Things I love about Taya

*How she goes 'Aaeeaaeeaaee' - almost like a little Baby Tarzan (but lower pitched) & moves her body front and back, front and back while she does it. She also likes to say 'mamamamama' and currently - 'Dekadekadekadeka' among others. ... Love it.

*How she flirts big time with people in the stores ... and with friends too, but man does she love stranger attention ... (we may have to keep an eye on this one)

*How she loves to eat. She can never get enough. She wants whatever we're having, whatever she's having, and then some ... (this is also a little frustrating when she's yelling to get some of our food during our meals)

*The way her hand flips quickly forward to back with the weight of my cell phone that she loves to hold.

*How she never stops kicking her little legs. Never. No, not ever.

*How she gets a huge ol' smile when her Dada comes home from work ... (and then she wants me 10 minutes later because she's a Mama's girl like that right now - that part I don't love quite as much when I need a break)

*How she Army Crawls and rolls to get whatever she wants ... and to see her on all fours rocking back and forth is so cute! ... (if only she could avoid that next step of crawling that is going to change my life!)

*How she has about 20 rolls of baby fatty skin on each leg.

*Her floppy ears.

*How everything on her is round. Round face. Round eyes. Round nose. Round.

*How she gets so excited to play with her mobile during her diaper changes on the changing table (our changing table sits on top of the crib) -- Thanks again for the mobile Matt & Kathryn!

*How she loves me and does everything with me! What did I do with myself before?

...Now if I could just find my camera to add UPDATED pictures (she is 7 1/2, almost 8 months old now & I can't believe it! The pictures above are from 6 months. She's had a haircut since then and her hair is lighter).

Delegations for a week ...

For lack of camera use and any creative ideas on my part, I am just resorting to other people doing the entertaining for me. Not to say my posts are really even entertaining ... anyhow ...

I saw this little 17 month old girl on The Today Show this morning - she can read! All I could do was say WHOA & laugh a lot while watching her - it is unreal! Here is the clip:

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/23557146#23557146

Urgent to Marilyn

This is another poem by Carol Lynn Pearson that I love; I posted one a while ago, and said I would post more, so for lack of creativity and any ready pictures for my other posting ideas, you get to be graced by the presence of this wonderful poet instead! (I'm sure you wished that all along didn't you?)
...
Urgent to Marilyn

Marilyn had a job-
Working out her salvation.
It wasn't nine to five.
It was nine to nine
In twenty-four-hour shifts.

And there was no vacation,
And in case she should get fired
Nobody else was hiring,
So Marilyn worked hard
And she worked fast
And she worked in fear.

The boss was away a lot
And Marilyn wondered
If he liked her work,
And not knowing, she worked harder.
She did everything on every list
Twice over to make sure.

She didn't have much fun
On the job.
It was more the retirement
Benenfits she was there for,
The mansion, the glory.

On a typical day
She ran frantically
From the visual aid department
To the wheat-grinding
And quilting department
To the grow your own
Vegetables department
And the sew your own
Children's clothing department
And the physical fitness
Department.

She even stopped running
Past the genealogy department
And locked herself in
Until she got something done.

And then she ran
To the food storage department,
Ran with scriptures
On casette (I-Pod) in hand,
Ran because there were Twenty-two minutes left to fill,
Ran past the boss's memo
On the bulletin board:

"Urgent to Marilyn:
Peace, be still."



What do you think of this poem?
One part that stands out to me is when it says that she didn't really enjoy her job and was just working for retirement benefits; I had a conversation a while ago with a friend who described how her religion focused on making the most out of now, and that it seemed that in the LDS church, we mostly just focused on getting the most out of life after death. I didn't have a great response then, but I thought about it later and thought, you know what? - I love my beliefs and religion because unlike what she thought, it actually teaches me to make the most out of now while also preparing for wonderful blessings after this life. So I can see what Pearson is saying when she says the woman was working only for retirement - I want to make sure I'm working for happiness (not temporal bad decision happiness, but pure happiness) now and later. Also, I noticed how it says 'she worked in fear'. We might be a God-fearing people, but more than that I ultimately want to work out of love, love for my fellow men and Heavenly Father. "Men are that they might have joy" - I think this goes along with my thoughts, working for happiness now and for life after death, as well as working out of a motivation of love & charity - which ultimately blesses us with joy.

