Update!

I realize it is time for a massive update! What have the Taggart's been up to lately?

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving at my mom's house.

This picture concerns me... When Spence is watching something on TV, nothing breaks his focus (and it drives me crazy!) Look at Tallie - like father, like daughter...

Did I mention Lance LOVES reading? I will just catch him in his room reading his books out loud to himself, it is so cute!

The week after Thanksgiving our good friend from Thunderbird came to visit and to meet Tallie. It was great to spend time with Pam!

Lance was in Heaven having Pam to play with for 3 days, she is so cute to both our kiddos! Thanks for visiting Pammy!


We went to Temple Square to see the lights. Lance's favorite song is "I love to see the Temple" right now, in fact he asks to listen to the "temple song" several times a day, so it was fun for him to see the Temple!

Bundled and ready to look at the lights!

A little self shot!




Speen and I enjoyed a night out at his work party. They gave away incredible things during the raffle. We lucked out (or should I say I lucked out) and won a gift card to Anthropology! And if you look closely, YES Spence is wearing a white suit. He insists that his work had a 'fashion forecaster' come and speak to them and the whole 'no white after labor day' is totally out - in case you are wondering! ;)

This was one of our failed attempts at taking a family picture for Christmas cards.


Lance loves to play the piano. We put little letter stickers on the keys to help teach him. I also was lovin the coordination of his outfit this day since it is pretty rare that he is super matchy!

And now to little Tallie... she is doing great!!! This was last Sunday. It was the first time I had ever tried to dress her up and it lasted all of about an hour at church. She sure is good at those blowouts! Although, she was cute while it lasted.

Here are her 2 month stats:

22 1/2 inches (50%)
10.8 lbs (35%)

Interesting tidbit: Lance was 22 1/2 inches and 10.10 lbs at 2 months, so they were very close!

Lance is LOVING his Advent Calendar! First thing he does in the morning is run upstairs and says "Christmas Candy" - it is so cute!


Last night was our ward Christmas party that we were in charge of. I am very happy with the way everything turned out. This picture does not do the decorations justice, but they really turned out great. We had a sit down dinner with a nice program. Each table had a different set of China or Christmas Plates on it. So fun!

We had these big presents all over the room as decorations. They were just wrapped big storage boxes with ribbons on the top, so cute and very easy! We actually scored and got them another ward who used them last week. We ended up having to spend 0 DOLLARS on decorations, it was awesome!


Here is our happy/relieved look after the party was over! Definitely glad to have this done!

Meet Stormin' Norman!

Yes, Spence went out to shovel the snow today and I looked out the window to see what was taking so long and saw him building a 7 foot snowman! I thought that was so cute of Spence. He even built a little slide off the back of the snowman for Lance to slide down!


And last but not least, Tallie has started smiling a TON this past week. It has been so much fun to get a reaction back from her.

Well that's all. Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!

The ELF came to the door!

We started a new little tradition this year - the 'ELF' delivering a little present to Lance & Tallie on Dec 1 with some Christmas jammies that they can wear all month! We told Lance all day the elf was going to come and so after dinner we went into the family room to listen for the door. Speen ran out the back door and door bell ditched us and was back in the family room before Lance even noticed! It was so cute, Lance kept saying "the elf came to the door!"

Oh I love my little cuties!

Anybody catch the AMA's?

Anyone watch the American Music Awards tonight - more specifically did you catch the final number of the evening?

I have to say my crush on the following guy is officially over...



I thought his performance was incredibly self indulging, disgusting, and extremely uncomfortable to watch. Spence and I kept saying over and over "are you kidding me? did he really just do that?" Yuck! We had to turn over to BYUtv after and listen to the Motab to get the grossness out of our heads.

Anyway, did you watch, if so weigh in!!!

My Thoughts!

Speen and I went and saw New Moon last night. His suggestion, which was impressive. Probably cause we rented Twilight a couple of weeks ago and so we were kind of in the mindset.

Anyway, the movie surprised me. I didn't love the books until book 4. I thought the first three were a little slow. And I didn't like Jacob in the books, I thought he was annoying. I was surprised at how much I absolutely loved him in the movie last night. He was so charming, enduring, and real. I felt a way stronger connection between him and Bella than Bella and Edward. At the very end of the movie when Edward said "Marry Me" I didn't really feel any passion when he said it. Maybe because he's "cold" and all that, but I felt when Jacob was begging her not to go with Alice, I felt way more passion and love from him.

I also thought the movie was extremely well made. Trust me, vampires and werewolves aren't really my thing (I never liked Harry Potter), but I thought they did such a great job with the transformations and making everything extremely believable. If you are on the fence of whether or not to go, I would definitely say go, I was pleasantly surprised.

What did you think?


And I gotta say, one of my favorite parts of the movie was seeing the preview for this. It looks amazing. Spence and I both shed a tear during the preview!


