Ride em Taylor! :)

For Christmas, Taylor got a rocking horse from her Nana and Papa. We had to leave it in Ohio because it (obviously) wouldnt fit in the Jetta to bring back to DC.  Nana finally made a trip down about a week ago and brought it with her.  We decided to put it in the guest room since every other room in the house is full of toys or there's just no room....so everytime we go upstairs Taylor whines to ride her "horsey". She loves it. 

...oh yea, the blanket doesnt really go on the horse, but it was laying on the horse and Tim didnt know to take it off before putting her on!  It's a really cute horse though!  And she enjoys it :)  Thanks Mom and Dad!

In with the new....

We got the new ball pit on Monday!  And Taylor LOVES it!  Okay, maybe I'm a bit more excited than her, but she's been having a ball (um, cheesy pun intended) in it! 


I thought it was the perfect ball pit cause she couldnt throw the balls out of it....

And then this happened....

Yes, the dumb idiots designed the ball pit with a hole in the side to be able to throw balls in and out of it.  Needless to say, I spent that night after she had gone to bed sewing the hole closed with the mesh I stole from the pointless thingy on the inside.....that way she cant throw the balls out anymore.

Other than that...new ball pit is awesome!

Something about Taylor...

If you've seen the movie "Something About Mary", you'll find this post very funny. If you've never seen it, stop reading this, rent the movie and get with the 2000s, geesh! 

Anywho, here's "Something About Mary" meets Taylor eating Mac and Cheese for lunch...

(Yes, that's mac and cheese holding her hair up like that......thank goodness it's mac and cheese.....and not...uh.....something else!)

Taylor's new hiding place..

Since someone (ahem, DADDY) popped her ball pit, she's been using the top for a fort.  And in her fort is all her "friends". 

Mommy gets an invite every once in a while.

Old people stink at monopoly..

Okay, maybe they dont and I'm just bitter cause I got my butt whooped by two 50-something-year-olds....so bite me....

This was Nana....when she bought up a ton of properties and had practically NO MONEY left! 

Then things took a turn for the worst...and she started getting a bunch of money!  Yup, I ended up with only two properties left...and eventually had to auction them off for piddly rent on properties with hotels.

Ugh.  Thought I had the game won with those two!  Nope, not so much!

Note to self....dont play monopoly with Mom and Aunt Kathy. Either they cheat or I suck. 

(Figured I better explain the story behind this post:  Mom and Aunt Kathy came and visited for the weekend and  due to weather conditions in Pennsylvania and Ohio couldnt make the drive back and had to stay a few extra days.  To pass the time last night, we played Monopoly.  It was fun...til I started losing.  Ick.  )

Our first Lent...

Today marks the beginning of Lent.  And we're celebrating this Lent season by attending Ash Wednesday mass together.  This will be Taylor's first opportunity to receive her ashes and mine as well.  In case you didnt know, after much thought and prayer, I have decided to convert to the Catholic religion. I have been attending OCIA classes regularly since summer, but I just recently decided that I wanted to convert.  I do believe this is a step I was meant to take. 

Why am I telling you this you ask?  The reason I'm writing and telling you all this is because for my first Lent, I have decided to give up my computer. No, not completely, but I will give it up for ALL BUT 1 HOUR a day.  And this hour HAS to be after Taylor has already gone to bed or while she is napping.  I feel I have become too addicted and too dependent on my computer and feel this would be the best thing to give up for Lent.  Though my email and this blog are my top priorities when I do get on the computer, I wanted you to know this just in case it seems I'm not blogging anymore. I'm still here, I'm still going to try to blog, and worst case scenario, I'll be back to catch up on the blogging after Easter. 

Hope everyone is well and Happy Preparation for Christ season :)

Future President....or Rocket Scientist...or Doctor...or....

Taylor wont be 2 years old for another few months....May 4 if you wanna talk technicalities.  But she's already sooo stinking smart....way beyond a normal 2 year old.  I know, you're thinking "Okay, everyone claims their kid is smart."  And yes, most people will claim their kid is smart and to them, they may be.  But lemme tell you just how really smart Taylor is and you be the judge...

