The first official baby injury

Yesterday I was taking pictures of Taylor while he was sitting on the sofa and out of nowhere he took a dive right for the floor. I had absolutely no warning and no time to catch him and he smacked his chin right on the corner of the trunk that sits in front of our living room window. At first I thought he hit his head and I was FREAKING out. I called Sean bawling uncontrollably and he couldn't understand a word I was saying and had no idea what was going on. I finally calmed down enough to explain the situation but by that time the bruise had showed up on Tay's chin and he had calmed down enough that I knew he wasn't dying. After a dose of Tylenol and a short nap he was fine, but I was an emotional wreck the rest of the day. I told my mom I'm not sure I'm cut out to handle all the bumps, bruises, and cuts of toddlerhood. We're all fine today, but I'm definitely being a bit overprotective with my baby, at least until his chin is totally healed.

Happy Birthday Kristi!

My sister's 22nd birthday is today and we had a party for her here at our house last night. Sean put together a slide show of pictures of Kristi from birth until now, and everyone got a kick out of watching it and eating chips and salsa while I made dinner - baked chimichangas and Spanish rice. It was sooo yummy and I loved having so many people here. My brother was a laugh and a half as usual, and Taylor was pretty well-behaved considering the fact that he hadn't taken a long enough nap before everyone arrived. Here are some pictures from our crazy Easter/birthday shindig.

The whole gang in my itty bitty living room:

Me with the birthday girl (my mouth was full of chips and salsa):

Pop yo' colla baby:

Watching the slideshow and scarfing down on chips and salsa:

Taylor texting his girlfriend - he's a lady killer already!

The cutest bunny I've ever seen:

It was a really great night and I hope that you have a very happy birthday, sis!!

Taylor's new tricks

It seems like baby Tay does new things every single day, and I am amazed at how much he has grown. Here are some of his newest tricks...

First of all, the kid is getting so close to crawling, but just can't figure out the physics of it yet. His closest attempt was this morning when he was trying as hard as he could to get to me and ended up crawling halfway across the living room... backwards. He got sooo frustrated when he realized that as hard as he was trying to move forward he just kept getting farther and farther away from me. Poor baby..

Another of his favorites is drinking from a straw. He is so proud of himself when he's able to slurp water out of his cup, but then can't quite understand how to keep most of it in his mouth. I guess that comes with practice.


Another new favorite of Taylor's - sitting in the laundry basket. He kept trying to climb on it the other day so I sat him in it with some toys and he was happy as a clam! In fact when I attempted to take him out of it he threw a holy-living FIT. So, back in he went.


He's such a little monkey!

GREAT news!

Sean is *officially* CANCER FREE!!!

I'm so excited I want to cry right now. We met with the oncologist yesterday and the second the doctor walked in the room he came over, shook Sean's hand, and said "I looked at your CT scan and it's completely clean." We are both so relieved. He will now be under observation for several years. For the first year he'll have an exam and chest x-ray every month, as well as a CT scan every 3 months (which is $750 bucks a pop that we have to pay). The second year he'll go in every 2 months, and the 3rd and 4th years he'll go in every 6 months. It's a lot of doctor's visits, but totally worth it.

We feel so blessed and know that our prayers - along with all the prayers said on our behalf - have been answered. This whole experience has changed us for the better in so many ways, and it really is true that the things that don't kill us make us stronger. Sean and I have a much stronger relationship, we're taking much better care of ourselves, and our testimonies have grown by leaps and bounds. We are so thankful to our loved ones that have supported us through this difficult time and we look forward to moving on with our lives. We love you all!

Our fun weekend

Sean and I always end up going into Salt Lake every weekend, and by Monday we are completely exhausted. We decided that this weekend we'd take a break from SLC and just hang out at home. MAN was that a great idea! Not only were we able to get a lot more done, but we had a lot more time to just lounge and relax. It's amazing how great it is having my hubby back, and Taylor loves being able to play with his daddy again. I think that - much to my family's disappointment - we'll be spending a lot more weekends here in Provo.

Here are some pictures we shot yesterday.

