Such a fun, busy day!

Taggert and I had a really fun, busy day today! There was a festival at the library, which is about 2 1/2 miles away, and I really wanted to go! But by the time we got ready, we only had an hour before we had to leave for our next activity... and the only mode of transportation available was our trusty bike! It usually takes half an hour to take a nice, leisurely ride over to the library, which means that we'd get there just in time to turn around and come back! But I wanted to enjoy the festival bad enough (and I wanted an outlet to exercise enough!) that I decided to book it! I went as fast as I could the whole time (...I must admit "as fast as I could" did have a bit of a flexible definition ;) and we shaved 10 minutes off each way! Yippee! My muscles earned us 20 minutes at the library!

And boy, did it pay off! :) There was a real live fire engine there, and Tagg got to go inside it! (I act like it's some big huge deal, but as you can see from the picture, he much prefers reading books about fire engines to sitting in them :)

We got to see a display of local high-schoolers photography projects, which were awesome! When I was in photography in high school, we learned how to develop our own film, which was neat, but it seems like these kids are actually learning how to take fantastic, creative pictures! I seriously am planning on visiting one of those high schools and asking their photography teachers how I can learn what their students are learning!
Our next stop was 0ur friend Sher's baby shower! She's due in five long weeks, and her sisters went ALL OUT for her shower! They thought of the cutest games that were pretty darn fun and they make DELICIOUS cupcakes and homemade rolls! It was so much fun... I have never really appreciated "girl time" too much until I've gotten married (with the exception of my BYU ROOMIES! Holla! ;) but now I adore it! And, apparently, so does Tagg! He found himself a little harem of adoring ladies to feed him cupcake frosting and to hand cat toys to, and he was in heaven!

I made Sher's present, and I am so proud to say it only cost $2.75! Yay! You know, there comes a point when babies are too little to want to be swaddled at night, but you (maybe "I" would be more appropriate :) are still afraid they're so little that they might suffocate if a loose blanket ends up over their face... And so I have invented the baby sleeping bag! Just pop the darling in there and rest assured because his face can't get covered up by the blanket! It's soft and cozy and keeps your baby warm and you at peace! And, I hand-stitched it to boot! We don't have a sewing machine :) and it was a nice way to spend a couple hours! Jed read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire to me while I sewed away.

Here's the mommy-to-be and the happy gift-givers!

I don't know if I've mentioned this, but I have a new calling at church. I am the secretary for the Young Women's organization (12-17 year old girls) and I love it! Me and Mischaelle (who's the first counselor in the YW) went to one of the girls' volleyball tournament today! It was so wonderful, as always, to spend time with Mischaelle, and it was great to see Shelby play her heart out on the court! Makes me wish I was in a team sport when I was in high school. Well... to be more specific, makes me wish I was a valuable athelete in a team sport when I was in high school :)

Since this day made me exhausted, I am going to sleep! :)

Jumping Bean!

Tagg the man is learning how to jump! I don't know how to help him learn this one... I just get extra excited when one foot goes off the ground :) Any ideas on how to help him out?

We think this kind of thing might help him get the idea of actually leaving the ground when you jump :)

Daddy March 2009

After our Day at the Ranch, little Tagg was really wiped out and just wanted to cuddle with an equally wiped-out Daddy!


These two and their Star Wars figures... you should see Tagg's face light up when Jed brings out anything Star Wars for him to play with!


Speaking of Star Wars, here's Tagg not letting anything stop him from singing the theme song :)


Tagg's skills of a soccer player (anybody catch the Strongbad reference? ;) are improving all the time!

Cute Baby Contest ;)

So, I need your guyses opinions :) I think every mom has to do this once... we're entering Taggert into The Children's Place Cutest Baby Contest! There are tons of entries every year, so I won't be *too* bummed out if he isn't one of the 8 picked, but we're giving it our best shot! (Ha ha, no pun intended :)

I need help picking out THE picture! Here are some tips from their website:

Let your little one's personality shine through. Get a wide-eyed shot. The photo should be free of clutter (focused on the baby). Avoid food-on-the-face pictures. Capture a smile.

