My little sweet potatoe pie!

What a difference 6 months make. Today I took Lance in for his 6 month appointment. He is doing FANTASTIC. He came in today at 50% all round (weight, height, and head)- - - yep, I have quite the proportionate little babilicious! He weighed in at 16 lbs 11 oz, and 26 3/4 inches - I mean, come on - can't you just round up to 27! I wanted to post a picture of him at a few days old. He was born at 5 lbs 10 oz and 19 inches long - and 29 days early! The doc said he is doing wonderful - in fact, we came home and gave him his first canned food - mmmm, sweet potatoes (truthfully, I thought they smelled awful, but luckily he seemed to like them - wait - he loved them in fact, enough to eat the whole jar plus a bunch of milk right afterwards!) Great job Lance - you are doing SUPER!!!


In case you are wondering... yes that is a newborn onesie and socks along with a premie diaper - he was sooooo miny!

UPdate!

Life is great around here. We got back to Arizona after being away for 6 weeks. We had a blast on our travels, but it is nice to be home and back to a schedule. Spence started his second trimester today and so far he is enjoying his classes. I love being able to spend the days with my little pal! Here is a little update about what is going on around here...

My little blue eyes is loving his rice cereal! We go to the doctor for his 6 month appointment on Wednesday so I will fill you in on his stats at that time, and I am sure we will be able to start feeding him a variety of more exciting foods shortly!

As I stated, Lance loves his rice cereals... well apparently, his THUNDER THIGHS do as well!

We love hanging out with our friends the Warner's - not only are they a great couple and tons of fun, but they have a little boy who is a couple of months younger than Lance. They are best buds. Here is Easton and Lance hanging out with their daddies! And yes, Easton did steal all of the hair, I mean can't he share just a tad with Lance!?!

Lance is sucking on everything these days. I think for sure he is teething, so we will see when he pops a tooth! Look, he even thinks that Easton's arm looks yummy!

He is starting to sit up by himself a tiny bit... ok, well maybe only like 3 seconds at a time, but at least he is starting to grasp the concept. Another thing he loves is looking at himself in the mirror, that always bring a smile to his face!

Ok, back to the Warner's... well, we have all decided that we want to get in better shape. So, we came up with a genius plan that we put into action this weekend... it goes something like this... We bought an elliptical for Christmas a couple of years ago... well, we have decided that every time we watch a movie together we will take turns working out on the elliptical - 30 minutes each. We tried it out this weekend to Amazing Grace (which is fantastic by the way if you haven't seen it - not quite a motivating elliptical movie, but good nontheless) - and we each did it for 45 minutes - ok, well we ran out of time, and I so graciously decided to give up my turn but Spence, Kim, and Sam each did 45 minutes - awesome work guys! Next time we have decided to do 30 minutes each!

Here is Kim-bop and I out on a walk in the mountains by our apartments!

We even took a little hike. Here are the guys being a little goofy. Sam thinks Easton is "too sexy for his shirt!" Lance needs those sunglasses on, it was a little bright!

There is the sunglass duo!

Lance loves riding on his daddies shoulders!

We have an exciting weekend coming our way - first off on Saturday, I bought Spence tickets to the FBR golf tournament. Apparently, it is a riot. This tournament brings in the most spectators and I guess it is pretty crazy, because they allow the fans to boo and cheer and act crazy. We'll keep you posted on how that excitement goes down. Also, the SUPERBOWL is in our little city of Glendale this year, so we may see what exciting things are going on. Maye we will even have a star sighting - who knows?

An Amazing Prophet

Wow how we loved President Hinckley! He was such an amazing person - how incredible it is that through the power of God and President Hinckley's optimistic personality, millions of people were inspired to become better. We are so grateful for his life - his example, teachings, leadership, humor, and most importantly, his unconditional love. We sure will miss this great man!

Back home to the USA!

