9 Months and Counting

Where have the past 9 1/2 months gone? I can't believe me little one is getting so big! She is a big baby for her age, but still. I have mixed feelings about her getting older. I LOVE the toddler stage and can't wait for her to talk and say funny things regardless of the trouble she will get in to. But she is so cute and fun right now, I wouldn't mind keeping her at this age too. I love watching her learn. I also enjoyed when she was super new born and would actually cuddle, which she hasn't done for about 8 months. She is just not a cuddler. She wants to be held, just don't try to hug her.
Anyway, about Taylor at 9 months: She is 20 lbs 3 ox (74%), 30 in (99%) & has a 45.5 cm head (88%). She is just a big girl, but I think she is perfect and I can't get enough of her smiles. When she turned 9 months she had 6 teeth, and she seemed to have slowed down on the teething (I was wrong, but more on that at 10 months). She is still very very happy most of the time, but she can be very dramatic. She handles bonks really well, but if she doesn't get her bottle or her cereal when she wants it she puts on a nice show. Can't wait for that fun when she gets older. She is starting to pull her self up to walls and let go very briefly. She still mostly likes crawling though, and I think it is faster for her so she sees no problem with it.

I just thought this picture was cute. She leans on her side a lot when she is playing and doesn't want to sit up. She just looks so big in this picture.

This is Taylor enjoying one of her favorite things - the dishwasher - I never thought I would have to tell my baby to get out of the dishwasher, but I do it a lot.

Another one of Taylor's favorites - shoes. She just loves shoelaces and shoes and she used to play with ours, but now that she has her own, they are much easier for her to play with.

This is Taylor on Christmas day. I love this picture.

She is still a very good eater and she absolutely LOVES any baby cereal. When I am mixing it up at dinner time she gets mad until I get it in her mouth. She is so funny like that. She has also started enjoying a little bit of real food, but I need to get better at introducing things into her diet. She mostly just eats baby food, baby puffs, and cheerios.
All in all, we love her to pieces and are happy to have her around. She is a lot of work because she NEVER stops moving except to eat, but I wouldn't have it any other way. She is busy busy busy and I love it.

Festival of Trees

The first week of December was fun for us this year, or should I say last year since it is now January... anyway, December 1st was my fun day in the hospital, December 2nd was my work Christmas party. They had Comedy Sportz as the entertainment and gave us all gifts. This year I got a bunch of gift cards. I was really happy about my gift. They do a really good job.

December 3rd, my sweet husband decided to indulge me and take Taylor and I to the festival of trees. I have been wanting to go for the last couple of years since I haven't been in quite a while. I just couldn't believe how massive it was. In my opinion it has really gotten a lot bigger than it used to be, but maybe I am just not remembering clearly. There was so much to see, we didn't even try to see it all. We skipped most of the quilts and the wreaths. There were just so many trees.

I was sure that Taylor would love the trees and want to grab them all, but she really wasn't all that interested in them. She was happy as usual, but was more interested in people watching (kinda like her parents). We managed to forget the stroller, which I think was ok. We switched back and forth holding Taylor. And I saw so many people there holding there kids and pushing an empty stroller I felt like we were smarter not to bring it. Especially since the crowds were hard enough to navigate through without it.

There were some really creative trees. I am amazed at the talents and imaginations of people. We really enjoyed the golf tree and we are going to try to copy some of the ornaments. We have a golf tree already, but not as cute.

I also really liked the UP tree. I was not the biggest fan of the movie (purely because the kid needed some serious discipline), but the tree really was great.

After the festival of trees, Scott took us to his favorite hole in the wall diner in Midvale, and Taylor ate her dinner and had her bottle...

She cracks me up that she does was is most convenient for her.

Following dinner we headed up to temple square, but just drove around it instead of getting out because it was just too cold. It's ok that we didn't see the lights very well this year. But we did see an interesting sign by the carriages: "Overworking and depriving horses of their natural habitat is not romantic." Something along those lines. People are crazy.

