DETOUR

I have three words in defense of my negligent posting. SUMMER IS BUSY! There's been a lot going on lately and not a lot of time to blog about it.

Busy summer activities have included:
-Getting used to a new routine of hanging out with mom and my cousins.
-Grandma Trish visiting me for nine days!
-Grandpa Steve visiting, then going to Portland, Oregon, then coming back, then going to Daddy's company golf outing, then coming back one more time to pick up Grandma Trish and get in one more play session with me.
-Daddy going to his company golf outing.
-My friend Vernie's daughter's graduation open house.
-Going shopping at Albertville with Grandma Trish, Mommy, Aunt Sue and Uncle Lars.
-Going to Como Zoo TWICE-once with Mommy, Megan and Nate, and once with Grandma Trish, Mommy, Aunt Denise, Lacy, Maddie, and Anna.
-Going to the splash pool in South St. Paul.
-Going to Stillwater with Grandma Trish, Aunt Sue, Aunt Tracy and Jayden
-Having a Tupperware party at my house.
-Going to the Kaposia Day's parade in South St. Paul.
-Having pictures taken at the portrait studio with Megan and Nate. We are so cute!
-Going to dinner with Grandma Trish, Grandma Jan, Grandpa Bob, Nate, Megan and Mommy.
-Going on lots of walks with Grandma Trish.

In light of that, I'm sending you on a detour this week. Please find pictures and videos of my "goings on" for the last couple weeks on my flickr site.

Happy day to you!
Taylor

As Promised, Rainy Day Play...

Here is the video of me playing in the rain. Please remember, I was taken inside to be dried off and warmed up immediately after the camera stopped rolling.

Enjoy...

Such a big girl am I!

Can you even believe it that I will be 14 months old tomorrow?!?! How did that happen? Being that Mommy is home for another summer with me, we've been having lots of memories of last summer when I was a tiny baby. When Daddy would leave Mommy nursing me in the chair when he went to work in the morning and come home to find her in the same place doing the same thing in the same clothes with the same not-a-hairdo-so-much-as-a-mop-of-hair-do. And when Mommy and Daddy would be amazed at all the little things I did, like looking at them, having a social smile, laughing, rolling over. And just look at me now-I'm the one playing Mommy and feeding my babies.

As many of you know, we've had some pretty serious rain around these parts. Our family has been lucky to escape any of the real severe weather. My cousins keep asking if I'm scared of storms, but so far to tell you the truth, I don't even know what a storm really is. It probably wasn't what Mommy and I played in the other day because I'm pretty sure even as cavalier as she is at times, she wouldn't let me play in a real live storm.

Here's a good shot she got of me sitting by our garden. All this rain has really helped the flowers grow big and pretty. I like to help Mommy when she "deadheads". But since I take the live ones, I guess we could call it "picking flowers".

We caught a good video of m playing in the rain. Don't worry, Mommy took me in right when she stopped the camera, got me all dried off and into my pajamas and snuggled me until I was dry and toasty warm. Unfortunately, Blogger seems to be a little slow tonight and the video won't load. I'll see what I can do about that later in the week.

Sorry I don't have any weekend pictures to offer you. On Friday, Mom and Dad went to Omaha to go to Tim's surprise birthday party, thrown by his wife, Tara. (Tim and Tara are my boyfriend Morgan's parents.) I got to stay with Grandma Jan and Grandpa Bob. Daddy drew the short straw at work and had to be at a show on Sunday so it was a real quick trip and Mommy and Daddy were back by Saturday afternoon. That was alright though because Grandma Trish and Aunt Steph were in town for a baby shower for Cousin Sam. So we all got to go to dinner with Great grandpa Larry Saturday night at Lucky's 13 in Mendota. (Grilled cheese with three different cheeses?!?! Now they know how to feed a baby!) The unfortunate part of all this is that nobody seemed to take any pictures of me to post on my blog. You'll have to use your imaginations.

Grandpa Steve sent a book home with Mommy this weekend and I did a little preview of it this morning. I sat in Mommy's lap so she could read to me, which Mommy thought was really fantastic and a good sign that maybe I'll start liking stories but this one didn't trip my trigger. One sentence into it and I was off to explore again. Better luck next time Mom.

Megan and Nate were here today for our first day together. While I was napping they built a Lego tower all the way up to the ceiling. Those crazy kids. I think we're going to have some good times!

I've learned that it's important for a girl to accessorize. That's why I wore party beads in the bath tonight.

Here's a picture of me back in January eating a rubber duck. Some things never change...

Here I am at it again today!

Well that's all I got today. Hope you enjoyed the update and I really hope you're enjoying summer.

Love and hugs!

TaterBug

Bring on the fun Mr. Summertime!

It's almost time!! Almost time for Mommy to spend the whole summer with me and not have to go to her work place. Megan and Nate are also spending the summer with us so that makes it extra super duper special. The countdown is on. Only four more daycare days! (But I will miss Mrs. Angela and Mr. Ray and all my peeps!)

Dad had a brilliant idea the other night when it was web cam time. He brought my booster into the office and gave me a snack. I sat still and happy the whole time we were talking to Grandma Trish and Grandpa Steve. That dad of mine is pure genius.


On Saturday Megan had a soccer tournament up in Forest Lake. Mom and I went with Grandma Jan and Grandpa Bob. I got to watch two soccer games and go out to breakfast. It was great fun! I was a really good spectator during the first game but wanted to be a player on the field during the second game. I kept Mommy busy hopping over people drag me off the field.

Here's Nate and I in deep discussion between games. He has much wisdom to share with a baby like me.

This is my friend Maddie. Well, she's really Meg's friend but I feel like I know her well enough to claim her as my own.