Well, we made it back to the USA after an interesting few weeks - Spence was gone three weeks to Dubai and Egypt, and I was gone 10 days to Egypt. We are grateful for the experience, it was culturally enriching, and very interesting... Of course, the best part of the adventure was coming home to sweet baby Lance! Here are some fun pic's of our journey...
Oh, and to clarify for a quick second - the reason for our jaunt to Egypt/Dubai (since some of you have asked) - is... because Spence goes to an international business school, one of the requirements to graduate is to go on a winterum or a summerum where you go and take classes in a foreign country. Spence chose the Dubai/Egypt Winterum and learned about doing business in the Middle East. They met with several companies in Dubai and Egypt. The rest of the time was spent sightseeing and exploring the countries. I had always wanted to see Egypt, and so I went out and met him there and hung out with the students and even tagged along to their business meetings. It was awesome.


Egypt is a very interesting country... some things that stood out...
1. They don't have any cross walks, stop signs, or street lights. If you want to cross the street you just step out in front of traffic, and we are talking like 5 lane roads. Literally every time you walk, you hope you don't get hit - it really brought a ton of meaning to the song "Walk like an Eygptian."
2. There are metal detectors everywhere you go - the hotel, offices, malls, library, etc.
3. Every car that drove into our hotel had to be sniffed down by a bomb dog.
4. The city is very dirty and polluted, by far the worst anywhere I have ever been.
5. There are armed guards with machine guns every 100 feet - I mean everywhere you look people are carrying around guns.
6. Whenever we went sightseeing we were surrounded by an armed body guard.
7. We were very surprised by how nice everyone was. The people are very genuine and kind. They are very religious and proud of their heritage and culture. We never felt scared or endangered, which was very surprising considering everyone told us before we went over how unsafe it was for Americans. We are very grateful we were protected and safe during our time there.
8. One other amazing thing we were able to do that I don't have any pictures from, because cameras weren't allowed - was the Egyptian Museum. WOW is that a sight to see. It was incredible to see the relics and especially all of the treasures from King Tut's tomb - including the famous gold mask!
9. All in all, it was an incredible experience. I am grateful that we went, however it is one of those places that once is enough.

This is me out on our hotel room balcony in Egypt. Note the Nile in the background.

Seeing the pyramids of Giza, was probably one of the coolest sites we have ever seen.

We loved going to different mosques and learning about the middle eastern culture.


We had no idea that the camel was going to stand up, it was hillarious!
This is us at the coast of Alexandria on the beach.

Here is us with some friends on a dinner cruise down the Nile.

This was the highlight of our trip... we think it will be the perfect Christmas card, especially with Lance's face superimposed on the Eygptian!

Step pyramid of Sakkarah.


Great Sphinx.
Coast of Alexandria.


Overlooking Cairo, Egypt.



SPENCER IN DUBAI!!!

Spence said he loved Dubai, however he felt like it was becoming a bit Americanized. It was insane how much growth they have and are building for. Spence also was able to meet with a ton of amazing companies, but still had time to play and see the sights.

Spence in front of the only 7 star hotel in the world. PS - this is where Tiger Woods spent his honeymoon.


This is a view of Dubai - Spencer took this from one of the windows of his company meeting.

Dubai has an inside ski resort inside one of the malls.


One night Spence went out on a four wheeling safari on the sand dunes, camel riding across the Arabian Desert and then onto a dinner with a belly dancer!
Spence and Pam in the native garb!



GREAT TIMES SHARED BY ALL!

Christmas Spectacular!

We had a very wonderful Christmas spending time with family and friends. However, the fun doesn't stop here, we are still in Utah for another 3+ weeks! Well... sort of. Spence left for Dubai yesterday for 10 days, in a week from today, I leave for Egypt for 9 days, and we both return back to Utah on the 18th, and then back to AZ on the 23rd. My mom is going to be tending Lance while we are gone. I am sad to leave Lance, but also am so grateful that I have such a wonderful mom who is so cute with him and will take such good care of him, I know he'll be in good hands!

Now - onto the Christmas Pic's!

My mom got herself, me, and Kelli matching PJ's and slippers, and then boys got matching PJ's as well!

