New Set of Wheels

So after some "convincing" by my hubbie.


A government incentive program offering $4500 trade-in for our 1994 Jeep we paid $2000 for over 3 years ago.


And looking all over DFW for a dealership that still had one in stock on the last day of the program.



We finally got a brand-spanking new car w/ only 5 miles on the odemeter. It's a Toyota Rav4. Now - I do admit I use to think these cars were funny looking - but now that they've re-designed - I actually like better than the CR-V and they get better gas mileage. Plus, I'm a sucker for deals so the special Toyota was running definitely helped.

Really...I'm not much of a car person so I could less about one kind of car I drove...but I DO love it!!


But the car negotiating process, I HATE! Being an accountant, it makes it hard to talk about the "details" with people who have absolutely no clue. You say, tell me the interest rate, and they say, "Well, you're driving the car not the montly payment." And then they use the same line over and over no matter what your question is. Because they have no FREAKING clue so they don't know how else to respond. When we thought we found a half-way decent person they still managed to mis-calculate the price quote 3 times, and when we finally agreed and were signing the papers, they still had the wrong amount written. And it's not like we negoiated a super great deal - we still paid full "sticker" price for the car - but they happened to charge us TWICE for all the dealer add ons. So when we FINALLY left the dealership HOURS later...we realized we never paid them the $2000 down. The "finace guy" was so FRAZZLED by not getting the price right they never asked us for the moo-lah - and we had both assumed the other person had done it.


Did we go back? No. But our conscious got the better of us and we did call - in which case the salesperson decided to make a "personal delivery" to our home to return the missing garage down opener right away so he - of course - could pick up the check.

Date: August 22 2009

Backpack

Everyone the backpack goes, Tanner is sure to follow.

But when it was time for Avery to leave, and say goodbye to the backpack, we had to search the whole house looking for it. Of course, if I only would have checked his favorite little hang out place - I wouldn't have this problem. He was conviently "staching" it away in my closet.

Date: August 26 2009

Moments

As we said a family prayer before eating, Tanner clasped his hands together and bowed his little head for the prayer. Initially, it only lasted a few seconds - he had to sneak in a quick peak. When he realized we were still praying, he quickly bowed his head again - hoping we didn't notice.

Tanner is learning to pray - completely on his own. So simple, yet profound. And as a parent, I've never been so proud.






Date: August 18 2009

Summer Fun...Having a Blast

Where did the summer go? It seems like I'm just starting to enjoy it...and it's already practically over. And I'm SO jealous of everyone who took these month long vacations with their fams! Sure, we went here, here, and there...I'm still in desperate need of a vacation!!

Well - here it is folks - some highlights from our summer:

• Barney and Bailey Brothers Circus - If you ever want to feel like a kid again, go to the circus. While it was prob a little too much for Tanner, I enjoyed myself. My fav was still the elephants. Some things don't change.
  
• My sis, KT, came to visit from Seattle. She helped with Tanner were able to spend some time together - going to Surf N Swim wave pool and Nasher Scupltpre Center - which has awesome Kids First - Free Saturday Program.

Tanner was ready to jump in the water if we didn't stop him.

Ave did NOT want her picture taken, but I finally got a cute one of her silly smile!

Ave was trying to "help" get Tanner to look at the camera. And it worked!

We miss you already KT!

• Tanner's cousin, Emma, was baptized. I actually tried to take a pic at the church (but got in trouble) so the only pic I got of the special day.

• Visa National Gymnastic Turnament - Thanks to Devin, we got free tickets to the suite at AA center for the Mens Finalist. Jonathan Horton was still my fav. I think I watched every hour of the Olympics last summer - so I feel like we're on a first name basis. Tanner was playing at my feet and then a minute later when missing. Tanner bolted out of there and was found roaming halls. It wasn't good day for him cause he later fell down the 2 stairs and banged his head on the corner of the chair. Otherwise, he was in glory exploring the suite.

