copied for Rebecca's blog (from a few weeks ago):

I LOVE Auburn football! So many of my childhood memories were made in the stadium watching Auburn play! An Auburn football game is the only place where it's acceptable to drink your coke even if it's got a fly in it :) It's either steaming hot or freezing cold, nowhere in between, but no matter what the temperature, there's no other place I'd rather be. Now that Taylor is here it will be so much fun making memories with her in Auburn! Listening to her yell War Eagle, hey! And hold those arms high screaming TOUCHDOWN AUBURN!! I can't wait. Since Gene Chizik was coming to Cullman for the Auburn banquet we knew we had to go. Start em early, right?!? There were a lot of people there and to put it nicely IT WAS HOT! However, Taylor got her first taste of what it's like to be a part of the Auburn family.

Don't Cry Over Spilt Milk

Do you know that expression?  The one in the title?  Well, we didn't follow that this week.  We had an accident at the Laney household.  Before I dive into this story, let me say up front that we are not mad, whatsoever.  It's not the end of the world and it was obviously unintentional.  Here we go:

Wednesday night, July 7, 2010, Josh (Rebecca's brother), Nicole (our amazing sister-in-law), and Rylee (the smartest little kid in the world) came over for dinner.  BBQ Chicken, baked beans, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, and rolls were served.  It was amazing.  On top of that, Josh and Nicole brought over a dessert I have been craving ever since I laid eyes on it (Reesie's Peanut Butter Ice Cream Cake from Dairy Queen).  We ate some, but it was so huge, we had to re-freeze the rest of it.  Rebecca cut half of it for Josh and Nicole to take home and put it in our freezer.  We put the box with the rest in the "breastmilk freezer".  When they left, Nicole remembered that they had forgotten their piece of the cake.  She checked the breastmilk freezer, but their part was in the kitchen freezer.  Rebecca got their piece and they left.

The next morning, I leave for work at normal time (6:15 AM) and as I am walking to my car, I notice a trail of milk leading from the freezer.  Before I touched the door handle, I knew that the door had not been sealed.  You always have to push extra hard against it to get it to close properly.  I opened it up to survey the damage, and it is bad.  Real bad!  Thankfully, heat rises.  The milk on the top shelf is room temperature.  The milk on the second shelf is slightly chilled, but the rest of it is almost fully frozen. 

I thought about going back in and telling Rebecca, but I knew there was nothing she could do and I wanted to let her sleep.  I drove to work, and texted Rebecca to call me as soon as she woke up.  When she called, I said "I have some very bad news".  As I explained my findings from earlier that morning, she broke down crying. 

You see, it wasn't the milk Rebecca was crying for; it was the struggle to get that supply built up.  Taylor was born so premature (10 weeks), Rebecca's body just wasn't ready to produce milk.  Every couple of hours, we would be overjoyed if she could produce 3 cc's.  We didn't want Taylor to go on formula if she didn't have to and for a while, production just barely kept up with Taylor's feeds in the hospital.  Since Taylor had to stay at UAB for 5 weeks, Rebecca wasn't able to nurse her directly for a while.  She was forced to pump.  She even put a picture of Taylor up and looked at it while pumping to increase production.  Every time she would get just a little more than Taylor needed at each feed, the doctors would increase the feed amounts.  It was a never ending battle.  When the milk came in full swing, we started storing it as we had always done with any excess milk.  Theoretically we would use it to fill up her bottles, but she doesn't take one.  We do use it to mix with oatmeal and cereal each day and night.  The supply had dwindled very slowly.  Until the accident that is. . .

We went from this:

To this:

I know, it is still a lot of milk.  It's not like we are going to run out anytime soon. . .

It's not the end of the world.  It just symbolized the struggle of Taylor's early days at UAB.  Maybe it was good for us to let go of that attachment since Taylor is 8.5 months old now!

Taylor Laughing

A couple of months ago, I posted a video of Taylor laughing at Reesie, but in this post, I thought I would share some more things that make Taylor laugh.  For example, she will laugh virtually every time you "fake sneeze" as evidenced by this video clip from a few months back:



Here's another clip taken just last week.  She loves that blanket:



Even sudden movement will bring on fits of laughter:



How awesome is that childlike sense of humor?  In this age where we strive for new cars, bigger houses, and more elaborate vacations to bring us happiness, a child is able to be satisfied by the smallest things.  What a blessing!


 "And He called a child to Himself and set him before them, and said, "Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. "Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." -- Matthew 18:2-4

F L O R I D A

Becca posted this on her blog, but I had to copy it for Taylor's blog.

It seems like so long ago, but in May Taylor and I went to Florida to see some of my family. My brother, Matt, and his wife, Naomi, had another baby boy, Jonah Levi. I had not seen them since January and in my book that is way to long! Jacob is two and he melts my heart. He is the sweetest boy you will ever meet and I'm a sucker for just about anything he asks me for. I just know he is going to be a great big brother and teach Jonah to be just as sweet!

Florida was just as you'd expect...HOT!!! So how better to spend a hot afternoon than in the pool. Taylor had never been in the pool, but she LOVES taking a bath so I thought she wold love it. I was very right!

And of course you have to go to the pool in style...no pool wardrobe is complete without a nemo swim cap!

Along with her first plane ride and being in the pool for the first time, Taylor also went to the beach for the first time and ate sweet potatoes for the first time! Whew, what a trip this was for my baby girl!

We were on the go and making memories the entire time we were in Florida. Our camera's and phones were out all the time snapping shots of all the action. Taylor was very interested in Jacob and he sure did love his "Tyrie" (Taylor)

Naomi is a huge Dodgers fan so we had to support!!

We had such a great time in Florida! I just wish they lived in Cullman so our kids could grow up together! Maybe one day. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!!