Summer's Winding Down

I wish I had one fascinating topic to write about, but instead I offer my faithful readers a smorgasbord of topics to feast upon.

-Wes and I have been watching the Olympics lately. Today we watched water polo, women's swimming, and men's beach volleyball. I'm normally not into sports much and I wouldn't exactly call myself patriotic, but it's exciting watching my country compete against the others. We agreed that water polo players are just freaks of nature, as they hop out of the water like fish without any kind of spring board. However, I had to laugh at badminton. Really? Badminton? Apparently in some countries there are hard core badminton players. Interesting. Go USA!! We're #1!

- I'd like to send a "shout out" to our waste management company. Every Thursday morning, they drive past our house and wave to a very excited Taylor. They're becoming like part of the family.

- Yesterday we went to Nana's house and gave Daddy a well deserved day to himself. We took Tay to the Moorpark Zoo, and I'll just add that it's not on my recommended list for places you should take your toddler. The animals we're in cages, set behind other cages, and blocked by chain link fence. It didn't exactly feel like Jurassic Park, and I doubt Tay could see much. She did have a great time with Nana and JJ though. Daddy, being the giving person that he is, gave me "Guitar Hero" for my birthday. I hadn't had a chance to open it yet, so he did the honors while I was away and broke it in. He's just so thoughtful that way.

- One field trip I DO recommend for toddlers is the Gull's Wings Children's Museum in Oxnard (see picture below). I went last week with my "play group", (Shout out to my peeps!), and Tay loved it. It's about an hour from Santa Clarita, but it's only $4.

Tay playing in the Dr.'s Office room at Gull's Wings.

- Taylor is a crack up lately. I know you're all sick of reading about her. I'm sure you're saying, "She's cute. We get it, already." But I'm proud to say that the kid is a little singer and can sing all of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." She made me laugh the other day at Hot Dog On A Stick too. The girl behind the counter was bouncing up and down on that ridiculous lemon squishing machine, and Tay was laughing hysterically saying, "Dancing! She's Dancing!" She's WAY into dress up (see pics above), and loves hats all of a sudden. I'm also proud to say that she just loves saying her prayers. We say them at dinner as a family, and then again before bed. She likes to say them at least three times before bed and even before her nap. I put her in bed for her nap today and she said, "Sit down Mama! Prayers." She folds her little hands and kneels, and my heart just melts. My heart also melts every morning, now that she's figured out how to sleep until 7:30a. FINALLY!!!! I thought I was doomed to wake up at 6:00a forever. But by far the cutest thing she's done lately has been reciting the end monologue, that's right, a monologue from her favorite TV show "The Big Comfy Couch." If you've never seen this children's show, it ends with the main character saying, "Who made this big mess? Me? I did. I guess I'll clean it up. Get ready for the ten second tidy. Ready? Set? Go!" I attached the video of Tay saying it VERBATIM! She did it about 50 times in a row when she saw that it got a laugh out of us.

-In pregnancy related news...I'm just getting bigger. Nothing to report. The peeing every 10 minutes has subsided, and we're looking forward to finding out the gender in 3 weeks.