Tuesday at Pollywog

Today was our Tuesday again and Taylor convinced me to take her to Pollywog park (her favorite!).  Our girl has been into running over this bridge at the park as fast as she can, over and over again.  So cute!  After the park we can home and she worked on a 100 piece Christmas puzzle- go Taylor!

Tuesday at Disneyland

Today Taylor and I went to Disneyland to enjoy the holiday decor before the Holiday craziness really started! As we were leaving we noticed that the parade was going to begin in about 20 minutes so we grabbed a seat on the sidewalk and had a surprise end of the day parade spectacular! 

Tuesday at our park

On our Tuesday together we hung out and went to the park by our house for a bit. Our park got some new equipment so we decided to go check it out.

They added some exercise equipment for parents to hang out on while the kids play! So cool! I was just thinking about this as I watched a you-tube video of exercise bikes in the huge central courtyard area in Australia. When more people would ride the bikes they would light up this video of these sexy men so it motivated women (and some men!) to exercise more. I thought...what if they could do this at a park or something and in order to get toys to work for kids, the parents had to get on the exercise equipment. Ha! This is one step in the right direction. I love it!



Taylor walking her bunny...hehe

Curls!

I have been wanting to buy Taylor some soft sponge curlers to put in her hair at night for so long now. I found the perfect, most colorful ones when I was at Ralphs! Today after a bath we finally did it. It reminded me of when I was a kid a putting them in my own hair. How nostalgic it was! Taylor sat so still and got each one ready for me as I prepped each area of hair. We dried her hair a bit, put some mousse in, put the curlers in, dried it a bit more, then voia-la!





The next morning



One of my absolute favorites...my beautiful girl!

Palm Desert

Daddy had to work out in Palm Desert so Taylor and I packed up our bags and headed out with him for a nice get away. I was able to work from the hotel while Taylor played, taking breaks by going to the pool. This year Taylor was able to take her big-girl bike so we could walk/ride back and forth from the time-share to the pool. It was so fun; she raced me a lot of the times with me having to truly run to keep up with her.

Although I was overwhelmed with grading papers for the class I'm teaching at school and doing assignments for my current classes at school, I had a lot of fun doing that tedious work out in a beautiful place.





Silly girl in her princess dress


Video of a "show" Taylor was putting on for us

Stride Rite photo shoot!

Today Taylor did her first modeling gig and oh what an intersting (and fun!) day it was. As an educated mom with a concern for Taylor's development, I didn't want her to get caught up in the "modeling" aspect of it and just wanted her to have fun. It kind of fell into our laps and we took advantage of the opportunity...it turned out to be great!

I prepped Taylor by letting her know that it was going to be just like a play date at the park where we get to meet new friends and play with other kids without mommy always by her side. Of course, if she didn't hang on me all day I told her I'd take her to Starbucks, the mall, wherever she wanted to go afterwards. Haha! Funny enough, she ended up having so much fun that she never asked to go to those places afterwards!

We got there and she had over an hour to get to know the kids she was going to be in the shots with and just play. They had so much fun together it was perfect! It was fun for me to watch all the people involved in this whole process, including the photographer who I knew. Some mom's were quite interesting; you could tell this was their livelihood...trecking their kids around to photo shoot after photo shoot for some extra cash. Very interesting world out there.

When it was time to get ready, Taylor and the other girl got to sit in these tall Director Chairs to get their hair done. They loved it! They then went down to the clothing truck and got clothes and shoes picked out for them. They then went off with the Child Wrangler who had to have been my most favorite person all day! I could have watched him play with kids all day long...soooo amusing! Taylor was cracking up with him, giggling and just having so much fun in front of the camera.

There were two girls and a boy in the shoot and after about 10 minutes they decided to take one of the girls out and leave just Taylor and the boy. They did such fun shots together and from what Silas said, the client loved her. So, we will see, she may be up in a Stride Rite store in the Spring!

Mint mocha smoothies, freshley baked cookies, a fun play date, some cute photos, and a few hundred dollars in Taylor's college fund...overall it was a great day!