Half Birthday

Dear Wilder,

You are 18 months old today and your Dada and I cannot imagine life without you. For such a little person you have a huge, fun personality. You love to laugh and to make other people laugh. You are totally full to the brim with life; I'd say even bubbling over. You're a spontaneous hugger. You like to spin until you're dizzy, chase/jump on/love on/generally mess with the dogs, throw or kick anything that even resembles a ball or can be purposed as a ball, pull things off of cabinets/out of drawers/off of shelves -- you're a tiny hurricane. You play so hard every minute you're awake. 

At 18 months old you are a little bossy pants and just so darn funny. You love to have an audience and will pull me into a room and pat a seat on the couch or the floor to make me sit down and watch you/cheer you on. You think it's so funny to honk our noses and your own and say, K-onk, k-onk. You yell Mama! Dada! from your room when you wake up and I wake up with a smile every day because of it. 

You repeat one word from every sentence I say and are picking up new words left and right. You are a chubby, blonde sponge. You are an encyclopedia of animal sounds. When I ask you how many there is of something you say two, even when there's four. You love to "help" us do things. You will sit through whole books now and reading stories to you is the highlight of my day. You're very into peekaboo and bubbles at 18 months. And rocks. And balls of course. You go to bed and wake up saying ball. You call a soccer ball a sock ball, a tennis ball a sh-ball, a basketball a b-ball, and a football a fat ball. 

You are a total ham. And so easy-going. And just so cool. Your Dada and I feel incredibly lucky to have the privilege of being your parents. We go to bed every night talking about the new and funny things you've done that day and how you make our lives fun and bright. You are simply amazing and our hearts bubble over with more and more love for you every day. 

Happy Half Birthday, my little love.

Mama

Good Times

And, no, as a matter of fact I couldn't think of a better title for this post. It was either that or nothing. I am that braindead right now. 

We've had a fun, hectic week since I posted last. We were so excited over the weekend to have Paul's dad and his girlfriend out to visit. Wilder had a blast showing off for them and it did our hearts good to see them loving on him and enjoying him. We walked down the street the first night and had a delicious dinner at our favorite restaurant...

 The next day we took the dogs to the park.

Three generations of Taylor men :)

 And then we went to SeaWorld. I can't believe we had

never been before now but I'm so glad we got to go

before we move away. It was an awesome experience

and Wilder loved every minute of it. By the way, he

made this face on his own. I didn't even ask him to smile,

the little ham!

 SHARKS!!

The turtle exhibit

 The dolphin show was A-MA-ZING!

 Wilder sat there completely mesmerized through 

the entire 30-minute show.

 Even after the show he was still trying to

figure out what it was he had just seen.

Mind officially blown.

 AND! The best part... Wilder got to pet a dolphin!

Such a fun afternoon!

The next day we had Rachel and Lexi over for a playdate. We rarely have people over to our house because it's such a weird location being behind another house and the dogs go so crazy over company and our yard looks like two giant dogs live here and so on and so forth. But I decided I just need to get over it, put away all my excuses, and have my dang friends over for goodness sakes! We had so much fun watching the kids play in the yard (and the dogs weren't too bothersome after all). Wilder absolutely loved having his buddy at his house and showing her all his toys. 

Wilder usually has no problem sharing but the

slide was a hot commodity apparently. I 

love how Lexi totally has him blocked out --

that girl don't let nobody push her around! ;)

Can we all agree that this is the sweetest thing ever?!

Wilder totally leaned over and kissed her all by himself

(and then I had to make him do it again for a picture,

of course, but the first one was all him)! Love these

sweet friends and we're sure going to miss them!

This boy loves him some rocks. I see many

a rock collection in our future :)

 I got this idea from another blog I read and

decided to try it the other day. I filled up a

tray from the kitchen with water, put a bunch

of little spoons, measuring cups, whisks, etc.

in it and let him have at it. I'm not lying, Wilder

stood there and played with that homemade

water table for an entire hour. That's why 

this picture is from so far away -- I didn't dare 

disturb him! Best idea since bathtub painting :)

Wilder loves climbing up and going 

down his slide all by himself. He calls it 

a "wheeee" because that's what I say 

every time he goes down it haha.

 Sweet best buddies at storytime.

Teaming up to take down that frog statue.

 One of our good friends, a fraternity brother of Paul's

from MS State, and his girlfriend were out here on vacation

and we were so excited to meet up with them for dinner

last night. It's always nice to see familiar faces and it was

fun to watch them cracking up at Wilder's antics :)

We also did our family pictures yesterday and our awesome

photographer already sent me a sneak peek! We had a great

experience with Kim Curran - highly recommended if you're

looking for a photographer in San Diego!

So that's what we've been up to lately in addition to sorting/packing, looking for a house in Nashville, and Paul trying to finish up his thesis project. The next month is shaping up to be ridiculously hectic. I do have a very interesting and informative post in the draft stages; I even did an interview for it! But, alas, at this point my brain cannot produce anything interesting or informative so that will have to wait. I hope you all have a fantastic rest of the week!

