Exciting things at the Taaffe's!

Lots of exciting things are happening at the Taaffe's! I can't believe it's already they 22nd of October, where did this month go? We've had a busy October thus far.

The weekend of the 5-7th, the kids went to Gran and Papa's for the weekend, so we could work on the playroom. A couple weeks prior, Kevin removed the fireplace and sheetrocked the hole. So we spent our entire weekend working on the playroom. Removing the carpet, painting and new flooring.  We weren't going to do the flooring yet, as we figured the new carpet would cost us about $1000 for the playroom and we just don't have an extra grand to spend right now on carpeting. But when we got the fireplace out we decided the carpet looked horrible that we decided to just do the floor as long as we had to move everything. We opted against the carpet and got laminate flooring at Sam's club and it was very reasonable, our whole project, paint, flooring, etc. was less than $500. We still had money stuck away for our Vegas trip that we decided to put towards the playroom. We're very happy with our "investment" and the kids love playing in here now. See the pictures below...

the start of my stenciling

The next exciting thing...

We have a walker! Or I should say...Runner! Just in the last couple weeks he's really started cruising, he's practically running. And he's not stop from the time he gets up until he goes down for a nap and then all over again. I can hardly believe he will be ONE in less than two weeks. Crazy!!

I just have to share this picture...nothing special. Amelia decided to "dress" herself. The shirt she had on, she still had her pants off after her nap time diaper change and wouldn't let me put them back on and then she found the socks in my bedroom, they have penguins on them. Then her cowboy boots. And to top it all off, she had been eating M&M's so she as a pretty face!

Our last exciting thing...

Amelia is now sleeping in a "big" girl bed. We took her crib out last night after dinner and put my old daybed into her room as a bed for her until we get her bunk beds. We let her pick out her own bedding at Target and I think that helped the process along a little. She slept great in her new bed last night. Very little fussing when it was bedtime. Didn't even try to get out, at least not that I know of. She woke up earlier than usual, but I think that was to be expected. She woke up at 5:45 and she usually sleeps to at least 6:30. I think after a week, she'll be in a routine and we shouldn't have a problem. Now if we could just get the potty training thing down. She does great for a couple weeks and then regresses...maybe she's just not ready? She knows everything, just forgets to tell us when she has to go and when we ask her she'll usually go, but not always. Oh well, baby steps!

She made each of us lay
in her new bed with her...

happy fall

As you can all tell...I'm a little behind in blogging! So I thought I'd take this moment to update everyone a bit on the life and times of the Taaffe Family! We're keeping busy...very busy...almost too busy if you ask me!!!

I started taking ECFE classes with the kids. (Early Childhood Family Education...for those of you who don't know what it stands for!) They are offered through the school district and so far I'm really enjoying it! I take Paul on Monday mornings from 8:30-9:30 and then Amelia on Tuesday nights from 6:15-7:45. They both seem to enjoy it as well. There are 2 other boys in Paul's class and one little girl. And in Amelia's class, she is the only girl and there are 3 boys! It's been nice meeting new parents/moms. We have a couple dads that attend the Tuesday night session. Which is neat.

We're both keeping busy with work. Which is a good thing. Our office is starting to slow down a little bit...I'm starting to think the economy is having a lot to do with it.

Last weekend we were at my Mom's for the weekend. One of my best girlfriends is getting married October 27th and last weekend was her Bridal Shower and Bachelorette party. I went to her shower, but opted out of the Bachelorette party to spend time with my mom. We took the kids to a local farm, and the kids really enjoyed that. They had lots of animals for you to see and some you could pet. Amelia liked all of it and especially liked the "Baby Moos". That's all she could talk about! When my mom said we were going there and we'd see baby animals she said "I see baby maminals" It was so dang cute!

On our way up Friday night, we hit a Coyote on the freeway.... Look and see what it did to my bumper. Thankfully, it didn't take out my A/C compressor or something like that...something with the A/C anyway! So that's going to be a nice $350 minimum repair!

Us at the farm on the hayride...

Amelia in the "straw bale maze"
Pauly picking out his prize pumpkin!

Amelia and Paul sitting nice on the straw bale....

...and her laughing her fool head off after pushing Paul off the bale of straw! (Which didn't seem to bother him!)

Paul now has 5 teeth and is walking! He is still crawling a bit, but mostly walking! I can't believe we have less than a month until Paul's birthday, crazy how fast a year goes by!