What are your thoughts?

Where did they go?

What?? I just realized in all my new glory of changing to a more simple template (not actually my original plan), I accidentally deleted all of my friends, links, etc.! Does anyone know if I can get them back without doing all of the work again? Uugghhh. Ironically, I've already spent a pathetic amount of time on blog this morning because I was originally trying to doing a special background, etc. and failed!

Any hints? Jana? Anyone? You may not see me blog ever again!

Or at least not for a little while. Blogspot - I'm mad at you!

Have you missed me and all my news??

Of course you have!


Multiplied Post. Yep, this post will be multiplied with information, some info. that many of you already know, but news that is taking up that little space of 'what to blog next' in my mind that I have to get it out.

Paul. My Parents. Taya.

Those are the blogs that need to be cleared out of that little blog to-do list in my mind!


So, first things first!

My parents are now neighbors! They moved here in January and I've been meaning to blog about it forever, but was waiting for the right picture, etc. - well, I think this cute one below will do! My parents decided it would be better to bear the heat and live near grandkids than to enjoy beautiful Northern California with hardly any family nearby. And we are so glad!! We have already enjoyed things like going out to breakfast and shopping on my birthday, .... AND going out to dinner to celebrate......... (this brings me to my next very big topic) Paul's earning of his LICENSE in ARCHITECTURE!!!

That's right. Paul found out last week that he passed his last of 9 HUGE tests in order to earn his official license in architecture! I am so proud of him. He was so anxious to find out, he could hardly bear it. He worked really hard to study for all of his tests and earn his license at the soonest time possible. This man was meant to be an architect - seriously. Not only is he incredibly talented in this field in many ways (yes, I'm bragging on my husband b/c I am proud of him), but he is CRAZY passionate about it. I am happy for him and for us (does this still sound too braggy? I'm just happy, that's all). GOOD JOB PAUL!!!

Below is a picture of my parents and us going out to dinner to celebrate Paul's good news and a picture of Paul celebrating - (oh wait, okay, this picture was really from months back when he was celebrating his hard earned victory over his Play Station 2 Madden '07 football game - once he beat the top level of the game - I finally had my husband back in the evenings, so I was celebrating too) - but this shows just what he felt like after finding out he passed the last test.

My parents are such wonderful people and we truly are blessed to have them nearby now. I am so glad Taya will have their positive influence so close at hand.

Ah yes. And then there is Taya. She is getting SO BIG!! I am wondering constantly how she can get into the things she does without even being able to crawl yet - we are doomed! (I think she's getting kind of close to crawling, but really, what's the rush right?)

These are some cute pictures below that we took recently (borrowed a nice camera), and I have been having fun trying to figure out Photo Shop (Notice the first one vs. its original version below - Photo Shop rocks! ..... Wish we could do professional photos every 3 mo.s, but you know how it goes, so this is our substitute version for now)

And that is all for my LONGEST POST EVER!!! Sorry friends!

Thank you to so many of you who were thoughtful for my birthday - I really appreciated all of the phone calls and generousity, and overall thoughtfulness! I had one of the better birthdays I've had in a long time! Thank you!

Happy Half-Birthday to Taya!!

Taya turned 6 months yesterday (time has flown)! We love our little babe!

Taya in a nutshell right now:

• Alternate noises between lip buzzes, squeal screams, mamama, dadada, bababa, ... oh yes, and an occasional cry here and there
• Roll around like crazy (she could put any fire out! - insert courtesy laugh here)
• Laugh (but we have to work for it and it's always in response to bouncing her, tossing her, swinging her, etc. -- the lady loves to move!)
• Shake her head and hips back and forth
• Suck on EVERYTHING
• Smile at and flirt with strangers and friends OFTEN
• Work on sitting up (definitely still in progress)
• Stand on our laps lots and lots
• Arch her back for fun - over and over again

HAPPY HALF-BIRTHDAY TAYA!!!