A Post on My Inability to Think and Therefore to Post

Yes! I did drop out of the Blogathon. Thank you for noticing! ;)

I've just got so much swirling around in my head. Tons of to-do's for moving, cleaning for visitors coming into town, trying to loosely coordinate a man, woman, and child's outfits for our photo session next week (which is proving more difficult than I thought it would be), and cheerleading for a soon-to-graduate architecture student. There's also a good, legit blogpost swirling around in there, I promise. This just isn't it. Obviously. And I'm not sure when I'll have the brainpower to write that blogpost either. 

On a related note, have you ever tried to pack up a house with the help of an 18-month-old? It's totally productive and not frustrating at all. I really enjoyed the part where I would put something into a box and he would take it immediately out and use it as a hat, or a weapon, or just throw it, because that helped make the process go so much faster. It definitely did not take me two hours to load four boxes. That would be one box every 30 minutes and that would be just ludicrous. I'm really not even sure it's humanly possible to throw crap in a box that slowly. Packing in the presence of a toddler - highly recommended.

On another related note, as you can imagine my head is threatening to combust. I'm totally overwhelmed by the amount of said crap we've accumulated since we moved out here. Before we hauled ourselves 2,000 miles across the country the last time, we lightened our load considerably by selling probably half our stuff in a moving sale. This time we'll be coming back with approximately three times as much junk. And I'm so torn about what to do with all the baby stuff. We aren't planning on having another one for several years (if we do at all) so I hate to lug all that stuff with us and have to store it for an indeterminate amount of time. But I also hate to get rid of it and have to buy it all over again. Any thoughts from my trusty readers on this quandary?

And now, pictures. Because I have no words left in me tonight.

Love this one :)

 I think we can fit one more ball in here, Mama.

 He brought these pillows over to Rider and told her Ni-ni.

 We love eating our lunch outside these days. 

 Eagerly anticipating bubbles at story time

Bubblllleeessss!!!

 He borrowed Lexi's pink sunglasses at the library

and felt the need to offset the girliness of them

with a manly display of brawn ;)

He's sweet like his daddy.

OK these pictures have reminded me that I need to get down a few things about Wilder before I forget them so it turns out I do have a few more words left.

Today I saw him walk into mine and Paul's room and I didn't hear him for a minute so I went to check on him. When I walked in and called for him, he yelled and jumped out from behind the curtain at me. He seriously scared the bejeezus out of me and thought it was hilarious. I thought it was pretty hilarious too.

We always ask him what different animals and things say of course but the other day Paul started asking him what Mama, Dada, Posey, and Rider say and it's so funny to hear him make up what we sound like. For Rider he always does a panting sound haha. What can I say, the dog's a heavy breather. 

His new favorite game at mealtimes is to pretend to be giving us a bite of something and then put it in his own mouth at the last second. He cracks us up so much these days with his little antics.

He's also smart. as. a. whip. He can recognize and say the letters B, Q, and S. And he knows the number two. For two or three weeks now, whenever he has two of something he will bring them up to us and say two. The other day I gave him a roll of duct tape to hold while I was doing something. He walked off and came back a minute later with a roll of masking tape in the other hand and told me two. His dada and I are so proud of that boy.

OK peeps, I promise a very interesting post about a very interesting topic in the near future. Thanks for standing by me even though I'm a blog challenge failure. 

Mama Day

Mother's Day was super relaxed. We worked in the yard a little, washed Paul's scooter, and just hung out all day. Wilder loved having Paul out in the yard with him and it was fun to watch them play together. 

Paul and I are so not "special occasion" people. We don't go all out with gifts/surprises/hooha. To be honest, we both usually just buy our own gifts. For ourselves. I'm sure that sounds weird but it suits us both just fine. So anyway, a few weeks ago I saw a Plum District (like Groupon for moms) offer for a photo session with a local photographer for like 75% off. I'd been wanting to get family pictures done here before we left, plus Wilder will be 18 months old, so it was really perfect timing. I snagged the deal and declared it my Mother's Day present. So that's what I got (gave myself) for Mama's Day. Plus some really sweet cards from my two gentlemen.

Wilder was so sweet bringing me his card.

Heart. Melt.

 I love being this boy's mama.

 "Helping" Dada ;)

Sunday night Paul had gotten us a babysitter so after Wilder went to bed we went to dinner at The Tractor Room. Can I just say... yum. Seriously THE BEST dinner I've had in San Diego. And that's saying a lot. 

Black Skillet Cornbread appetizer = amazing

 Paul had the pan-seared trout and grilled shrimp... sooo good

I had the soup of the day - this amazing chicken chowder

with potatoes and applewood bacon

 And the wedge Caesar salad, which was enormous and delish

 And we *might* have finished with strawberry cobbler

 Love this man.