baby girl turns 1...

I can not believe that my little baby is already a year old! There is no possible way! Seriously, where did the time go? I can not even begin to tell you how much I love this little girl! Honestly, I was a little disappointed when we first got the ultrasound with her and were told it was a girl! I wanted another boy SO bad! I had this grand vision of buying bunk beds and having them play sports together, etc etc etc... and they were all dashed when we found out she was a girl! But boy how happy I am now that she is a part of our family! I can't even describe how she completes our family. And I'm even typing this as I listen to her scream in her crib! She was so a great sleeper before we left for Hawaii. We had begun the training of her just putting her self to sleep, like I would put her to bed semi awake and she would fall asleep on her own. We knew we were in trouble when we were talking to my mom one night and she told us that she was rocking her to sleep every night because she was just too cute to let go! Talk about 10 steps backwards! I mean, don't get me wrong, I love rocking her to sleep, but I just wanted to get her trained to fall asleep on her own before she started standing up on her own and she was pulling her self up on the side of her crib, because now she just stands there. I go in every 15 minutes and put her back down and just tell her it's time to go to bed and sleep. (until I give up and just put her in my bed with me, it really is just SO hard!) :)

Anyway...back to my beautiful baby! The thing I have learned with Taylor is that there is just no way around guilt as a parent. There are some days I just feel so bad for her because she is just dragged around and around, here and there and doesn't get a nap in (except in the car). But I feel guilty about that, so the next day we stay in ALL day so she can get in some good naps and I feel guilty for Tucker because he is cooped up all day and gets all wild and crazy! Anyway...Taylor is just our sweet chunky baby girl whom we all love and adore! Well, she isn't all that sweet, actually! She is a stinker! She is so different from Tucker as a baby! She has attitude and she has sass! She makes you work for her smiles and affections and she lets you know exactly how she is feeling by either her grunting and screaming or her throwing of her food or toys, or her totally contagious laugh! :) And that is why we are ALL THREE in love with her! And the poor thing just doesn't know what life is like without having someone (Tucker) squeezing, rubbing, loving, kissing, patting, pulling, or snuggling on her!

What would I do without my taters?

We had Nathan, Angie & Carter over for some Cafe Rio dinner on the night of her birthday. (she told me it was her favorite, it was all her idea!) :) And I made some cupcakes. We just kept things simple. I have learned my lesson about planning too much for a child's birthday when they could care less! :) ha ha! So we kept it simple and it was perfect! Tuckers first birthday cake was a piece his Aunt Kayla's bridal shower cake; they were on the same day, so this was a step up from his! :)

I love this succession of photos of her with her cake:

At first she wasn't quite sure why everyone was singing to her...

But she loved the attention...

Daddy had to feed her her first bite, she wasn't really sure of what to do with the cake...

After she tasked the goodness of the frosting, she dug right in! Just like her mama, doesn't hold back when it comes to food! :)

A little upset when all the frosting was gone! :) I should have put more frosting on!

Then on to opening some gifts! Thank you Carter! :)

Having fun with her new toys!

The coolest present she got was this cool piano from my mom! We have been having fun playing on it! It is one of those cool ones that you can dance (or crawl) on to make music! It is so cool!

Happy birthday my little Tater tot! We love you SO SO SO much!

I just took her in today for her 1 year check up and she weighed 21 lbs. and 6 oz. and was 30 and a half inches long! Such a big girl!

Funny story about the Dr. I took both of my kids in for their yearly check ups (yes, Tucker was a little late on his!) And I love their doc! She is wonderful. I take them to Dr. Simmerman at Valley Young People's Clinic. I have been taking Tucker to her since he was born and now Taylor. I love that she knows and loves my kids! She was asking Tucker a whole bunch of questions, ya know, about shapes and words and numbers etc.. and Tucker has really been into rhyming lately, he is always trying to rhyme things together and he is usually really good at it! So, he was, of course, showing off and he got really excited and asked her if she wanted to hear him rhyme and she said, of course! So he starts looking around the room and he said, ' Door....WHORE!' He obviously had no idea what he was talking about but we both just burst out laughing! It was the funniest thing I have ever heard. Of course, Tucker loved that so he started saying it over and over. This is going to be fun when he starts rhyming things with his own name! :)

By the way...she is already asleep, the little angel! :) i love her!

Post Edit- I think I got a little distracted when writing this and didn't mean to write that the only thing I've learned since being a mother of two is about guilt! :) While that is true, wouldn't that be sad if that were the only thing I've learned! :) I also wanted to write about how much more I've learned about love. The crazy thing about love is that it grows! I was a little nervous before I had her that I wouldn't be able to love another child like I loved Tucker. He was our whole world for over 3 years! I was so scared that having another baby would take away from him some how. But it has been amazing to me how my capacity to love has just increased and increased. There are still days where I feel guilty (read above) because I can't meet every need of both of them every day. But I sure do love them both more than I ever thought I could love!

