See ya next week.

Well you may have noticed that I did a whole slew of posts tonight. That's because I'll be going on a bit of a hiatus. My cousin Kerstin is coming to visit me from Germany. I don't know if you're into geography or not, but that's REALLY far away! Mom went there to visit her five years ago. Then Kerstin's Mom and Dad and some other cousins came here to visit two years ago. Now it's Kerstin's turn to jump in a plane and cross the big ocean to come meet me. And I guess she probably wants to see Mommy and meet Daddy and all our other family too. Well needless to say, I'll be busy entertaining Kerstin and showing her how we do it here in the USofA and that will leave little time for posting. I'll check in with you late next week.

auf Wiedersehen!

Taylor McKenna

Gardening, pigtails and naked fun.

Tonight I helped Mom with the gardening. She says I'm really good at it for a 15-month-old.



I got myself all wet with my crazy watering methodology. That meant I got to get stripped down in the backyard and it was into the house for a bath.

After my bath I did one of my favorite things: ran around naked. Mom chased after me (quite literally, all over the living room on her knees) until she managed to get two pigtails in my hair. Mom and Dad thought it was really cute...

I didn't care for having things in my hair so I promptly pulled one out:

After Mom got the other one out and got my curls a-rocking, I decided to play some naked golf. Dad helped me with my putting. It's important to practice your short game y'know.

Since I was having so much fun being naked, I kept going. Next it was time to read a book and warm up for football season in my Husker hat. (Which, by the way, for those of you down in Huskerland, is getting a little tight on me. As is all the other Husker clothing I wore last season. *hint hint*)

Time to get some clothes and head to bed.

T-Mac

Teddy Bear Park

Me and the cousins got to go back to Teddy Bear Park this week. This time we brought Grandma with. It was lots of fun to play but it was REALLY hot and REALLY humid so we bagged playing early and went to have ice cream treats. Now that is a perfect ending to a perfect outing!

Look out Lance!

The day has finally arrived. Mom got the bike trailer from Aunt Jenni and Uncle John's shed. Then Uncle John brought the part that Mom didn't get the first time. Then Dad figured out how to hook the bike trailer to Mom's bike. Then Dad bought a bike. Then Dad went back to the store to buy me a bike helmet and a tire pump. Then Dad pumped up Mom's bike tires. And then, FINALLY, we went for our first family bike ride.

(But Mom and Dad forgot to take pictures last night so these are actually pictures from our second ride, tonight.)

Here's Mom getting me all situated. So that I'd be well entertained as well as well hydrated, she gave me a stuffed animal, a pacifier, my cell phone, a sippy cup of milk and a sippy cup of juice-water. It all worked pretty well and we were able to go for a 25-minute bike ride. Then Mom and Dad decided to quit while they were ahead. (Which means quit before I blew a gasket.)



Here I am, just moments before I might have blown a gasket if they'd kept going.

The helmet isn't my favorite thing but I understand it's a safety precaution we must take.

Happy trails!

Taylor

Post-swimming-post-nap baby...

Here's what happens when you take a baby to a swimming pool, rub sunscreen all over her squirmy self, inevetably getting some in her hair, let her loose with all the hoses and waterfalls and other spraying apparati of which she has no fear, then bring her home and put her down for a nap with wet hair.

Day 1:


Day 2:

I'm off to the salon. I need a deep conditioning treatment.

Taylor

How far I've come!

Wow. I've come a long way in a year.

Last year I was doing this...

Now I'm doing this...

Take that!

The Big Shot

Family Re-Onion

It was another weekend of travel for my family. This time we loaded up the family truckster to head to my Great Grandpa Swede's house. He lives down on the Iowa/Minnesota border where people do things a little different. But that's a whole other post. About the re-onion...

Mom and Dad decided the best plan of attack was to leave at nap time. I was having a little trouble falling asleep what with being all excited about the re-onion (NOTE: this will be explained later when I tell you a bout Wuke). I thought putting a blanket over my head would help. Turns out it did and Mom and Dad will never again chastise me for putting myself in such a state of oxygen deprivation.

We got to the re-onion to find all kinds of fun activities taking place. The best activity on Friday was when Great Uncle David got out this HUGE bubble wand. It made bubbles the size of giant pumpkins. Us little kids had all kinds of fun trying to pop them.