Tay with Daddy:


On Mommy's shoulders (he's definitely got his daddy's olive complexion; I look so pasty compared to him!):



Taylor's new trick - sticking his tongue out:

Some cute pictures

I've taken some really sweet pictures of Taylor lately and thought I'd post a few of my favorites. He's such a doll and I love being his mommy!

Here's the smile I fall in love with every day:


My big boy standing up in front of the sofa:


Here are some neat pictures - Taylor in his jumper at 4 months old:


And in his jumper at almost 10 months old:

Taylor's second haircut

Baby Tay's hair was looking pretty shaggy, so I took another stab at cutting his hair. I did much better this time than last time, and I was really surprised how well-behaved he was. He loved the clippers and was content to chew on a tupperware lid while I cut his hair. Probably the hardest part about the whole thing was trying to get all the little hairs off his shoulders and back. I put him in the bath and had to rinse him off over and over again to finally get them all. It almost seems like water makes the hair stick to him worse than if he was dry.

Here are some pictures of my handsome little man:

My dumb foot

As I posted earlier, I've been training for the Rex Lee run coming up this Saturday. I had been doing really well and could almost run the entire 3.1 miles without resting. Well late last week I got home from my run and within about an hour my left foot hurt so bad I could barely walk on it. I figured I had probably just sprained it and rested a few days to let it heal. This last Monday I decided to get out and run again and ended up hurting my foot even more, to the point that I had to walk on my tiptoe to get around. I went to the doctor yesterday to get it checked out and they did an x-ray but couldn't tell for sure if I had a stress fracture. The doctor basically told me that I need to rest my foot for several weeks and ease back into running next month. At that point if my foot is still hurting I need to go back in so they can do some tests. I'm so frustrated! I was really looking forward to my first race of the season and now I can't even walk it. Urg... Oh well, there will be other races I guess.

Mischievous baby

A couple of days ago I was in the kitchen doing dishes while Taylor was playing on the living room floor. I glanced over at him and he was chewing on something little and white, so I rushed in the room to see what he had. I walked around the corner to find the living room floor covered with toilet paper! Apparently there was a roll on the floor somewhere and he decided it was fun to scatter it all over the room (and eat a little too, of course). He had even managed to get some wrapped around his back! I looked at him and he just smiled up at me, so proud of himself for getting into something he wasn't supposed to. It's so crazy to me that he can get into everything all of a sudden. We definitely need to be more careful about keeping things out of baby Tay's reach from now on.

Okay, so I was bored..

A friend of mine told me about this website where you can upload your photo and make your own magazine cover. So without further introduction:

Isn't it CUUUUUUUTTTTTEEEEE??? Okay, I think I need some sleep....

Yay for spring!!

Okay, so it's not technically spring yet, but I am LOVING this nice weather. I take Taylor for a walk or run almost every day now and it feels so great to get out in the fresh air. As a stay-at-home mom, it seems like I hibernated all winter long. I didn't have a car to go anywhere and I couldn't take Tay outside much because of the cold weather. You start losing your sanity a bit (I know you understand what I'm talking about, Christine!) and after a while it feels like you're a prisoner in baby land. Now that it's finally started to thaw outside, I just can't get enough of the outdoors. I love being able to see my lawn again, and we even have little baby tulip buds blooming everywhere.

A few days ago Sean and I took Taylor to the memorial park just a couple of blocks down from us. Last summer they put in a small playground and we can finally take advantage of it. Taylor absolutely LOVES the swings, which is no surprise to anyone who knew me as a kid. We had a swing in my grandma's backyard growing up and my parents swear that they could have put me in that thing and left me for hours without complaint. Pulling me out of the swing always illicited a HUGE teary, snotty temper tantrum - one I'm not looking forward to seeing from baby Tay. We also went down the slide a few times and I'm not sure he liked that as much as he liked the cute little girl that kept looking his way. He's such a flirt!


Here's a video of Taylor having fun in the swing:

It was a really fun day and I'm looking forward to many more walks and trips to the park this spring and summer. It's so much fun now that Taylor is a bit older and can really enjoy being outside.

The Name Game

I stole this off of the Hintze's blog because I thought it was so funny. Try it!

