A very Merry Christmas!

We had a great Christmas Eve and Christmas Day spent with all of our families. It was such a great year for us, we are so thankful to have Taegan here with us and to be able to be with our families. We spent Christmas Eve with Justin's side and Christmas Day with my side. Little Miss Taegan loved the paper and ribbons/bows. She was not much for the presents this year. Once I could get them out of the box and she could play with them she was a little more interested. She got tons of new toys and clothes...she also got some formula and diapers:) Thanks to both sets of our parents. That was very welcomed. We have been busy, busy, busy since I have been off for break-will it ever slow down?

A funny or not so funny story: The other night Justin got home late from work and I did not have dinner made so we decided with an hour before bathtime and bed that we would run out and get something to eat. Trying to save money we decided to go somewhere that we had a gift card to...all of which happen to be sit down places. Against our better judgement because of time we chose Chili's!!! There was no wait on a Friday night and we couldn't believe it. Sat right down in a two person booth with Taegan asleep in the car seat. This is going to work out after all-maybe. We waited ten minutes for the waitress to come take our drink order, but she would not take our meal order at this time. Just drinks and appetizer. She returned with that in about 5 minutes and took our order. Once this happens it all goes downhill. We did not see the waitress again for over 20 minutes. During this time we have empty drinks, empty chips and salsa, cold queso now because of no chips, Taegan is awake and sitting on my lap(in a small booth), and I am losing my patience. Another lady brings out our dinners and asks if there is anything else we need right now. Well, she got the brunt of my complaining. She returns with new drinks, chips and salsa and two free coupons for dessert! She also gets another earful because my meal is WRONG! So she takes it back and will have it made again. Still have not seen our waitress yet-Taegan is now eating snacks on my lap and drooling everywhere. A manager returns with my new food and refills our drinks again. I am heated!!! I take a few bites and the waitress returns to ask if there is anything else we need-are you kidding me? I tell her a box, the bill, and a manager! Taegan is now gagging on one of her snacks and begins THROWING UP all over my food.....WOW!!! At this point my food is ruined she is covered and I am covered. Justin puts his food in the box(that he went and got himself) and heads to the car with Taegan. I am waiting for her to return with the check-which she does and nothing has been adjusted on the bill. I lay into her about all the issues and to top it off my daughter just puked on everything. A manager comes over and asks about my night...lucky guy!!! Needless to say they took off my meal and I was on my way. This has to be one of the worst times we have had out to eat!!!

I will post pictures tomorrow....

So much to say...

Sorry it has been a few days since I have been on here. It has been crazy busy since I left on Christmas break from school. Just now getting a few minutes to update here to let you know what has been happening. I think we are all set and ready for Santa to come tonight! Should be fun...Taegan is getting into everything. She is now officially crawling for real. Look out world. You will see in the pictures all the fun things she is doing now that she can crawl and get anywhere she wants to! We are having Christmas tonight with Justin's parents and brothers and tomorrow morning we will do our own Christmas here at home. After that we head over to my parents to celebrate with them. Should be nice relaxing Christmas with lots of fun stories to share. For now-enjoy the pictures and have a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Taegan has learned how to open the bathroom drawer-no fun!
Little Miss Helper in the kitchen! She decided she wanted to mop!

This is what happens when mommy leaves the room for a minute, I come back to find the dog's water dish dumped over and her playing with it.

Here is Taegan playing with a cup while my mom and I baked away!!

Thanks for my new bows, Amy!!

Having fun playing in chocolate pudding. What a mess-but so fun to watch her!

Life is rough sometimes! I need a break.

Taegan has discovered the tree and the ornaments.

This is what you find when someone isn't tired at night...playing with her buddies!

1 more day...

Can you believe it?? One more day until my students are on Christmas Break. WOW-time flies. Taegan continues to cough miserably at night and is just overall under the weather. You would never know it until the evening, but she is just not feeling well. Poor thing. She has been up and down at night coughing. And getting in some good snuggle time with mom and dad to help her feel better. We are so excited for another Christmas this weekend, we are doing the big Ross one on Sunday. I have a day of baking with my mom on Friday night and can't wait. This is my favorite time of year and I love baking with her. I just can't wait until Taegan is old enough to help....or play in it! Should be a good time.

The cookie exchange last weekend was a hit-we got tons of great cookies. Justin and I had fun taste testing each one! Taegan had fun trying real bananas and yogurt. I think we have an eater on our hands. She loved it all!!!

I will post Friday:) When my break has started!!!!!

Nothing much...