Other than that, we've been hanging out at home. Sometimes, it's the everday life and small moments like these that I love!

• Whole lot of bubbles, baseball, and slides. Apparently, Tanner has "outgrown" the swing. he screamed when I tried to push him the other day cause he wanted the slide. A month ago...he was screaming when I took him out of the swing.

And anner loves to carry around the bat and ball, everywhere he goes they go.
And don't even think about trying to take them away from him...
even if you're trying to teach him how to swing or throw a ball.

• LOVES to give hugs and if you're luck, even a kisses. Tanner was NEVER the cuddly baby so I LOVE it and take FULL advantage.

• When I ask if he's a silly baby, he laughs hysterically and shakes his head no repeatedly. But then when I ask if he's mommy's little boy, he'll shake his head yes. Quite the ham.
  
• He loves the most random things.

Favorite hangout - my bedroom closet.

Favorite pasttimes - talking on a real cell phone. If he doesn't have a phone, he'll use any object - even a spoon - and when nothing else is around - his own hand. When he hears a phone ring, he even put his hand up to his hear and says hello. And then proceeds to talk non-stop!

Playing with an empty water bottle - or in this case - a diet coke can - can provide tons of entertainment. he's fascinated by screwing the cover on and off.

• 
  
  
  Emptying out his drawer full of clothes
  
  

  But who can resist that puppy-dog face!
  
  

  Tanner also has a love for ALL electronics, much to his father's dismay. Anthony's x-box 360 randomly stopped working...but of course it wasn't Tanner...he's a perfect baby!

  He also LOVES to remove the child safety plugs. So much for childproofing!

• He loves small details and has amazing fine motor skills. But now and then, he gets tripped up. Like he was trying to put a cover on a pen...and while he was close...he would get so frustrated and scream at the top of his lungs for not getting it right away. He's still working on his patience.
  
• When he finds something new, he'll sit there and be totally entertained for 30 minutes playing with it. It's amazing his attention span.
• Cars - He loves pushing around these little cars. He even imitates the sound that he makes, which he picked up totally on his own. It's a boy thing - they just know these things!
  
• His FAV toy is the probably the ride on fire engine. He can get on it and push himself around, but getting off of it is a different story. This is were the screaming at the top of his lungs comes into play.
  
• But then again, he also loves his friends baby doll strollers, baby dolls, tea sets, and purses. He's metro like that. His only "doll" he has at home in Elmo - and he's decided to like him!
  

It's not always fun and games.

• He's had his fair share of mishaps - like dropping a can of soup on his toe and it turned black & blue. Now he's down a toe nail. Or he fell straight back in the tub. It was bound to happed as he refuses to sit in the tub.
• Tanner likes to scream and shout - even through tauntrums - when he doesn't get his way. Reasoning with a 1 year old is hard.

All in all, it's like someone took my precious baby and gave me a new little boy! In the twink of an eye, he's grown up and is bigger and better than ever.

Other noteable milestones:

• Over the past 2 months, he's gotten 5 new teeth - 4 on top and 1 more on bottom. He never shows them off, but the trails of drool he leaves behind in one indication of teething. Otherwise, if you're brave enough to stick a finger in there, you'll find out too.

• He's been completely weaned of nursing and bottles. If you know Tanner, this is a BIG, BIG step cause he was in LOVE. Now granted, he still likes his milk, it's just in sippy cup form.
  
  
• He went from taking a few steps to learning to walk to running in cirles to get himself dizzy and think it's funny to walk backwards. But his frankenstein walk when he was first learning to walk is still my favorite.

• Avery LOVES to pick up Tanner, depsite the fact Tanner is a tank and weighs close to the same. At his 1 year appt, he weighed 24 lbs and was inches. I'd just hate to see what the 90% percentile baby looks like.

Date: Summer of 2009

Birthdady Party

On Tanner's actual birthday, we hung out all day doing all sorts of fun things.

