Christmas in Texas

We decided to celebrate our own little Texas Christmas early, before flying out to Michigan to be with the rest of the family. T got all sorts of fun things, spoiled by Grandma, Great Grandparents, Aunt and Uncle, Santa, and parents alike - lots of books, a tot-sized chair, a shopping cart, puzzles, and even a play kitchen. Jake made out with tons of clothes and a few toys, and I got my coveted Kelly Moore bag (yay!). It was fun and low-key, and we stayed in our pjs well into the afternoon.

15 months

Late and short update! Taylor turned 15 months on Christmas day. At her 15 month appointment, she was 32.5" (95th %) and 22 lbs. 8.5 oz. (49th %).

New words: purple, yellow, apple, Elmo, hi, yeah, boy, car, rabbit, rooster, bear, baby, button, snow, snowball, choo choo, mommy... and more (I'm keeping up the best I can). I think we're up over 70-75 words now? She calls donkeys "dada" (hahaha). She's said "hi teddy," "hi kitty" and "hi Taylor" but that's about it as far as stringing words together. We've been working on numbers - when we say one, she'll say two; when we say two, she'll sometimes say three. We just need to put it all together! I wish I had some videos to show... we've not been good about taking video at all. Will work on that.

T finally got that second front tooth on the top (on the 18th), and I can see two more teeth on top that are getting close. She has found her belly button and is quite fascinated by it. She can walk backwards and spin in a circle, and she likes to play Row, Row, Row Your Boat (I hold her hands and "row" her body back and forth). She loves bubble baths - she asks for bubbles every night. She's still really into stackers, and she loves to wear the stacking rings on her wrists (she received some plastic bracelets for Christmas that she seems to like too). She loves the play kitchen she got from Santa; one day Jake found a day-old sippy cup of milk that she had put in the refrigerator part, ha. She loves giving hugs - to us, her stuffed animals, to the cats, to pictures of cats, to pictures of dogs, and to Elmo videos on the iPad. :) Her hugs are usually accompanied by her saying "awwwwwww." So dang cute. :)

So, I have lots and lots and lots of pics of Christmas that I will be going through this weekend, so stay tuned for more posts coming soon!

Merry Christmas!

As this posts, we should be well on our way to Michigan to celebrate

Christmas with our family. Wishing you all happy holidays!

Zilker tree

We stopped by the Zilker tree one evening this week. Have I mentioned how bummed I am there is no Trail of Lights? Well, anyhow, I thought it'd be worth it to stop by and check out the tree, and honestly, it really wasn't. T could have cared less about it (granted, she was tired and cranky), but she was way more interested in running around and checking out people's dogs. Oh well. Maybe when she's older... and *hopefully* the Trail will be back in action.

Pete's Trail of Lights

I was so disappointed when the city cancelled the Trail of Lights for the second year in a row, but, we found a great alternative down in South Austin! I had heard about Pete's Trail of Lights last year, so I bookmarked it as something to possibly do with Taylor in the future. It was a bit of a drive for us NW Austinites, but traffic was mercifully light, and we got there early so we pretty much had the place to ourselves. Taylor loved it. I mean, I'm pretty sure she thought it was the coolest thing she had ever seen - her eyes were huge the whole time. We went around the loop four times or so - T loved running up and down the paths and looking at everything. We ended up spending like 40 minutes in this guy's yard, haha. Anyhow, it was really cool and really fun - totally worth the drive!

O Christmas Tree

Why yes, I did get this idea from Pinterest. How'd you know? ;)

Ok, even though I love how this turned out, it didn't go quite as planned. I didn't have a good angle to get the whole tree in using my 50mm lens, so I had to use my lens kit (I have a D90, by the way); so, I couldn't set my aperture to f1.8 like I wanted, but to f3.8. To compensate for the decreased light, and apparently because I forgot to change my ISO, I had to slow my shutter speed way down (2"), which is all fine and dandy if you have a subject that can stay super still. A toddler is not a subject that can stay super still. Or even semi-still. So most of my shots had lovely little blurs where the toddler should have been. I was finally able to sufficiently distract her long enough to get a decent shot by asking her over and over to find where the horsey (rocking horse ornament) was. And by letting her eat Goldfish. Haha. I'm finding that photographing a toddler is a study in patience and cunning and possibly also bribery.

Not how I planned it *updated*

Our weekend has not been going exactly as planned...

What was planned: date night, gym class, Christmas shopping, a birthday party, Trail of Lights, and a Christmas party.

What actually happened: very high fever and a trip to the ER.

Taylor got sent home from school early on Friday with a 103 fever. We dosed with Tylenol and Motrin, but 24 hours later, she was still running a fever just a hair under 104. I put in a call to our pedi's nurse line, and based on the temp in combination with faster-than-normal breathing and a cough, the nurse recommended we head to the ER to have T checked out. The intake nurse thought maybe ear infection - a diagnosis with which we did not agree, as she hadn't been pulling on her ears and her temp has never gotten that high with any of her many past EIs. Anyhow, 3 hours and many tears later, after being poked and prodded and swabbed and x-rayed, the diagnosis ended up being some sort of nasty virus, with two possibly infected ears (the inflamed ear tissue may just be a by-product of the fever). So, she's back on oral antibiotics, something we haven't had to deal with for quite some time. (In case you were wondering, getting a cranky toddler to take 6 mL [!!] of foul-tasting antibiotics is no easy task. We get to do this 3 times a day for the next 10 days. Heaven help us all.)

So yeah, kind of a sucky weekend (with one teeny tiny exception). Taylor's mood was much better this morning, but it has since gone downhill and she is still running a fever. So I dunno, hopefully it'll run its course soon.

*Monday update*

Saw the pedi this morning, and unfortunately we didn't learn too much more. Her ears are clear, but her throat is very swollen, which may explain the ~20 minute episodes of her arching her back in pain and screaming inconsolably. :( Strep test came back negative, so it appears to just be some sort of a virus, maybe mono. We just have to wait it out - it *should* be clearing up in the next day or two. I sure hope so. T is just plain miserable.

*Wednesday update*

Fever broke over night on Monday. Kept her home on Tuesday, but she went back to school on Wednesday, and seems to be pretty much back to normal! We sure are glad to have our happy little girl back!

Santa

We like the Domain Santa because he takes time to talk to kids and let them warm up to him before the photos are snapped. He even suggested we take a family photo with him so T could get used to being around him (clearly Jake and I did not anticipate this might be requested of us, ha).

Despite all that...

Santa is a good sport! Last year's pics are here.

Taylor fought the sidewalk...

And the sidewalk won. Poor kiddo. Her nose was all skinned up, and the inside of her upper lip was black and blue. For once I am grateful that she has only 1 tooth on top; it could have been much worse! This pic was taken a few days after said incident; fortunately, it healed up pretty quickly and it's hardly even noticeable now.

Side note: how freaking hard it is to get a photo of this kid looking at me and smiling! This is the one pic out of like 200. And now, more often than not, when we tell her to smile, this is what she does:

Ok, who am I kidding, it's pretty cute regardless. :) See all those teeth coming in up top (ever so slooooooowly)? That's gonna be fun, really really fun.