We are just plugging along! It has been a busy week, but we are at the end of it. Tonight I have a Christmas party for the staff at my school which should be fun. Grandma and Grandpa will be watching Taegan tonight for us! Tomorrow morning at 8:30 we have a cookie exchange at my best friend's house. I am super excited for that...I can't wait to try all the new yummy cookies I will get! I spent last night baking my 6 dozen so that I can come home with a new 6 dozen cookies tomorrow. Like I really need 6 dozen? But who doesn't love new ideas??? The rule for the party is that you have to come in your pajamas. So that should be a fun one!!! Taegan has a new set of pajamas to wear for it:) I have some really cute ones of her in front of the tree playing with the lights that I will post this weekend.

Have a great weekend, we will be busy trying to eat 6 dozen cookies!!!

Christmas at Grandma's and a visit with Santa~

What a full weekend we had. Friday evening started it off with a visit to Santa at the mall. Taegan did great with Santa. She sat on his lap and clapped for him and really did well. The flash broke right as they were taking her picture so she had to sit there for about 5 minutes while they fixed it and did great. I was very happy with the pictures...

Then it was off to Grandma's Saturday around noon. We timed it just right so that she would nap for the two hour drive. She did great and woke up about 5 minutes outside of town. What a good girl. We had a great evening hanging out with everyone and catching up with the family. We relaxed and let the kids play. Taegan was pretty quiet and not herself as much as she usually is, but she was great nonetheless. Sunday morning arrived and it was her big day. Her first experience with presents and all the commotion. She decided to give Dad a nice wake up in the morning-
Once we got Dad up it was time to get all dressed up in her Christmas outfit and show the family. Here she is with Dad ready to go out and play with everyone.


We ate breakfast, played with cousins for a little bit and then it was time for presents. We were doing presents at about 10:15 which is prime naptime for Miss Taegan so she became rather fussy. She had been an angel the whole visit and decided that now that the whole family was all together in one room she needed to make a scene! Needless to say we quickly opened her presents and removed her from the center of the room. Here she is still pretty interested in the gifts.

Losing interest in the gifts rather quickly and deciding to cry instead....

Settling down for a few minutes with Grandma to play with a new toy....
And happy to have her shirt off(she was SOOO hot) and standing and playing away from the action while everyone else was opening theirs.

Overall, we had a super weekend and a blast with Justin's family!! I love going out there and spending time with them. We don't get to see them often at all so it was nice to have a night where we hang out and relax. Taegan did super well for her first stay over away from a familiar place. We expect to have more Christmas adventures as the month goes on! Hope everyone had a good weekend.

Oh yeah-we have tooth number 2!!!

A mess

Well, our house is still a disaster from taking out the decorations on Sunday! We have not had a chance to finish putting them up yet. The goal is to do it tonight and tomorrow night with hopes of taking Taegan to visit Santa on Friday night. We leave on Saturday after lunch to go to Grandma K's in Kanapolis!!! So we have no choice but to get it done soon. We are racing against time right now. I love the holiday season-but not if my house continues to look like this. I can't even walk through the basement of living room. What a mess.

On another note-Taegan had an accident Monday night. I was a cleaning fool and was in our bedroom cleaning. She was taking her bedtime bottle and was laying on the bed-can you see where this is going???? You guessed it, she finished her bottle and started rolling around to see me. I was watching her and we were talking and I bent down to pick up something and she rolled off the other side....how SCARY was that?? She was fine, but I was a mess that I let her do that. I mean really it was 10 seconds. No more laying on the bed unattended.

Happy Wednesday.

7 months old....

Check out little Miss Taegan!!!!!

Happy 7 months Peanut!!!!

My sweet little girl is 7 months old. She is growing so fast and changing so much we can hardly believe it. She LOVED Thanksgiving. Taegan got to try mashed potatoes and gravy which she could not get enough of. And she got some Cool Whip that she seemed to enjoy as well. Also, on Thanksgiving she decided to figure out this crawling thing and is now army crawling. She can't quite get her tummy off the ground-but she can get where she wants to go!!! She was 7 months old the day after Thanksgiving so these are all milestones she hit at the 7 month mark. Just this past Saturday she decided she wanted to clap as well-what a BIG girl she is getting. She loves clapping for herself and anyone else. She has also recently starting saying "da-da" and it actually sounds like that now. Although, I am not sure that she can put the word with Daddy. We have been working on that. Just last night she decided to say "ba" so we have now started calling her bottle "ba-ba" to try and associate that with the sounds she is making. And the last thing that has happened this month was that she has a tooth that has broke through the skin-and we did not even notice it from her behavior!!! What a difference a month makes for her. I can't wait to tell you what she is up to next month....

Family picture on Thanksgiving!

