Saturday, September 27, 2008

WE'RE HOME... without daddy :(

We made it! Taya and I got home on Tuesday night, we're so excited to be here, but we already miss Cameron. I've been kept very busy with lots of house work, yard work, salon work, and baby work though so it's kept my mind off him being gone. Funny how you don't appreciate the little things until you're without that person. The other night I lay down to go to sleep, looked in the corner and saw a black thing. Cameron knows that's his job, to kill all the things I'm afraid of. I tried to convince myself it was just a fly, but was terrified to shut the light off not knowing if the black thing would somehow make its way over to me during the night. Just then, it flew away! Hallelujah! Then, there's the issue with the garage door... how is a girl supposed to know how to reprogram her garage door remote?? Any ideas?? I miss you Cam!!

Taya has been so funny since we've been home, she LOVES having a bigger house to roam. The second we got home she had to speed-crawl through every room, shut every door, climb the stairs, throw everything down the stairs... you name it. She loves having doggies of her own to pet and play with. She wakes up saying "dob dob dob" every morning. Apparently "g" is a hard letter to say :). It's pretty cute though. I'm soooo happy to finally have her in her crib, she hasn't woken up in the night since she's been in it... knock on wood!

We're so happy to be home and excited to see all of our friends and family. Cameron, we miss and love you so much. I'm so proud of you, you're doing so good honey!


Here's a few more pictures since we've been home...

This is the best picture we could get with the 4 of us!

One of the nice things about having a dog, they clean up so you don't have to :)

First things first... the stairs!!

My brother inlaw, Matt, took us sailing on Wednesday! As you can see, the wind was horrendous! :) Tons of fun...

Captain Matt and Melaina (my sister Kim's husband and child).

Taya was playing with her dolly tonight and when I was looking at the pictures I took I realized their head shapes are identical... funny :) Totally random, I know.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Thanks to Cameron

I've been so happy that Taya is 1 now and still doesn't climb our stairs in our apartment, BUT the other day Cameron said, "honey, look!". So I came around the corner and Taya was climbing the stairs with the help of her father. This was 3 days ago and ever since I can't keep her off of them. I'm leaving Chicago to go back to Utah in 2 days and was so grateful we didn't have to buy a baby gate the whole time we lived here (with limited space in our car on the way back we've tried to buy as little as possible!). Anyway, yesterday Cameron blocked the stairs with our stoller, some boxes and a bunch of other random things and when I finished the dishes I couldn't find Taya. I asked Cam where she was and heard giggling at the top of the stairs. She was at the very top laughing, doing who knows what up there! Somehow she had gotten through his "homemade baby gate" and climbed to the top. I swear one of these days she's going to give me a heart attack. Today she found a piece of gum, put a whole golf ball in her mouth, almost swallowed an earring and tried to get out of the bathtub by herself. It's been quite the week!

This is how happy she was when she got to the top :) ....

I took a little video of her going up the stairs (mainly just for her grandma's). Aslo, this is Danny and Caitlin's dog by the way. Taya can't really figure out "dog" yet, it's always "dob" or "bob" haha.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Shedd Aquarium

Trey and Jami were in town for a few days on their way back to Utah so Cameron took the day off and we went to the Shedd aquarium. It was a lot of fun and I think we all saw things we never even knew existed! Here's a few pictures from the day......

We found Nemo

Taya loved sitting on the ledge watching the fish!
This was at the 4D movie theatre inside the aquarium.
Trey and Jami... and part of Danny's head. Don't you love Trey's facial hair?!? :)


Saturday, September 13, 2008

Squinty Eyes

The other day Taya was making faces at me all day- we sat at the dinner table going back and forth and it was absolutely hilarious. She'd make a face and then laugh and do it again, then laugh, over and over. She did it again a while later and I got a little bit of it on tape...

Sunday, September 7, 2008

1 Year Ago Today...

A while back I promised to tell about my experience with Bells Palsy and since it happened to be exactly one year ago today that I was diagnosed I figured it might as well be now. Just for a little info if you've never heard of it, Bells Palsy is paralysis of the nerves in one side of your face...