**She can sing her ABC's.  Yes, sing them.  She may not be phonetically pronouncing the letters right, but you can tell what letter she's singing when she's singing the ABC song!!  And the funny part is you can pick any phrase out of the song and she'll tell you what's next.  In other words, I can just sing (out of nowhere) "QRS" and she'll say "TUV"!  So smart!

**She can identify pretty much all but 5 letters in the alphabet.  Yup!  And to prove it, yesterday we went to the mall and she's walking along and stops at the Banana Republic Window and starts pointing out letters...."B A M A M A R E P B L C"  (obviously you can tell which letters she's not quite sure about in there yet).  LOL It was cracking me and Tim up.  And as I'm changing her diaper two days ago, she was holding a dog I got from Victoria Secret that has the word "LOVE" printed on it's back.  As I'm changing her, she is spelling L-O-V-E.  Too stinking cute!

**She can spell and identify her name!  Tim and I were standing in the kitchen a few days ago while she was finishing up her lunch and all the sudden, she says "T-A-Y-L-O-R, TAYLOR!".  We are always spelling her name...whether it's writing it on a piece of paper, her doodle board, or just spelling it as we speak.  And up until that point, if I write or spell out her name, she'll say "Taylor" because she knows it's her name, but that day she SPELLED it ALL ON HER OWN!  And hey, to her credit, Taylor is a hard name. It's a whole whopping 6 letters long!  Not like Ann, or Mae, or Bob, or Jim, or Tim.  It's TAYLOR!

**She can identify any number 0-9 no problem. Okay, okay, she gets stuck on 9 and calls it 6, but c'mon how close is that? 

I just cannot believe she is this smart!  Let's just hope she makes mommy and daddy millions of dollars one day!  HA HA  Or heck, even if she cant make us millions of dollars, I'm sure she'll be the one to cure cancer, or do something really really important :)  

The end of an era...

Yesterday we noticed the ball pit was starting to lose air.  We blew it back up and figured maybe it was because it's been inflated for a year now and in that year, multiple crazy kids have jumped in and out of it, spilled drinks in it, eaten cookies out of it, thrown balls in and out of it, and had a ball (yup, cheesy pun intended) in it and it was just time it needed some air.  The next morning, we woke up and the ball pit was pretty much flat. 

After thinking and thinking it through I could not figure out why. Then Tim chimed in that it was probably because of him and that he had jumped in there with Taylor the day before.  So, in short, Daddy popped Taylor's ball pit!  Bad Daddy!

This is what we woke up to...the ball pit...so sad looking....slowly losing it's air.

Poor Ball Pit! :(

Daddy starting to deflate the pit. And Taylor taking her "last stand"....

"No Daddy...dont inflate my ball pit! I LOVE my ballpit!"

(Okay, it's more me getting sad by him inflating it and her just having fun playing in it while he's doing it)

This was my favorite position of Daddy deflating the ball pit!

Looks like he's doing more than deflating a ball pit if you ask me!

C'mon...I cant be the only one with a perverted mind here...

But I sit here, sad because it just feels like the end of an era. We got Taylor that ball pit for her 1st birthday May of 2009 and she has SO enjoyed playing in it. The ball pit helped her learn to throw a ball....VERY WELL if you ask me! It helped her learn to climb in and out of things when she could barely walk in the first place. It's just sad to see it popped.  And this is all that's left....

The top...which Taylor loves as is...she thinks it's a fort.  

Oh and just so you know....We did find the hole where the pit was leaking air and I'm sure we could fix it. But, we're lazy.  And I was talking about getting a new NON-INFLATABLE ball pit anyway.  So I'm getting my wish and we're getting her a new ball pit. It's on its way...as I type this!  The old one will be put in a box for a rainy day when daddy gets bored and wants to fix it or someone wants it...I just cant justify throwing it away all because of a teeny hole. 

Snowmaggedon---Part 2----February 9-10

....And then as if this area didnt have enough snow, Mother Nature decided we needed more!  With a threat of 10-20 inches approaching, we headed to the store for hot cocoa, a snow shovel (which everyone was out of) and some basic necessities.  After all was said and done, we only ended up with about 8 more inches, leaving us with a total of 3-4 feet dropped in one week!  Coolest. Winter. Ever! 