Here we are with the Christmas tree on Christmas morning!


JT and Kelli - my mom made them that adorable clock at the super saturday I was in charge of back in Fresno - the Super Saturday I will say that put me into labor a month early!!! Poor JT woke up with the stomach flu on Christmas, luckily it only lasted 24 hours.

My cute mom and dad.

4 generations - my dad, Lance, me, and my dad's dad!



ALL ABOUT LANCE!!! He is LOVING his first Christmas.

Thinking about all the fun he is having!

Is he the cutest guy OR WHAT!?!


Opening up all of his presents...
And one spoiled guy to say the least...


And on the Christmas note, I would like to just say how grateful I am for my Savior Jesus Christ, and that we can celebrate his birth this time of year. I love him so much and am so grateful for all he has done for me. Hope you all had a wonderful holiday season!

Lance's Baby Blessing!

Well, we finally blessed our cute adorable little guy! We wanted to wait until our families could be with us, so we ended up blessing Lance at my parents house on Sunday, December 23. It was amazing. Spence's sister and brother sang and played the guitar to "A Child's Prayer" and Spence gave a beautiful blessing.



Looking back at 2007 - it definitely had its ups and downs. We had a ton of changes, some good, some hard, some happy, some sad. But by far our biggest blessing was dear Lance becoming a part of our family. It is incredible the amount of love and joy a baby can bring to your life. I didn't know you could love someone so much and so fast. He is the sweetest little guy and we are so grateful for him.



Here are some pictures from his big day!

The Darling Fam!

My brother Jonathan and his wife Kelli made it to the blessing about 30 minutes before it started. They were supposed to get in the day before but were delayed in Chicago, we were so happy they made it.

Spence's dad was so excited that we had the first "Taggart Boy" to carry on the Taggart name. Here is the three generation picture! What handsome guys!

Here is us with my parents - Grandpa and Jojo! My mom, as always, went the extra mile and made a wonderful lunch for after the blessing.

Here is Spencer's Nana with Lance and Allie. Allie is Spencer's sister Kelli's baby who is 2 months younger than Lance. Isn't she a doll, and WOW - that dress she is wearing is adorable. We were so happy to have babies the same age, they will be best cousins!

Christmas Parties Galore!

We had a spectacular December with lots of festive outings and Christmas Parties. I have to admit, as I have said a million times, I LOVE AZ! I didn't even miss the snow one bit. Partly, because I just love warmth, bring on the heat baby, and secondly because we were going to be in Utah for 5+ weeks, so I would get my fair share of it when I got there. Mid-December we went to see the Christmas lights at the Mesa, AZ temple with a bunch of friends from Thunderbird. Not quite as decked out as Temple Square, but quite impressive. Plus, not as cold! Now when you look at Lance, does the phrase "I can't get my arms out" from A Christmas Story come to mind or what?!?

We had a super fun Christmas party with all of our AZ friends. It was a white elephant potluck party. I think Spence and I definitely came away with great gifts - a $5 gift card to Blockbuster, popcorn, and some country game. The highlight of the night came when Erika gave a set of knives as her white elephant gift; when the couple who got it opened it, they found a congratulations card inside for Erika and Ty. It had been a wedding gift to them, and they had never even opened it. It was pretty hillarious. Unfortunately, about an hour after the party, Lance got the flu. It was so hard to see my baby sick and thowing up... seriously, it was the saddest thing. However, Lance is a trooper and got better fast and is now back to his happy healthy self!

Once we got to Utah, we got together with some of our college friends at Erika's house. Lance and I loved our twinner outfit!

Here is the gang = Katie and Chris Miller, Erika and Ty Hanks, Ryan and Anne Terry, Joel and Mollie Diamond, and Katie, Spence and Lance Taggart.

This picture was taken at a family Christmas party. This year they had kareoke. Spence and his sister Kelli sang "Mary did you know" - they sound amazing. They sang it together at our ward Christmas party last year, and it was fun to hear them sing it again.

Yeah for a fun December!