My Emergency Room Visit

**WARNING**: If you are squeamish about blood or lady problems...you probably don't want to read this post.

I had a really nice visit to the Emergency Room on December 1st. I felt foolish even going there, because I was not dying. I didn't even feel sick. But I was having some serious problems. I had been bleeding off and on for about 6 weeks. It was a nuisance for sure, but nothing I was super concerned about because I had gotten an IUD in 6 1/2 months before. From what I read, IUDs take 6 months to a year to even out the cycles and the flow. So I tried to just deal with it.
But...it started getting heavier. I bled through my pants 3 days in a row in just a few hours. I was starting to get concerned. So, I scheduled an appt at my doctor's office and saw the NP. She told me it may be the IUD, and that they would schedule me for an ultrasound the following Monday.
The major concern started when I changed my tampon at quarter to 6 and left my house to go to bunco. I had to stop at Smith's in Orem on the way, and when I got there I felt damp. It had been maybe 20 minutes. I drove to the house we were having bunco at and gave Taylor to my mom (Scott was working of course, isn't that the way it goes) and went into the restroom to try to figure out what was going on. I took out the soaked through tampon and something plopped into the toilet. It was a large clump of blood. At this point I was concerned that maybe I had somehow gotten pregnant and I was having a miscarriage. I called my mom to the restroom and asked her if she thought I should be concerned and we decided I should probably call my doctor the next day. So we left Taylor with some of the bunco ladies and went to my mom's house to get some clean clothes for me. By the time we got to my mom's house, I was feeling like I was dripping. My mom's house was only 6 blocks away. That was when I was REALLY concerned.
I called the on call doctor and when I didn't get a response very quickly, we just headed over to the instacare, where they proceeded to tell us that I needed to go to the emergency room. So that is how I ended up there. I called my hubby when we went to the instacare, and then called him again when we got to the emergency room. He made it there right as they were taking me back. They did an exam and took some blood and did an ultrasound. What they discovered is that my IUD was not in the correct place.
Apparently my uterus is severely tilted back to the point where it almost makes a U shape. The IUD either didn't get place all the way up to begin with or, it slid down and attached itself to the uterine lining, which was causing all of the bleeding. They cleaned me up quite a bit and ended up scheduling an appt with my doctor for the following day to get my IUD out and get a new form of birth control. They kept telling me they were glad I came in, but since I never felt sick or had a lot of pain, I felt really stupid being there. I guess it was better safe than sorry.
The following day I went to my doctor in the afternoon and got the implanon (birth control in the arm), and the procedure to numb my arm was painful, and it was sore for a several days, but so far it has been just fine. My doctor made sure to tell me that I am not a good candidate for an IUD. Really?

Thanksgiving 2011

Our Thanksgiving was rather low key this year. It usually is I guess. We went to Scott's parents house just like always. Taylor had a good time playing with her cousin Alyssa. Taylor just adores Alyssa.

It is so fun to watch them interact. Taylor was the center of attention for a large part of the day. After we ate all the yummy food, we played a few new games that Scott and I had bought for his parents a little while back. We really enjoyed Malarky. Shockingly, I was bad at it. I am not a very good liar and I am usually not very creative.

We did the Black Friday thing, but we didn't even go out until after Taylor's morning nap, so it wasn't very busy. Scott had to take care of some work stuff, and when he got home we met up with the fam for some shopping. We didn't actually do any shopping because we didn't have any money to do so, but the three of us enjoy being out. Taylor just likes to people watch and see what is going on. She fits right in with her parents.

Halloween 2011

I have been so bad at blogging lately. I need to get better at it. It is pretty bad to update on Halloween in December. Anyway, I decided to be creative this year and I don't honestly know I came up with either of our costumes, but I thought of them in advance this year and got everything put together myself. Taylor was a 80's workout instructor and I pretty much purchased everything for her costume on the ebay.

Taylor went Trick or Treating at my work, but didn't actually get any candy...I actually just walked her around and showed her off. In this picture she is playing on the floor afterwards.

We didn't go trick-or-treating that night, Taylor has never had candy, and I don't need any, so she looked super cute dressed up, but no one felt the need to go out and pound the pavement to get the treats we didn't need.
I decided to be cotton candy this year. Scott and I made my costume. I dyed batting pink and found a giant clear garbage bag which Scott spent quite a bit of time drawing the cotton candy logo on. I was really happy with how it turned out, and I have to admit I was really disappointed that I didn't even win a prize a work. Unfortunately, the costume contest a work is really based on the presentation of the costume (or the show) as well as how much people like you. It made me sad that so many people told me how creative and cute my costume was and I even had people ask if it was real cotton candy, but alas, not enough votes to win. Oh well. I liked it.

Don't worry about the horrible shine on my head. It was a little warm in all that stuffing. ;)

