Concert

Grammy treated us to some concert tickets in April. It was LeAnn Womack, Reba, and George Strait and it was AWESOME!! We had excellent seats which made it that much more exciting.
Per my mom, I was about Taya's age when I went to my first Reba concert in Broken Bow, NE. I have loved her my whole life! I used to always have at least one colt and one calf named Reba :).

Deb Dawson (mom's best friend), Grammy, and me waiting for the concert to start.
LeAnn opened. All of the pictures were taken with my little camera so there wasn't much of a zoom lens.

Another shot to show how close our seats were. This was not zoomed in at all.

Queen Reba havin' fun with her band.

LeAnn and Reba did a duet together.

Reba saying "so long". Notice the cross on the bottom of her left pant leg. I thought that was cool.

Reba's encore was "Fancy" which I new it would be. I guess it was an obvious omission from her song line-up.

Me and Ethan. We rarely get pictures together any more.

King George!

We had such a blast. I lost my voice after singing along to "Fancy" so I couldn't sing along much to George's songs but I know my mom and Deb were swooning!

Fun with dad-o

Taya likes to jump off the couch onto dad.

Then dad gets quality time afterward, reading.

Easter

Taya and I went to Ogallala for Easter while Ethan went to his folk's to play in Wayne High Alumni B-ball tourney. We had a nice time seeing the family including all of Taya's 2nd cousins except for Emma who did not make the trip from Iowa (that's a long trip!). Taya also had a blast with her cousins Beau and Jayden. They hid Easter eggs for her (and me) and we hid eggs for them. Below, some pics...

Taya eating a doughnut from Daylight Donuts which we always have a couple of times when we are in Ogallala :).
Cheese-balls Beau, Taya, and Jayden

Love Taya's expression in this one!

Taya just loved playing with her big cousins. They were watching TV one morning.

The afternoon of decorating eggs. Rita and Grammy did most of the decorating and they seemed to have a great time!

Taya had her own plastics eggs which was a good idea because the first real eggs she got her hands on did not survive. She decorated her eggs with stickers instead.

Pictures from March

We attempted a Bradley classmates and babies get-together. 3 out of 9 of us were able to meet up before I moved.
Back row L-R: me, Millie, Sarah
Front row L-R: Taya, Abram, Thea (also pronounced like our Taya)
Ethan after his dissertation in March.

New residence, new degrees, new baby

Hi everyone. Hhhhmmm, it's been a while, huh??
We've had lots of changes in the Mann household, including the location of our home and I have TONS of pictures to post, so will work on doing that throughout the next few days.
Briefly, we are now moved into our new house in Hilliard, Ohio (suburb of Columbus) and Ethan has started his new position. We were nomads for about a month so it's nice to have our roots planted again, even if we are still unsettled.
Ethan graduated with his PhD and I with my Master's on May 8th. Ethan walked, I didn't.
We are expecting a baby in November (around Thanksgiving) so Taya will be a big sister. She has no idea but might get suspicious when my belly gets too big to pick her up.
I will give more updates on what's going on in the present after I get some pictures from 2 months ago posted.

18 months old (4 weeks later)

Hi!
I'm going to vent, then will provide updates.
One month ago I was home for the day with Miss Taya...she didn't have daycare on President's Day so I had some down time and Taya had just turned 18 months and I had about 10 new pictures to post. Let's just say 3 hours later, the pictures would NOT upload and I wasted my spare time (while Taya napped) with nothing to show for it. Not that I had homework or other housework to do, but I wanted to share new pics with everyone. Well, it's now a month later, I still can't get those pictures posted but luckily I could pull a few fairly recent ones from my camera to show. Sorry it's been so long!!!

Updates:
Ethan interviewed and accepted a post-doctoral position at Ohio State University so we will be moving to Columbus in the near future.
We listed our house that following Monday and had an offer 3 weeks later. We are to close on April 23, which will be here before we know it!
We traveled out to Columbus last week so I could interview at Nationwide Children's Hospital, house hunt, daycare hunt, and take care of some other business in hopes that we won't have to make another trip until we move. We were successful on most accounts...the interview went very well but I haven't heard anything back yet, we put in an offer on a house which we are waiting on a counter (or perhaps an acceptance), and we have a few daycares that we liked.
Ethan's dissertation is next Tuesday so we're looking forward to having family and friends together to celebrate (those who are able to make it) and are happy and excited for such a huge accomplishment!!
Taya just continues to grow and amaze us! She knows so many words and it's nice to communicate with her. If there is something she can't say, we just start asking questions and pointing to things and eventually with her yes's, no's, head nods and head shakes we get her what she wants with minimal whining. She is into coloring and counting. She also likes to watch her Disney shows in the mornings so it's cute to watch her eat her dry cereal and drink her milk and it's nice to have a little time to get ready in the mornings. She also gets excited for her favorite evening show...Wheel of Fortune :).
Hope this finds everyone well and enjoying the more Spring-like weather!

God Bless!

Some pictures and updates

Taya playing with lipstick
Miss Smiley

Notice the static? With all the snow came some very dry air...

"I don't know about you, but my mom and dad think I'm the cutest" :)

This was our first attempt at a pony on New Years Eve. Her hair has grown a lot since then and we can now get a very substantial ponytail!

A late Christmas pic. Taya got both a calculator and an apron from Aunt Emlyn.

Hi all! Christmas, the new year, and now January has passed us by here at the Mann's. We celebrated Christmas at home just the 3 of us (and Nima) because of the blizzard we had here. We enjoyed some down time and hosted the Mann side, all 3 aunts (Emlyn, Elysia, and Erin) and Omi and Papa on the 27th (of December). We had a nice time and Pizza Hut for our dinner :).

Since then we have some news. Ethan visited and interviewed at Ohio State University in Columbus and has accepted an offer to complete his post-doc there. We will be moving sometime late spring or early summer, mostly depending on when I get a job. We have our house listed in hopes of getting a new home buyer wanting to utilize the $8000 tax credit. Anyhoo, we've had one set of lookers who came for a second look but no offer yet. We just put it on the market Monday so I'd say we're doing good!

Taya is our little wonder. It is so FUN to have a toddler. She does the cutest things and is really starting to talk so we can understand her. When any sport is on tv, she says "touchdown". She likes to pick out her gocks (socks) and tries to put them on herself. Her favorite song is "Hillbilly Bone" by Trace Adkins and Blake Shelton. She says "bone, bone, bone". She also loves to sing and dance and learns all kinds of songs at daycare. She does "Patty Cake" on demand, "Itsy-bitsy Spider", and "If You're Happy and You Know It" (she likes to stomp). Today the children's choir sang at church so Taya was singing, clapping, and shimmying during all the hymns. She is getting hard to contain during mass! And finally, to totally melt our hearts, today she said 'I love you' for the first time. Ethan heard it first but he's also been working really hard on it!

Anyway, that's all from our little world as of now.

God Bless!