We are here:)

I know it has been a while since I have posted and I am so sorry. I have been really sick and have been home trying to get better for the last 6 days. Terrible sore throat, body aches, fever, really you name it and I have felt it. The doctor said no strep, but it is viral and could be mono. Needless to say-I think he could be right. I have had it before and this is what I felt like. Oh well-just plugging along. Gotta work and gotta get it done. So here we go with a NEW week for me:) Since I last posted we have been busy. We celebrated with my mom for her birthday-we went out to eat and then to the Cheesecake Factory. On our way there we stopped at Nordstroms to get little Miss Taegan some shoes. Grandma bought her some UGGS!!! and some little Pumas. She has better shoes now than I do. She also loved the car that she could sit in and make noise with and the horse she got to ride on. What a big gir she is getting to be!!!

Here is the fun car she rode in.
And the horse she played on!

Here she is in the bathtub without her seat anymore-big girl

sits in the bath all by her self and plays now.

Sick...

Well it has caught me!! I am down and feeling miserable. I am so glad that Taegan is still her loveable, happy self because this is no fun. I have had a fever off and on, sore throat, headache, neck is sore-really just feel gross. I am doing my best to make it through the days at school to head home and be worthless all night. Which, may I add, is tough with a 6 month old. I guess the good thing about getting it now is that I should be well for Thanksgiving. Or that is my goal at least!

I do have some really cute pictures of Taegan in her bath(sitting up and playing) that I will post when I get home and have energy! She is loving being able to sit up now on her own, we bought her a bath mat that prevents her from sliding around and she is having a ball. She still continues to rock back and forth and wants so bad to crawl. I am guessing the week after Thanksgiving is the time she will start. Look back for pictures soon-and pray that I get over this crud soon.

Nothing much...

Not a lot going on here, but a cranky little girl on our hands. She is just being very whiny and crying more than usual. I am not sure if she is teething or what is going on. She goes through rough parts of the day and then is okay. She is not sleeping the best at night due to a stuffy nose and is needing to sleep more upright....it has been a long last two night for Mom!!! We have been bonding a lot at 4 in the morning.

Justin and I were lucky enough to get away for a night on Friday and spend an evening with our friends. We went to a KSU basketball game and then hit Aggieville!!! We had a ball and I paid for it the next day-not to mention I have not been feeling well either. So needless to say, we are staying in tonight and trying to get better. Pray that we have a better night-Taegan and Mom could both use it:)

Really???

We had a lot of fun last night just the three of us. We did a craft project-which I can't talk about because it is Christmas presents, made dinner, read books, and played in Taegan's room!! I know we sound like a family of nerds, but it was so nice to have time together with just us and nothing to worry about. We had a ball reading her books and watching her try and eat each page. Although she is getting better about sitting on your lap and looking instead of trying to eat them! She is loving the chance to figure out how her sippy cup works with juice-she got to do that while we ate dinner. Not to mention thta she is LOVING the juice. Not too much though, we don't want her to want that instead of formula or food. She has really taken off this last week in what she is eating. She is starting to eat a lot more-piggy! But the big news from last night is:

She is starting to get up on all fours and rock back and forth!!!!! WHAT??? Trying to crawl-I am not ready for that at all. She did it quite a bit while we were playing in her room and she was ending up scooting backward once she put her weight down. Justin and I could not believe our eyes...she grows up so much everyday.

Peek-a-boo!

Taegan has discovered how to play peek-a-boo! It is her own little version of the game, but it is quite cute! She started this Sunday night and we weren't sure if she was really doing it and would remember it. She surprises us again and did remember it, she hides her head and you keep saying "Where is Taegan" and she will pop her head up real fast and laugh at you. She will do this over and over until she gets too excited and she won't wait for you to ask the question-she will just pop up! What a ham she is-I can't believe how fast she is growing and changing before our eyes....

Is that me???

Taegan found a very fun place to play while Mom is folding laundry. It is so fun that she can sit there for 30 minutes and play and play. She loves laughing at herself and hitting it!! What a hoot! It was a nice relaxing weekend with nothing much going on. Which was great because this weekend is very busy with KSU sports. I must add that I am glad to see Prince go-and ready to find out the new coach. Time will tell if we can turn this around. I hope so-I miss the "good days".

We had Taegan's 6 month checkup last Thursday and it went great. She now weighs 17.5 pounds and is 27 inches long. She did a great job of showing off her sitting ability and talking ability. The doctor said she was doing great and to start baby food for 3 meals a day. She also said we could do 2-4 ounces of juice a day. She is starting that in a sippy cup and loves it! She is in the 95% for height(we still are not sure where this is coming from) and the 75% for weight. She had 4 shots(one was the flu shot). This is the first time it made her cranky all night and she ran a low grade temp. Still waiting for those teeth to show up. We also had a constipated little girl for a few days. I have never seen her cry in pain like she did trying to poop. Luckily we have found some strategies that seem to be helping that!!!