Anniversary #4

On October 26th, Scott and I had our 4th anniversary. It seems like it has gone by really fast. We weren't able to take the week off this year because my boss had a big hunt that week. So we took our vacation in August and took a couple of days off for our anniversary. The day of our anniversary, we took Taylor to her baby sitter and headed up to Mulligan's because it was a cold day and they have a heaters on their driving range. Well, the heaters were not on. We were VERY cold. We didn't finish our buckets and headed out to lunch. We ate at Hires Big H. Scott is a big fan of their burgers. After lunch we went bowling at the place where we kind of had our first datish thing. Too long of a story to explain on this post. I won the first round and got a 167. I am pretty sure that is my personal best. Scott won the second one and I think he was around 180 and I was around 140. We actually bowled really well for people who haven't bowled in over a year. We still had some time to kill since Taylor was asleep at the babysitter's so we told her to text us when she woke up and we did a little bit of shopping. That night Scott took Taylor and I to The Cheesecake Factory, the traffic was ridiculous, but so worth it. It was sooo good. I got a BBQ Chicken salad that was big enough to feed 3-5 people and boy oh boy was it tasty. It definitely did not disappoint. Taylor got her first taste of food that isn't mashed. I gave her pieces of banana and avocado, and surprisingly, she ate the avocado better. Scott got fettuccine alfredo that he said was ok, but Scott is very picky. I love that place and I haven't had it for years. I was so glad Scott took me there for our anniversary. He is so sweet.
The following day, the pregnant babysitter told us she couldn't take Taylor because she was just too uncomfortable, which was totally understandable, so Taylor got to play with mom & dad all day. She was such a joy to have with us all day. We got a later start than we hoped because we had Taylor, and we headed up to Salt Lake again. We ate lunch at a diner up some canyon in Salt Lake, I guess they are known for their dinner, so we kind of disappointed. After lunch we headed over to the Salt Lake City cemetery. Yes, we went to a cemetery. All but a few of the prophets were buried there, so we went to see. We had to go to the office of the cemetery and get a map of where the prophets and notable people were buried. It was really interesting and we really enjoyed ourselves. Taylor loved it too, but I think for her it was just exciting to be outside. We were really glad we had a map, because the cemetery was extremely large. We would have never found anything. We spent several hours there even with a map. It was interesting to see that some of the headstones of prophets were really discreet and others were VERY large. President Hinckley's was good size. We would have walked right past President Hunter's if we had not been looking for it. Not far from President Hinckley's headstone, was one that had a really cool poem on it. I guess it was a poem? Scott and I really liked it though. We also saw one headstone that had a free mason's symbol on it. That was pretty cool.

After the cemetery we went to see Brigham Young's headstone, at dinner, and headed home. We had planned to go to Gardner Village, but we ran out of time. We did stop at the corn maze at Thanksgiving Point, but it was dark and cold, so we didn't stay long. Guess we can always go next year when Taylor is a little bit older. f
Overall it was a great anniversary. Even though we didn't have a lot of money to spend. We really enjoyed ourselves. It was great spending time with each other and our super cute daughter. We didn't have to spend loads of money to have a good time together.

7 Months & 8 Months

I don't know why I never seem to have time to blog. Maybe because my little one REALLY likes the laptop cord and laptop and wants to grab it or crawl all over it every time I get on it. Or, maybe because by the time I get done with Taylor every night I am usually pretty tired and just feel like getting into bed and reading a book or something. Guess it is just not a priority. Since Taylor is now 8 months, and I missed the 7 month post, this is going to be a combined post about 7 and 8 months. I probably won't remember when anything happened anyway if I did two separate posts.

Taylor is a very active baby. She started scooting around maybe a week shy of 7 months and then it turned it to crawling about 3 days shy of 7 months. It wasn't really a surprise to us since she had been up on her knees quite a bit and she just doesn't want to ever sit still. She has recently started pulling up on things as well, so I don't think walking is in the too far distant future.

Since learning to crawl Taylor discovered the doorstop behind the door and very much enjoys playing with any of them she sees in the house. Her cousin taught her that it to one side and let go it makes a cool noise, so that is what she does. We have purchased plenty of toys for her, but she really likes doorstops, shoes, & cords. Yep, she is a little different. She does also love a little white stuffed panda bear that was given to us as a gift at my baby shower. She will smile and laugh at it before she picks it up and chews on it. It is pretty cute.

Her main baby-sitter had a baby herself, so she temporarily goes to someone else. She is so flexible though and she adjusted to the new place really fast. The girl that watches her has two boys and one of them is about a month and a half younger than Taylor. From what I hear, they very much enjoy looking at each other and smiling at each other.

She is starting to become more of a binky baby, so I try to keep them put away unless she is going to bed or riding in the car. She must have a love hate relationship with binkies, because she throws them out of her crib at night. This is wear I find them.

Under the crib against the wall. I call it the binky graveyard. It makes me laugh when I can't find all of the binkies and I look there.

She has been sick a lot recently, but that could be partly because of the changing of the season. She had a cold and then got over it and I got a cold and gave her a new one. Then she had some diarrhea issues and we are hoping that is over. She has 6 teeth and I think she is getting another one, which seems to cause her all sorts of problems. Almost everything that is wrong with her can be caused by teething.

Overall even when she is sick she is very happy baby. I can see she already has an attitude and she is going to be a little spit fire when she starts talking, but we love her to pieces and enjoy her every day. I hate having someone else watch her all day, but it is so fun to pick her up and watch her light up and crawl as fast as she can over to me. Someday I hope to stay home with her and watch her be cute all day long. Oh dreams...