Merry Christmas!!

Okay, so it is a few days late....I have been out of town quite a bit lately, but more on that in a later post.

Here is our Christmas card for 2011....

And here is Taryne with her plate of cookies for Santa and carrots for the reindeer. This year she insisted that Santa needed a Capri Sun instead of milk....well, okay.

Here is Taryne the next morning after she realized there was a present left for her and most of the cookies and carrots were gone...

She was very excited about her LeapFrog LeapPad. I know the age recommendation is older than Taryne, but she absolutely loves our iPad, so we thought that this would be a great item for her and something she can grow up with. Well, she LOVES the LeapPad. Some of the apps are a little old for her, but she loves the camera, video camera, art studio and the pet pad.

And here is our annual Christmas family photo....

 We are very blessed for our family and friends. I hope all had a wonderful Christmas and a happy new year!

Until next time...Gig'em!

Practicing...

We have two Boppy pillows. A regular, normal one and a baby-sized one that came with a tummy-time mat. Taryne always wants us to sit on them, but the other day, I tried to explain what they were used for...besides a soft pillow to sit on.

I told her they were to help hold a new baby. I even put the regular one around my belly and placed the small one around hers. I then grabbed one of her dolls to show her how to hold a baby using the pillow as a support. I then gave her a doll so she could practice. She did excellent! Until she held the doll by its head, but oh well, she will figure it out.

She is very excited about her new baby brother/sister and she frequently tells me "sister, have it, now!". I guess according to Taryne she wants a sister. Very rarely does she mention a brother. I try to explain to her that she doesn't get a choice. It is also hard to explain to her that she must wait until April because her baby brother/sister is still growing and not ready yet. The look I get is priceless.

Until next time...Gig'em!

Soup, Water and Coffee

Taryne has a big of an imagination, but I guess most kids do. She just cracks me up quite a bit with the random and surprising things that come out of her mouth.

Recently she was "cooking" and "filled" up her measuring cup with water and asked if I wanted water. Then she went back, refilled the cup and brought me a spoon for soup. After I finished the soup, she went back again and then brought me coffee. We don't drink coffee in this house. At. All.

But one day at one of her doctor appointments, we looked through a magazine and I pointed things out to her. She pointed to a coffee ad and I said it was coffee. Once the doctor came in, she held it up and told him it was coffee. He seemed pretty surprised, especially when I told him that we didn't drink coffee in our house. So, now we have "coffee" often, or whenever she decides to serve it.

She got the cute apron from my friend Amie and her two girls Jacie and Charlee for her birthday.

Until next time...Gig'em!

Toys Revisited...

Taryne has managed to acquire a large amount of toys over her 18 months on this planet. So many, that she often "loses" them amongst the other toys. I really try to rotate the toys so she always has something new to play with and I have started pulling toys she doesn't seem very interested in anymore. I am putting those aside for another day and for the next child...at least that is the plan, whenever that may be.

She recently "found" some toys that she played with a ton and then "lost" (or forgot about them).

She saw me turn this toy on with my foot one day...so now about half the time she tries to do the same....

She found the pillow that matched with her nap mat cover from her last day care...

The popper....

Her book stash...we really need to get her a bookshelf, but I am not sure where it would go....

Reading her book...

Until next time...Gig'em!

My Little Grown-Up

Taryne has been trying many "grown-up" things lately....

Like reading books...

Cooking and serving us food....

Surfing the web, typing and sending emails...

Until next time...Gig'em!

'Twas the Night Before Christmas...

Okay, I was going to try to come up with a clever version of this story, but after the first line or so, I decided it just wasn't going to happen.

We spent Christmas Eve together, just us, our small little family. We ran errands, played and napped the day away until it was time to get ready for our Christmas Eve church service. Taryne was such a good little girl during church and even went to the front for the Children's Sermon and had fun.

After church, we had a nice meal and Taryne and I baked some cookies for Santa. We set those out with some carrots for the reindeer and a tall glass of milk in case Santa was thirsty.

After Taryne went to bed, I put the kitchen set together that Santa left. It took a little work, but that is okay, the kitchen set was a huge hit the next day.

When she woke up on Christmas morning, we got her out of her crib, changed her and let her walk into the living room. As soon as she saw the kitchen set, she dropped her blanket and yanked the lion from her mouth and ran over to check it out. She was SOOOO excited!!!

***Okay, so I know I didn't do any silly rhyming or anything to make it like the actual story, but apparently that is how I was saying this entire post in my head...with the exception of the last paragraph. So I know I will always read this post that way. Sorry.

Until next time...Gig'em!

Toys

Taryne has her fair share of toys, especially after her first birthday. I am to the point of rotating out toys and I think sometime in the spring we may look into sharing some of the toys with other children...

For Christmas, one of the toys she received from Mimi and Papa was a laptop computer type toy. It is an awesome toy...but she got the exact same one for her birthday. No problem, I decided to just return it and let Taryne pick out something else.

Well, once we hit the toy aisle at Target, she found this Leap Frog music wand and fell in love. She loved the toy so much, Taryne didn't want to let it go even for a second so we could ring it up and pay for it.

As soon as we got to the car, the packaging was removed and she played with that music wand all day, even when we went out for lunch. Today she played with it quite a bit as well. Thank goodness we didn't have to take it with us to the women's basketball game...that would have been fun.

Until next time...Gig'em!