Wrestling Party

Christian hosted a "wrestling party," as he called it.  He invited his daddy and even decorated his room by tying little balloons everywhere. 

They were impossible to blow up!  So, he just used floppy balloons right out of the bag.

 CK picked the teams.  You can guess which team was Ryan's. 

(*Hint: Its probably not the team on which you would place any bets.)

Team #1

 Team #2

Taylor Rose is Turning Two!

My baby girl is growing up!  She isn't a baby anymore, but now a toddler.  *Tear*  Just 8 minutes shy of being a Valentine's girl, she will officially be two at 12:08 am.

She is my clumsy girl... 

In just the month before her birthday, she was pegged in the head twice by a moving swing (with a big brother in tow).  In the picture below you can see a bump right in the middle of her forehead and a healing bruise just above her left eyebrow.  A few days afterwards, she fell off of her desk and bit her lip.  I almost took her to the hospital because it was really bad, but it stopped bleeding and she seemed okay after a popsicle.  She fell out of the car when Ryan opened the door and scraped up her cheek, around her eye, and hands.  She also fell off of the stool trying to get off of the toilet and bruised her little hiney pretty bad.  Then just a few days ago, she used her stool to reach the stove and touched a hot pan.  She reminds me every day that she has a boo-boo on her arm and it was hot. 

Its not so much that she is just clumsy.  She is very curious and moves so fast that she forgets to pay attention A LOT.  Its funny how opposite this is from Christian.

She is my life-sized babydoll...

I LOVE to play dress up with her.  I used to only buy complete outfits from boutiques, but lately I have been having a lot of fun with making up little outfits.  Sometimes I even dig around in Christian's closet. 

She is my sugar-holic...

Ryan bought me a bag of Ghiradelli chocolate.  I can make a bag of candy last for months!  Tay was tired of looking at it and set up a plan with Christian.  She brought my whole stash into his room, shut the door, they pretended to play quietly, and finished it ALL off.  I had only eaten one piece before she got a hold of it.

She is my social butterfly...

She LOVES friends and making new ones.  Actually, she has a thing for strangers.  She really likes flirting with people she has never met.  Of course, I am always watching her and nearby.  Our neighbors down the road have three kids that come over to play a lot.  Tay asks about them every day.  She will take off her pajamas, pull on her boots, and ask for her friends.  (I have to remind her that she also needs to wear panties and clothes.)When they come over, Tay kisses and hugs on all of them.  In the picture below, she is showing her friend how to squeek the dog toy.

 But most of all, she is my little sunshine munchkin...

Taylor Rose is always laughing, giggling, and doing something funny.  She loves to make others laugh and stir up mischief.  I have to control my own laughter a lot of times when I am trying to get onto her.

Baby Girl

I have received a lot of questions about this baby's name.  To tell the truth, we really haven't decided.  We have the middle name, but no first name.  I don't think we will really know what to call her until we meet her, as was the case with the other two kids.  How can we name someone we haven't met? 

I really liked the name Brynna with Taylor Rose, but she didn't look like a Brynna at all.  "Taylor Rose" was in our minds but "Brynna" was definitely hanging around, too. 

I am soooo ready to be done with this pregnancy.  This month is half over, then I just have next month.  I will be really surprised if I make it that long, though.  My babies tend to come early, though this little girl could always be my patient one.  (I would love one of those!)
After having Tay, I was told by the on-call O.B. that I would probably need a C-section the next time around since shoulder dystocia would be a risk with subsequent deliveries. That scared me into thinking we wouldn't have any more kids (which is why this one was totally not planned). I had a talk with my doctor and told him that I really didn't think I would need a C-section.  He agreed.  So, I feel really good knowing he isn't going to jump the gun and head me right into surgery to have this baby.  I really, really love my O.B.  I hope he is there to deliver this baby!  I wasn't too happy with Tay's on-call doctor.

