Yay Visitors!!!

My friend Shea and her family came to visit last week and I couldn't have been more grateful! :) They were our first and only visitors of the summer and our girls are ony 2 weeks apart so they had a blast. Taya doesn't cooperate very well when I pull out the camera so the pictures aren't that great, but they really were adorable together. A few highlights of the trip:

*They took turns pushing each other around in the mini stroller, which had Shea and I dying! Speaking of which, after many sewing attempts on the stroller (let's be honest, that thing has been through a lot!) I've decided it's time to buy her a new one. Good thing her birthday is just around the corner!

*Have you ever seen two 2 year olds communicate with each other?? HILARIOUS! In the car we'd catch London talking to Taya and Taya nodding her head. So cute!

*London taught Taya how to find sticks...

*Went to the aquarium and got to see the Beluga whales, or "boota"s as Taya would say...
Why is she obsessed with the most random animals? Belugas, Camels, rhinos, and now seals!

*Lots of loves

*And kisses

*And of course, the family photos...
Shea, Brendan, and London
Me, Cam and Tay

Taya has been asking me where London is ever since she left. Or, actually where "Tessa" is. She called her Tessa the entire time they were here! Tessa is her cousin that has been here all summer. Apparently every little girl her age is Tessa! :) Haha.

Anyway, we had a blast, thanks again for coming!

And P.S., it's official, I'm coming home next Saturday, August 29th!!! YAY!!! I'm so excited to be home and back in our house with more room for Taya to run wild! Cameron isn't coming back yet, probably the end of September. We haven't figured that part out yet, but will miss him a ton! See ya soon Utah!

Utah/Washington Trip

The last couple of weeks have been so much fun! Taya and I flew to Utah on the 23rd and stayed for a few days then went back home to Washington on the 30th for a week. It was SUCH a nice break, but of course I was sick for more than half the time :( So for those of you I told I'd come see, I'm so sorry! In spite of that though, the trip was seriously so much fun, thanks everyone for entertaining us! Taya was a completely different little girl there with so much freedom to run around! It's making me so excited to be back in our house! She is turning into such the entertainer these days with so many new tricks :) I guess she's always been a little show off, but her personality keeps developing more and more. I'll have to post a video soon of all the funny things she does now.

Anyway, I wish I could say here's a few pictures from the trip, but let's be honest, here's a TON of pictures :) . . .

UTAH

My mom, Jenna and Taya

This was the morning after the 24th of July so the kids all had leftover fireworks that Taya got to enjoy :)

Who knows what Taya's doing in this picture, but I thought it was cute :)

This is Taya trying to steal Jenna's sunglasses at a family reunion we went to.

Jace, Taya, and Cole making funny faces.

I looked outside one day and saw Cole and Taya drinking the water off the sidewalk from the hose. Sorry my daughter is a bad influence on your son, Kym :)

Me and Taya swinging

Taya can now roll her eyes, it's pretty cute :)

Cam flew in for a few days for a family party. This was actually our 4 year anniversary, exciting huh!?

Good ol' fashioned slip'n'slide!

Taya didn't really like being thrown down, just liked playing in the puddles of bubbles.

WASHINGTON

We got out the slip'n'slide at my parents house too with my brother and his family...

Taya LOVED playing with Pheobe, my parents dog, while we were there. It was so funny, she loved giving her loves and Pheobe would just come right up to her and lay on her back for Taya to scratch her. Taya still asks me every day to see pictures of Pheobe on the computer.

This, by far, is my favorite picture from the trip. Taya and my dad are seriously best buds! I was so happy to get such a good picture of the both of them :) Thanks, Dad, for watching Taya so much on the trip and taking her to get goodies at the store! She still asks me all day everyday for "nummies". Thanks for that too :) haha

25 weeks...

I know you've all been dying to see my belly shot :) so this was me at 25 weeks, sorry it's a few weeks late, I'll post a more updated picture later ...

Don't mind the fact that I look partially disgusted, but all the other pictures from my photoshoot were too dark to see. Ok, so just kidding about the photoshoot :)

Nascar

Cam got to go to a Nascar race a few weeks ago and got royalty treatment. Apparently not many people ever get the chance to be this close, so he was totally stoked about it.

Cameron and Scott

Nice view of where they got to be

Andrew, Scott, and Cam

"Mmmmmm Nummy!!"

You can't help but laugh at 6:00 in the morning when your daughter comes into your room, after going through your purse, with a wide open mouth and 2 packs of gum saying, "mmmm nummy! nummy mommy nummy!!" and chomping her mouth up and down. That'll get ya out of bed for sure! :)

You'll NEVER Guess...

