Thank you Mr Crayola

As of late, we have been coloring up a storm at the Famous Amys house. In fact, our baggie of crayons and giant sheets of tissue paper have been our go-to toy of choice for the past few weeks. And by Go-To, I mean the one sure-fire thing we have that will ease a wicked temper tantrum. Sometimes cartoons work, sometimes I can calm her with a snack, sometimes she just needs a snuggle. But grabbing our art supplies works EVERYTIME. So needless to say, we’ve been coloring A LOT.

And we have lots of fun with it. And sometimes I think I am having a lot more fun then she is. Except for last Sunday when she grabbed the black crayon and kept running over to our walls, holding up the crayon and threatening to scrape it across our cream-colored walls. And every time we would say, TAYLOR, NO! she would squeal in delight and run baby hot-laps around the table. We’re not even at 20 months and she’s already REALLY good at testing her limits. I think teenage-Taylor is gonna give us a major run for our money.

Eating our way through the weekend

We had a busy weekend at the Famous Amys household, with the party starting Friday night with our good friends’ daughter, Campbell, turning six. And Chris and I are still in disbelief that little Boo-Boo is six year old, because we clearly remember Campbell being born and visiting her, Kristyn and Matt in the hospital. Man, we’re OLD.

Taylor had a blast with the other kiddos at the party. And, of course, amazed all the adults present with her ability to house a container of ice cream in fifteen seconds.

And, as a side note, Taylor is still obsessed with her toy ad. And her most favoritest images in her pay-puh are the BAH-BEEEZ (Barbies), which is quite amazing considering she has never actually played with a Barbie Doll. Well, Miss Campbell got a Rock and Roll Barbie for her birthday, and T pretty much licked the plastic container she was so excited.

But, unfortunately, little Tanner was also excited with the Barbie. And because she is Campbell’s little sister, she trumped T in being able to hold the precious Barbie. Which didn’t make our princess very happy.

Anyways. The party was a blast, and to follow up Friday’s fun, we decided to partake in Asheville’s annual Holiday Parade the next day. And even though it didn’t have a series of old Shriners doing daredevil routines in golf carts, it was a wonderful parade that rivaled some of the Schaller Popcorn Days parades of my past. I’m talking County Queens, marching bands, tractors and lots of horses. And, only in Asheville, little kid rock bands wailing out Jimi Hendrix.

And lots of candy canes.

And then Saturday night, after watching the Hawkeyes take home Floyd of Rosedale, we were invited over to our friends, LeAnn and Jamie’s, to grill out with them and the Scully family, and watch our kids run circles around their new, fancy house. I tried to get a picture of our growing girls together, but to get them to actually sit down and look in the same direction was a bit of a fiasco. Here’s the best I could do:

And, similar to the previous night’s birthday party, T then amazed the masses with her knack of devouring sweet treats.

Which was quite the show considering Elliot wanted nothing to do with her dessert, and this is how Miss Rell ate her cupcake:

So, as you can see, it was a delightful, delicious weekend for the Amys family. Good friends, good food and good weather. AND this week we get Thanksgiving dinner. Looks like this lady is going to spinning class a few times this week. Happy Holidays!

My little tadpole

We had so many family members in town last week that our house wasn’t able to fit everyone, so on Friday and Saturday my parents shacked up at the Hampton Inn down the road to free up a little space and a lot of sanity. And not only was Will happy to finally be able to sleep in a bed and not on the futon, we were all ecstatic to take full advantage of the hotel’s indoor pool. I even invited Paige and Elliot over to take part in the action.

The classic Baby-Dunked-In-The-Pool face. Never gets old.

And, finally, here’s the picture that’s gonna make you pinch your computer screen:

How could those not be the BEST THIGHS IN THE WHOLE WORLD. Seriously.

When the circus comes to town

We were super happy to have my family in town this past week and weekend, with my parents and brother flying in last Wednesday, my Granddaddy and Aunt Jane coming up from Birmingham on Thursday and Libba driving in on Friday. And because it was the first time Chris and I had hosted a Loud Family Throw-down since Taylor was born, we did what we do best, and stuffed everyone full of Asheville’s finest cuisine, made sure the fridge was stocked full of beer and wine, and just let everyone take their turns in marveling over how cute and sassy our little girl is.

One local hotspot that we dined at, on my Granddaddy’s request, was 12 Bones Barbeque, which features some of the best darn ribs and pulled pork in the country. Happiness is found at 12 Bones, just look:

And after stuffing ourselves full of meat and corn pudding, we decided to take advantage of the beautiful mountain weather and spent some quality time at a park near my house.

