Be the change....

Inspired by the inauguration of Barack Obama, I felt it was time we changed what had been driving us (and so many vocal others) crazy. Yes, I cut Taylor's hair. Yes, that means she is no longer queen of "Hockey Hair" and no longer can be called "Miss Mullet". However, before you ask why, I did not cut the front. I do not want her to have bangs, and cutting the front would equal just that. It's not a huge difference, but you can definitely tell the difference!


Petting the Pony that Santa brought. She likes to ride it, but it causes her father and I to do a lot of work to make it 'go'. Her legs aren't quite long enough to propel herself yet.

It's also increasingly hard to take her picture while she's standing still. OH, that's right - that's because she doesn't exactly do that. Little busy body.

Voila. Short hair.

I dig that she likes to vacuum. Hopefully she'll be able to use some of her extra energy to help clean up!

And we're back....

Let's start back in mid December. We did some Christmas baking and decorating. Taylor fancied up the season with her favorite beads....and some bedhead.



Taylor is sooooo helpful in the kitchen. Here she has on the oven mitts, after having pulled out the dishtowels. You can see Huck was helping as well.




On December 20th, my cousin Samantha got married. It was freezing cold, but a really beautiful service and my cousin made a gorgeous bride. Taylor had to change to her jammies at the reception...she was not up partying like her Mom & Dad that night!



Christmas morning, Santa came and brought an action-packed rocking horse. He even brought some peek-a-boo books that Andy was directed to read right then.


Taylor got to play with her favorite cousin Kaleb....Gosh, do you think they have the Meinen Cheeks?

Taylor stayed with my parents the week following Christmas. They took her to Pratt on New Years Eve and she got to meet my old kitty Kelsey! T loved her, and if you ever met Kelsey, you know how much she loved T back.

Working on her glutes.


We went to another amazing wedding on the 2nd, and Taylor was quite chatty. As the wedding party exited the sanctuary, Taylor waved and said (loudly) "BYE!" to each one of them. Amusing to the people around us, embarrassing to her parents!

I'm headed to Ohio on Sunday for work, so I doubt any updating will occur. I come home on Friday evening, and I'm sure the laundry will be done, the kitchen will be cleaned, the bathroom spotless, and the floors swept. :)

Lost & Found....

The delay in updated pictures is due to my loss of the camera cable.  I'm pretty sure I let Taylor play with it the last time we uploaded our pictures, and it is probably wrapped around some baby dolls' head somewhere.  I'll finish cleaning the living room tonight and hopefully find it -- however I'm now thinking I've left the camera at my parent's house from Christmas.  Hmmm...

Hopefully everyone had a great holiday, and is either still enjoying time off or is non-working like I am right now.  I have an old picture of T from last Christmas here at work, so I'll post that.  That should get us by until we find the cable, the camera, and our minds ;)

Damn Santa

Scene: Saturday, Downtown Lawrence -- Attempting to sit with Santa

Taylor: "No no no no"

Me: "It's ok T, it's fine. Just sit on his knee for a minute. Santa is nice!"

Taylor: "wahhh wahhhh waaaahhh"

Santa: "Oh, no no- don't make her sit! Mom, you sit with me instead, and she'll think it's ok"

Me: "Uh, I am not sitting on your 70 year old lap! I'll break you! Taylor, just sit..."

Taylor: "Wahhhh wahhh waaaah"

--*Snap*--Picture Accomplished

Santa: (as I pick up a crying Taylor, with snot flying everywhere) "I didn't make you do it! Remember, it was your mom! Your mom is the one that made you sit!"

Is it like this for every one year old who is an hour behind on their nap? Maybe we'll do better next year.

My Girl Wants to Potty All the Time...

Taylor has more new vocabulary words, a few of them: apple, banana, and potty. She correctly identifies banana and potty, apple is just randomly sprinkled in every 'conversation' we have. We'll work on that one....because repeating "Apple" over and over again tends to lose it's effect unless you are shopping for a new computer, or you are playing with Gwyneth Paltrow's daughter.

On the potty thing...we aren't pushing potty training, trust me. I've read over and over (and even Dr. Spock agrees) not to try potty training too early, that it will only backfire and lead to breakdowns and ultimately to a unresolved desire to overachieve as a teenager. Blah blah blah. Whatever. This just happened, we didn't DO anything. We simply talk about the potty, Taylor identifies it, and now will occasionally go sit on her little potty. She even knows the difference between the noun potty and the verb potty; the other day while getting ready for her bath, Taylor was standing in the bathroom-pointing at the potty. She said "Potty?", and I responded "Yes, the potty. Do you want to sit on the potty before your bath?". Again, Taylor said "Potty", this time as a statement, not question. She thus proceeded to pee while standing up, right on the tile floor. Perhaps we should have invested in a floor drain, or a urinal.

Long, long weekends...

Having four consecutive days off is the bees knees. It gives one plenty of time to lounge around in their pajamas...

Where's Taylor? (Seriously, I saw this picture on my camera and could not figure out why I had a pic of the high chair.)

We were in El Dorado on Thanksgiving Day. Taylor "helped" Gram with the cooking. She did not help clean up.

Taylor cruisin' in her car at Gram & Papa's.

This is Taylor, playing the piano and singing. She was serenading me with "White Christmas" while I unpacked our Christmas decorations. The decorating process is underway, which has been quite an experience with a 14 month old. I'm not sure how much decorating actually is getting done, but I do know that between the 4 of us (Huck included) we broke 7 ornaments last night. The decor is definitely going to be minimilized this year...in order to save my sanity. Pictures hopefully soon....

Way back in '08...

My grandma used to make references to really rough times, saying "we didn't have a pot to piss in". Thankfully, we still have the pot, at least...

Please note that we usually don't let our child put her diaper-only butt on a pot - but it was abnormally warm this day and we had to strip off her little jeans so she would stop sweating. It's in her genes to be sweaty. Also, notice that she is somehow sitting on the handle, and not tipping this pan over. That has got to be a talent worth something...