Firsts

I have been so busy lately with Taylor experiencing lots of 'Firsts'. She had her first Lambert Rio Bonito experience in Wimberly, but those pictures are all on Chris' laptop and I'll have to pull them off for a blog later on. Tummy time has always been a fight for us and Taylor normally hates it. She ends up just licking the blanket or playmat until she works herself into a good crying fit that I can't stand to leave her there anymore. Well a friend suggested that I prop her up on a pillow on her tummy and I was looking for anything to get her to enjoy tummy time. Well it must of worked because last week Taylor started holding her head up from the moment she was put on her stomach. It's amazing how quickly she transitioned to this new skill! I thought it would be forever until she enjoyed tummy time. So here is our little girl enjoying her new view on life. She used to spend much of the day on her back and now she likes to play on her tummy.
















This really isn't a first, but Taylor got to see her Aunt Desha on Saturday. Desha is my best friend from high school and my friend that I've known the longest. We even survived being college rivals! Desha was there when Taylor was born and takes advantage of any opportunity she can to hold this little girl! We had fun eating Rudy's BBQ and catching up.



Back to our 'Firsts'.... since Taylor is now sleeping at least 6 hours at night I made the BIG step of moving her out of the bassinet in our bedroom and to her crib in her room. I really think this step is more about when us Moms are ready and less about when the baby is ready. Yes, I did wait until she was sleeping longer to move her but I finally told Chris to push me to do it. It was so hard to leave my little girl in a different room and not be an arm's reach from her! I think I stood there for 20 minutes just watching her the first time I put her down. Then I turned the monitor as loud as it would go and put it on the edge of my nightstand. I'm not sure my body knew what to do without Taylor's little night noises that Chris had to wake me up when she woke up. All and all she did great the first night and has since then. I even took the bassinet in our room down. Kinda weird to have that empty space in our room where she used to sleep every night and nap. Here are a few pictures that I took this week. Taylor is always in a different position when she wakes up from when I put her down. I also think it's cute how little she looks in her crib. Chris is excited that we are finally getting to use her room for more than a closet.

















Taylor did have another 'First' and that is that she rolled from her back to her front and then from her tummy to her back. Like I wasn't already overwhelmed with all her other firsts last week, she threw those in there too. She's only done it a few times so I don't have pictures yet, but she does it in her sleep because I often find her on her tummy when I go to wake her up. Stay tuned for my next post because Taylor's other first deserves it's own post!

Love,
Wendy

PawPaw Birthday

Happy Birthday Dad/PawPaw!!!

Taylor is so lucky to have a wonderful grandfather like you! For your birthday we made you a special birthday video.(Note: This is our first attempt at video messages so bear with me as Taylor gets hyperfocused on the camera for a few seconds)

Dusting off my stamps

I am doing a Stampin' Up party for my mother-in-law at the end of the month and came up with our make-n-take ideas last night. It was so much fun to get my stamps out and create again. I hope Taylor keeps up with her regular naps so that I can get into my craft room more often! For those who live in the area, let me know if you are interested in learning how to make any of these ideas.

This item can hang over the neck of a wine bottle with chocolates in the box or
a water bottle with those lemonade/tea instant packs.

This is an envelope brag book. Inside the book there is room to hold 5 4x6 photos.

Lastly, we have a small card that is perfect to top a wrapped gift.

3 Months Old

I can't believe that Taylor is already 3 months old. More technically, she was 3 months yesterday but I am a little behind in posting. See my next post to find out what I was busy doing last night instead of blogging. I know that Taylor has grown over the past month, but looking back at pictures it is amazing HOW much she has changed already. At her 2 month doctor checkup she was 12 lbs and I think she is now somewhere around 14. All I know is that she jumped from being in newborn clothes/diapers for quite sometime and now she is about to outgrow her 0-3 month clothes. Here's a little look back on how our little girl has changed.

This is the day she came home from the hospital. It's amazing how big that newborn outfit looks on her!

One month old

Two months old

Three months old

This outfit was so cute that you needed a front and 'Butt' view. Plus Taylor got to play in her crib. At 3 months she is loving her Bebe Pod chair so that she can look around, starting to interact her the toys on her bouncy chair, almost rolling from her back to her stomach, holding her head up for small amounts of time while on her tummy(most of the time she licks the playmat), sleeping 6 hours at night, finding her fists on a regular basis and loves to suck on them, can hold a rattle or link for a short amount of time, starting to make loud happy noises almost like laughing, and often wakes up in her bassinet cooing and making happy noises.

Happy 3 months Pea!

