Friday, July 27, 2012

Water Color

I am always looking for something fun to do with Taelyn. We have been working on colors and it has really been a frustrating process. When it came to her ABC's and Numbers, she took to them right away. She can say them by herself, she can identify them when she sees them on paper, but when it comes to colors, she has no idea what is what and when I ask her, she pauses and then guesses. I have been working on colors diligently everyday for almost two weeks and she still doesn't know what color is what. I'm VERY frustrated. I have sought out help and a friend suggested that I try a new method of just doing ONE color and working on that color until she understands. The Jury is still in on if it works or not.

In the meantime, we painted with water colors yesterday after naps and I thought it was going to be a fun activity, it really turned out to be a mess, for ME, not Taelyn, she LOVED it!

Taelyn is TWO, and I MUST remember this, because after we started painting, my anxiety level went from 0 to 10, in a matter of minutes. I don't know why, but I was getting upset at the way Taelyn was painting. I know there is no right or wrong way to paint, but everything she did was wrong to me. I showed her how to dip the paint brush in the water and then the paint and then put it on the paper. She followed instructions for the most part, but when she put the brush on the paper, she mashed it, causing the bristles to separate, and I stopped her from doing that pretty much the entire time. She was going from the water to the paper, getting the paper all wet without any paint on the brush, and then she was mixing colors, (God forbid!)

Really, Taelyn did absolutely nothing wrong and she was just exploring as a 2 year old would and I let my OCD tendencies ruin it for her. I really tried to let loose and let her do her thing, but at one point, I grabbed the brush and yelled and told her she was doing it wrong which resulted in her crying, which resulted in me giving myself a time out where I went into the pantry and cried and prayed about my actions. When I came out, Taelyn was so excited to show me her art work and that is when I got these great shots. Thank God she forgave me and didn't get traumatized by the way I acted.

Pictures of her Masterpiece:
Don't let these smiles fool you, it was a rough process...
She was happy with her work and I was happy she was happy!
She was so proud of her art
This is what I posted on Instagram
I am going to frame her work and put it on display in the playroom, not only as art, but as a reminder for myself that I need to just let her be a kid and not interfere.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Vacation Bible School

Taelyn was in Vacation Bible School and boy, did she love it! I volunteered in the crafts, so I released control and let Taelyn venture off with her Trek Leader, Miss Tara, who was AMAZING!

Taelyn truly LOVED Vacation Bible School. She never wanted to leave. Here are some pictures of her last day:

Life Before Kids

I went through a bunch of random pictures on Facebook in old albums and I came across a few and I just had to share them. Before kids, Todd and I did a whole lot of living it up! The phrase YOLO, You Only Live Once, is huge now and we lived by that. We had a LOT of fun and I am so glad that we did because we truly got it out of our system. I ran across and ecard the other day and it said, "You know you are old when you and your friends start having babies on PURPOSE." This is oh, so true, I laughed so hard when I saw that!

Before kids, Todd and I hung out with these two a lot...
and we still do, considering, they live across the street. This is us pointing at our houses
We went to MANY Dodger games every year
We had raging parties at my old house, this is Todd's 30th birthday
Why YES, this is my leg straight up. This is at a club in Vegas for Kellina's birthday
The Birthday Girl
We played on a coed softball team
We traveled
We did lots of stuff with our dogs, our first babies
We were just plain having fun!
We did a lot of things with our friends and our families. It was some really great times, but honestly we felt like something was missing. Now after having two kids, I feel complete. I am so happy and I am so glad that we had many years of just me and Todd, now we are on to another chapter in our lives and it is so much better and I look forward to what the future holds for us.

