Just some Pics

It's been a busy week!! Joel was on Oahu all week for a conference for work and just got home last night. He was reminded once again why he hates Honolulu! Dean and I survived the week on our own, but we're sure glad to have Dad back!! Dean is almost 21 months old!!! I can't believe he'll be 2 in December. He is talking more and more and we're able to understand a lot of what he says now. He tries to sing the ABCs, he can count to 4, he can correctly point out the colors yellow (his favorite), red, brown, blue, and sometimes green. He also thinks he knows how to spell. It's so funny! Now when we read a book, he points at every single letter and says letters like he's spelling out the word. But he only says vowels. It's hilarious!!! - Sometimes I hear him in his room going "O, E, I, A, E, O, I..." and I know he's "reading" a book. I think he's pretty smart!! Here are a few pics from this week...

Dean LOVES Jayci!! When Jayci and Jason came over for dinner, Dean would not leave her alone. He wanted to constantly sit with her, tickle her, chase her, have her chase him, feed her his food, etc etc etc. It was so cute!!

One of Dean's favorite people in the entire world...Sarah...our WONDERFUL babysitter. Seriously, she is the BEST!!! Dean also loves Sarah! He gets really excited when I tell him Sarah's coming over to play with him. And once Sarah's here, he can barely pull himself away from her long enough to throw a quick "bye" our way. I'm so glad we found her and hopefully she'll be just down the street and available for babysitting for MANY MANY years to come!!!
Dean having fun coloring...


Dean and Grandpa Eddie ready for some Sooners football...

A Day at the Park

My Mom and I had a fun morning with Dean Upcountry today at the big park at Giggle Hill. My friend Jayci is on island and has a "friend" (that's a cute boy) who works on one of the snorkle boats and he offered to take her and I out on the Molokini boat today. Well, I didn't want to ruin Jayci's day by puking all morning and I figured the captain probably wouldn't turn the boat around for a seasick "freebie", so Joel went instead. Joel and Jayci had a great time - the weather was beautiful, the ocean wasn't too rough, they got to see some dolphins (including a baby) and tons of fish, and of course, it was free!! In typical Joel fashion, he refused to take the camera so I have nothing to show of his fun morning. Maybe Jayci has some pics she'll share with me later. Jayci and her friend Jason are coming over for dinner and "game night" tonight, so that should be fun! Anyway, while Joel and Jayci were on their snorkle adventure, Mom and I took Dean to the park. As always, he had lots of fun running around, screaming at the top of his lungs and climbing all over everything! Here are a few pics...

That last picture of him on the scooter is pretty funny - some kid's scooter was just leaned up against the wall and Dean ran over, grabbed the handlebars, put one foot on it and tried to ride it just like you would a scooter!!! Once again, I have no idea how he knows to do that.

Happy 2nd Birthday Miles!!!

Dean's buddy Miles turned 2 this week and we had a fun time at his birthday party this afternoon! (Miles' Mom, Jennifer and I are the 2 Jennifers in book club). Dean was bigger than all the 2-yr-olds and had a blast playing in the soccer net. The funniest thing was that Miles has a Little Tikes plastic basketball goal and as soon as we got there Dean ran right over to it, picked up a ball and threw it in the basket. I have no idea how he knew to do that. I don't think he's ever seen a toy like that and we don't watch basketball. It was very strange. He had lots of fun playing basketball. We told him Great Grandma Joan would be so proud!!! I told Joel maybe we needed to get him a Little Tikes basketball goal and his response was "yeah, right after we get him a Little Tikes wrestling mat" dripping in typical Joel sarcasm. Anyway, here are a few cute pics from the afternoon...

The birthday boy and his Mom, Jennifer and Dad, Steven. And that's Claire's Dad, Matt.

Miles enjoying his cupcake...

Miles, Dean and Lucas enjoying cupcakes...

Claire, Miles, Dean and Lucas...
mmmm....yummy....Dean and Claire hanging out in a soccer net...

Some pics and a few videos

OK, I'm posting a few pics and videos. I'm still dealing with these headaches, so I don't have much to say. I had accupuncture today and I really think that was helpful. I'll keep you posted. I do feel better though. I had an IV medication administered on Tuesday which helped significantly and I've started a new daily medication that seems to be helping. I have felt better each day since Tuesday, so I'm hoping this is coming to an end!!!

Anyway, if you want to watch the videos, you actually have to go to the blog. You can click on this link: http://taplerohana.blogspot.com/ and the videos should be in one of the first few posts. Hope you enjoy them! They are mostly to show the grandparents and great-grandparents how much Dean is talking these days. He is learning new words every day (some bad words too, thanks Joel). The first video is actually pretty hilarious!