Since we've been home...

One thing I forgot to mention was the fact that this little lady decided she wanted to start crawling while we were in Hawaii! Yes, she was 11 1/2 months! :) My kids are late crawlers and walkers; they don't like to use those big ol' legs of theirs! :) My poor mother had a lot of chasing to do while she was here! :)

Superbowl fun! I thought that this cake was so cute that Kathryn made! :)

Tucker was just happy to have a big chocolate football to eat during the game. And while none of us were super excited about the game (lack of interest in the teams) we had fun eating delicious food and spending time with papa again! :) Between my dad who is like the best chef of delicious and savory foods and Kathryn who is a wonderful baker of delicious desserts, we eat like kings!

I also had to add these little things I made for my new little niece. I'm trying really hard to solidify my status as the favorite aunt to my little sisters new little one. :) I sent her some new accessories, because what girl doesn't love accessories? :)

Speaking of...And I know this isn't my news to share, but I HAD to post this picture of little Kenzie May Croskrey! She is the most beautiful baby I've ever seen! She was born on Wed. Feb.16th. We were crossing our fingers that she would wait until 12:01 to come so her and Taylor could have the same birthday, but I guess she wanted to come in her own time! Oh how I can't wait to meet her! :) Love you guys!

the day of love...

Our motto for Valentines day at the Pyper house is keep it simple! As long as there is chocolate involved, I am happy! :)

Taylor woke up with her fabulous bed head and had her first chocolate-for breakfast! :)

Tucker had a little (girl)friend over to play! :) We love Kendyll!

I had seen this cute idea for valentines day cards a few years ago before Tucker even needed to make cards. But...now that he is in pre-school, I was so excited to be able to make them! :) I have since seen them on a few of my friends blogs, and think that they are so much better than going out and buying generic v-day cards! :)

You just take an exacto knife and cut a slit at the top of the hand and the bottom of the hand and slide the lolli-pop right through! So cute! :)

Taylor had a great valentines day! As usual, she was happy as long as she had food!

Holiday's are so much more fun with kids! :) I loved getting Tuckers cute little home made valentines day cards and gifts that he made for us in pre-school.

And of course, I am lucky enough to have a wonderful Valentine; going on 8 years now! I {heart} my Valentine! :)

Banana bread tradition...

OK, I had to post these pictures really fast because they are so funny to me! Every single time my mom comes to visit she buys like 5 bunches of bananas! I don't even want to know how many she went through during her 11 days at our house this time! :) It makes me laugh so much. At Christmas she brought 3 bunches with her then bought 2 more while she was here. She was only here for 6 days! But she is a picky eater and has to have her bananas be the perfect color and consistency or she won't eat them. These pictures make me laugh because here we are, the day after grandma leaves, making banana bread...once again! It has become tradition that after she leaves we make a few loaves of banana bread because we have SO many bananas! :) We have done it now for the last 3-4 visits... Love you mom! :)

Luckily we love banana bread!

Tucker stopped, on his own, to give Taylor a little kiss!

Last Hawaii post...

OK, I really need to stop looking at these pictures over and over and over! Ben and I have been in mourning since we've been home! It was REALLY hard to leave the island and say good bye to paradise! (and come home to freezing weather!) But I've got to get back to reality here, people! :)

Seriously though, on our way home, we were going through every scenario we could to get ourselves back to the island. Like, how can we live in Hawaii forever? hmmmm.....

I was so so so excited to get home and see my babies! 11 days gone from them was a LONG time! It was funny, we VERY purposely planned this trip just the two of us. Our friends whose house we stayed in, even called us a few months before we left and asked if they could come. Ben told them that we really wanted it to be just the two of us. And we had considered having my mom or dad fly over with the kids for the last week; but we nixed that idea as well. It was funny, though, after 4-5 days we were thinking that it would have been great to have the kids with us. Or have some friends with us. :) Now, don't get me wrong, I loved every minute of our vacation and am SO glad we got to do this without the kids, I just think that 11 days is a long time to be away from them! I found myself thinking, 'oh, Tucker would love this, or I wish I could Tucker could see this, or do this' Anyway... now we know for next time, and I really can't wait to come back here with our kids one day! They would love it! But we were so lucky to have my mom stay with the kids! Thank you Thank you Thank you mom, we are so grateful for this time we had just the two of us! What a wonderful grandma my kids have!

Anyway, here are a few more of some of my favorite pics!

On our way to dinner one night! I am a total packaholic! Seriously, 25+ different outfits for 11 days on a beach? What was I thinking?!

