13 Months

Taylee is 13 months old today. She is scheduled for her first date with the early intervention gals on Monday, so I thought now would be a good time to get her current skills down on paper. (Or into cyberspace, as the case may be ;)
*She is a professional crawler (and very speedy when the door to the garage is open - you'd think we held her prisoner or something)
*Occasionally stands by herself for a few seconds. Today she stood independently for about 20 seconds!
*She still has picky tastes and gagging issues, but now eats both baby food and table food. Her favorites are cottage cheese, watermelon, pretzels, string cheese, mac and cheese, and her homemade breakfast fruit smoothie!
*She has 4 teeth. Or maybe we should call them half teeth? The bottom two are really coming in well, but the top two are definitely lagging.
*Lately (like the past week or so), she seems to be babbling a lot more. We are very excited, and hope this is the beginning of lots of talking. She still says mama, and often mamamamama. But no dada as yet. We are still holding our breath on that one . . .
*She rarely tries to imitate the sounds we make, but recently has been trying to imitate our puppy barking sounds with her cute little stuffed puppy from Grandma.
*Has just learned to drink from a straw. (An Arby's shake provided just the motivation she needed!)
We are so excited to see her moving in the right direction, and very hopeful that with speech therapy she will soon blossom into our little chatterbox.

Cookie Monster vs. Mechanic

I gave Taylee a small piece of chocolate chip cookie today to keep her happy in the car. She HATES riding in the car. When I opened the door to get her out, I thought maybe she had crawled under the car and changed the oil. Nope, just a little chocolate chip.

Swim Baby Swim

Taylee is now taking swimming lessons. Yes, I know, it may be a little bit early, but we are trying to get her acclimated to water. They say the earlier you start, the safer your kids will be around water. And, believe it or not, she is NOT the youngest kiddo in the class. There is an 8 month old, enrolled in her SECOND session. In general, it ain't gonna hurt, and it just might help. She is not a water baby, but she is content enough in the water. Rather than enjoying playtime in the pool, she spends most of the lesson watching the other kids. You may notice this in the pictures. Getting a direct shot of her has been quite challenging. We practice "jump-ins" where she "swims" to the wall then grabs the wall, face plants from which she rolls to her back, swimming on her back, and mostly, we play lots of games and sing songs. In general, it feels good to get out and do something to celebrate summer. I spent lots of time in the water growing up, and I hope Taylee will too!

Early Intervention Assessment

We met with Early Intervention today for Taylee's evaluation. They evaluate her by asking Kent and I lots and lots of questions, and by watching Taylee's behavior. It's a good thing Kent and I were there, because Taylee was a real show-off. She was on her best behavior, smiling and playing with the therapists, doing everything they asked of her. The one time I want my baby to look "bad," she's a star! Silly girl. Luckily, despite her showing off her ability to point at animals, and take lids off boxes, she still qualified for early intervention, although only in speech. I will be meeting with the therapist next week, to make a "plan" and set goals for her therapy. Hopefully she will be saying dada and buh-bye, and uh-oh in no time!
Her scores :
Cognitive - 12 months
Language - Expressive- 63 and Receptive - 82 (must score below 85 to qualify, 115 being the top score)
Gross Motor - 11 months
Fine Motor - 11 months
Social/Emotional - 12 months
Self Help - 15 months (not sure where that came from?! )
I am glad to know that other than speech she is doing pretty well. I am a worry-wart, and I get caught up in the little stuff. It's nice to hear somebody tell us how good she is doing.

Party, Party, Party - Olive Garden!

We topped off the birthday celebration week with dinner at Olive Garden. I got MORE gifts, including my new Barnes and Noble Nook E-Reader. It's WAY cool. We had a fun dinner with lots of pasta, frozen drinks, and of course, breadsticks!

Taylee thought the breadsticks were pretty fabulous too! She's a carb addict like her mama ;)

Party, Party, Party - Golf n' Fun

The birthday celebration continued on my actual birthday, because my wonderful husband took the day off and spent the day spoiling me! We cheated and dropped Taylee at Daycare for the afternoon, and we went golfing. We had a great time enjoying the fresh air and stinkin up the golf course.

After golf we went to lunch at my

favorite place . . . Cafe Rio!We concluded the afternoon with a little shopping trip, then we picked up Taylee and headed home. I opened a few gifts (books, my favorite!!) and we headed to Taylee's swimming lesson. Otherwise known as get used to the water lessons. Pictures of that to come later. After swimming lessons we had a Judson family BBQ at the park. I forgot my camera, so unfortunately I have no pix. It was a busy day, and so much fun!

Party, Party, Party - Park City

Last Wednesday was my 30th birthday! In typical fashion, we celebrated all week long. We started the celebration the weekend before my birthday with an overnight trip to Park City. We headed up on Saturday afternoon, and hit the resort. My parents met us there to do Taylee duty while Kent and I rode the Alpine Coaster. We have previously ridden the Alpine Slide on several occasions, and I must say the Coaster was much more exciting. We highly recommend it. It's even worth the extra moo-lah and the hour long wait. This is just the very end of the Coaster. It really did have lots of hills and turns, and best of all, YOU control your speed. We had a blast!

After our Park City adventure, my parents joined us for dinner at Ruby Tuesday's. I know, we could have had much better Park City cuisine, but we had a one year old . . . It's a good thing we went casual and had four adults in attendance, because Taylee was TIRED and CRANKY by the end of dinner. It took all of our combined efforts to avoid a meltdown. Here she is happy BEFORE dinner.

And an attempt at a family photo. Taylee is not actually eating a Snickers, just the wrapper. Maybe I should have let her eat the candy bar, it would have improved her mood. ;)

Grandma and Grandpa waiting for a table at Ruby Tuesday.

Taylee fell asleep on the way back to the hotel, but was revitalized in the bathtub.

She played for a while afterward, and practiced her new scrunchy face. Isn't it weird?! And cute in a very odd way? What a silly girl.

After putting Taylee to bed, Kent and I enjoyed some cake and mini Ben and Jerry's. Yummy!!

On Sunday morning we got up and headed to the outlet mall, where we browsed, bought a couple things on Clearance, and generally enjoyed ourselves. Unfortunately it's been a costly month at our house, so we didn't go on a wild shopping spree. Kent normally spoils me rotten on this yearly birthday shopping bonanza. However, we still had a blast. Thanks for a great weekend babe!!