Have a good night!

Pumpkin carving...

Well we love carving pumpkins and decided that we would let little Miss Taegan join in the fun and see how she liked it. She loved it...she was not too sure of it at first, but once she realized it was not going to hurt her she loved it.

This is the outcome-they turned out great. The big one is Taegan's-it is Ariel. The middle one is Justin's. And the little one is mine-gotta love it:)

Tinkerbell...butterfly???

She was Tinkerbell by night....
And a butterfly by day!!!

We had a ball going around and visiting family and friends on Halloween. Taegan has so much fun that she decided it would be fun to stay up until 9:30 at night....needless to say she slept for 3 hours on Saturday. During the KU/KSU game-that was AWFUL.

We are ready...

Well, we are very ready for Halloween. Today I dressed Taegan up in her orange gear so that tomorrow she can wear her costumes all around! I just can't wait for the day that she can look back at these pictures and see how stinkin' cute she was. Or will she totally hate me for dressing her like this? Oh well-she is adorable.

This is miss thing after her bath (aka spa). She loves to sit in her robe on her towel and smile and play. Here she is chewing on her brush which is preventing me from actually brushing her hair. Oh well-she seems happy!

This is her cute new spook hat that her godmother, Amy, got for her. We are so grateful that she has Amy in her life!! What a spoiled little girl Taegan is going to be...anything on her head does not bother her in the least. She does not even try to get it off-I hope it stays that way.

Well, I must say this picture looks like me growing up. I loved playing in the laundry baskets! I was trying to carry the folded clothes up from downstairs and Taegan wanted to come along for a ride. She loved it!!! Needless to say the clothes were not very folded when she got done in there.

I will post pictures of her in costume tomorrow or Saturday-stay tuned.

Happy 6 months Peanut!!!

It is hard to believe that six months ago at this time I was still feeling no pain and wondering if the little peanut was going to join us today or not!! And what do you know-she decided to come and in a hurry....She has been so much fun since the moment she arrived here with us. She has always given us a challenge and loves to smile and laugh. I can't think of another baby that is so happy and content all the time. This morning we all woke up together and were able to spend a few minutes together as a family this morning before we headed our different directions! It was really nice to have that time together with her.

Here is just a few things about Taegan at 6 months:

*Sleeps the entire night through(has done this since 1 and a half months old)

*Goes to bed at 8 and wakes up at 7.

*Eats 4 times a day

*Breakfast eats 6 ounce bottle and oatmeal(although not a fan of the oatmeal)

*Lunch 6 ounces bottle

*Dinner 6 ounce bottle and fruit or veggie(she loves everything she has tried so far)

*Bed 8 ounce bottle

*Is taking two naps a day

*Sits up on her own and will sit and play for a period of time

*Rolls all over the house-nothing is safe anymore

*She loves it when Justin "flies" her in the air-she giggles and giggles

*Loves it when you blow on her belly-laughs and laughs

*Has really become interested in the dogs and wanting to feel them

*Wants to sit at the table while everyone is eating so she can see everyone

*Recognizes mom and dad when we come in the room and smiles big

*Is starting to scoot around and move more

Overall, she is an amazing little girl! We love every moment with her and watching her next new adventure...what a fast 6 months it has been! We also got her 6 month pictures to view online today. If you would like to go see them you can go here:

http://www.joleespencer.net/

click on proofs

enter your email

password:Ross08

Enjoy them-they are wonderful!!!

Strength

WOW-my grandma is working overtime with me. She has given me more strength than I knew I had in me. I had one major breakdown right when I found out and a few minor ones here and there, but so far she is holding my head up high and helping me through. I can't believe it really. I am by nature a very emotional person, so this comes as a shock to me. The funeral on Saturday will be very hard for me, but I look forward to being able to honor her in the best way we know possible. She was such an amazing lady. Her obituary was in the paper today with her picture in it and I was so excited to be able to see her again-it brought a smile to my face!

Please continue to keep us all in your prayers, we will need them as we make our way through this weekend. I am thankful that I have an amazing set of parents and in-laws that are there helping us along. This is something no one is ever ready for, but one that we all have to face someday. Thanks for helping me stay strong Grandma-I owe you one!!!

I will leave you with a picture of Miss Princess being her cute self....

