admiration

growing up i never really realized what a gift i had when it came to my parents

sure, sure they love to embarrass us and dress us up weirdly, or tell us we look adorable and pretty (and it's usually true until you reach junior high and then no one does!)

and sometimes it's all you can do to tolerate them...but in the end, they're your parents and you love them

and then, one day you become a parent and realize how scary it is and what great parents you really do have

and as i watch my parents care for their parents, it makes me realize even more how lucky i am when it comes to parents...thanks mom and dad for being amazing examples of Godly parents and now grandparents!

birthday girl

today sophia is one! i cannot believe it! a year ago today at this time i was sleeping...or trying to...and learning what it meant to jump at every little sound a new baby makes :)

now she's sleeping through the night (i still sometimes jump awake at her noises or just to check on her though), crawling, saying "mama," "dada," "bye-bye," and maybe "leila"...and saying please and all done in sign language...and SOOOO much more! hard to believe little miss sophia is one year old already!

crawler

sophia has decided to wait to crawl or move really for awhile now

she has been talking for quite awhile though :)

at first, i was anxious about her not crawling at 6 months, 7 months, and 8 months

john helped me see that everyone, every child is very very different

each child will excel at different things...sports, academics, crawling, walking, etc

so as all sophia's friends started crawling (and almost walking)...and she seemed very content to just sit and observe

well about a week ago she started scooting herself across the floor

with one leg underneath her, she pulls herself to wherever she wants to go...

and now she is in to everything-the cabinets, under the table, in to books, dog toys, and the list goes on

and now that she is scooting, she is loving life!!!

family pictures

garage sales

most everyone knows that we taylor (or former taylor women) love to go to garage sales

yes, we look through the newspaper (or online) on thursday and "plot" out the ones that look promising

and yes, we get made fun of...but who finds all the deals? us!

anyway, so a bunch of us decided to have a garage sale to make some money this summer

i think we started with about 4 or 5 girls contributing...and we ended up with 11!

we did it on a friday and saturday

unfortunately it rained saturday so that was not fun

but the rest of the time we had a great time hanging out and making some money!

thanks to jenn and melody for their house, food, drinks, bathroom, etc!

and thanks to all the girls who hung out and made it enjoyable...and to aunt jojo for entertaining sophia while mom was pretty busy making money!

feeding leila

sophia and leila have had a love-hate type relationship so far

sophia loves leila

leila is unsure of sophia...until now

sophia loves to drop food off her high chair to leila's waiting mouth (we are working on this)

or leila hovers around sophia when she plays on the floor...hoping she has a spare cheerio in her hand

then one day, i handed sophia a dog treat and let her "feed" leila

both of them LOVED this activity

their favorite spots in the house

summer time