And having a huge audience was a total trip for Miss T. She and her Papa Don were inseparable the entire visit, which resulted in my Dad having a gigantic smile plastered on his face the whole time. There is something truly special about watching your parents interact with your children that just makes your heart smile.

I very much enjoyed having all of my family in town, and it reminded me how blessed I am to be surrounded with so much support and love.

19 months old

My little peanut is 19 months old today. NINETEEN MONTHS. Almost 20 months. Pretty darn close to two years old. And even though she’s been wearing 2T clothes for a while, and has been showing some signs of the terrible twos - read, TEMPER TANTRUMS - I’m still in total disbelief with how FAST the past few months have flown by. Super-turbo lightening speed. SLOW DOWN, UNIVERSE!

So this past month, while fast, was probably one of the most fun months we have had. We spent lots and lots of time outside, enjoying all the wonderfulness that Asheville has to offer in the fall. And for being a little princess with a baby doll in constant tow, our little girl LOVES to get down and dirty playing outside. Collecting rocks, throwing the ball for Ruby, digging in the garden, running through the leaves. As soon as we step out the front door, you can literally see the energy surging through her little body. And it’s wonderful.

And with all the added activity, and a foreseeable growth-spurt, she has become a hunger beast. She pretty much has the appetite of a teenage football player, and will run to the pantry at least ten times a day and squeal, CRAH-KERR (cracker), until you feed her something. And good luck trying to eat anything yourself in our house without sharing with T. She just positions herself like a little bird next to you, chiming Bite, BITE, BYE-EAT, until you give her a taste of whatever you’re enjoying. And, here’s the best part, say you’re eating chips and salsa, and just try to give her a chip, she’ll hold it in the air, whining, until you put a dab of salsa on it. Seriously. When it comes to food, you’re not getting ANYTHING past this kid. What can I say, she’s MY CHILD. Food is good.

And other than eating what we eat, she’s also finding fun ways to imitate everyone in the house these days. She’ll look at Ruby and bark like a dog. She’ll grab my hairbrush and give herself a new do. She’ll even pretend read her toy-ad when I’m reading the paper in the morning. But the best has to be when either Chris or I sneeze or cough, and she’ll stop what she’s doing and start fake coughing or making sneezing noises. Sometimes she’ll even grab a baby wipe and pretend blow her nose, which is really her just making honking noises. And every time she’s done copying us, she’ll get the biggest smile on her face and let out a laugh like, SEE! I can do that too!

She’s has also been a total dream to take places this past month, and can be quite the old-lady charmer at the grocery store or restaurants. Always flashing them cheesy smiles, hugging her baby doll and saying Buh-bye when we leave. And she’s been such a good girl while I’ve been working out at the YMCA. She pretty much rules the Child Watch room there, and will stare down any other child that dares take one of the 14 baby dolls she is playing with at anytime. The other day when I picked her up, one of the guys working there said, Taylor is the freshest kid in here. And being the old person I am, I asked, That’s good, right? And he laughed at me, and said, Yeah, I’m always happy to see her.

She did pick up a few bizarre habits this past month, like putting all of my hair-ties around her wrist and wearing them like bracelets, developing a deep-love for a rock she found in the garden, and, most interestingly, putting things down the front of her shirt. I know. Weird. And it’s not like she’s trying to hide these objects from us, because she’s mostly just shoving her own toys down her shirt. We have this fake, toy milk-jug with a dozen or so big, plastic coins that go with it. And she’ll take each coin out and stash them all down the front of her shirt, then she’ll stand up, shake them out the bottom of her shirt and laugh like crazy. It’s hilarious to watch. Even more so when she shoves a toy down her shirt and then forgets about it, like she did with her toy-phone last week:

And even though the cuteness has been off the charts this past month, it has come with a price. And that price is the violent, body-shaking temper tantrums that have become a bit more frequent than I’d like. For example, last Saturday she had a 45 minute come apart - FORTY FIVE MINUTES! - because she did not want macaroni and cheese for lunch. I know, Who wouldn’t want delicious pasta and fake cheese for lunch? My little monster, that’s who. And after trying cartoons, applesauce, her favorite books, all to no avail, I finally just walked away from her. And she picked her pitiful, tear-covered, snot-nosed self off the floor and FOLLOWED me into the next room. And she walked right up to me and held out her arms, and when I reached down to pick her up, she collapsed on the floor and kicked and screamed bloody murder. She TRICKED me. And this trickery lasted another half-hour before I finally just put her in her crib and down for her nap. We were BOTH exhausted. I was so mentally worn-out that I had a beer with lunch just to calm me down a bit. And then I was forced to watch the Hawkeyes lose to NORTHWESTERN. Seriously? What’s next, Universe? Are you going to cancel Christmas?

