The Quiet Book

Talia had a great time examining every page. She may not know quite what to do with everything but I think she figured out how to take stuff off of the page.
Talia loved the animals especially the DOG. Here she is signing and saying dog.

Talia loved her new felt dolly and made sure that everyone gave her a kiss.

Talias 1st Birthday - Phase 1 (3-3-08)

After dinner we went home and got Talia ready for bed. We sang "Happy Birthday" and blew out a candle. Then we opened two presents, one from Marenda AKA Auntie M and one from my mom or Lita. Talia loves to look at pictures (especially her cousin Addie) so Marenda made a picture book of my side of the family. And I asked my mom to make a Quiet Book for church to help me contain my child all by my self and keep her from running up on the stand to see her Dad. She loved both gifts and they have been put to excellent use ever since!

The Slide 3-3-08

Talias 1st Birthday - Phase 1 (3-3-08)

Preston was home for a few days before he had to head out for 2 weeks so we took the opportunity to do a little celebrating as a family. We took Talia to the mall so that she could visit the pet store. They were really nice and got an adorable puppy out for Talia to play with. She was in heaven! She signed and said "dog, cat and bird" the whole time. Then we took her to the play place for the first time and fortunately it was not too crowded. She was very brave and not scared of the other kids at all. She figured out how to go down the slide all by herself and did it several times. Then we went to California Pizza Kitchen for dinner. Talia love sharing our food...especially her dads pasta. We even shared a free birthday sundae.

3-1-08 Talias new trick

Talia can climb up all by herself she just needs a little help getting down. Boy she keeps me on my toes!

Talia walking to Gavin - Christmas 2007

Talias 1st Christmas Present

Dec 07 Playing with Mom and Walking

Talia is 9 months old (12-8-07)

Talia at 9 months: She is crawling everywhere and pulling up on everything. She wants to walk desperately and loves it when we will walk her around. She loves to laugh and play with any kids especially her big brother! She is also signing more and more so it is easier to communicate with her and she eats like a horse. You wouldn't know it to look at her but she can really pack it away. She is growing so big! We love our sweet Talia!

Sewing with Lita (Jan 2008)

Talia was thrilled to play with all the sewing stuff and watch a show while Lita worked on a birthday present for Talia's 1st birthday.

Christmas Round 2

Preston, Talia and I waited to open most of our presents until Gavin arrived on Christmas evening. It made for a long day but was good that we opened presents as a family. Gavin even brought us presents in adition to the ones I helped him pick out.

More Christmas

Hanging with uncle Brad and aunt Jenny
Uncle Dan...What a stud!
Ed and Ginger opening presents with Grandma looking on.
Cute Cousins Talia and Ginger playing together.

Christmas 2007

Talia's first present opening experience!

I think she likes it. Thanks Grandma!

More from our trip to Utah

December 2007
In case you can't tell...that is me under Talia. She decided that I was better than a pillow and made herself quite comfortable.
On our trip back to Colorado Springs we stopped for dinner and this was what greeted us as we headed back to our car. It was extremely cold so it took a lot of dedication for these people to stand out side for more than 2 minutes.
What is a live nativity without some really furry sheep??? Talia was so fascinated!

Cousins... December 15th, 2007

Addie loves Talia and Talia LOVES Addie! We went to Utah in December to attend my grandmas 100th birthday celebration and also for Preston to work while I spent some time with my family. I didn't actually get any pictures besides these of grandma's party (oops). Talia was practicing walking and Addie was such a big helper holding her hand. Addie was really good and didn't go too fast but she did want to decide where to go. They got along really well and now Talia gets so excited every time she sees a picture of Addie. Addie will call me on the phone sometimes and say "I need baby Talia!" I think they will be good friends just like Marenda and I were.

Talia with a Bow!

Cutting the Christmas Tree pt. 2

It was pretty cold out side so we were glad to get back in the car!

Here is everyone who went with us: Grandma Hickman holding Alyson, Camille holding Brooklyn, Anne holding Talia and me (Preston was taking the picture)

Cutting the Christmas Tree (Dec 2007)

Here's Preston and Talia ready to go. On the hunt...I think we spent far too long hiking for my taste but it was fun.
My sweet Talia was so exhausted. She is so good natured that we didn't even know she was really sick. :(
Success!

A Tid-bit of Talia

Early December 2007

Here is a cute little clip of Talia blowing raspberries or zerbits. This is a skill that she mastered at an extremely young age. When she was around 6 months she would wake me up in the morning with a big wet on on any piece of skin she could find. Once she saw the camera she was done but it is still really cute. :)

Update

So here is the deal... my computer is ancient and it takes me a year and a day to publish a post plus I can't find my cord or where to plug it in on the computer to upload my pictures from Christmas. I also find it increacingly difficult to even find the time to sit down at the computer with my active little girl and when Preston is out of town (which is averaging around 2 weeks every month) it is nearly impossible! I am barely showering and when I do I give myself a big pat on the back. With all that said here is an update on my life...

Um...I'm Pregnant!!! Yes that is right, pregnant. We are so excited and I have been extreemly blessed to have a wonderful pregnancy so far. I think it would break my heart if I was sick and had a hard time taking care of Talia. I am due middle of August and I am definately in for it because my two babies will be 17 months apart. Pretty crazy but so exciting!

Talia keeps me busy and smiling! She is an amazing walker and has just recently mastered going down the stairs independently. Now I don't have to buy that baby gate I have been putting off purchasing. :) Her vocabulary keeps growing every day she now says and/or signs over 20 words. Some of her favorite signs are phone, cheese and water. At the grocery store she was so cute when she signed cheese at the check out because she saw the string cheese and was so hungry! Talia has an adorable way of saying bye and hi, it is almost with a southern accent and the bye is usually followed by blowing kisses. Something that I love about Talia is that when she has slept well she wakes up talking and laughing at herself. I feel so blessed to have such a sweetheart for a daughter! I can't believe that she will be a year old next month!

Preston and I keep busy with callings (bishopric and young womens) and try to find time for each other in between his business trips. Other than that things are going well and I promise to make a concerted effort to figure out how to get some pictures on here.

My long absence!

I thought I should let all of you know....first of all that I am in deed alive and I have not forgotten about the blogging community. Over the last month Blogging has fell low on my list of priorities. I think the wind was really taken out of my sails when my computer with pictures from the last 3 years crashed! We spent $100 to find out that our hard drive had crashed, which we already knew, and the information was not recoverable, which we suspected. I am fortunate that I have blogged excessively the last year so I have most of the pictures from Talia's first year of life. Besides that I went to my Grandma Nielson's 100th birthday and tagged along on Preston's business trip. For the holidays we had lots of visitors, in fact all 8 Hickman kids and all the grandkids came for Christmas which was crazy and fun all at the same time and Preston and I had Gavin for 10 days during which I got a nasty flu and proceeded to throw up for two days! Ahh! In addition Talia decided she had had enough of this crawling business and decided to walk just before Christmas (9 1/2 months old). I have been on my toes ever since and she just keeps getting faster. So to sum up...I have a bunch of pictures on my camera that I am not quite sure what to do with but when I do you will have many posts to catch up on. In the mean time, I think I am on Marenda's blog a couple of times if you are in need of new pictures.

Until I blog agian...