Grandma

It is with a heavy heart that I write this post. My grandma passed away this morning at KU Med. She had been fighting and fighting and she just got too tired. Dad, mom, Justin, Taegan, and I got the chance to go up and see her on Saturday. She woke up while I was in there and talked with me for about 10 minutes. She told me that she had been fighting hard and that she was getting tired. She asked if she could see Taegan and I had to tell her that I could not bring her in the ICU. I did promise I would give her a kiss for her and take extra special care of her. I also told her that I loved her and that she had been an amazing grandma to me. She raised her arm to give me a hug and I just leaned down and kissed her head and rested my face there. In my heart I knew that she was telling me she was too tired to keep going. She had fought her battle and she wanted me to know that she was tired. I told her it was okay-that she could be tired and let her body rest. I would be here for grandpa and help where I could. She was very grateful and did not want to stop talking to me, but she was too tired to keep talking. I just held her hand for a few minutes, told her to rest and that it was okay to rest. That I would stay strong and take care of things. She said she trusted me and loved me and I said goodbye.

She had a full weekend with all of her family going up to see her and be with her. She knew that grandpa would be there this morning to be with her. What a strong woman-I look up to her so much. We have amazing memories together that I will cherish until I get to see her again. I did not sleep well last night at all. I would wake every hour to memories of her and I together. She was in my mind all night. Taegan did not sleep well either and was needing extra love throughout the night. This morning at about 6:45 or so she cried out in her sleep, which she never does, and I knew that grandma was with her. I knew that she had come kissed Taegan and is now watching her. At about 7:15 Justin called to tell me Grandma has died. I do believe that was a sign. I am struggling quite a bit with this, but also know that she just didn't have it in her anymore. This was not the way she wanted to live and we all knew she deserved more. God was with her every step, and as hurt as I am now I know she is up there with him helping me get through today.....

Family Fun Part 2...

She loved the swing-she just sat back and let the wind blow on her face!

Where is Taegan? Her first pile of leaves fun!

Wow-all of these are for me Mom???

I am such a big girl that I can pick my own out!

Dad, have you seen this stuff before? Let me show it to you!!!

We could not get her to focus on anything but

this new texture! She was fascinated with it.

I picked this one out Dad and I am going to

sit here until you come put it in the wagon.

This was her first time in the high chair

and she was mad I was taking a picture instead

of feeding her! She loves the high chair.

Out shopping with Mom-can you tell that she

is kicked back and relaxed!

A fun family weekend...

What a fun time we had this past weekend. I wish I had all my pictures uploaded so I could show everything off. It was the first weekend that we did not have anything going on and so we did a lot of things. Friday we we hung out and relaxed, Justin was working the next morning so it was an early night. Saturday he went to work until about noon and then the fun started. We decided to take Taegan to the pumpkin patch and it was a ball. She had fun picking out little pumpkins from the pile and she loved the hay we sat her on. She was, however, very stubborn with her smiles. We tried and tried to get them on camera and she has decided to not let us catch them. Needless to say we have a lot of pictures of her looking away at the last minute.

We came home and started raking leaves because we knew they would soon start taking over the yard. Taegan just played in the driveway in her exersaucer. She was very content just being outside with us and watching us. We then thought it might be fun to put her in the pile of leaves-what a cute picture I got! The night ended with some ice cream and a warm shower!!!

Sunday we woke up early thanks to the early bird(Taegan) and I decided we needed to be motivated around the house. We organized the crawl space, put out all the Halloween stuff, mowed, edged, trimmed, cleaned the house from top to bottom, and started a pot of potatoes and ham. With all of this done by noon and a nap in the books for Taegan it was lunch time. We were really hoping for a good afternoon nap for Taegan-but she decided that she wanted to spend quality time with mom and dad. So we watched football and relaxed.

All in all it was a very productive, fun weekend. I was so glad to have a clean house and a great looking yard!!! It made for a great start to the week.

Pictures soon....

Are you kidding me???!!!!

I can't believe that this happened last night-but little princess decided she wanted to try sitting up!!! I was at a loss of words. We were over at my friend Colleen's house and she was just putting her between her legs in front of her and there she sat. I thought it was just a fluke since she had never done this before, but she did it again and continued to reach out for things!!! What a BIG day for her. I can't wait for her to get stronger and continue on this path-we could be in a for a moving girl here soon....stayed tuned.

Just havin' fun....

I am getting so good at this bottle holding thing

I can kick back and relax now!

Can you believe Mom got my hair in a ponytail-Dad

thinks I look like some sort of alien!!!

My first shoulder ride from Dad-this is really fun!

Can you believe what a big girl I am?? Holding this bottle

by the handles with NO help!

Bread-really....this is kind of fun!!!