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Pay Back

Taelyn has been a little stinker lately. I think that is it is mostly because Trent is mobile now and is able to grab her toys, where he never bothered her before. He grabs her toys and she says things like, "Baby bother!" "NO BABY!" "No touch Baby, that's Taelyn's!" Then she can be really sweet to him and say, "Taelyn LUB Baby" She pets him on the head and says. "Niiiice" I can catch a few moments where they are playing nicely, like this:
Then, the very next second catch her doing something like this:
Well, Trent is now able to get to Taelyn's things and then do something like this:
He stands at her table and reaches for whatever he can grab. Is it sad that my first instincts are to grab a camera and capture a moment like this??? I laughed so hard!
Taelyn was completely devastated and Trent didn't even realized he was the cause of her unhappiness. I honestly couldn't stop laughing and I wish I video taped it because Taelyn yelled at him and said, "Bad Baby!" "Baby NERVES ME!!" Its so sad and funny that she said that, because she got that from only me. I say everything gets on my nerves and she picked up on that. Hopefully Taelyn realizes that soon, very soon Trent is going to be bigger than her and all the grief she gives him, he will give right back to her. It starts...

Monday, July 9, 2012

Near Death Experience

The day after they guys built their hut, we were super curious to know if it was still there. So while Todd was making dinner, Chaz, Jess, Jim and I went back to the "Joint" to see if the hut was still there and....
It wasn't :(
There was no sign of it ever being there. We were sad, but we got over it quickly. We decided to follow the creek for a while. It was a really beautiful walk.

Jim found a cool chair-like rock to contemplate life
Beautiful stream
Some areas in the water were pretty high, up to Jim's hips!
Jess and I
S0 pretty with the sun setting!
So after I took this, we decided that we were going to head back to the car. Jim had the bright idea that instead of walking back the way we came, we should climb up a semi-steep hill, through shrubbery, prickly, thorny, snake holes and random trees. Sure, why not? It looked like a short cut.
I warned them that I am clumsy and out of shape and that I would need help. I followed the steps that Jess took and it worked up until we were half way up. It got kind of difficult. Jess and I were wearing flip flops. I was terrified. It took everything in me to make it up this hill. Jim held my hand most of the way... did I mention, he has a broken arm? Well as you can see in the pictures, his arm is in a cast! So with that being said, I didn't want to put my full weight on him, I had his hand with one hand and I grabbed a tree with another. The tree looked sturdy, but it so wasn't. The moment I put any weight on it, the tree BROKE! I went tumbling and the tree smacked Chaz in the face!!! It was the worst fall. I landed in thorns and I think I broke my butt. We were all laughing so hard, mostly because if I didn't laugh, I would have been boo-hooing! I just knew I was gonna lose my life! I was praying the entire time and thinking, I just gotta get home to my kids! I was laughing with tearful, terrified eyes. I don't know how we made it up that hill, but I was so thankful when we did! We survived, we had a few bumps, scrapes and bruises, but we got a GREAT story out of it and lots of laughs and a wonderful memory.
Chaz helping Jess, or Jess helping Chaz, I'm not sure in this pic
Chaz helping me just after I pulled a tree down and smacking him in the face
This Guy! We should have known better than to listen to the guy with a broken arm!
Good times, amazing family and a great story to tell later!

They Built a HUT!

Last month, we found Mentone Beach, the next time we went there, it was COMPLETELY dry, so strange! I really wanted to take the kids to something like that again. Todd's cousin Jim is visiting from Alabama, so we went to look for something similar to Mentone Beach and we found a great spot just off Highway 38. It was absolutely beautiful. We found a nice area and Jim got the crazy idea of making a hut/fort/a one bedroom grato out of stones...

Such great construction workers




Roof and everything
They personalized it!
These guys were so proud
This was my Instagram picture I posted
While the guys were building, Taelyn was crying. She hates anything outdoorsy.

It was a great time! We will definitely go back! It was really beautiful and I love the stream. Taelyn will eventually get over her aversion to the outside, but today was not the day.



Trent is 6!!

I blinked and my man turned six years old.  Every year I have had a huge party.  According to Trent, I give all of his friends weapons on hi...