Happy Birthday Baby Girl

You and your best/worst friend (I mean brother) on the 4th of July!

At Goofy's Kitchen on your birthday.

Sliding down the water slide with your daddy at your party.

Having a heart to heart with Sleeping Beauty.

After you "freaked out" when all the other girls were wearing your dresses, you had to open this sleeping beauty dress so you wouldn't completely lose your mind!

Watching you as we all sang happy birthday to you.......the only thing you were concerned with was your brother not blowing out your candles.... that completely sums up your relationship!!

I'm not exactly sure where the time has gone, but I cannot believe my baby girl is 3 years old today. I have tears in my eyes as I'm writing this, for many reasons, but most importantly because it is just amazing to me how you have grown up right before my very eyes.

You are the sweetest most lovable little girl ever Taylor Mae and I cannot begin to tell you how much I love you and how you and your brother are the BEST things that could have ever happened to me. You both are the light of my life and I cherish every single second that I get to spend with you. How I got so luck with the two of you I will never know but I thank my lucky stars every single day! Because it is summer break we have gotten to spend so much time together and most of it has been in the pool. We switch from pool to pool to pool each and every day, if someone we knows has a pool, we use it! You have gotten to be such a good swimmer and are so close to being completely pool safe that we finally (today) got you in those one on one lessons so you should be good to go in the next few weeks. Your sleeping has gotten to be much worse (my fault) but we said when you turn 3 we are all going back to our own beds. You got the coolest little princess night light for your birthday and everyone knows how you love princesses!!! How that happened, I'm still not sure! Your love for your princesses, make-up, dolls, dresses, nail polish, dance, etc....is beyond me, BUT I'm trying to savor every second of it because you have to turn into an athlete eventually, right??? You still love your brother the most and hate him the most, but look up to him like he is your prince. You never want to be away from him and are always the most concerned for him AND the first one to tattle tell on him. As difficult as the last few years have been with the two of you so close in age, I wouldn't change a thing because I truly believe that the two of you are going to be the best of friends!! You got potty trained this year and I have to say that it was much easier than your brother, BUT your lack of interest in learning is so opposite from him. You talked much much quicker but he was much much more excited about learning (hopefully the PC way of putting it!) than you have been. Not that I'm concerned, you are definitely very wise beyond your years. You have gotten this sassy little attitude the last few months, hence the name "sassy pants", BUT it sure doesn't take much for me to give you a look and you to break down in tears, I guess that is the female side.

You are the best little sister, daughter, friend, granddaughter, cousin, niece that anyone could ask for. You are very very unique, which most people who know you completely agree!

I love you more than you could ever imagine and cannot wait to watch you grow this next year. Thank you for being you!

Love,

Mommy

Second annual Trike-a-thon

Last Friday the kids had a Trike-a-thon at school. In the middle of all the preparations for Jeana's wedding it was kind of nice to just go watch them ride bikes for a couple of hours. Don and I figured Taylor would last about 5 minutes and then come tell us that she needed a break because she was too tired, but.....she actually rode for at least an hour, she did so great and was absolutely exhausted. Trevor was the star of his class last year and this year he didn't disappoint! We brought 2 bikes for him, one with training wheels and one without. He of course wanted to ride the one without but I was a little nervous of that because there were so many kids and I didn't want him to crash into them. Don said he would follow him around and make sure he was ok, so we let him. Wouldn't you know it.......he did fantastic!! He barely needed any help and just maneuvered that bike so well and was even able to start and stop himself when needed. Needless to say he was the only kid in his class on a 2 wheel bike and mommy and daddy were very proud!!!!


Here is a picture of Abby throwing a fit, although I missed the head being thrown back. I'm pretty sure she was upset because she couldn't ride a bike or that her mom wouldn't let her run in the street!
Ruby on her tricycle! Her mom was also very impressed, she was hoping for one lap and she did three!!!! Although, she had just gotten done with ballet so I'm sure she was exhausted.

Taylor riding her bike.

Trevor's cheesy smile.

The grand finale.......

Dance class

Dance class in in full swing.......Taylor is performing at the Pan American Festival over Mothers Day Weekend and her recital is on June 15th! She is still loving it and doing great, here are a couple of videos.

Easter egg hunt, train ride and pony rides....

On Sunday, Jeana and I, along with Julie and Malcolm took the kids to Irvine Park. The kids did an Easter egg hunt, rode the ponies and had a train ride. All in all it was a great time, the only problem was that we thought our softball game was at 2 and then found out it was at 1 so we had to rush through the last hour.

Trevor, Bryce and Taylor on the train....they refused to sit with me and had to sit with Julie!!! So Malcolm and I sat together.
Sitting on the rock after the Easter egg hunt.

Taylor and Trevor hunting for eggs.

Taylor on her pony.

Trevor on his pony.

Both kids with the Easter bunny....finally a cute picture, this one does it no justice!!!! We can't wait for the real thing on Sunday!!!!

What a big girl....

So, I was going to do a nice long post with lots of pictures and video but my son decided he wasn't ready for bed, even without a nap, so it has come to this(only because I told my cousin Christy that I was going to post tonight, otherwise I would have waited).

