Tanner's 2nd Christmas

We hope you had a great Christmas! We certainly did!  We went to Lake Jackson the day before Christmas Eve and stayed until the day after Christmas.  On Christmas Eve, we had a pajama swap where everyone drew a name and bought that person pjs to wear on Christmas Eve. The deal was, you had to wear them whether they fit or not! Then, on Christmas, we all got up to see what Santa had brought us. Luckily, Santa made signs for each family so that we would know which gifts were ours.  After we opened presents, we had an ugly Christmas sweater/attire contest. Everyone found ugly Christmas clothing before heading to Lake Jackson and we all put ours on and modeled.  We voted, Survivor-style, and Jason won.  He won an ugly hat! We headed to Clinton's grandparents' house after that and Tanner got to see her Gammie and Mac.  Gammie gave Tanner a ring that was her mother's.  They share a birthstone, and it was her birthstone ring.  It is very special, and Tanner will enjoy having it one day.  We had an awesome Christmas dinner and a Guitar Hero tournament that night. The next morning, we got up and headed to our family photoshoot to have some pictures done. Mr. Roznovsky did them for us, and they turned out great!  Here is the link, if you would like to check them out: http://lifeexpressionsphoto.zenfolio.com/p964587343

After that, we headed to Pleasanton for the night, then it was New Braunfels and home.  Incidentally, Tanner and I got sick AGAIN and stayed in bed all day Sunday and today. We went to the doctor this morning and got on different antibiotics. Hopefully they will nip this in the bud!  I will post pictures tomorrow. I am not feeling very well and want to get back on the couch!!

New Tooth!!!

Tanner is getting another tooth! Yay! This will be number 4. The thing is, it's another molar. She has two of those now. She has her front two bottom teeth and two upper molars. I guess she just likes to do things differently! We don't have a whole lot of news to report. We finally got our Christmas tree, and we are going to decorate it tonight and watch a movie. Tanner is growing up so much. She has gotten to the stage where she throws a temper tantrum if she doesn't get what she wants. This is so much fun. She will roll around on the floor and cry if we don't hold her when she wants us to, or if we don't give her something she wants. Storytime at the library the other day was a mess! She fought with the other kids over books and chairs and threw tantrums when the other kids had something she wanted. It was a difficult 45 minutes to say the least. We are really starting to have to discipline her. It's so weird for her to already be big enough for that! She is at a very cute stage, though. She loves to copy us, and it's hilarious! We say, "No, no" when we don't want her to do something and she will shake her finger and say, "No, no". It's hard not to laugh. She also says "I love you", but it sounds more like "uh do do" or something along those lines. She likes to put things in the trash can now, also. We will tell her to go throw something away and she will do it. Pretty neat! She loves to pet Bobby now, and she calls him "Ba-Ba". He actually lets her pet him sometimes. I guess he is getting used to her. Another one of her favorite things to do is point at your facial features and call them by name. She loves to say "nose", or "no" as she puts it. She can also say "eye" and "ear", or "eee". She loves giving kisses, too. She says mmmmaaaa. She blows kisses, too. It is really sweet. I think I also failed to mention that she no longer takes a bottle. She has been drinking from a cup since she was 13.5 months. I just wanted to put that in there in case I ever wonder when she stopped and can't remember!

Update

So, if you remember from my last post, I couldn't upload pictures for some reason. I can now, so I am going to post a bunch of seemingly random pictures and narrate as I go along. Here we go:

 Tanner playing with her friend, Channing, at the library during storytime

   Tanner and her Gammie at the Sea Center over Thanksgiving. Me and Tanner at the Sea Center
 Looking at the sea animals
Watching them feed the fish
Tanner's Grandpa Mac kept playing "Put Down the Ducky", a Sesame Street skit, on the computer for her and she loved it! Anytime he would sit at the computer, she would make a beeline for his lap!

 "Put Down the Ducky" again
 Tanner fed herself an entire meal!
For Thanksgiving, her school had a feast and invited the parents. Clinton took off and came, and we had a great time. The food was delicious, too!  They had place mats for all of the children, and the older kids wore Pilgrim and Indian hats.

Tanner grabbed Clinton's hat and was walking around the house in it. It was really cute! She had it over her face, though, and walked right into the wall that you see in the picture! She had a red mark on her forehead all day!

Tanner and Madison were fighting over the Cozy Coupe. They were both in it at the same time, because neither one would give in.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Well, we have been very very busy lately! I have officially quit my job. Today is my last day of a full work week (well, sort of) and next week I will start working only on Tuesdays and Thursdays for the month of December. That way, I won't leave them without anyone while they try to find someone else. Starting in January, though, no more Chamber of Commerce!!! I will be so glad! I am really looking forward to spending more time with Tanner. She is at such a fun age, and we are going to get to do a lot together. I am really looking forward to playing in the yard, going for walks, going to storytime at the library on Wednesdays, and all of the other fun things that we will get to do. I know a lot more stay-at-home moms now, too, so I'm sure we will be having lots of playdates! Tanner is hilarious these days! Her new favorite word is "Hi!". She says this and waves to everyone wherever we go. It is really funny to watch people react, too. She got the second half of her flu shot yesterday, and it didn't phase her at all. She watched the needle go in and everything, and she didn't cry a bit. She is such a talker. We were at Target yesterday getting Bobby some cat food, and when she saw the kitty on the package she said "tatdo!" This means cat-dog to those of you who don't speak Tanner. Everything is some kind of dog. It is really funny. After that, though, I told her that the cat looked like Bobby, and she said "Baba". I was very impressed. She loves to play chase right now with her Daddy, and she really really really loves to give kisses. She started blowing kisses yesterday. Everytime she sees Sofi, she immediately wants to give her a kiss. She goes "mmmm" in preparation when Sofi comes into the room.