So you'll never guess what I bought for Taya at the grocery store yesterday...

A motorcycle magazine! HA!

She's OBSESSED with motorcycles and bikes and always looks at our magazines for bikes in them :) So I did her a favor and bought this magazine FULL of motorcycles! She couldn't love it any more! It's so cute, she just sits on the couch and says "woooowww" and "whuusss at?" to every single motorcycle. Cameron is excited because he thinks maybe this will help his chances of getting a motorcycle someday, haha.

Lounging on the couch flipping through the pages

Happy 25th!!

It's official, I'm old... or something like that. Today was my birthday. Started out the celebration at the doctor's office with a delicious glucose drink and a needle stuck in my arm. Happy Birthday eh? :) Went to lunch with friends (thank you!!), Mickell made delicious cupcakes, got a nap, went to the zoo and finished with a movie. Thanks everyone for a great birthday! ... Including Taya, who slept until 7:00 AND had a 2 1/2 hour nap today, which is pretty rare these days! I seriously never thought I'd see the day where I'd actually say I got to "sleep in" until 7:00. Ridiculous. Anyway, thanks for all of your phone calls and beautiful songs that were sung on my voicemail. :)

And since a post really isn't that great of a post unless there's pictures (unless it's Jami's Bachelor Blog which is a hilarious must read :) ) ...

This is me and Taya at the zoo today with the monkeys in the background...

This is Taya's best buddie, Cammie. She LOVES her!! Taya follows her around and gives her loves all the time! This is from last week at the zoo...

Taya watching Cammie do her elephant impression...

For some reason Taya has been obsessed with camels lately. Kind of random! She always looks at her animal book and reaches out to hold the camels, but gets so frustrated that she can't. Every time I video chat with anyone she always see's the skype logo (which has a camel in it) and says "ooohhh wuuusss aaaattt?" ...

I love taking Taya to the zoo, she LOVES the animals. The whole ride there she makes elephant noises and says "rhino", I think mostly because that's the only animal that's pretty easy to say :)

Potty Training

Taya is doing SO good on the potty!! I haven't wanted to fully train her yet because I'm going to Utah the end of the month (YES!!!), but she's basically been doing it all on her own! She won't keep her pants on at home so she's either been running around half naked or sometimes I can get her to wear panties. No accidents though, I can't believe it! I've even left the house a few times and come back and she's still been dry. She's been so good at telling me when she needs to go, but still just likes to look at her magazines so sometimes she sits on the potty A LOT! Gets annoying, but it's funny. She flips through my US Weekly and looks at the motorcycles and bikes :) I think we'll have to purchase her a bike for her birthday for sure! Here's a few pictures of our big girl!

I love this picture... "um, excuse me Mom, I'm using the bathroom". haha!

So into her potty book.

Biggest Loser Update...

Apparently I can't or shouldn't say too much because the network likes to keep things secret, but Cam's interview went good yesterday. We won't know anything for a little while, but we're still hoping he'll make it on the show and are so excited to find out!

BIGGEST LOSER... HERE WE COME!!!!!

About a week ago I found out The Biggest Loser was having an open casting call today in Chicago and I immediately called Cameron to tell him the good news. So today him, his friend Andrew, and his Aunt Dori went down and stood in line for 8 hours for the audition process. He said they took a group of about 10 people in at a time and asked questions to the group and you basically had to fight for time. Turns out he made buddies with the interviewer earlier in the day, not even knowing the guy was who he was, and after the interview was over the guy pulled the three of them aside and said how impressed he was with them and basically said they'd be getting a call back for individual interviews next week. He said they hadn't found hardly any people in Chicago so the chances of them getting a call back were huge! Cam thought he wouldn't be getting a call until later tonight, but they called him around 4:45 to set up a time to do a one hour camera interview next week!!! So if he makes it he'll be on the show with his Aunt Dori and his friend Andrew would be on with his sister. They're doing strictly family members this season so thank goodness Dori was here too! We're sooooo excited, it's been a crazy day!! Keep your fingers crossed!! :) He said the line was actually pretty hilarious, apparently one lady passed out from the heat and there were ambulances and fire trucks everywhere. Later in the day, the same lady, about 450 lbs sits on a stack of chairs and fell on her butt and couldn't get up. Cam and Andrew had to help her! Poor lady! The casting director told Cam they actually had people complaining that they didn't have anywhere to sit and they had to climb lots of stairs... are you kidding me!?! And your'e trying out for The Biggest Loser?! Hello!!! Anyway, it's been an exciting day, can't wait to find out what happens next week! I'll keep you posted!