And after watching that painful excuse of a football game, Taylor started to wake up and roll around in her crib. And, like every afternoon, I plucked her snuggly, warm body out of her crib and brought her into our room to cuddle on the bed and watch cartoons. And we laid there quietly, me smelling her hair and kissing her soft cheeks, all thoughts of the previous melt-down and horrific Hawkeye loss faded into nothing. Just lying there with my sweet, sweet little girl was all I needed. She makes me the luckiest person in the whole world.

Our little helper

So I mentioned earlier how Taylor is always trying to help us do things. And by HELP, I mean getting right on top of us while we are trying to complete everyday tasks and, therefore, making it pretty darn difficult to get anything done. Well, here she is trying to help Chris brush Ruby yesterday:

Too bad she doesn’t need any help with being cute, huh?

Taylor’s pay-puh

A few weekends back, Chris was attempting to finish-up reading the Sunday paper and Taylor was trying to help him. And by HELP, I mean she was ripping each section out of his hands and crumpling and tearing them while squealing with delight. Not only forcing Chris to hone-in on his speed reading skills, but covering our living room floor with homemade confetti. So she was essentially HELPING me keep the house clean as well, because after she was done I was obligated to sweep the floor for the billionth time that day. And I don’t know Mr Swiffer Sweeper personally, but I’m guessing he had both a destructive toddler AND a shedding chocolate lab in his household as well.

So. After finishing up the literary achievements of our local paper, Chris started browsing through the many advertisements, all with Taylor’s help of course, and half-way through he called me over to the couch with the oh-so-familiar, Hey, Come see what your daughter is doing. So I grabbed the dust pan and walked over, only to find our little peanut totally engrossed in one of the shiny, colorful ads from the paper. The Toys R Us ad. And both Chris and I looked at each other and said, She can’t possibly know what she’s looking at, right? And when I asked her, T, Whatcha looking at? She looked up for a millisecond and then put her head back down and pointed at the ad and said, DOH-RAH. And, sure enough, right there was a picture of a dancing Dora the Explorer doll. Right next to a Tickle Me Elmo doll, and when her eyes focused away from Dora, she pointed right at it and whined, EL-MOH.

And after she and Chris went through the rest of the ad, pointing out every baby doll and familiar cartoon character on all the pages, she jumped down off the couch with the Toys R Us ad still clutched to her chest, and went over to her toys, plopped down and looked at the ad AGAIN. And she continued to do this for the next hour or so, just browsing through each page and verbally pointing out what she recognized. BAY-BEE (baby), CAH (car), CUH-KEY (Cookie Monster). And by the time she had leafed through it for the tenth time, the pages were all crinkled and starting to tear. And being the OCD-Momma that I am, I waited for her to turn her back and then tried to throw it in the recycling. And, OH, the shrieking and crying that followed. PAY-PUH! PAY-PUH! Causing me to stop in my tracks and hand the shredded mess right back to her.

And when I told my Mom this story, she just started laughing and said, THAT is just like you and Libba with the Penney’s holiday catalog every year. You guys worshipped that thing, and fought like cats-and-dogs over it. Every year when it came, both of you would mark and dog-ear everything that you wanted, and then obsess over it until there was nothing left but shreds.

And THAT is exactly what Taylor did, dragging that ad with us wherever we went for the next few days, reading it in the car, after naps, while watching cartoons. She was OBSESSED. And by Thursday, all that was left was one tattered page. And after she went down for her afternoon nap, I tossed it. I know, I know. Why would a mother throw away something so precious to her daughter? Because it was driving me NUTS, that’s why. You try keeping your sanity with an 18-month old screaming PAY-PUH, PAY-PUH in the backseat because you tried to go to the grocery store while leaving a toy ad at the house. It HAD to stop. And it did, and by Friday afternoon she had forgotten all about her precious paper. Until Sunday, when Toys R Us generously included their gigantic Christmas Wish Book with the paper. And then TODAY, when they just decided to pop a one-pager in the paper.

So until Christmas is over, if you see me, you can just assume I will have either a tattered toy ad or a crying toddler with me at all times. Do you see THIS Toys R Us? THIS is me shaking my fist at you. You and your marketing geniuses can go jump off a cliff. Happy holidays.