After a long winter, the end of March brought some great weather! Taytum took a trip to the zoo with one of her friends. I'm pretty sure her favorite animals are penguins and giraffes!
The Parent's As Teachers program that we belong to had what they call Messy Play night back in March. Here are a couple pictures of Taytum getting into the messes! She enjoyed playing with the spaghetti, though I had to remind her not to eat it. She also really enjoyed the shaving cream! Thank goodness she's not a princess who's afraid to get her hands dirty!!
Here are just a few pictures of what Taytum does throughout the day. She loves to color with her markers! And she is getting so good with a spoon! Here she is treating herself to some applesauce. These pictures were taken in February and it is amazing to see how much she is still changing!
Valentine's Day in our house was celebrated a couple of days late this year. With colds and whatnot running through our house, it was good to wait those couple of extra days. Taytum woke up from her nap to see a new friend sitting in her chair. Taytum not only adores Elmo, but anything stuffed!! :o) She also got some playdough and a pad to write on. From the pictures you can see how much she took to her new Elmo. He talks and shakes like the Tickle Me Elmo. He is a nice addition to Taytum's ever growing stuffed animal family. Also for a treat that day we had PINK rice crispy treats...something new for Taytum. She seemed to enjoy them.
One of the latest activities in our house is to fetch as many as ALL or as little as one or two stuffed animals, line them up and then sit down with them. Taytum will sit with them on the couch, on the rocking chair, against the wall, on the stairs, basically anywhere she can sit! Here she is just grinning away after getting her 'gang' to sit on the couch with her!
Instead of getting into more trouble, Taytum will stand on the stool in the kitchen and 'cook' with Mom or Dad. She stirs, adds spices and samples everything she makes. If you ask her what she's making she'll tell you, "Eggs!" or "Peas!" or "Noodles!" and "Cheese!" (meaning grilled cheese) And when she samples her concoctions she gives a good, "MMMMMM!"
Taytum goes to Little Gym once a week where she gets to play and interact with other kids as well as learning gymnastics. Her teacher is Miss Mary Lee and Taytum just adores her. Taytum has learned to do a forward roll, which she can now do on her own as well as a few other feats. From attending Little Gym Taytum is also getting better at putting things away, following directions and waiting her turn. It is a lot of fun to take her and to participate with her. She has just graduated from being a "BEE." Now that she is old enough, Taytum will go to class with the bigger kids (18 months - 2 1/2 yrs old) where she is a "BEAST." Quite an appropriate name for this age! Here are a few pictures of her in action as well as receiving her medal from graduation.
One cold, cold winter's day, we were 'blessed' with some snow. Taytum learned the word quickly but only to confuse those around her as 'snow' sounds just like 'no!' :o) We bundled ourselves up and braved the chilling cold just to experience some snow fall. Taytum had a blast, as you can see as she tramples her way through the snow on the deck. She also took quickly to the snow, even to see what it tasted like. She replied with a quick, "Mmmmm!" And her mom reminded her of the advice from her father...never eat yellow snow! Taytum also learned that once she fell down in her snow suit, it was not an easy task to get up. Her mom was not very nice when she fell, laughing and having memories of "A Christmas Story." So Taytum figured out that she could use Maddy to help brace herself when she needed to bend over. We didn't stay outside for very long. The temperatures were only in the teens. So as soon as Mom was cold, it was time to go inside. But the fun didn't stop there...Taytum wore her snow boots around for the rest of the afternoon!