(Letters to Juliet)

WaRd PaRtY!

Speen and I are the activity chairs of our ward and through a fall party last night which turned out to be a huge success. This family in our ward brought probably 1,000 gords and pumpkins and at least 60 bundled bunches of cornstalks for decorations. It turned out so cute. We had a little carnival for the kids, chili/cornbread meal, family photo booth and country line and swing dancing. I know this will come as a shock but I only took a few pictures.

Here is our little fam at the photo booth.



I had my 'big sister' from my sorority come and teach swing and line dancing lessons. She did an amazing job and it was fun to hang out with her, it had been too long



2 things I learned during the night:

1. Wow, I am so out of shape. I was dying during the line dances! I seriously need to get back into shape, pronto!
2. I am dreading our next activity, just because I was so exhausted after this one, and we have our adult Christmas party in less than 4 weeks. To go through all the work again sounds exhausting, but at least we have a great committee!

After the party, we got the kiddos ready for bed. When I had Tallie, I had a few people give some of their old baby clothes. I have no idea where I got this sleeper for Tallie, but how fun that it is the SAME ONE I already had for Lance.

Is this not the cutest thing ever - my two little matchies!

The art of manual labor!

Lance and I raked up all the leaves in our front yard the other morning. Well ok, I basically did it while Lance played in the leaves, and emptied all of the leaves I put in the bags, but it was still a super fun morning with my goose, not to mention the weather was incredible!

It happened...

... yes, "perfect Lance" has turned into "naughty Lance!" You all said it wouldn't happen, and I didn't believe you, but alas, I am sorry to say you were right, and I was wrong.


Problem #1: SLEEPING! Of course, as soon as Tallie starts doing 5 hour stretches at night, Lance decides that instead of sleeping in until 8:30/9 as he has done for basically the duration of his life, he is ready to wake up between 6-7 AM! CURSE DAYLIGHT SAVINGS, but I think he should be adjusted by now. Any suggestions to get my kid to sleep in longer in the mornings. It seems like right after I feed Tallie, change her and get her back in bed, right after I fall back asleep Lance is waking up. Yes, that is where Sesame Street and Einstein on repeat have come in handy! But, Lance is so tired in the morning, and I just know he would be happier if he would sleep another couple of hours.

Problem #2: GETTING OUT OF BED! Yes, we had no problem moving him to the big bed - that was until the last couple of days. We put him in bed and he is out of bed saying it is "morning time" or his "nap was good!" Last night he didn't come upstairs after he got out of bed, he went and lounged on the downstairs couch in the pitch black and was just counting and singing his ABC's!

In all honesty, I am about ready to move him back into the crib, cause that would solve problems 1&2 because he doesn't know how to climb out... (yet that is).

Problem #3: JEALOUSY! Whenever Spence is home, he basically hates me. He doesn't want anything to do with me and it breaks my heart. I think it is because I always have Tallie. So, I told Spence, when you are home, you need to be holding Tallie so he sees you with her as well. I totally understand this is a stage, and he will get used to her and used to sharing our attention, but it is hard. He also deliberately does things I tell him not to do, I think just to get a reaction. Any suggestions on how to ease the transition or how long this stage usually lasts?

So, there is a peek into the life of naughty Lance. Any suggestions would be helpful, primarily getting him to sleep in longer. I know majority of kids wake up early, but dang if I can get him to go back to sleeping in, I will be one happy camper.

I still obviously think he is the dang cutest thing in the world, but as he is starting to act out, I just want to respond to it in the best way possible, so any suggestions you have, send them my way!

HaLloWeeN!

My two little kiddies... Can't believe Tallie is already one month!


The GoOsE is SPOILED! Charlie and Michelle came over the other night, and look at Lance's bedtime serenade... lucky boy!


Lance was a peacock at my parents ward Halloween party!

Halloween started off with a visit from "grammy" bearing Halloween cookies!

Then I really wanted to try to get a cute family picture.


Love this picture of Tallie with her eyes wide open!

BIG FAN of my mom!!! She is SO DANG CUTE to my kids.

BIG FAN OF THE CUDDLES!

The carving of the pumpkin!



Getting reading to go trick or treating. We had Lance be a lion again because this costume was a lot warmer.



Spencer's favorite part of Halloween is scaring all the trick or treaters. Lance would stand in the window as the decoy and when people would come to the door, they would see Lance through the window and say "what a cute little guy" and then Speen would rip open the door and scare em!

Sunday morning - I slept in and when I woke up, Lance was wearing this... and no he does not dress himself yet. I asked Spence what his thoughts were when he got Lance dressed (Christmas tree socks tucked into pj bottoms with army shorts on top with a zip up hoodie with no shirt underneath???) and he said he was just trying to get some warm clothes... hmmmm???? Well that is one reason I LOVE little boys, they can get away with not matching!


Hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween!