The Cheese Stands Alone

Guess who is standing on her own now! Well, at least for a few seconds at a time. She is getting more and more confident. I am sure it won't be anytime before she stands up on her own without help. Right now we have to get her in position and then let go. The first time she really stood for any length of time was on Sunday. Daniel was outside with her while I was getting ready for church. I saw them out the window. It was so cute to see her standing there in the grass. Here are some pictures that I got of her later.

Eskimo Kisses

Taylor has learned to give Eskimo kisses. This afternoon after her very short nap of 20 minutes I rocked her a while to try and get her back to sleep. She was so sweet and cuddly, but no more nappy nap. As I was holding her she started giving me kisses. Her kisses consist of opening her mouth and leaning forward toward you for you to kiss her on the lips. It is so cute. Well, I decided to give her Eskimo kisses by rubbing my nose back and forth across hers. My parents used to do that with me when I was little and I did it with her when she was first born but it has been a while. Well, wouldn't you know, she started shaking her head back and forth like she was trying to "kiss" me back. It was the cutest thing. Everytime I would E-kiss her she would giggle and then E-kiss me back. Little things like this are the things that I love about my "job" as a mommy. I may not get paid in your normal terms, but I get paid in hugs and kisses and that is the best kind of payment.

Taylor Goes to the Doctor / House Hunting

Friday Taylor had her 15 mo. check-up at the pediatrician's office in Albany. It was rather painful. She had to have 3 shots. The first thing they did was prick her finger. It took a while to calm her down after that. She did not like the bandage on her finger. She kept pulling it off and getting blood everywhere. We finally distracted her with Cheerios and juice. That seemed to calm her down until....the doctor came in. She recognizes him now and as soon as she saw him she started crying. Oh no! What do we do now? He just laughs it off. I wish she would behave for him just once though. I know that he is not hurting her. She just doesn't like him touching her. After he was done Daniel held her and she laid her head on her shoulder. It was so sweet. I think she was tired too which didn't make things any easier. Her appointments are always right in the middle of nap time. The last thing they did was give her 3 shots. I am surprised that she doesn't cry as soon as she sees the nurse since she is the one who gives the shots. She is very quick though. Taylor did go to sleep in the car pretty quickly afterwards. I was glad. We did a little shopping while we were in Albany and then headed back to Americus to meet up with Daniel's mom and step-dad.

Bud and Ruth Ann came to Americus to look for a house. Bud is retiring sometime in August and they are moving here to be closer to us, I mean Taylor. They wanted to go ahead and find something so they could move in gradually and not be rushed. After a long weekend of house hunting I think they have found a house that they like. We are going to go back and get some more details for them, like measurements and things. We are also going to take some video. They looked at so many houses this weekend that they can't remember which house had what rooms and how everything was laid out exactly. We are excited about them moving here. We have never lived in the same town as family as long as we have been married, so it will be nice to have some support, especially with Taylor. Free babysitting! Yea!

If all goes according to plan and they get the house, I'll post some pictures of it to show everyone.

Wonderful Words of Life

We think that Taylor may be trying to say some words and start imitating what we say. This past weekend Mama said that she thought Taylor said Joshua. Yesterday morning whenever I was changing her diaper we were playing with her and saying up, down. It sounded like she was trying to say down. Once it sounded like she was trying to say Alicia and tonight we gave her a bath and I am sure that she was trying to say bath. Who knows when she will be saying words audibly but I can't wait. At least she is trying....or so it seems.

It seems as though we have had a little setback in Taylor's naps since we got home from Chattanooga. She has only been sleeping for about 30 minutes and will not go back to sleep. Before, she was sleeping for a good hour at nap time. This wouldn't concern me if she was getting two naps, but she absolutely refuses to take a morning nap even though she shows signs of being tired. I am not sure what to do about it. I have just been letting her cry for the remainder of the hour hoping she will go back to sleep. Maybe one day she will retrain herself to go back to sleep. I hate to go through CIO again. It was so difficult the first time. At least now I have learned to somewhat tune her out and do other things which makes it a little easier. At least she is sleeping through the night. She has been going down about 30 minutes earlier since we got home, so maybe that is making up for the 30 minutes she is not getting at her naptime.