This is a really old/cool church downtown in Kona. We walked by it a lot and every time, I thought it was so beautiful! Hawaii is such a Christian state, I think because Christian missionaries were some of the first to settle in the islands. Anyway, there were very cool and old churches EVERYWHERE! I don't think I've even seen that many churches in the south! :)

Hiking along the water one day...

The day we hiked to Akaka falls, along the path...

On the hike down to the black sand beaches on the north shore...

Ben feeding a bird at dinner one night...

Black sand beaches...

The Lava flow fields...

It's amazing that anything can grow at all in the lava land...

The most AMAZING sunset at southpoint...

Thanks grandma, for watching the kids! Thanks to all our friends who helped by giving my mom some much needed breaks from the little ones while we were gone! We are so appreciative to everyone!

And most of all, THANKS Ben for planning the most amazing trip ever! I am SO lucky!

Hawaii, part II ...

The rest of our vacation was spent in the water! After a few days of going going going and having some wonderful adventures, we were ready for some down time. Sunday morning we went to a place called 'U top it' for a late morning brunch. It was a beautiful Sunny day and we just wanted to spend the day relaxing and enjoying it together! U top it, is a great crepe place, that makes their crepes out of taro root. It was delicious! :) Funny thing about this picture is that I asked our server to take it for us, and you would have thought I asked her to murder someone! She just stood there for like 2 minutes nervously shaking her head, like trying to decide on what to do! It was hilarious and a little awkward. :) Ben and I kept on looking at each other, wondering if we had done something wrong by asking her to take the picture. :)

The next stop after brunch was the temple. From our house we had a great view of the temple, and totally passed by it every time we drove home. We finally had time to go and actually see the beautiful temple up close. It is gorgeous! :) I guess it looks like pretty much every other mini temple, but I think that palm trees can make any place seem more beautiful, including the temple! :)

It is beautiful though!

Sunday afternoon was spent relaxing at home, we had gotten food at the store to do steaks on the grill! YUM!

Our amazing view of the Kailua-Kona bay from our house...

And this is the sunset we got to see that night at dinner! It was amazing!

Monday we headed to do some last minute shopping. There were some things we wanted to buy before we left, and didn't want to have to worry about it last minute. After running a few errands we ended up at the old airport beach. We had driven by there on our first day here, and even on Sunday had walked around. But we heard there was good snorkeling, so we had to give it a try.

Old Airport Beach. We pretty much had it to ourselves, and we walked a little farther out to a place we had found the day before, to do some rock jumping.

We did some snorkeling. I love snorkeling!

And then we just swam and jumped off the rocks, and enjoyed playing in the ocean together for a while. This is totally my kind of vacation! By far, one of my favorite times on our trip!

{I think I need to work on my diving form!} :)

If you ever need to have someone put sunscreen on your back, I am, apparently, NOT the person to ask! Sorry Ben!

I had to laugh one morning as I looked on our counter to our assortment of sun screens! We are just a couple of WHITEYS!

On our last day on the Big Island, we headed to a place called 'The place of Refuge' There was supposed to be some good snorkeling there. I thought that I had taken some pictures there, but I guess I didn't because I didn't have any on my camera from there. Anyway, when we got there we noticed a sign that said it was a Dolphin resting area. We were so excited to see some dolphins. As we were entering the water, we could literally see like 50 feet away a whole bunch of dolphins swimming with people. They were jumping in the air and twirling and making noises, it was SO cool! Of course, by the time we got in the water and got out there, they were all gone! And since I was already like down by the water, I didn't have my camera, so no pictures! But it was pretty cool to see, even from a distance, the dolphins swimming and playing.

We also stopped at Mauna Kea Beach. It wasn't for snorkeling, but a great play in the water beach. It made me wish that the babies here with us. Tucker would have loved playing in the sand here. We could have spent all day here with the kids. It was a great family beach. Right next to a resort (that we had to hijack to get in-this beach is very exclusive!) :) Next time, hopefully they'll be with us! :)

Sunset at dinner on our last night in Kona! SO SO SO sad to be leaving this!

Everything is Aloha in the Islands, even the bathroom signs! :)

On our flight home, we ended up being stuck in Maui for a few extra hours. We were all boarded on the plane, on the tarmac when the pilot came on to tell us that we were like third in line for take off. A half and hour went by, then he comes on again to tell us that some skid gear mechanism, yada yada yada, thing needs to be replaced and the part is being sent over from Honolulu. We ended up spending only 4 hours in the Maui airport, so it wasn't awful, but still. It made for a long night! We didn't end up getting into Seattle until 3:30am, and with an 8am flight to Spokane, we ended up just spending the night in the Seattle airport! NOT sleeping! :) I don't know what it is with me and bad flying experiences! Something ALWAYS happens! :)

Outside the Maui airport:

Good bye Hawaii! Until next time, Mahalo! :)