Cameron got to meet a few of the cast members from last season... Kristen, in the middle, was one of my favorites. They got to talk to her for 20 minutes and said she was really cool!

Cameron and Jerry

Aunt Dori with Kristen and Cathy from last season

Full Day

Taya has been waking up every day at 6:00 now, so we either get a lot done during the day or absolutely nothing because I'm too wasted to move! This morning was an eventful one... apparently I left out our popcorn bowl from last night (you'd think I'd learn) and Taya got a kernel stuck up her nose at 7:30. I didn't know what to do or how to get it out, and it being so early I didn't want to call anyone. Already planning a trip to the doctor in my head, luckily I was able to see it and thought maybe I could get it out on my own. I ended up having to wake up Cameron to help me and within a minute it was out! Poor girl was crying and not happy about it! Thinking that whole scenario was over, about an hour later she sneezed and another popcorn kernel shot out into my hair. Nice! So either she shoved both in one nostril or one in each... no wonder she was crying!

A little while later I was laying on the couch- because that's just what a pregnant person has to do when their child wakes them up everyday at 6:00 - and I heard Taya saying "pawyee" so I assumed she was just going potty in her diaper. Well, she was being too quiet, so I got up off my lazy bum and walked into the room to find her pants off, diaper off, sitting on the toilet saying "pawyee pawyee" ... haha! It's been a hard day trying to keep her pants on, so we made a trip to Wal Mart and bought her a potty seat so she doesn't fall into the toilet, like she already did today :) Guess I'll be training her sooner than I thought! Apparently that's a good thing though! Our little girl is growing up so fast, hard to believe! It'd be so nice to have only 1 kid in diapers in October! If anyone has any advice on training let me know!

It's only 4:00 and I feel like the day should be over any second! I'll let you know what the rest of the day brings us :) ... I'll post pictures soon, I promise.

Silly Taya

So I still don't have my camera charger, but these are a few pictures I took on my phone again. I couldn't resist, they crack me up. She really is such a funny girl...

1. the glasses. 2. the mini stroller (again) notice the fine tape job! haha, seriously needs help. 3. her trying to put on Mommy's shoes.


This is Taya's "fake" sleeping. She pretends to be asleep all the time, it's hilarious.

Ever since our trip to Atlanta, thanks to Jami, Taya has to put on Mommy's make-up every day. Yesterday she got into my eye shadow and this is what happened. Oopsies.

New York Times

Cameron made the front page of the New York Times today!

About a month ago a reporter and photographer came to do a story on Pinnacle Security in Chicago and they followed Cameron and Andrew (his best friend and work partner) around for a few hours in the day. Turns out the article ended up being A LOT on missionary work, but overall it was pretty good. Click here if you'd like to read about my famous husband :) There's also a picture gallery on the left. He has two pictures published of him in the actual paper. Kinda cool!

Atlanta

Taya and I got back from our trip to Atlanta late Saturday night. We had so much fun and, more importantly, got to relax a little :) . Jami was so good to us and took such good care of Taya! I felt so bad when we left though, I'm sure she was exhausted from a week of Taya waking up at 6:30 and having to chase her and stroll her around all over the place. Thanks so much though, James, I really appreciated it! Here's a few pictures from our trip...

This isn't the most beautiful picture, but kind of funny :) ... Also don't look too closely, but right smack dab in the center of my forehead is a mosquito bite the size of Texas. And don't worry, it got even worse. Thanks Atlanta.


Jami and Taya watching the ducks in the pond.


These were the shopping carts a grocery store there. Taya had an absolute blast steering them, it was probably her favorite part of the trip. Seriously. Don't worry that it makes the shopping cart about three times the size! She also got a balloon from the nice cashier. What a shopping trip!

This was a little fire engine at a park we went to. She loved playing on it and steering the wheel.



This is probably the only picture I have of me "playing" since Jami took care of all that part! She seriously let me sit down on the bench while she chased Taya around. But the fire truck, I must admit, was so much fun and I fit so perfectly. Can't you tell? :)

Thanks again, Jami, for letting us come stay with you. And Trey, sorry Taya probably woke you up every morning chasing the puppies around in circles! Atlanta, we'll miss you and all of your ridiculous hills! Seriously, I've never seen so many hills in my whole life! I think I lost 7 pounds on our walk on Saturday! And the trees! Holy smokes, you can't even see half of Georgia because all the trees are in the way. There's probably a lot of dead bodies there. Maybe someone should check. Sorry, too much information.