Look How Big He Is

James finally had his 18 month check up at 20.5 months. I waited to take him to get his shots because this last winter he kept getting sick on and off. It all started when started going to nursery. (Come on people, it's okay if you stay home with your sick kids. No one is going to freak out and think you're going inactive.) Tons of kids playing in one room with the same toys, putting things in their mouths. It's bound to happen. Sorry...tangent...anyway he had his check-up. Latest news is he is allergic to strawberries. Nothing too serious, but he does develop a slight rash around the yahoos when he eats them. He also has allergies in general, and has been wheezing a tiny bit lately. Unfortunately that started after his check up, but if he keeps on doing it we'll have to take him back. At 20.5 months James weighs 28.4 pounds (76% percentile) is 35 inches tall (95% percentile) and his head is 49 cm. (85% percentile). The doctor told me by now he should be saying 20-30 words. Now that freaked me out because I only recall like 5 words he says on a regular basis. I had to sit down and write a list of all the words I've heard him say. Here they are: NO, STOP-IT, DON'T, THAT, YES/YEAH, THANK-YOU, HELLO/HI, BYE-BYE, MOM, DAD/DADDY, UP, CUP, WOW, UH-OH, LOVE-YOU (one rare ocassion I heard him say it, but that was the only time). He also makes some sound effects that the doctor said is more common for boys to say first instead of words. They are: POW-POW, KNOCK-KNOCK, MOO, and LA. Then there are a lot of other things he understands but just can't say yet. We're still working on it though. Oh, and by the way...James loves his Daddy!!





Not a whole lot going on. We had a Relief Society Church Activity making Fun Bags for little kids at the Children's Hospital in SLC on Thursday. While we were making it some gals in our ward brought pizza and so here I was trying to be good and eating one piece of pizza and one breadstick. Well at my table there were these two gals, (about my age, my height) who looked like they were both about a size 0. One of them had gobbled up 4 pieces and two breadsticks and the other had eaten 3 pieces and 2 breadsticks. Where do they put it, seriously?!?! So then I thought, these girls must be runners. But then we got on the topic of running because there's this gal in our church that has cancer and another gal at my table was going to do a cancer run to support her. Then they (all the ladies at my table) started taking about how out of shape they were and how they need to work out BLAH BLAH BLAH. I was the biggest person at my table. I'm a size 10. How do these people stay so skinny if they don't work out. I'm not saying I want to be a size 0, which I think actually looks kind of scary, but I'm pretty happy between size 6-8. JEEZ! Anyway, enough of me ranting about how unfair it is that some people just have naturally fast metabolisms. I should be happy because...drumroll please. I have lost 20 pounds in the last year starting from the time I started working out everyday (except Sundays and some Saturdays) and eating healthier to now. Everyday for one year I've worked out, even through the crappy winter weather and when I've been sick I've still walked slowly on the treadmill. Anywhere from 2-4 miles a day, plus 45 minutes of crunches, push-ups (girl style), lifting weights, etc. I'm hoping I can reach my goal by October. I have about 15 pounds left. I'm sure a couple of you have also been wondering what I've sewn lately. Here are just a few things. I haven't sewn as much in the past 3 months, but here's what I have made. (Heads up, I look silly in these pix because Stephen got tired of me wanting to look at every single pix after he took it, so he took a bunch of candid shots of me goofing off and I had to pick from amoung them, and let me tell you they were slim pickings. Admittedly I'm not very photogenic.)

P.P.P.S.

Ha! One more thing. James loves to DANCE. Which mainly consists of him spinning around and around and around in circles. I'm seriously thinking of enrolling him in toddler ballroom dance classes when he's 3 or 4. Assuming he still loves dancing by that time.

Good News

Guess what? After 2 years of not being able to wear my wedding ring, starting around my 5th month of pregnancy, I've finally lost enough weight to wear it again. Okay so it's not a huge deal for you all, but it's a big deal to me. I really like the wedding ring Stephen got me, and admittedly I've been kind of sick of wearing the expandable one I got for like $3. TA DA! Here it is.