(This one is added by me: Practically every one of The Children's Place models has a faux-hawk, so I think it would be advantageous to advertise Tagg's sweet hairdo. But maybe the best picture has no hairdo at all! This is why I need your help!)

Please leave a comment and tell me what you think! (The numbers are above the pictures)

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Videos!

I was making lunch one day, and Taggert started growling at me! So cute! I think the way his face looks when he opens his mouth so wide is adorable! And he looks at me with such a sweet expression on his face when I walk away for a moment... families are the BEST!

As a sidenote, he loves watching movies of himself! On the camera, on our phones, on the computer... We've watched this one over and over and over!

Tagg accidentally got Gabi's hamper stuck on his head and he started freaking out... then I put it completely on top of him and all of a sudden he was having a ball! He walked around with that thing over his head forever!

Tagg understands so much of what I say! I try to use the same phrase every time for whatever it is that I'm trying to communicate, which seems to really help! We always joked that Brigham was our practice baby, but he really was! I learned that from "parenting" Brigham! ;)

Tagg does peekaboo a lot now! He also combines it with the nose-picking game, using one hand to pick his nose and the other to cover his eyes! Ha!

Tagg loves to go into the office when Daddy's working and listen to the Star Wars theme song with him! Today, Jed taught Tagg how to sing it!

Brigham has always loved it when a cricket gets into the house--you can practically see his face light up (is that possible with a dog? ...well, I wished on the first star I saw tonight that he would become a real boy--no kidding :) as he pounces on it while it jumps around. And when he catches it, he puts it in his mouth, carries it somewhere and drops it so they can play some more in their new locale... but the poor cricket has usually lost at least one leg by this point, so Brigham ends up just being bummed out that he crunched his playmate.

Tagg has entertainingly enough followed in his hairy older brother's footsteps. He saw this cricket hopping around innocently and decided to pick it up! He just picked it right up! It crawled all over him, and it even got on his FACE at one point! I must admit, although Taggert didn't seem to mind, I freaked out a bit about it... this dang cricket was really friendly--it didn't even try to get away from the clutches of this curious toddler. He was tough too, but unfortunately, he met his slobbery fate as Tagg took another cue from Brigham and popped the little critter in his MOUTH! I freaked out a little about that too, but I think next time I'll just let Tagg figure out from experience whether or not he wants to eat crickets... I'm always looking for ways to add protein to his little diet! ;)

To clarify my commentary during the video, when I say "Oh my gosh!" Taggert actually stepped right on that poor little guy... and when I say "I don't want it" I really don't wanna be holding that cricket :) and when I say "I'm taking a video of you right now... and your nast..." it ended with "your nasty pet." Which for some reason tickled my funny bone! So even if that pet comment doesn't brighten anyone's day but mine, it's worth recording! :)

That Thursday Thing! Bead Hunt

Tagg and I ventured to downtown Glendale about a week ago for That Thursday Thing! It's a once-a-month dealie where they send you on a little treasure hunt... this month you were trying to make a bead bracelet. You start at the visitor's center and get a map of the area, which tells you which shops have a piece of your bracelet. You walk around the quaint little shops, amid live music, other smiling bead-hunters, caricature artists, face painters and horse-drawn carriages, collecting your beads and making memories with your date.

My date was lucky enough to get not only a map at the visitor's center, but two little tiny balls, as well! He had a blast throwing them around and watching me pick them up (especially the mini pigskin... I never knew which way that thing was bouncin!)
We took a free horse-drawn carriage ride, which Tagg didn't seem to think was all that great...
But I did!