This is Wuke. His name is really Luke but as Mom and the other SLPs would say, "He doesn't have his Ls yet." He was big enough to get to try the bubble wand all by himself. He's also the one that coined the phrase re-onion when he told his Grandma Sherry that he didn't want to go to it. I'm glad he changed his mind and I think he was too cuz we all had so much fun. The morning of the re-onion, in fact, he was so excited he couldn't even eat breakfast! (I myself have never been so excited that I would consider missing a meal.)

I also had lots of fun riding around on this toy fire engine. I wonder if that's what it's like for Uncle John? Probably not.

This is my cousin Anders. He lives way far away in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He really liked my red car that I brought with.

We did a good job taking turns with it. Anders has a twin brother named Erik, but he must be a bit camera shy because I can't seem to find any pictures of him on my camera.


The big people played lots of bean bag toss. They actually had a whole tournament with double elimination. I don't exactly what that means except that by some twist of fate, the team that Mom and Dad beat in their first game ended up the champions. Does that mean Mom and Dad are even better than the champs?!?!

Here's Grandpa Swede all ready to go riding with Cousin Tony and his biker gang the Dung Rollers from Wyoming.

Here's my Grandma Jan with her siblings and dad (Grandpa Swede if you didn't figure that out.) Front row, left to right: Judy, Marolyn, Grandpa, Carolyn. Back row: Grandma, Harold, Bert, Jolene.

Grandpa's friend Elaine came up from Evansdale to join the festivities. She's a very sweet lady and brought a gift for me. It's a beautiful flannel blanket. I've already used it at bedtime and it's deliciously comfortable! Thanks Elaine!

Nate and I had lots of fun running around playing with Uncle John. We played softball and ran around with squirt guns. What a great time!

It was an exhausting weekend but a superdeduper fun weekend as well. I'll be excited to do it again next year.

I'm off to rest now.

Toodles,

Tater Bug

He Delivered!

My Grandpa Steve's birthday was on June 18th. He said we would have cupcakes to celebrate when he visited back in June. Well, as is usually the case with our family, we got a little busy and the cupcake thing didn't happen. But Grandpa was back last week for a business trip and stopped by my house Thursday morning with CUPCAKES! Nate and I were just finishing breakfast so we got to have a cupcake for dessert. Breakfast dessert! What could be better than that? I think breakfast should always come with dessert, don't you?

Let's just move there.

Well I'm back from the lake vacation and I'm all rested up and I'm ready to make a proposition. Let's just move there. It was so much fun!

Here I am on Day 1, already in my swimsuit and life jacket ready to take on the lake. After getting over the initial trepidation that is.

Mommy and Grandma played in the water with us kids. We played on our various jet ski-like toys, floated on floaty toys, splashed around, and built things in the sand.

I got bored with everyone else so I wandered off to check out the neighbors' dock.

There were two beautiful loons at the lake. They sure sing a pretty song.

Here's Meggie giving me a ride on her and Nate's jet ski. It was kinda fun but kinda not.

Siren has BEAUTIFUL sunsets that we can see from the screened-in front porch.

Things got really interesting on Day 3 when the big jet ski came and Daddy gave me a ride. Whoa. That's a little much for a baby like me.

What I really liked was "The Islander". It was a huge floaty that had a mesh net in the bottom where I could splash around. Very fun stuff.

Megan did some sunbathing on "The Islander".

Vacation's not all fun and games. Sometimes you have to do work like walk Tati, Grandma and Grandpa's dog.

Sometimes when the other kids and adults get busy, I have to find fun by myself. I found a bat and some croquet balls in the garage. I made do entertaining myself.

Every day there was more fun to be had on the beach. We never got tired of digging.

Pause for a (partial) family picture.

And another.

Ah, the good life. Me and my mommy, relaxing on a tube. It's on dry land cuz it got too chilly on Saturday for me to go in the water.

I just wanted to throw this on in because face it, I look very pretty here.

I topped off my weekend with some whip cream. Yep, you're seeing that right-straight out of the can. Hehe!

My weekend in Siren, Wisconsin was great and there are more pictures to see at my flickr site.

I would like to send a shout out to Jim and Lois and thank them for letting our family use their cabin.

Till next time-

Taylor McKenna