It has been a couple of weeks and we have had a couple of huge milestones in our house. Taylor is officially potty trained (for almost 2 weeks) and although I would love to take credit for it, I owe most of it to her teachers at school. They were the ones who pushed it and even though she is only there 3 days a week, they get most of the credit. They also pretty much potty trained Trev and wow, what a difference!!!! She was so easy compared to him and just decided that she was done with diapers (so much cheaper for my Costco trips!). She also got transferred from her crib into her big girl bed. Of course, she absolutely loves it and it was not an issue at all!!!! She has been sleeping great, probably because she can actually move now!

Trevor is still loving baseball and is doing awesome!!! This week it has gotten a little more stressful because they are actually playing outs or 5 runs whatever comes first. It seems a little intense for me but I have to keep in mind that he is the youngest and he is playing with 6 year olds who have been doing this for 3 years so they get it. Luckily, Trevor could care less, for example, his first at bat he grounded out to the first baseman for the 3rd out and continued to run around all the bases and slide at home!!!! We are having a blast being baseball parents and cannot even imagine what it is going to be like having 2 kids completely involved in sports (hint hint, hopefully not dance for Taylor).

Speaking of dance, Taylor is still loving it and doing great. She is still one of the best behaved 2 year olds out of like 16 in her class. She has practice once a week and continues to love it. Her recital is on June 15th and considering I had to pay $65 for the outfit, it better be great!

Don has been extremely busy at work. Lots of hours, overtime, and not much sleep! Today he got home from work at 6:30 am, asleep by 6:45, I woke him up at 8:45 to get Trevor to his game by 9:00, helped coach the game and then we had a team pizza party until 1:30, came home and went back to sleep until 4 :15 and is back at work until 6:30 tomorrow morning. HORRIBLE ,but what a trooper!!!

As for me, I'm just counting down the days until Spring Break! It has been too long without a holiday, although I know anybody who is not a teacher doesn't feel sorry for me! 5 more days of work and then a wonderful week off! Cannot wait!!!

P.S. I was just re-reading before I actually post....do you really call dance class practice????? Or.....is that just the athlete in me????

ANYONE ELSE????????

Is there anyone out there who stays up way too late every single night just because they absolutely LOVE the downtime (aka, no kid time)?? I swear that I wake up every single morning exhausted and tell myself that I have to go to bed when the kids do so I can get a "good" night sleep. Half way through the day I feel a little better and then by nighttime I SOOOOOO Love my adult time that I stay up way too late and then feel horrible the next day. It is an endless cycle and I'm going to bed right now at 9:11.......yeah right, I'm gonna watch 24 and then be awake for 2 more hours because of the adrenaline rush!!!!

Trevor's Birthday!

Where oh where has the time gone???? I cannot believe that we have a 4 year old!! Trevor turned 4 yesterday and we celebrated his birthday with a big "Super Mario Bros." party on Sunday. Many of his family and friends came over for pizza, juice, bounce house and a pinata!! Everyone had a great time and Trevor was absolutely thrilled to have everyone over to celebrate with him. On his actual birthday, Tuesday, we thought it would be a good idea to go to Disneyland and get our $60 of free birthday money and go on some rides while we were at it. We were so wrong!!! It was ridiculously crowded, and so, so hot. We didn't even make it into Disneyland, we went straight to California Adventure and only went on 3 rides. The kids were tired, hot and cranky and were both asleep by 6:45, sorry Trev!

Trevor, you have become the most sweetest and lovable little boy this last year! You gave us a run for our money between 2 1/2 and 3 1/2, but you have finally figured out that all the crying, screaming, hitting, yelling, saying "no" isn't going to get you very far. You started swimming lessons this year and learned so much in such a short period of time. We stopped through the holidays but are going to pick it up again so that you will be completely water safe by summer. At school, your teachers absolutely love you and say that you are such a well behaved, considerate and smart young boy. You continue to amaze me everyday with how bright you are. You absolutely love to learn and would do workbooks all day long. You also love reading books, the problem is once we start you never want to stop. You love playing your Wii, especially Mario Kart, Mario Sluggers and now the Wii fit!!! You just started your first season of baseball, and THANK GOD, you absolutely love it. I think you may be the youngest kid in the league (probably 200 kids total), you made the cutoff by 2 weeks! You have improved so much in the last 6 weeks and your whole family loves going to watch you play! Your baseball strengths are hitting and throwing and you need to work on catching and running fast, that's good though, we don't want you to peak too soon. You are the best big brother and your sister absolutely adores you, she is one lucky girl! You are very passionate in everything you do and also very particular. Every night before bed you HAVE to watch 2 minutes of Barney and then when I take you to bed I have to sing you the same 5 songs every single night......Santa Claus (Better Watch out), Jingle Bells, Bible song (Jesus loves me), Twinkle twinkle and Rudolph, it doesn't matter if it is July!!!!!!!
I don't think two people can love you more than your dad and I! We are so very proud of you and so thankful for you and cannot wait to watch you grow! You are our biggest and bestest boy!!!!!