Haircuts and Headcuts

Some cuts happen on purpose. Like Taylor's haircut. Mom was tired of fighting with Taylor to get her hair into ponytails and equally tired of her hair getting in her food and being messy all the time. So Mom whisked her off to Whitney, Mom's stylist at the fancy salon and paid way more than she should have so she would have the moral support of her own stylist to get through such a big event.

BEFORE:


AFTER:
It turns out everyone, including Mom, loves the new do. Mom can brush Tay's hair real easy and it doesn't hang in her food. Winner winner chicken dinner.

Some cuts happen on accident. Like when I cut my head wide upen when chasing Taylor through the house. We were just having fun, being the super brother and sister that we are, when *BAM*, that wall just jumped out in front of me and attacked my forehead.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Two internal stitches, five external stitches. Ouch. Mom and Dad tried to take me to Urgent Care for stitches, but were told by the nurse there that the cut was so deep they needed to take me to the Emergency Room. Ay yi yi. Well, an hour and a half wait later, I was all sewn up and sent on my way.

Tomorrow I'm off to have my stitches removed. Dad told Mom to ask the doctor if I need to start wearing a helmet at all times. Seems valid.

Stay Safe,

Crash (a.k.a. Leighton) (and Taylor)

Summer Fun

Ah, summer. Full of fun times. And pretty flowers. Like these ones I found in my Greataunt Nancy's yard. She lives out in the country and there's oodles of pretty flowers in her yard. (And a HUGE garden with lots and lots vegetables and blueberries and herbs. It's amazing!)

We went to a barbeque at Greataunt Nancy and Greatuncle Gary's house a couple weekends ago. Mom said we went cuz Gary got a wild hair (whatever that means!) to smoke some food. He smoked ribs, boneless ribs, turkey and brisket. My favorite was the turkey.

Leighton and I had a great time running all over the yard, climbing all over the deck and exploring everything we could.

Leighton also enjoyed some new canine companionship. You know how that guy loves dogs. These ones are named Maggie and Blazer. Maggie is the little one and Blazer is the big one. It's pretty amazing how this kid takes to dogs. Makes a girl wish she could get one for her little brother, but Mom and Dad have made it pretty clear that's not happening at our house. Not anytime soon at least. For now Leighton will just have to settle for snuggling other people's dogs.

Summer also means the bike trailer has found it's way out of the garage. We had some real good times on it two summers ago, but last summer, what with Baby Leighton coming around and with that monitor thing and the cords and whatnot, well it just didn't happen. So anyways, Mom and I bumped our way around the garage the other day and collected the trailer, her bike and the tire pump. Dad helped us get everything set up and off we went. It was GLORIOUS! Mom wanted to ride for a long, long time but we had to get home for my bedtime. We're both looking forward to our next ride.

This summer has also brought about some very silly fun. Like playing dressup and me ending in this:

And Leighton in this:

Summer also means CAMP. That's right, I went to camp. It's called Grands Camp at the Presbyterian Clearwater Forest and I went there with my Grandma Jan, Papa Bob and my cousins, Meggie and Nate. We had a fantastic time. Unfortunately, I don't have digital documentation of camp, but Mom did take these cute pictures of me in the special braids she put in my hair for camp. In the first I'm totally faking a pouty look. (You may have been able to figure that out for yourself.) In the second I'm my usual cute self.

Summer fun also means taking it indoors sometimes. Mom took me, Leighton, cousin Nate and our neighbors to Edinborough, a fantastic indoor park. There's two rooms: one with a huge climbing and sliding structure and a gym with scooters, balls, baskets and a huge jumper. It was AWESOME!

Summer is about halfway over but it feels like the fun is just beginning. Bring it on!!

Viva la Summer!

Taylor (and Leighton)

The summer fun continues to be...well, fun. We've had eight trips to the Splash Pool in the three weeks that Mom has been home with us. Us kids are loving it but Mom's been grumbling a little-seems she's getting tired of pulling Evil Knievel (a.k.a. Leighton) out of the water when we loses his footing and goes in face-first. We're taking a few days off and hopefully she'll be ready to get back at it on Tuesday.

We celebrated Father's Day at our house a couple weeks ago. It got HOT HOT HOT so Mom turned on the sprinkler. She opted to just change us out of wet clothes and into pajamas rather than change us into swimsuits and then out of the swimsuits and into pajamas. Pretty genius if you ask me.

Leighton took a break from playing in the sprinkler to climb up on the picnic table where he tried to take possession of a bottle of Diet Mountain Dew. Because he needs caffeine, right? NO! He does not. (You hear that Lil Buddy, you don't need caffeine! You're a spaz. No caffeine for you until college. You know, when you're out of the house and the only people you'll annoy with your upped levels of spacticity are roommates, not us.)





I thought I would see if the water in the sprinkler tastes as good as the water in the house. It was alright, though maybe a little metallic tasting.






One of Leighton's new Hot Spots is the tub in the bathroom. He's so impressed with it that he actually bypasses the toilet (that's old news I guess) to go head-first into the tub. He'd play there for hours if Mom and Dad would let him. As luck would have it, Mom DID let him play in there the other day and I joined him to see what all the hoopla was about. All I can figure is, it's fun because it's out of the social norm. Leighton is a rebel like that.