I went to get a facial a few weeks ago.  While filling out the form, I ran up on this question:

 I thought about drawing them a little stick figure cartoon for my explanation, but instead I just bursted out with "Um, do y'all really need an explanation as to why I am pregnant?  Cuz I bet y'all really could just guess.".  A few people in the waiting room made some funny jokes. 

One Massive Daucus Carota Sativus

Check out what our little garden grew! 

I thought our garden needed to be fully re-harvested.  So, when I went to pull the weeks and till the ground, I was very surprised to find this gnarly beast (along with lettuce and beets).

It was NOT fun pulling this big daddy out of the ground.  I had to break it into 3 pieces to get it out.  Our family can totally chow down on some carrots!  In fact, we go through carrots and oranges more than any other grocery item.  A single roll of toilet paper will last longer in our house than a bag of carrots or oranges.  True fact!

Click here for the incredible health benefits that carrots provide.

The origin of the cultivated carrot is clearly acknowledged to be purple and in the Afghanistan region mainly because it was known to exist there well before reliable literature references or paintings gave evidence of Western carotene carrots. It is thought the carotene carrot was domesticated in the regions around Turkey.

The purple carrot spread into the Mediterranean in the 10th century where it is thought a yellow mutant appeared. The purple and yellow carrots both gradually spread into Europe in subsequent centuries. It is considered that the white carrot is also a mutant of yellow varieties.

Orange carrots probably arrived from mutations of yellow forms, and then from human selection and development, probably in the Netherlands. It is thought that humans made selections from a gene pool involving yellow rooted eastern carrots, cultivated white-rooted derivatives of wild carrot (grown as medicinal plants since classical times) and wild unselected populations of adjacent Daucus Carota subspecies in Europe and the Mediterranean.

Junior Rangers Club

Ryan and Christian went out to the Ballpark for Rangers Day.  Some of the Rangers come out to talk to the kids about baseball, throw them a few balls, sign autographs, and all kinds of fun things.  This is all right up Christian's alley! 

Jim Kern and Mike Jeffcoat pitched to CK.  They were pretty impressed with his skills, too!

CK is now an official Dr. Pepper Junior Ranger.  He can't wait to go back and keeps asking if they can go every day. 

Ants In Their Pants

The kids get soooo super excited around 4 o'clock on Tuesdays.  They know that within the next hour there will be a knock at the door for them.  My mom picks them up every Tuesday and takes them toy shopping.  Then they go eat and play at her house for an hour or two. 
Last week, Christian was willing to do anything to make the time pass.  He probably thinks the sooner they are ready, the sooner my mom will get here.  So, he took it upon himself to get Tay dressed.  She was very cooperative!  Tay's favorite outfit is a hairbow, boots (she has a huge thing for boots), and her birthday suit.  So this was super surprising.

CK sprayed her hair with water and brushed it.  (Just like I do his hair)

 Tay's hairdo per CK

 Getting dressed

 Here is where I had to step in.  My kids have bowling ball heads, so shirts can be a struggle.

I love when they work together as a team.  Its sooo much better than the hollering and whining.

Zoo Day with Daddy

Ryan took a half-day off of work so he could visit the zoo with me and the kids.  There weren't many people out at all, so it was a great day to go.  Plus, XTO sponsors the Fort Worth Zoo, so we had discounted tickets.  I packed up some snacks, blankets, and the stroller... and we were off!

Taylor Rose wanted to see "up high!," as she always says.

... But, her "up high" always collapses like this.  You should see the looks and laughs we get.  People stop Ryan all the time to tell him that she has fallen.  What, like he didn't know?  Well, duh!  Christian did the same thing.

 Christian tried to stay bundled up.  It was chilly when the wind blew.

Christian found a friend. I love this picture!

 These little ducks had mohawks.

 Looking for bears.

 A two-headed zebra!!

The kids were both totally pooped afterwards.  They crashed as soon as we dropped Ryan off at work.