When we were all done, we sat down to have dinner before driving home. It was then that Tagg noticed that I had clandestinely put his hood up--and he tried to get it off by pulling it on tighter! Not surprisingly, that soon turned into a game......especially when he noticed that I was wearing a hood, too!

February was random, too!

My friend, Maria, gave Tagg a ton of really awesome toys, and this singing, talking dog is one of them! Tagg really has fun with it, as you can see!

He just loves pushing this huge yoga ball around... thanks for leaving it here, Grandma Kim!

Jed noticed that Tagg's feet were cold the other night and didn't want to go all the way upstairs to get a pair of his socks, so he grabbed a pair of mine that were laying around the family room! They look like boots! Awesome!

Still loves that snot ball!

Even when it's in his nose!

On a random nose note, Jed started a game with Tagg... one night this little guy was putting one of his fingers in his nose! So Jed pulled it out and put the finger in his (Tagg's) ear instead! That totally cracked Taggert up, so he's been picking his nose (just in order to initiate the game :) quite frequently ever since! Sometimes he even picks both nostrils at once with each of his index fingers!

Grandma McClure has been sending her grandson tons of fabulous books in the mail! He loves to read, especially when there are animals involved! I do animal sounds for all the animals I know the sounds for... but since bunnies don't make sounds, I sniff instead. Tagg imitates that sniffing every time he sees a bunny (except when he saw a real live bunny... oh well!)

We take out the exercise trampoline once in a while and Tagg really enjoys trying to bounce on it :)

Our spectacular friends, the Skinnells, gave me this marshmallow gun for Christmas! Too bad Tagg can't blow very hard yet! ...Guess he'll just have to stick to eating the marshmallows!

Is this a GQ pose or what?! He had just gotten done putting half an Easter egg on his nose, so I guess he was trying to remind me that he really isn't a complete goofball! (well... I don't know... check out the gangsta pushed-up pantleg he's got goin on... his right pantleg always does that! Weird! Does that ever happen to your kids? (or you?! ;) )

Just look at those eyelashes!

Taggert is the master at finding fun things to do with random household objects. And he knows when he's being funny and cute, too.

Reading with Maggie

Just another community event!

We went to the Glendale Public Library with our friends April and Justin, where we read with Maggie, the therapy dog. She was just a sweet, small black lab... unfortunately, I didn't get a good picture of her sweet sweet face. Tagg was way more interested in the kind daddy of the dog, who (with his wife) takes Maggie to special-ed schools, libraries and hospitals to visit children. The dog just laid there while the husband and wife read books with Tagg & Justin.

Afterwards, we just walked around downtown Glendale, letting the boys lead the way! We even went into an antique store. I let Taggert walk around in there and he was perfectly behaved! Bravo!
Hmm... what a funny thing to do to a chair! April had a good thought--she said they probably put shoes on it so it wouldn't slide around so easily!

Eating

The other day, as Tagg was taking a swig of severly-watered-down apple juice, he realized that he was hungry as well... he promptly grabbed the nearest kernel of popcorn and held it up to his mouth as he drank, just so it would be in his mouth that much quicker when he was done. Ha!
No caption necessary ;)
Can't even think of a caption for this one.

He is my baby! Corn lovin, bike ridin baby!

Santa gave me some NASTY generic M&M's for Christmas last year, and they were sitting in a drawer in the kitchen. I have no idea how Taggert found them in there, but he did, and he's been standing just like this, opening the drawer to ask for one of those sick little candies just about every day since!

This is another one of his "I know you've got an M&M in your hand!" poses!

He's really puttin on the heat now!

What a cutie!

This video is so long and my grandparents will probably be the only ones who make it through to the end :) but that's okay because it's basically the same thing over and over! (It's actually only one minute or so, but it seems way longer :) Tagg randomly started doing Darth Vader breathing into his little Tupperware thing one day at dinner-so funny!

Then he wanted to let me have a whirl--

And, he gave up on me pretty quick! Guess I have a lot of work to do before I become a proficient tupperware breather!