A Video!!

FYI - in order to watch the video, you actually have to click on the link (Should be in blue or something in your e-mail) and go to the post on the blog. Then click on the "play" button on the video.

Just a cute video of Dean coloring last weekend. Actually, now that I watch it you don't actually see him coloring, but you can hear that he's talking up a storm. I can only understand about a quarter of what he's saying, but he's trying REALLY hard and obviously he knows what he's saying!!


Sorry I've been out of the loop. I've had a rough week with a terrible migraine. Actually I've had a headache for almost a month now, that suddenly got MUCH worse Monday morning. I'm happy to say that I'm feeling much better now...after 4 days of literally being in bed in the dark almost all day, several doses of my migraine meds which did NOTHING, a brain MRI (normal by the way - I don't have a tumor...or an aneurysm, which is what I was pretty convinced was happening Monday afternoon), a toradol injection (again, it did nothing), and finally a heavy duty dose pack of steroids (prednisone) and a few vicodin....it seems we've FINALLY broken the migraine cycle. I've been prone to headaches since I was a teenager - something I think I inherited from my Dad (thanks Dad), but I've NEVER experienced anything like this one. I really was scared something terrible was going on, the pain was so intense. I will even go out on a limb and say that for several hours both Monday and Tuesday afternoons it was worse than labor!! I literally could NOT move. Thank goodness that's over. I've done really well without too many headaches and only 2 or 3 I'd classify as a true migraine since getting pregnant over 2 yrs ago. Prior to getting pregnant I found that taking a daily dose of Feverfew (an herbal supplement) worked very well at preventing my headaches. Well, you can't take feverfew when you're pregnant...but fortunately for me I didn't have any headaches throughout pregnancy or while breastfeeding. I've had a few since then, but not bad. I have to say that I've never gotten back in the habit of taking the feverfew, but I certainly will now!!! (the neurologist has also suggested daily high doses of magnesium, riboflavin and co-enzyme Q10). I have a few days of the steroids left, but I'm just so happy to not be in so much pain!!! I still have a slight headache, but I'm at least functional now, and I expect it to get better over the next few days as the prednisone does it's work. YUCK! Ok, thanks for letting me vent!!

Hi There

Just some pics...

And a fun project I did today...

A few cute pics

Dean and I had a fun hour at the Kahului Community Park Wednesday morning. He's so cute!! He LOVES to slide. I seriously think he went down the slide 100 times and I'm not exaggerating! He would climb up, slide down, then immediately RUN as fast as he could to the steps to climb up again over and over and over and over.

Also, for some strange reason, Dean is OBSESSED with clocks. yes, clocks. I have no idea where this came from or where he even learned the word "clock", or what the fascination is all about... but if there's a clock around he'll find it, point it out and yell "clock" at the top of his lungs. He will pick out the tiniest little clock in a busy picture in a book, on the TV, or driving in the car. At the grocery store I have to be as fast as possible in the produce section because he thinks the scales are clocks and is constantly laughing, pointing and yelling "clock". The bad thing is that he can't really make an "L" sound after the hard "c", so it comes out as "cock", which can be quite embarassing in the grocery store when he's randomly yelling "cock" and pointing and laughing. I'm always very quick to say as loudly as I can without seeming weird "yes, that does look like a CLOCK" while accentuating the "L" sound. It's a very strange phase. I guess kids all go through it with something. I remember my brother being obsessed with vaccuums, or "moom mooms" as he called them for the longest time. I'm not sure if I was ever obsessed with a particular object. I'll have to ask my Mom.

My Etsy Shop

Ok, at the urging of a few good friends I've opened up an Etsy shop. Etsy is similar to e-bay, but it's all handmade items. Lots of hobby crafters use this site to sell items to help pay for their hobby. Joel has convinced me that I either have to find a way to use this crazy paper crafting hobby to supplement our income or I have to cut back. Well, he's just lost his mind if he thinks I can cut back!!!! Soooo...if you're in need of a cute handmade card (birthday, baby, anniversary, or just about anything else) or other small gift, check out my etsy store. Most of my cards sell for $3.00 each (that's cheaper than a Hallmark!!). I only have a few listed right now, but I'll be adding lots more over the weekend. I'm also available to make custom birthday or shower invitations, holiday cards, etc. Here's the link to my Etsy store: http://JenTapler.etsy.com

Thanks!!