Other news? Well you might have guessed we have internet again. Woohoo!!! 9 long months, and believe me we have felt it. Well, at least I have. Stephen had the internet at work so for him it wasn't as much of a deal not to have it as it was for me. We're splitting internet with our neighbor and paying half the cost. So, it's a two-way benefit. But I'm sure you guys don't care about that stuff, you're probably all wondering how James is. He's good, and difficult as ever. I've finally come up with a solution to his picky eating problem. Let me introduce you to "the time-out corner." (Okay so I'm too lazy to take a picture, but imagine a short hallway with a gate that has two doors behind it. The doors are childproofed, so...when he's put intime out, he's pretty much stuck there. No worries, it's only for about 2 minutes.)When he refuses to eat his food, he gets put in time out. Sound harsh? Well it's working! He's almost two, and I'm not going to have a kid that only eats PB&J sandwiches and string cheese, which is what his diet has mainly consisted of for the last few months. Now he eats at least half of the new foods we put in front of him. He might cry while he's eating it, but he still eats it. We're still working on vegetables. Next James news is that he has become a very kissy boy. He kisses all his stuffed animals, and kids in his books. Even if it's just a drawing of a kid and not a real picture of one. Here he is kissing his beloved doggy.


Lately is into shooting everything. He picks up this black tube that is part of the vacuum cleaner and runs around the house shouting "POW POW POW!" That's when I told Stephen we need to start being really careful about what we watch around him.



That's all the latest news I can think of. (Just an FYI, I'll only be updating my blog, as well as checking other peoples once a week on Sundays. I'm trying not to get back into the bad habit of wasting hours on the internet everyday.) Have a good week!

(p.s. I love this hat on James. It makes him look like a WWI pilot. teehee)
(p.p.s For any of you wondering about Stephen and the CHP application process, he finished everything up in March, FINALLY, and now we're waiting. So...who knows, but hopefully something will work out.)

Madder Than Heck...

Anyone else out their as upset as me about what's going on in the government right now?!?! It's ridiculous!!! I know this is very political and sensitive topic, and I will probably get a lot of angry comments from the left...but I really don't care. What I don't get is why democrats would rather continue funding woman out their that want to get an abortion (aka: kill an innocent unborn child) rather than fund people in the military that are risking their lives, despite the fact that they have thier own families at home to support. Wives, husbands, children, etc. praying for them every day so that they can get home soemday safely. These men and women risk their lives for us, and in return they are just getting slapped in the face and told "Hey, sorry, but we'd rather give money to irresponsible woman (who couldn't use protection for heaven sake, or practice some self-restraint/abstinence) who don't want to take any responsibility for their actions, (and can only think of themselves and use the easy way out) rather than woman and men who are dying for this country." It's sick. Why don't people who want abortions for once in their selfish lives think about someone other than themselves, save an unborn child, and find the child a nice home to go to, a home where a couple has been waiting years and years for that child to be a part of their family. You know what, being pregnant isn't easy, or fun, but when you look at your life and think how short 9 months is, is it really that long to sacrifice for that child. If you say "yes" than you are a selfish person and a contributor to why this country is falling apart. (One of the reasons this country is falling apart is because people can only think about themselves, and what they want.) It seems to me that the democrats pushing for funding abortions in "Planned Parenthood" would rather see unborn children aborted, and children of parents in the military go hungry than do what's best for everyone all around. It's sick, it's upsetting. Does anyone else find this as ridiculous as me? (Note: I don't think all democrats are bad, just the ones that are pushing for "Planned Parenthood" funding abortions rather than those people that are in the military.)

