Birthdays and Thanksgiving

Last weekend we traveled to Ogallala to Grammy's house. We celebrated Grandma Cena's 70th birthday and Jayden's 4th birthday on the 22nd. We also celebrated Thanksgiving complete with a turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, salads, rolls, relishes, birthday cake, and 4 layer pudding dessert (a.k.a. better than sex cake). We had a pretty good trip both ways; Taya was a much better traveler than at 6 weeks old, but we were also more prepared!

Today we will host Papa for Thanskgiving. Omi, Aunt Erin, and Auntie Emlyn are in Oregon with grandma and grandpa Kennedy and Aunt Elysia stayed in St. Louis. Grammy is in Palm Springs, and I am not sure where Uncle Wade will end up. I am on-call so we stayed in Omaha. We participated in a Turkey Trot for our church (registration was food donations for the Food Bank). It felt good to be active and help the less fortunate. We are thankful for all of our many blessings, including our family and friends. Enjoy the pictures!!


Cade (in green and white) and grandma Cena holding Jayden.
Haley Mae (my cousin, Britni's, daughter) getting kisses from Nima.

Haley and Taya (they are ~5 months apart)

"HI!!"

In the midst of a "great-grandkids" photo, Jayden is holding her cousin Taya. Nathan is beside them (my cousin Jared's son, well....one of them)

Ethan with the girls. I think he may have more daughters in his future :)

Haley, Jacob (another of Jared's), and Taya. All are within about 10 months in age of each other. Taya is in Haley's Bumbo and we ended up purchasing one on our way home.

The Graves' great-grandkids

L-R: Taya, Jayden, Nathan, Luke (holding Jacob), Mathew, Haley, Zoe. The boys are Jared's, Zoe also belongs to Britni. We were missing Kenna, Maya, and Emma from the photo.

Grandma Cena and Grandpa Bud with the youngest generation of "Graves"

Uncle Wade. He was pretty facinated by his niece, esp. her chubby cheeks and many rolls

Grandma Cena with Taya

Taya trying out the Bumbo

The cutest baby ever at her first Thanksgiving feast

Grandma and Grandpa with the grandkids

L-R back: Cade, Ashton, Tanner, grandma, grandpa, Jared, Britni

front: Garrett, Tracy (me), Wade

In our thoughts were cousins Tyler and Katie. Tyler was working at the farm and Katie was at home in Iowa

We were able to chat with cousin Katie and baby Emma via webcam. We missed them terribly but how amazing is technology??? We love you!!

Growing, swimming, and a new friend

Taya's new friend, Eli Andrew Banks.
November 17, 2008
8 lbs, 14 oz
21.5 inches long

My sweet baby girl is growing!!! She really fixes her eyes on things and is starting to bring her toys to her mouth.

The other night I tried to put her to bed in these pj's. As you can see they are a little too short and pretty snug. They are 0-3 month size.

The biggest clean pair I had were these Christmas pj's from Grandma Cena. They were a little big (size 6 mo), but the next morning they fit almost perfectly. She has added another nightly feeding and has been drinking about 3-4 more ounces at daycare each day.

Taya nursing while Nima supervises and cuddles with us.

We tried out a swimming class at Swimtastic last week. Taya did really well. She will start 12 weeks of lessons in January. Fun for mom and baby!!! (I still fit in my old swim suit)

My beautiful baby! We had her all bundled up to walk one day. She has the prettiest skin!

Emily last weekend. She was holding Taya on her shelf. Taya was sporting her CSC Eagles onesie and socks.

Taya hanging out with her daddy. Notice her funny face! She has many expressions and most of them resemble her dad.

Not a fabulous picture of me, but I couldn't resist posting one of her sleeping. She really likes to cuddle and usually catches some flies.

We are headed to grammy's on Thursday to celebrate my grandma Cena's 70th birthday, Jayden's 4th birthday, and Thanksgiving. We have been busy, but getting into a routine with daycare and work. We try to spend a lot of time together in the evening and on weekends so I don't post as often as I should. Today I am home with some gastroenteritis so I got a chance to post while I eat lunch. It is now time for me to study for class...have a Happy Thanksgiving!!

Our best friends, Ryan and Emily Banks are due in the next couple weeks, we helped take some pregnacy photos.

Taya Jo and her mom on the Banks' deck.

Miss Taya Ghetto-Fabulous!

Taya with Emma, Tracy's cousin's new baby, they visited on Sunday while passing through Omaha.

Taya and her mom during some floor time on Sunday. Taya enjoys some loose diaper time.

Taya was a peapod for Halloween, this was her trick-or-treating at Jennifer and Mike Endres' house across town.

Taya also visited the neighborhood and got a lot of attention during the walk Friday night as a peapod.

Getting ready for Baptism after Mass last Sunday.

After Baptism, pictures with the Grandparents.

Taya's Godparents, Sara and Bern Schimonitz

Taya's Baptism cake!

The Baptism was performed by Deacon Greg Mouton, Taya didn't even scream.

Taya goes to her first day of daycare tomorrow. She has no idea, but Tracy is not very excited. We are happy with the choice of daycare, so everything will be fine, but ultimately we want Tracy to be able to stay home.

Unfortunately, it also happens to be Tracy's 26th Birthday tomorrow, so that combined with the whole daycare deal is going to make things rough tomorrow.

Hopefully we will make it through this week!

The days of our lives

What have we been up to?? Well, I have been back to work part time since Sept. 29. I go back full time on November 3. Taya continues to grow. She has been "talking" to us more and smiling a lot more. She is a morning girl. Since I don't go in until 1:00 p.m., we get up around 8:00 and she talks and smiles and stretches for a while, then eats again and takes a nap. It works out just right so I can take a shower and get ready for work. Then we have naked time, play, and eat again before I go to work. It's amazing how we just fell into our little routine. I will really miss that once I go to work full time. We'll have to save naked time for the evenings and I'll just have to plan enough time for talking and playing before we go to work.
Taya has really taken to her frog rattle. It can be seen in the periphery of one of the pictures. She laughs and talks to it for quite a while. She still likes her giraffe Abner, but he doesn't make noise.
Nima has also been enjoying Taya now that she is more active. We can't put Taya on the floor without Nima licking her all over. They get along pretty well but we'll see how long that lasts. The other day Taya grapped some whiskers and also her ear :).
Grammy flies in today from her trip to Connecticut. She will be spending a long weekend here. Taya gets baptised on Sunday so we're planning to have lunch and cake with some family and friends (those who can make it). We took two baptism preparation classes at church and met some other nice couples.
Well, I know all you really want to see are new pictures, so here you go!

I love the above picture. It is the background on my cell phone. She was SO tired...

This bunny outfit is fleece so we use it for walking. She looks adorable in it. Daddy picked it out.

This morning we went to have some pictures taken of Miss Taya. These are some of the images off the picture CD. They included some enhanced images, for a cost of course. Taya was mostly happy, we must have selected the right hour of the day to try and take some pictures.