Lake Baby

There are many things that continue to prove to me that Chris and I are soulmates, but one of them is our joint love for the lake. My grandparents had a lakehouse that I could have lived at all summer long if my parents would let me. My childhood is full of wonderful memories from Possum Kingdom Lake and I was so excited to learn that Lake Travis is so similar.(especially since it only takes us 15 minutes to get there from our house). Well, Chris and I have spent many long summer days hanging out at the lake over the past 5 years I've been here and we wondered what it would be like once Taylor came along. Let me just say.. Taylor is our little lake baby. She has been out on her Mia and PawPaw's 4 times now and continues to love it. I may love it even more when she takes nice LONG naps during and after the boat rides. Here are some pictures from last Sunday when we went out for a morning ride before all the July 4th weekenders came out.

Taylor started off the morning hanging out
with Mia and avoiding the sun. Must keep
a little girl's fair skin out of the harsh Texas sun.

Chris looks like he's focusing really hard on driving, but he was really posing for the picture!

While Chris drove the boat, PawPaw had fun playing in the front hatch. Can you tell that we are a family full of Red Raiders???

Taylor was still worn out after a morning

on the boat that she was fast asleep when

we got back to the marina.

PawPaw and Mia love their boat!

Taylor makes her photo debut in her Bjorn.
After a few practice rounds at the house she was ready for the marina. This was must easier than pushing her stroller back up the steep hill. I just make sure to clip paci to the carrier so that it didn't end up in the lake!

Update: I just realized that some of the 'lost pictures' included ones of me, Chris, and Taylor at the lake. Guess we'll just have to take a little girl back for more lake time.

Pics Update

Who has the best husband in the world??? I do! Chris worked some of his technology guruness and recovered almost all of the pictures from the SD card. I think I lost about 10 pictures, but I am so happy to have any of them. Be prepared because I now have to make up for those few pictures lost with lots taken over the next few days!

I love you Chris for staying up late to try and recover the pictures off my SD card! You are the best husband!

Lost Pictures

Taylor is asleep and I thought I would finally post some pictures of our adventures over the last few weeks and I think my SD card decided to wipe itself clean last night. I thought my laptop was just being funny about reading the card and figured I would upload them to my desktop today but they aren't there. The cute pictures of Taylor out on the boat last weekend and even some of her in her Bjorn are potentially gone. I am so frustrated and really hope it's something that I'm not doing right so Chris is going to try and look at it for me in a little bit but I had to vent. Shame on me for not blogging more regularly or less pictures would be lost!!!

Thanks for listening to me vent!

Unique Workout

So I figured that Taylor is almost 3 months old and I really need to keep up with my workouts to get rid of that last little bit of baby belly. I think I look like I'm about 3 months pregnant and it's not as cool to have a belly if there's not a baby in there! I try getting up early to go walking with Taylor, but in this Texas heat you have to be back in from walking at 8am to keep from completely melting. Therefore the Wii Fit looked very enticing. Monday I feed Taylor and then put her in the swing to watch Mommy workout. Well that lasted for maybe 10 minutes before she decided that swinging was not for her. I really wanted to get in a few more minutes of Wii so that I could actually count it as a workout, so I grabbed Taylor and proceeded to do the Step Aerobics. This can be quite challenging to begin with and was even more of a workout with a baby on hand, but after a little bit I got into a groove and baby and I were both happy.

Now, fast forward to today when I wanted to do the Wii again and Taylor was still not wanting to nap. I've really been wanting to get Taylor to like the Baby Bjorn so she'd be ready for shopping in Wimberly, so I strapped her in and started my step routine again. This time it was a bit more challenging due to not being able to see my feet, but Taylor loved it and even fell asleep to the rhythmic bouncing. She stayed content for me to do 30 minutes of workout on the Wii, including some Hula Hoop, all thanks to the lovely Bjorn. I'm sure this had to do some kind of extra workout for my legs with the extra weight so I'm hoping it burn fat even faster. I'm sure that Bjorn did not have Wii workout in mind when they created their product, but it works. I'm going to keep working out with her in it as long as she doesn't want to swing or sleep and hopefully she'll grow to love her Bjorn so much that she'll let Mommy do lots of shopping in Wimberly while she hangs out in it.(Most Wimberly shops do not allow strollers so I had to come up with an alternative so I can shop while Chris plays golf)

New header

After several tries, I finally got my new header posted that my good friend Mel made for me. I was asking her how she created her cool header and the next thing I know there is a header waiting for me in my inbox! Thanks Mel Mel! Go check out her blog. She has really gotten into taking pictures lately and has done some really great stuff. Mel also creates the cutest cards. I am dying to spend time in my craft room actually stamping. If Taylor keeps up her nap schedule then I should be able to sneak in there in the next day or two! :) Hope you enjoy the new header and colors. Off to continue some housework while a little girl sleeps!