The view up the street...after a week of falling snow

The 20 foot mound of snow in between the buildings...you have one of these between every set of buildings.  This is what happens when you have no place to put the snow

The view of our building (ours is the one with the open garage)

Ridiculous!  But soooo awesome!

Earning her keeps

So we've been stuck in the house now for 6 days.....with only a small trip to the grocery store and another to Chucky Cheese....we've been going stir crazy....

Today, I made Taylor earn her keeps...she helped mom dust the house! 

She's gotta learn somehow, right? 

My kid even makes dusting look cute!

Snowmaggen 2010---Part 1---February 5-6

In case you dont watch the news, have no TV, and dont live anywhere near the Northeastern part of the nation......Washington DC and surrounding areas have been hit with the "Storm of the Century".  Some have called it the "Snowpacolypse" or "Snowmaggen".  From what I hear, the only person who doesnt have a name for it is Al Gore.  He's trying to figure that one as we speak.  It's been super duper awesome! Besides being stuck in the house with Tim since last Thursday (he he love you babe!).

The first part of the storm happened on February 5-6.  It dropped about a total of anywhere between 2-3 feet on us in a matter of 24 hours!! 

This was our view out the back door (our deck) at 11am the day of the storm!

Our deck at 11am...snow covered about 1/4 of heighth of deck!

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This was the bush and car at 1pm the day of the storm...still coming down!

This was the deck at 1pm.  About 1/3 of the heighth!

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3pm the day of the storm....same bush, same car, which was slowly disappearing!

3pm---same deck...except about 1/2 of the heighth was covered!

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And this was 5pm...when I finally decided to head out and dig us out!

The view when I got out to the street of our front door!

Starting to try and find my car!!  Holy crap!

Slowly revealing that my car was, in fact, actually under all the snow!!!

Crazy!  I miraculously made it to the edge of the driveway!

The tunnel leading to our front door!  The bush is in there somewhere!

The sun came out and so did the neighbors!! Everyone was ready to dig out!

The tunnel that is our driveway!

I took a total of about 50 pictures, but these were just some of my favorites that I just had to share on here!

Snow Day!

We've got a winter storm headed our way...and today, Taylor had her friend Kieran over while his mom had an appointment.  They had fun....and daddy even got home early and played with them a bit....fun was had by all!

Taylor and Kieran eating their pancakes.

"Ring around the Rosey" with daddy

I just HAD to get a close up of them holding hands! TOO. STINKING. CUTE!

And of course, everyone's favorite....WE ALL FALL DOWN! 

Couch potato

Taylor only gets 2 hours of TV time per day (1 hour in the morning and 1 in the evening) so when we turn on the TV, she is glued!  Today, we turned it on and she didnt even bother to straighten out her couch. Nope, she just sat there, HEAD TURNED, watching her shows!

And in case you didnt get enough the first time....here it is again....

Yup!  She's HILARIOUS!

A glance into Taylor's college years

Taylor's fridge is filled with three things right now....

...condiments, Beer and chicken! 

Ha ha I'm so proud...it's a look into her college years!  Except I'm sure there'll be way more beer and tv dinners instead of actual chicken.

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Tim turned 30 today!  Yup, he's an old man.  Funny, he married someone so much younger...I'll be 23 this year (shhhhhh, it's the truth...okay, okay...how about 24? 25? ugh). 

For daddy's birthday, me and Taylor (well, me really) made him a cake, got him a card, and drew a crayon art "Happy Birthday" message on the window for him (Taylor LOVES crayon on the windows).

We made it UT colors, for daddy :)

He enjoyed it.  It was a nice day. We ate some cake, played with Taylor, went to eat some Moe's with the Johnson family clan and then came home and relaxed all night. I'd say he had a pretty good birthday.  Who wants to celebrate turning 30 anyway?

Moose and Zee come to lunch

Today Taylor wanted Moose and Zee to come to lunch with her.  She wouldnt let them out of her site all day, so I figured it wouldnt hurt to let them sit on the table and watch Taylor eat some lunch.

Until I turned away and she was having Moose and Zee eat the macaroni off her plate...

Needless to say, Moose and Zee needed a bath and I had to stare at THIS face until they were cleaned and dried...