The morning I was getting ready to leave the hospital after having Taya I remember something was sooo nasty about the water there. It'd been fine the whole time so I couldn't figure out why, on the day I was supposed to leave, it had all of the sudden gone bad. Of course I didn't think anything of it and headed home anyway. The next couple days were full of baby excitement and resting, but I kept noticing weird things going on with my face. I'd smile and something was just not quite right. My mom and Cameron thought I was being paranoid so I tried to ignore it, but it finally got really bad. I called the doctor and the nurse said I was probably having a reaction to the pain meds, so they switched those and had me take benadryll to help it. It didn't. I called again the next day and made an appointment to be seen. By this time the whole left side of my face wouldn't move at all, not even a little smidgen. When I smiled, the right side smiled with me, and the left side was dead. There weren't even any wrinkles that would wrinkle up. When the doctor walked into the room he looked at my face and immediately said, "yep, I'm so sorry, you have Bells Palsy". I had no idea what that was, but by the look on his face I could tell it wasn't good. He explained that it's facial paralasis, when all the nerves die in just one side of your face, for some unexplained reason. Apparently they don't know where it comes from or really how to fix it! He then went on to tell me that it could last anywhere from two weeks up to a year and in some cases stays permanent. I don't think I've ever felt worse in my life. I started bawling and luckily Cameron was there to comfort me. I'll never forget walking out of that office with my head sunk so low trying to hide my tears. There I was with a precious six day old baby and this had to happen. I called my mom on the way home from the doctor's and her and my dad came over right away. I'll never forget my dad hugging me, for some reason it really meant a lot. The next few weeks were really hard, all I could think about was year's down the road Taya's friends asking "what's wrong with your mommy's face?". I felt so robbed of my first few weeks with my daughter, I had such a hard time with it all. I remember running errands with my mom and people would comment on my baby but I was so ashamed of my face to even really talk to them. I remember saying a prayer one night, though, and I knew everything would be ok, even if I had to live with this forever. It lasted for a month and slowly each day got better and better. I'll never forget that experience and hope I'll never have to go through that again!

On a non-emotional note, it actually was really hard to do certain things. Chewing was almost ridiculous, as my entire tongue was half numb. You know after going to the dentist and coming out of the numbness? That's what my tongue felt like... the pins and needles, yucky feeling. Plus I couldn't taste. (Hence, the grose hospital water.) And sucking through a straw... yeah, not so much. I'd have to pinch the left side of my lips with my fingers around the straw just to get my mouth to suck. I remember one time at a gas station I ran in and got Cameron and I drinks, but I overfilled his so I tried to slurp it up... that was probably the only time I actually laughed about my Bells Palsy, because I could not suck for the life of me! And then there was the lovely task of putting on my makeup. I now appreciate all the movements my face can make. Whenever I wore lip gloss I couldn't just spread it around with my lips, I had to move my finger across it and hope it looked ok! I'd also have to pull my eyelids up to put my mascara on because my eye wouldn't open and close all the way. Speaking of which, I lost probably about 60% of my vision in my eye because it would dry out from being open all day. I'd squint so hard but couldn't get it to close. I was still in Washington at the time and couldn't get back to Utah so Cameron had to fly back and drive me home because I couldn't see! Thank goodness my vision came back though, that was miserable!

I tried not to take any pictures of myself at the time because I was so horrified, now I wish I would have, but I still have a few. They don't do it justice, but this is what having my child did to me :) ... Let's just hope it doesn't happen the next time!! :/

This was right after Taya's first real bath I think... I'm trying so hard not to smile :)

This was about 3 1/2 weeks into it, so it's almost gone, but still there a little.

Friday, September 5, 2008

Taya's Tunnel

Ok, so this isn't the video I was going to post, but I think the other one was too long because it wouldn't download. Anyway, this is Taya's tunnel we made and just her waving. Nothing special, but still cute :) Just another day in Chicago...

and yes, I now know I talk to much. Sorry.

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Rain Rain Go Away

Apparently these days hurricanes travel through every state... it has literally been raining nonstop since 9 this morning! Needless to say, I have not left the house all day except to go to the grocery store tonight. And what was the first thing I did when I walked out of the door, you ask... that's right, you guessed it, I walked down my steps into a beautiful, massive puddle. So I walked through the grocery store with soggy shoes and soggy pants. It was lovely. I love the rain. Cam said it's supposed to rain through tomorrow too :( Any ideas on what to do with a one year old all day long couped up inside the house??

Monday, September 1, 2008

Happy Birthday Little One

We had a little Birthday party for Taya last night, I'm not really sure she had any idea what was going on, but it was still a lot of fun. I decided to make her cake since I've never really done it before and thought it'd be fun, but I was in such a hurry and screwed up the frosting on the bottom layer so it pretty much just looks like a mess :) So don't make fun of it... or me!

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Yeah, the hat stayed on for about 2 seconds :(


When I flipped through all my pictures on our camera I thought 'oh, that's a descent family picture, yay!'... then I zoomed in on Cameron's face!! grrr...


'Look what I did, Mom'

'YAY'

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I can't believe our little Taya is one year old already! It's gone by so fast but we've enjoyed every minute of it... well, almost every minute :) She is such a precious little girl and we could not have asked for a more perfect daughter. Not a day goes by where I'm not grateful to my Heavenly Father for sending her to us. I sometimes think that we need her more than she needs us. Happy Birthday sweetie pie, we love you so much!

Sweet Baby Tay, hard to believe this was already a year ago!

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funny video to come, my computer is being so slow!