Love,
Wendy

Missing Chris

Chris left yesterday to go on a business trip and this is the first time I've been overnight with Taylor without him and boy do I miss him. I always miss him when he's gone, but I now appreciate all that he does with Taylor when he comes home from work. I hate to use the phrase 'help out' because he takes such an active role in what goes on with her that it's more like a tag-out for me when he comes home. Just wanted to say 'Thank you Chris' for being such an awesome dad and husband! Your girls can't wait for you to come home tomorrow!!!

Mia(Chris' mom, that's her name instead of Grandma for Taylor) and Aunt KK have offered to help out if I needed a break, so Taylor and I went to dinner with them tonight. Taylor was just full of smiles and happy noises that she normally has for Chris when he gets home from work. She just loves her daddy time and I know that Mia and Aunt KK enjoyed taking advantage of it tonight. Here's a picture of Taylor giving KK a high-five.



To keep Chris in the loop of what happens while he's gone on his trip, I try to take pictures. I even do this while he's at work all day so that he can see what we did. Yesterday was Taylor's discovery of the link/ring. Her grip has gotten so strong that she would hold on to the ring for at least 5 minutes. Of course Taylor had to figure out what this new thing was in her hand and so it went straight in the mouth.















Here is one of Taylor's funny habits. Within minutes of being put down in her bassinet in the middle, she manuevers herself into a diagonial position. Never fails. On top of this, she is anti-blanket right now. Once the blanket is covering her legs, she will lift them over and over until the blanket is up around her waist. So she now gets footie pjs at night to keep her warm. What a funny little girl!




Love ~ Wendy

Oh Where, Oh Where has little Taylor been

You may be wondering where in the world Taylor has been. Well... Taylor has been busy playing at her Mia's while I went back to work. It didn't take long for me to figure out that I missed my little girl like crazy and yesterday started my new job as a stay-at-home mom. I am so excited to be able to stay home with Taylor and watch her grow and change. Thank you Chris for making it work! You are an awesome husband and father to Taylor and I! You will be seeing many more posts again now that I can take advantage of nap time to jump on the computer. I will try to spread out the pictures, but here is some taken of Taylor over the past couple days.

This is part of the unveiling of all our 0-3 month outfits. Taylor just recently outgrew her newborn clothes and I am having way too much fun dressing her up!
Thank you cousin Autumn for this cute dress!

Taylor is starting to really want to look around and be part of everything. She just loves sitting in her BePod chair while I cook dinner or wash bottles. I was playing peek-a-boo with her burp cloth and she decided to hold onto it by herself.

She just loved this cow and couldn't take her eyes off it.

Last, I'll leave you with a picture of the rough life of a Taylor.

Love,

Wendy

PawPaw Bonding

I was going through some pictures from my mother-in-law's camera and found these photos of some bonding between Taylor and her PawPaw. In this picture Taylor was talking to him and Dad swears that she smiled at him. Doesn't she know that Mommy and Daddy are supposed to be the first ones to see her smile?

After a little while we looked over and saw the picture below.

I think Dad found a new nap buddy!

5 weeks old

I can't believe that Taylor is already 5 weeks old today. Time is already going by really fast and I only have 2 more weeks at home with her. I am really going to miss our daily adventures, but only a few weeks back to work and we get to spend another month at home together. Here are some pictures of our adventures today. I never thought I would have so much fun entertaining a one month old.

Morning Nap Time on our Boppy Pillow(aka Mom's chance to eat breakfast)

After a little bit she got REALLY relaxed in her Boppy pillow nap.

Playtime on our activity mat

Not quite sure about all the lights and colors of our activity mat

Lunchtime nap in our new swing. Like my bear ears?
Afternoon nap actually in the bassinet.

Our dear child loves to fall asleep to cricket noises, but if it works I'm happy.
It may seem like she sleeps all day, but it's really hard to get a picture of her while I'm holding her or playing with her while she's awake. Plus I figured in a few years I would enjoy seeing pictures of when she would take more than one nap a day.

Wendy

Pics Galore

Okay, so Chris is home and keeping Taylor content so that I can post some Taylor pictures on here. I know this is a lot of pictures, but she is now 3 weeks old and I've only done one posting of pictures. I have to catch up a little.

This is a picture of the day Taylor came home from the hospital.
She loves to sleep all curled up in a ball like this.On her second day home, she discovered her thumb and started sucking on it.
Check out the sticky-upy hair.

Thank you for the cute outfit Misty!

This is of our first trip that was not to the doctor's office. I think I was more excited than she was to get out of the house!

Working on our sun time.

I just love her feet!

This is the bassinet that she sometimes sleeps in and
gives me a few minutes to brush my teeth or pee.

Our first full bath on 4/28. She did not like it very much.

She just looked too cute in her froggy bath towel after her bath.

Awake Taylor.

My two favorite people.(Daddy-daughter bonding time)

Our first attempt at a picture in her Texas Tech outfit. It's still a little big for her!

Hope you enjoyed the pictures!

Love,
Wendy