So far, Leighton and I are the best of buddies. Mom and Dad are sure a day will come when we don't get along quite as well, but for now, they're are loving the love between us. I don't let Leighton go to sleep without a hug and kiss, I kiss his owies and bring him loveys when he's sad. All in all, I'm Big Sister Extraordinaire.

In closing, I'll leave you with these very special pictures of me. Special indeed.

Peace, love and happiness!

Taylor (and Leighton)

It's Here!!!

It's here, it's here, it's really here! What's that? What's here? Why, SUMMER of course! And it's glorious! It's only been a week but we're having a blast already. We've been to the Children's Museum, to all three parks in our neighborhood (thanks Grandma Trish for going above and beyond and taking us to ALL THREE in one day while you were here), to the library, and to my beloved Splash Pool twice! Leighton and I are loving having our mom home with us and judging by the glow on Mom's face, she's loving it too. (And maybe that's a little sunburn too.)

The Splash pool is just as fun as it was two years ago and last year, but the difference this year is that I can touch in the "deep end" which is actually only three feet deep. Mom was really surprised that I could touch. And a bit sad that I'm getting that big. Moms are strange that way, ya know.


Leighton was at the splash pool plenty of times last year, but never actually got to go in the water. Most of the time, he was asleep in the stroller while Mom and I were swimming. He's pretty excited to be out of the stroller and in the water this season. The only time he spends in the stroller now is to take snack breaks, like this one:

We've finally got our egress window installed in the basement and Mom has it set up real nice for us to play and play and play. Over the summer, Mom will be real busy. See, if you've not heard yet, Mom is taking a leave of absence from her job as a speech/language pathologist for one year to stay home with us and open an in-home daycare. So there's lots of work to be done to make the basement into a daycare facility and Mom needs to go through the licensing process. Despite all this impending work, Mom is excited and ready to get at it.

One of the funnest activities Mom has done with us downstairs was Shaving Cream Play. She squirted shaving cream all over the table and we got to draw shapes and our names in it. It felt funny on our hands, but we loved it. The best part (and Mom's ultimate purpose for the activity) was that the shaving cream cleaned the table right up. Slick!

Well...that's all for now. Happy summer and don't forget your sunscreen!

Taylor (and Leighton)

Another New Look.

Because that's all we have time for. I know, I know, it's a tired, overused excuse. But it's all we got, man. Mom has 1.5 days of work left and then since we'll be home with her all the time, we'll have more time to keep you updated on all our adventures.

And there will be a lot of those this summer, let us tell you! We'll be joined this summer by our cousin Nate on Mondays and Tuesdays and our neighbors Ava and Jonathan Monday through Friday. It's going to be a fun-filled summer of fun stuff y'all!

Since a blog post on a blog about and written by children is really only a good one if it's got pictures, let us complete this post with some pics...

We've been to a couple of Meggie's soccer games. We don't really pay much attention to the games, cuz well we don't really get it, but we love to go and play with the younger siblings of the players on Meggie's team. And they love us!

One of my favorite things to do is cuddle with Aunt Jenni (or Grandma Jan) at the games. Aunt Jenni always has good stuff for me to chew on, like this Sobe bottle.

We had a field trip to the zoo for daycare a couple weeks ago. Our daycare friends have tie-dyed t-shirts that they made last summer when we were home with Mom, but Ms. Angela said red shirts would be a good alternative for us. So in good old shopaholic fashion, Mom went out and got us both new outfits. I'm thinking they'll also end up being our 4th of July outfits given that we ended up decked out in red, white and blue.

We were so jealous of Mom and Dad Memorial Day Weekend. They went to Texas for a wedding and got to take a side trip to see Neil, Katie and our cousin Sibley. They're so lucky! They only had one day to spend with them, but they made the most of it. They went out to lunch, went swimming at the hotel pool, then went out again for dinner. Mommy said she wanted to stash Sibley in her suitcase and bring her back to see us but thought Sibley might get a little cramped, not to mention very lonely for her mommy and daddy. So I guess we'll wait until Christmas when (woohoo!) we'll all be together again with Grandma Trish, Papa Steve, Aunt Steph and Uncle Klayton.

Peace Out Blog Friends!

Taylor and Leighton

My New Best Friend

I just got home from an overnighter with Mom, Taylor, Grandma Jan and Papa Bob to visit Papa Owie. It was his birthday this week so we all got in on the annual event of gathering at his house to celebrate the birthday and plant flowers. While all of that was good and fun, the highlight of my weekend was Lawrence. He's the dog Papa Owie "adopted" from Mom's cousin Stephen. I guess I don't totally understand how it all worked, but something about Stephen going off to college and Papa needing some company out at his big house in the country. However it all went down, all I know is that I love that dog! Unfortunately, he didn't quite understand my way of showing it and thwarted my every attempt at bonding.

But when dinner time came around, he and I reached a mutual understanding. Whenever he appeared at my highchair, I was to reach my hand out, making like I was waving, and he would lick spaghetti and meatballs off my hands. I even gave him a little bonus and wiped my hands all over his back and dropped a noodle on his head so he'd have a snack for later. Pure genius!

Check us out here for more pictures of the fun little road trip.

TTFN,

Leighton (and Taylor)

It's Like Summer Road Construction

Only this detour won't be quite as annoying. Head over to flickr for new pics.



TTFN,
Tay and Leighton