On a different note, we are heading to Lake Jackson this evening to see the McDougals for Thanksgiving. We are sooo excited, and can't wait to see everyone. We have been telling Tanner all week that she will get to see her Gammie and Mac this week. It is going to be so much fun! We also get to see Erin and Claire! Claire looks like she has already changed since the last time that I saw her, which is crazy! I can't wait to see her, though, and I can't wait for Tanner to either. It will be fun to watch them interact, now that Claire is getting so interactive!

Haley and Jason had a baby shower this weekend, and they really got a lot of good stuff. We had a great time, and I think that they did too. We played Name That Tune, the baby version (where all of the songs have "baby") in them, and Tanner danced in the middle of the room to all of them. She is such a dancer! She dances to almost every song that she hears. I would like to post some pictures, but for some reason Blogger is not letting me do it the way that I normally do. I will post them as soon as I figure this out!

Trip to LJ

This weekend we went to Lake Jackson to see Logan. He is such a cutie! He is a great baby too. He sleeps a lot, and wakes up when he is ready to eat. He doesn't fuss at all! Fallon and Brandon seem to be doing great. They are getting some sleep, which is good, and Fallon is recovering from her surgery. We had a good time getting to see him. Haley and Jason brought Sofia down this weekend also, so we got to see her too! It was really fun. We took Sofia and Tanner over to Fallon and Brandon's to see Logan and we put them all in the crib together. It was really cute. Tanner gives the babies kisses and it is so sweet! She also had fun petting Fallon's cats. To her, though, that are cat-dogs. She calls them "dat-do". Everything that moves is some form of dog to her. Cars are even dos. She loves to say "ball" now, too. She was playing with Mom's yoga ball all weekend. It is bigger than she is! We had a lot of fun. Sofia seems to be getting better, too. She slept well and didn't fuss much this weekend at all. She is so pretty, and she is starting to smile some. After we left Lake Jackson yesterday, we met up with our friends Rod and Tracy. They were in Houston from Dallas for a concert last night. We got to meet Taylor Ella, their new baby, and she is adorable. She is 3 months old now, and she is a perfect combination of both of them. It was really good to see them, but we wish we would have had more time.

Trip to Rob and Jenn's

Last weekend we went to Rob and Jenn's house in Houston for a visit. Tanner had a great time playing with Emma. She also had a great time playing with all of her toys! I think she would have stayed if we had let her. We had a really good time. We got there late Friday night and visited awhile before bed. Saturday, we went for a run in the morning and Jenn and I headed to the fabric store that afternoon. Jenn really racked up on fabrics for Emma's "big girl" room and a few projects for downstairs. I got some fabric and pillow inserts to make pillows for the living room. That night we went to Pei Wei for dinner and decided to bring it home to eat it. I was walking toward the back of the restaurant to meet Clinton and I fell down!! I was holding Tanner, so it was really scary. I didn't drop her, though, but my knees were pretty black and blue for awhile. That night, we made smores on the fire pit in the back yard after the kiddos went to bed. We got to go to Home Goods on Sunday, which I had never been to, so I was really excited. We ate lunch and went home after that. We had a great time!

Logan is here!!!

Logan Zachary Taylor was born on Monday, November 10th. He was 7lbs 15oz, and 19 inches long. He was born on his G-Paw's birthday! What a birthday present! I has light coloring and just a little bit of hair. Fallon is recovering nicely. He was born via c-section, and she seems to be doing great! We will be going to Lake Jackson this weekend to meet him. Tanner can't wait to meet her newest little cousin! Here he is:

Halloween 2008

We had such a great time tonight! We went trick or treating in the neighborhood and went to TWO Fall Festivals! Tanner looked soooo cute, and she really enjoyed seeing all of the kids up and down our street. Speaking of which, our neighborhood was CRAZY!!! I don't even know how to explain how many people come here to trick or treat. There were cars lined up down the street outside of the neighborhood. It was hard to even back out of our driveway to leave. We had a really good time, though. I guess next year we will either stay home and hand out candy after we trick or treat, or start early and go to the Fall Festival before the rush comes. We waited outside for a few minutes for our friends Cassie and JP to get to the house to take pictures of Tanner and Maddy in their costumes and we kept having to tell people that we didn't have candy. It was sad =( We didn't get candy because we thought we would be gone all night. Cassie and JP had a hard time getting to our house because of all of the traffic and people. It really was crazy! Tanner didn't know what to think about her costume. At first she tried to pull it off, but she got used to it pretty quick. Every time she leaned forward, though, her "feathers" on her head would cover her eyes and she couldn't see anything. It was pretty funny! Here are some pictures. They are uploaded from the end of the night to the beginning, rather than the other way around.

This was at the second fall festival that we went to. They had a toddler area with a lot of cars and ride-ons. She was tired by this point, so she wasn't too enthusiastic.




She loved carrying her candy holder like a purse. She carried it around all night. She would dump the candy and put it back in. It was so cute.

We saw Christel and Chloe at the first Fall Festival that we went to and Chloe was wearing the same costume. They were twins! Chloe looked really cute!
Cassie bought Tanner some "Halloween" puffs (Cassie tied an orange ribbon around the container) and Tanner was stuffing her face with them in the car.
Tanner and Maddy not wanting a whole lot to do with each other....
They looked so cute from behind!
Maddy was a ladybug
Again with the purse!

This was a sucker that someone gave her. She was trying to bite through the wrapper.

This was another sucker that our backyard neighbors, Elgin and Lana, gave her. She instantly put it in her mouth, wrapper and all, and started sucking on it as if she already knew what to do!

Getting ready to go trick or treating!
Not loving the costume!


The feathers kept falling in her eyes but she never seemed to mind too much.

This is what she wore to school today.