Visit to Grandmommy's and Granddaddy's

We went to Chattanooga this weekend to visit my family. Taylor and I are still getting over colds, but it didn't stop us from having a great time. On Friday night we had dinner at my parents with all of my family except my dad. He was on his way home from Huntsville where he was sitting with my grandmother in the hospital and helping out with things they needed done. He got in after we had finished eating. The kids played so well together and seemed to enjoy one another. Taylor and Joshua were so cute the way they played in tandem.

On Saturday we met Alicia at Heritage Park to have pictures made of the three of us. She did a great job. The sun was out, so there were a lot of pictures that had shadows in them. It really would have been better if we could have done it in the evening or on an overcast day, but it just didn't work out that way. We still got some great shots though. Here are a few of our favorites.

For lunch Alicia and I met our friends Tina and Jenny for lunch at one of my favorite restaurants. It was really good to get with them and have some girl time. Daniel took a picture of us.


Taylor did really well at night while we were away. She went down without too much fussing and stayed asleep all night long.

On the way home we stopped at the Tanger outlets at Locust Grove to shop for Taylor some shoes and PJ's. She has been growing so fast lately. We liked the shoes so much that she already has that we got some more just like them. She gets compliments on them all the time and they go with so many of her outfits. We were hoping that Taylor would sleep some on the way home, but she only slept for about 25 minutes at the beginning of the trip. We could have possibly made it to church tonight if we had hurried, but Taylor was so exhausted and hungry that we decided it would be best to just stay home. As it turned out, Taylor went down early. It was no time before she was out. We have had a nice quiet evening.

This has been a great weekend and I am so glad that we made the trip. I know that Grandmommy and Granddaddy enjoyed their time with Taylor and she got to spend some good quality time with them. Too bad it was just so short.

Bittersweet News

I have good news and bad news to share today. The good news is that my cousin, Jason, accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior! I am so excited and happy! Our family has prayed for him for a long time. He is now looking for a church home. I have seen a lot of change in him over the past several years and can tell you that I would imagine that God has been working on him for a while. God is so good!

The bad news is that we just found out this weekend that Grandma has Parkinson's disease and my grandfather is not in the physical condition to take care of her. I have not done any research on this, so I am not sure what all to expect, but I know what I have seen from different celebrities who have had it (Katherine Hepburn and Michael J. Fox). I have also heard that recently there was evidence that adult stem cells could be used in the research or treatment or cure of this disease. I am not sure of all the facts. I just heard this on the radio. I know that there is a lot of controversy surrounding this illness. All I know for sure is that Grandma is in God's hands. I scares me to think of what kind of road she may have ahead of her, but I also know her Creator and He is the Great Physician. I trust that whatever He chooses to allow is best. Please pray for my grandmother and our family as we travel this difficult journey together. God is still good.

Sickies

We have sickness in the Poe household this weekend. I am sick with a cold or something and we think that Taylor might be getting the sniffles as well. She has been breathing through her mouth some and sounds a little congested when she breathes. Our praise team is supposed to sing at church tomorrow and I won't get to sing with them. They might get someone else to fill in for me. We have done that before with one of the other members.

It has been a rather dreary weekend so far. Friday morning was cloudy and the sun finally came out. It started storming last night. I thought the thunder might wake Taylor, but she slept well. Her sound machine is set on rain, so I guess she was used to the noise. She slept for almost 13 hours last night - from 8:15 until 9:00 this morning! I was so impressed! I slept in until 8:30 and that extra sleep felt good with me being sick. It was nice to sleep in a little bit for a change.

Just this week I signed up for Facebook. It is kinda like MySpace, but I think it is geared more to college students and older. It has been fun searching for old classmates and other friends. I have found people who I have not seen or heard from in over 10 years. It's neat to see what other people are doing...who's married, who has children, etc. This year is the 10 year college reunion for a lot of my friends, including my sister, so we might go to catch up with everybody. It is a long trip for us, but we can stop at my parents' house along the way. We also have some good friends to stay with near CN. That's really nice.