Here's my cousin Meg. Someday I'm going to be a jock just like her.

I have a new thing. I like to attack people. But maybe people should lay on their stomachs when I attack them. I'm not saying, I'm just saying.

I had a lot of fun climbing in and out of lawn chairs. It's a great upper body workout. Grandma Jan and I shared lots and lots of kisses.

Tonight Mom made a new rule for herself. She's sick of all the time she misses with me when cooking dinner and cleaning up so the new rule is that she won't do dishes until after I'm in bed. I like the rule because it meant that we got to go outside and play after dinner. I got my pajamas on early on account of because I had a poopy diaper and Mom had me undressed so pajamas just made sense. Then we headed out. Mom wanted to go for a walk so she could get some exercise but I wasn't feeling the stroller. I just wanted to walk up and down the sidewalk picking up sticks. Mom missed out on the cardio opportunity, but we had fun anyways. We played in the backyard too. I checked out the weeds and assured Dad that they're still there. He says he'll get some Roundup tomorrow.

I went for a ride in the swing tonight. I love it! I'm not sure why I ever thought differently.

That's all I got this week people. I'm off now to plan my summer adventures. I'm thinking a little Splash Pool, maybe a little trip to Fort Snelling, then some berry picking, mix in a little beach time and maybe even Nickelodeon Adventure at Mall of America and, man oh man, we're going to have us a good ol' time! Bring on the fun Mr. Summertime!

Woop woop!

Tater Bugger

Mea culpa, mea culpa!

Well remember when I started telling you about my trip to Omaha? Then I never came back to finish telling you? At first it was just because I was really busy doing...um...I seem to forget what I was doing. That's the thing with being a baby-not much for the long term memory. But maybe there wasn't a good excuse? Maybe it was just a blogger break.

Well then it turned into something that wasn't my fault at all. Horror of horrors, on Sunday, June 1st at approximately 4:30 PM, the cable and internet at our house broke. The devastation was reported to the authorities at Comcast immediately. The helpful people at Comcast told Mommy that in just three short days they could send some guys out to fix it. Wasn't that so nice of Comcast to be so prompt with their service? Splendid people with their splendid service, gotta love 'em. So anyways, that means that I couldn't blog even if I'd been done with my blogger break. But the guys came today, climbed a very tall ladder and shimmied up a pole in my backyard. And ta-da! We have internet! (And you'll be happy to know, Daddy got his cable back. I tried to hold the remote tonight but he explained to me "not tonight you don't get that, no way". His eye was twitching and he was all sweaty and shaky when he said it...strange. Even stranger was the eerie calmness that overtook him as he stared into The Big TV.)

Back to the matter at hand, I'm sure you want to see more pictures from our most recent adventures in Omaha. Since there are quite a few pictures, I've posted them at my flickr site. Please hop on over there for your viewing pleasure.

There was good news when we came home from Omaha. Mom and Dad had tried me in another swing at my boy Morgan's house and I pitched the usual fit. But when we came home, Mom tried again with my swing, and guess what! It worked! I like it now. I don't know what my deal was when I wasn't liking it for that short time, but let's all just rejoice in the fact that I love the swing my dad and uncle put in my backyard with concrete. Permanent concrete.

Here are the first pictures for June. First, you'll see that I've learned to carry my diaper bag all by myself. Look at me being all self-sufficient!

I've also learned how to eat Cheerios and milk at the same time, just like the big kids. I learned this trick at daycare. Ms. Angela and Mr. Ray have taught me so many cool things!! I sure will miss them this summer when I'm home with Mommy and Meg and Nate. But I'll go visit them and hopefully we can join daycare on some of their outings. Then there will be the camping trip with all the daycare families in July-ooh such fun!

Here I am hanging out by the back door in my bathrobe. Yeah, it's a little bit short on me. My tushy got a little bit chilly!

This weekend Mommy and Daddy destroyed our kitchen then fixed it up again. Now we have a new fridge, new stove AND new counter tops. It looks pretty darn nice! Since our kitchen was destroyed during lunch time on Sunday, I got to have picnic lunch out in the yard. My Husker blanket was very handy for that endeavor. It was nice and thick so the grass couldn't tickle my legs. My cheese and carrot quesadilla was so good that I tried to eat the whole thing at one time. Yum.

Again, my sincere apologies for my temporary disappearance from blogspot. It's good to be back.

Love hugs and sloppy kisses to all!

Taylor McKenna

Bon Voyage!

May 20th marked the end of an era for me. It was my last ECFE Baby and Me class. I went to all three sessions I could go to and loved every class I attended! I made some great friends that I'll remember forever. Er, well Mom will probably remember them forever, truth be told it's already a little foggy for me. It's probably a good thing for me that class is over. See, I'm getting all kinds of big and I walk and stumble all over the place and with all the younger babies just learning to crawl, it wasn't safe for them to have me around. We'll have the summer off from school and in the fall we'll reconvene as Toddlers. I hope the other kids get their walking feet over the summer so they don't have to worry about me stomping on them anymore.

Here is a picture of us all trying to look in the same place. Tough thing for babies. From right to left: Sophia, Antonio, Yours Truly, Nolan, Riley, and Evan.

Here's a shot of Riley and Evan together. Evan's mom works with my mom. Her name is Ms. Andrea and she teaches the children with Autism. Mommy teaches children with Autism too, but the ones that Ms. Andrea has are a little more needy than the ones Mommy has. Mommy says that means there's an extra special place in heaven for Andrea.

Summer will be lots of fun but I'll be excited when I get to play with my friends at school again. Mommy and I want to say a very special thank you to Ms. Patty, our teacher, for all of her great advice, patience, and wisdom. You're a super star Ms. Patty!!