We had a fun splashing in the pool in the backyard.

When Dad came home, we went to the big pool.

Hung out at the home - Tanner was fascinated by learning home to scribble. I hope I don't regret this decision...I can picture colored walls and floors in the near future.

We made his favroite dinner - cheese tortelleni!

But he wasn't done yet. For the final celebration, molten chocalate cakes. This is my personal favorite - and soon to become Tanner's I am sure!

And if you'd prefer to see it on video, here it goes. This is for Nanny - enjoy!

Most of all, it was SO nice to be able to spend time with Tanner and take the day off of work. And the best bday present I can think of to give to him - is more time to spend with him.

Date: July 1, 2008

Weddings, Weddings, and more Weddings

In the past month, I've been to over 5 weddings of close family and friends. Last Saturday night alone, we went to one couple's wedding ceremony and crashed another couple's wedding reception. And last week we returned from from St George Utah for Mr & Mrs Scott Rapp's Wedding.


Here's some highlights:

Tanner's first plane ride -


Now that Tanner's walking, I was worried he would want nothing to do with the 3 1/2 plane ride sitting on my lap. However, he did amazingly well and was fascinated with all the intracies of a plane. Tanner loved the air blowing in his face, pushing the tray table up and down, and looking at all the people up and down the rows. He's become quite the ham and luckily, everyone sitting around us didn't mind a little one year tugging on them every so oftern. Food and snacks definitely went a long way too.



Fitting into the Bridesmaid dress - Never having seen or tried it on, I was seriously so worried the junior-sized dress wouldn't fit. So the first item of business was trying on the dress, and magically, it fit just perfectly!

Cafe Rio - Almost worth a plane trip just for the food. Seriously, I could eat this food every day - and practically did while I was out there. Well - no one wanted to go there EVERY day - so I settled on Bajio too. And of course, only AFTER I tried on the dress...

Bridal Shower - Having a lingerie-themed bridal shower can always be a little risk-que, but having your mother, gradndmother, and aunt there can olny make for awkward moments, especially when a book with illustrations is passed around and your mother happens to read it and reveals more about your parents love life than you ever wanted to know. Or my aunt, the new mother-in-law, is the one strongly endorsing all the lingerie for the new bride.

Spending time with family - Our family is loud. I mean really loud. We probably overwhelmed Dayana. But it must have been close to 10 years since we've all been together - extended family and everything. Now that we're older and spread out, we never got to spend enough time together.

Growing up, we were all really close and spent a lot of time together, and especially when we both lived in Minneapolis. In college, we went to BYU and spend some time together. Even though I graduated, even afterwards when I randomly saw both of them at Deloitte on-campus recruiting and now they both work for Deloitte. While we were in St George, we had lots of time to hanging out by the pool, stay up late playing Rockband, and just hanging out and chatting.

The only downside. Tanner was still on Texas time so the entire trip, he would wake up be wide awake at 6:00 am - even despite my best efforts to give him a bottle and rock him back to sleep. And Anthony was in Colorado hanging out with his bros and scoping out the Colorado dental scene - so I had my dose of what it was like to be a single parent.

Shopping with the girls - We wanted to find a new dress for my mom to wear to the wedding, and after a few hours or looking around, we found one that looked fantabulous. But the next day, she ending up wearing another new dress she had bought for the occasion back in WA that my dad brought up with him. But after shopping for 2 hours, she never once mentioned it. Ugh! It was still fun having going shopping the sisters and mom.

And I have no room to talk. In 30 minutes, I happened to spend $75 at the Shades Outlet Store (and props to me, saved over $200). I got a desperately needed new swimsuit and close to 8 shirts...so it was totally worth every it.

Bachalorette Party - We took Dayana out for one last night on the town as a single woman :) As crazy as it can get with a bunch of mormon girls, we dressed her up and stuffed ourselves with dessert after the rehearsal dinner.