Reviewing

Well, I'm in California at my In-Laws finally able to catch up on my blog a little. The trouble is I'm trying to remember what I've done the last four months that is so terribly interesting or important. So... to recap what's happened here is a small list: Our 3 year wedding anniversary on September 28th, 2010, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. For our three year wedding anniversary we went out to an Indian restaurant, and hardly spent any money (thanks to Karl and Megan's coupon, thanks guys!!!!). We thought it wouldn't be as great having to take James out, especially since the last four months James has been very screamy. (Is that a word?) Luckily, James loves Indian food, like his mommy, and was quiet as long as we stuffed his mouth with food. Next, Halloween. For Halloween I made James a cute lion costume, to which I added horns, but nobody noticed them and everyone thought he was just a lion, but he was actually supposed to be the Beast from Beauty and the Beast. I was Belle, and Stephen was going to be Gaston, BUT he wasn't because he started acting like a punk like every single year he does and decides (literally days before Halloween) that he wants to do his own thing. I was able to persuade him to try and do something at least Beauty and the Beast related, so he went as Cogsworth, which nobody got. Whatever, I'm more hopeful for Halloween next year, especially since I told him he could pick the Costume theme. We went to Stephen's Halloween work party Friday during lunch, then that night we went to our ward's Trunck or Treat, which was fun fun fun!! Have I mentioned I love our ward. It's not that I haven't liked our last ward's, but Provo ward's that have mostly newly married students can be very difficult to make friends in. Our new ward is full of young families done with school and staring out in life. There are tons of kids in our ward, so for Halloween I tried to make sure we had tons of treats. I made two batches of brownies, and decided that that might not be enough, and then made a cake as well. There was a total of 110 slices total of the three different batches. We also brought some traditional Halloween candy. By the end of the night we had one brownie left and half a bag of candy. Then Sunday we had a Halloween dinner at Karl and Megan's, but by that time I had already worn my costume twice and was done, so only dressed up James, but here are some cute pictures of us at the work party on Friday.
For Thanksgiving the plan was to go out to Coeur d'Alene, ID and spend the holiday with my family, but there was a big storm, literally the day before we wanted to go. So, because the roads were icy and unsafe we had to stay in Utah. Ugh! But, we went to Uncle Stephen and Aunt Tracy's and still had a lot of fun. Here we are at their place These next two were the day after Thanksgiving.


These next pictures were taken a couple of weeks ago. We had gone to Temple Square to see the lights, and let me tell you Saturday was a bad day to go because it was sooooo crowded!


These were also taken a couple weeks ago James was opening his presents from Uncle Karl and Aunt Megan. Thank-You!
>
And here we are at the rest home my Grandma Jeanne is at. We originally were going to use this picture to send out with Christmas cards, but that didn't go so well. We didn't have internet so it was difficult to get everyone's addresses so...again, maybe next year.


Currently we are still in Loomis, CA and haven't finished our Christmas/New Year Holidays yet, and will post it later. Stay Tuned...And Late Merry Christmas!! AND a Happy New Year!!!

The Taylors Clanning Around

This is late I know, we don't have the internet still so I'm updating my blog at Mcdees. Thank goodness they offer free WiFi. About a week and a half ago Stephen's mom, dad, sister and her husband came out and we had a lot of fun. It's funny how when you live near family we all seem to get on each others' nerves, but then when we all live far about we realize how much we miss, and really do, love them. At least that's how I feel. Am I the only one? Wish I had more pictures of us all spending time together but the only pictures I got were at the Taylor Reunion on Saturday. Here they are: The house where we had the reunion was soo beautiful!




And here we are eating ice creams at Mcdees


Ahhh my computer is about to die!

First Cut and First Steps

Update: I gave James his first haircut, and it's a little too short. Yep, kind of scary.

Also, James took his first steps last Friday!!! Woohoo! Then Thursday he took 4 steps, so he's moving on up. Other news, Stephen came back on Tuesday from his business trip to Dallas and then Las Vegas, so I am super happy. That's all.

P.S. I'm still trying to figure out how to download pix and videos from my phone, because I do not want to pay the money to send them to my e-mail.