1.YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet and current car)
Anne: Dallas Neon
Sean: Toodles Neon
2.YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (fave ice cream flavor, favorite cookie)
Anne: Peanut butter chocolate macadamia (AWESOME!)
Sean: Coffee chocolate chip
3. YOUR “FLY Guy/Girl” NAME: (first initial of first name, first three letters of your last name)
Anne: A-Nic
Sean: S-Nic
4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal)
Anne: Orange Giraffe
Sean: Blue Panda
5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born)
Anne: Marie Salt Lake
Sean: Taylor Salt Lake
6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first)
Anne: Nican
Sean: Nicse
7. SUPERHERO NAME: (”The” + 2nd favorite color, favorite drink)
Anne: The Yellow Water (EWWWWW!!!)
Sean: The Red Lemonade
8. NASCAR NAME: (the first names of your grandfathers)
Anne: Jerry Glen
Sean: Frank Nicholas
9. STRIPPER NAME: ( the name of your favorite perfume/cologne/scent, favorite candy)
Anne: Axe Reeces
Sean: Old Spice Whatchamacalit (Oh yeah!)
10.WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother and father’s middle names)
Anne: Anne Lee (Not very protective...)
Sean: Isal Z (Really!)
11. TV WEATHER ANCHOR NAME: (Your 5th grade teacher’s last name, a major city that starts with the same letter)
Anne: Midgley Memphis
Sean: Pope Portland
12. SPY NAME/BOND GIRL: (your favorite season/holiday, flower)
Anne: Spring Daisy
Sean: Autumn Rose (HAHA - You have a girls name!)
13. CARTOON NAME: (favorite fruit, article of clothing you’re wearing right now + “ie” or “y”)
Anne: Clementine Shirty
Sean: Watermelon Shoesy
14. HIPPY NAME: (What you ate for breakfast, your favorite tree)
Anne: Oatmeal Birch
Sean: Cereal Pine
15. YOUR ROCKSTAR TOUR NAME: (”The” + Your fave hobby/craft, fave weather element + “Tour”)
Anne: The Scrapbooking Rain Tour
Sean: The Camping Thunder Tour

Man that was a lot more hilarious to me than it probably should have been...

No more chemo!!!

Sean is officially DONE with chemotherapy! We are both so relieved and so thankful that we got through it. Thanks to everyone for your prayers and well wishes for us. We love you all and appreciate your support through this mess. We - along with the doctors - are hopeful that the CT scan will come back clean and from that point on Sean will officially be CANCER FREE! I'm so happy and so amazed that we did it!!

My new best friend

At the successful mothering convention last weekend at South Towne Expo Center I bought a used jogging stroller for only $29 and it is AWESOME. Now that the weather is better I can finally start training for runs, and the best part is the stroller lulls Taylor right to sleep. I mapped out a 5K route around our neighborhood and stick Tay in the stroller at his afternoon nap time. I can get in some good exercise and as a bonus I don't have to fight the baby to go to sleep. My first race of the year is in a week and a half when my aunt and I will participate in the Rex Lee 5K at BYU. My goal is to be able to run an entire 10K by the end of this summer. Although running isn't the most exciting thing to me, it feels so good to be in shape and get out in the fresh air!

Round Three

Sean started his third (and hopefully LAST) cycle of chemo yesterday and we were given some really great news from the oncologist.

The way that the doctors monitor the presence of cancer is by measuring the HCG levels in the bloodstream. Normal range for a man is between 1 and 5; when Sean started treatment his level was at 100, which told them the cancer was still there even after surgery. The doctor told Sean yesterday that after just one cycle of chemo his HCG level was at a 2. They were hesitant to even put Sean through a third cycle because his blood work looked so good, but decided to anyway for good measure. They did change his chemo drugs though, opting for a milder medication that has much more manageable side effects. Also, because the drug is so mild, they don't have to flush his kidneys before and after each treatment, which means that rather than sit at the clinic for 5-6 hours a day, he's only there for 2-3 hours. This has done WONDERS for Sean's health and attitude, and we're hoping that this week will be much easier than his second round was.

As optimistic as the doctors are, we won't know for sure if the cancer is gone until Sean's CT scan, which is scheduled for the 20th of this month. We'll keep everyone updated and appreciate your prayers on our behalf.

We're in the home stretch!