New Links

See below if:

You are by chance feeling any of these moods ...

• Artistic
• Design Savvy
• Modern
• Procrastinating your next task even if it means looking at these websites Breanne has recommended...

(I added some websites to my 'Favorite Websites' List - all about design, mostly interior design, as I am feeling more passionate per say about it at the moment)

Miscellaneous Business to Take Care Of...

So Shannon told me that it wasn't working to post a comment on my blog: I told her that I thought
A: People felt too awkward to respond to my sappy post about our anniversary
or
B: The world had turned against me, but that I wasn't sure which one.

(Yes, I thought my joke to Shannon was that funny - I had to repeat it - Hey! Jokes can be recycled!)

Then I figured out the glitch and found 8 COMMENTS!! I AM SO POPULAR!!!

So this miscellaneous business:
Oh, okay, I guess I already checked one off my list with that intro.

Umm, you are all dying to know about the video & picture in the anniversary post. That video was taken while Paul and I were dating - he told me he was just taking a still picture and was tricking me (yes, he still likes to play jokes on me all the time). What cracks me up about the video is how flirty and new we are with each other ( you know what I mean by new?). Anyhow, it made me laugh. By the way, the first 6 or 7 songs I put on the playlist for the blog are songs that Paul had put on a CD he made for me for the night he proposed - some of them are actually kinda funny.

The picture was just of us after coming back from Paul's work party at Christmas time recently. I got that dress at Deseret Industries a few years back when I worked there. Half of our furniture and a 1/3 of my clothes are from DI - it paid to supervise at DI!!!! I bought that dress and knew I'd use it sometime - I just had to wear a tank top & shrug with it to be modest of course!

Last item of Business: For our anniversary, we went to Shabu Fondue (like Melting Pot, but almost half the cost). I would definitely recommend it! I haven't been to The Melting Pot, but the food here was very tasty (tasty recently became my new word that I use a lot & as I say it each time, I bug myself - don't know why). Shabu Fondue is across the street from the Chandler Fashion mall - I would recommend it - a great anniversary date because you have to spend at least an hour and a half there if you do all three courses!



Jana - let's see what else did you ask for? -- What I wore - oh, just some new jeans from Christmas, a pink top, and my best perfume, yeah nothing exciting, but I tried to feel cute, ya know?



Wow- I'm realizing this post is entertaining for a very small percentage of you, and probably not even that!
Anyhow, that's it for the misc. business!

Oh wait, one more item! (Aaahhh and you thought you could go back to checking your email, checking on your little ones, or watching your favorite Soap Opera) - but this is important if any of us want our non-blogging family and friends to leave comments for us!!! Please support this cause! ... And here it goes....
My non-blogging friends & family members have yet to ever leave comments on my blog & I'm sure many of you fellow bloggers are waiting for the same thing!

THIS IS HOW YOU DO IT:
After clicking on the 0 Comments line at the end of the post (or in my case, 8 Comments ;) ), Under the 'Leave Comment' Box, go to the 'Sign-in' Button with the drop box that probably says 'Blogger ID', scroll down to 'ANYONE ID', click it! Then click on the 'Nickname' button (and write your name) or the 'Anonymous' button (if you fee like being mysterious) ...... AND YOU SUCCESSFULLY LEFT A COMMENT WITH NO OBLIGATION OR SOLICITATION NECESSARY!!!!!!!! Yay!! You feel creative and I feel popular and loved (this is very important you know)! We're all happy!

Wow - I've posted a lot this week - looks like I've gotten a little side tracked. Have a happy day!!


This is a funny picture of Taya from our road trip to Cedar City a couple of weeks ago: I had too many pics of us recently and not enough of my growing little Babe! Plus this may have been the only thing worth really posting out of this whole post.