When we asked her what her plans were for her wedding night, she said they were going to continue to say at my Aunt's home. We were thinking Scott was probably planning on surprising her. But we talked to him the next day, he had something planned initially, but he said it fell through. His Plan B - waiting until their honeymoon a few nights later!!! People stepped in and we quickly helped remedy their situation.

Wedding Ceremony - Weddings are so happy and beautiful times and I was glad I was able to celebrate the joy and union of Scott & Dayana. I've never seen Scott happier and he's so charming and romantic - singing her favorite song at the reception and getting down on one knee at the temple when exchanging wedding rings. I've never seen this side of Scott before!

It was even better being able to share that experience at the Temple Wedding Ceremony with so many loved ones - at the temple with my parents, brother, sister, grandparents, and cousins. For a brief moment, I was able to bask in what it might be like one day when (or should I say if) we make it to the celestial kingdom some day. The only thing missing was my own beau, which I don't recommend attending weddings solo, it just made me miss him ten times more.

Trip to Arizona - Before heading home, I stopped to visit my friend Lisa. We've been best friends ever since high shool when our parents moved to the same town just a few months apart. And even though we don't get to see eachother nearly as often, every time we're together it feels just like old times.

Unfortunately, I didn't get ANY photos of Lisa and I. But I did take a few of the kiddos playing together.

I tried effortlessly to take them together, but they didn't want to cooperate.

Tanner is obsessed with slides - mostly just climbing up them.

Date: July 25 -August 4

100% BOY!

DEFINITION: Dirt that Wiggles!

Here's some pics of Tanner playing in the sand to prove it.

And yes, he did try to eat the dirt.

But what I can't understand it although he has a love for most messy things - he can't stand the texture of grass. He refuses to stand on it barefoot and when you sit him down - he'll raise his feet so he doens't have to touch it!

Old MacTanner had a Farm. E - I - E - I - O!

For Tanner's 1st Birthday, we had a farm themed party with family and friends.

Yee-hah! Tanner is turning ONE!
Come join in the fun.
We'll splash & play in the sun.
Everyone be sure to come.

Cowboys and Cowgirls hear the news,
Dress in your bibs 'n boots if you choose.

Cock-a-doodle do...we hope to see you!

GAMES

We had a fun-filled afternoon. We kicked it off with a game of "Pin the Tail on the Cow." Tanner got it right on the tail...with a little assistance of course.

Then it got more exciting as we hosted a pig race. The kids lined up with their pigs and swatted them across the room across the finish line. It was a lot harder than it sounds.

Water Balloon Toss. How come every innocent game of water balloon toss aways turns into a water ballon fight. I had all the childlings on my side as they aimed for Anthony. Good times.

And last but not least, a cow pinata. Poor Merriam was grossly disturbedwhen Anthony was moving the Pinata around. She inisted he was cheating and it wasn't fair - which he had a good point. We thought for sure the kids would knock it down after the first real hit - but in turns out it took several real hits with a sturdy baseball bat to bust this one open. Impressive.

Little did we know that the pinata would be impossible to tear open. First we let the kids use a plastic bat and moved it around so they wouldn't make contact. I guess we wanted to make sure every kid would have a turn, but after that was done, we left them take full-blown swings. And when that didn't work, we pulled out the real baseball bat.

Birthday cake

Tanner loved tearing these cupcakes apart. I tried a new recipe and absolutely loved them. They were bright red, green and blue. It practically took a container of food coloring...but not only did they look colorful, they tasted delicous - seriously the best cupcakes and frosting ever. But the texas sun was blaring so we had to move fast.

Presents

Tanner was able to open a few of his bday presents - a Little People Truck and Ride on Car. He also got some fun toys. At first the Tickle-Me-Elmo scared him, but it was soon a big hit and he loves it. The other kids thought they were all equally as much fun, if not more so. It doesn't matter how old you are, toys are still toys and kids of all ages love them.




Date: July 10, 2009