Trevor graduated from college on Saturday! He jokes that it took him 17 years, but I am so proud of him. He received a Bachelor in Criminal Justice & Criminology AND he graduated Cum Laude.

Here we are after graduation (and after I changed Noah into his jammies for the trip home).

Here's Noah & Grampy watching the graduation. Noah very politely clapped when everyone else did. :)

"Stop with the tassle, Dad!"

I have sucked at keeping up with this blog, as I feared I would. Mostly because I hate Blogger. I'm sure it's me, but every picture I upload looks like crap - and I had to remove the "Pic of the Week" feature because those pictures went way beyond crap and looked like total shit. All pixel-ly and everything. If someone wants to tell me what I'm doing wrong, I'm all ears. I've tried resizing and resampling and re-everything else.

We went to the Frisco Police Department Christmas party on Dec 6th. For those with kids, you drop off a gift at the PD before the party and then Santa comes and hands the gifts out to each child. Noah wasn't too sure of Santa...

...but he was happy to get his favorite kind of toy - a "BALL!"

Last Sunday we went over to Amanda & Cameron's new house to watch the Cowboys beat the Giants. Noah wore his new jersey so he could look just like dad.

Halloween! This was Noah's second Halloween, but his first one for Trick or Treating. We just went to the houses on our little section of the street (11 houses). He walked up to each door and said Trick or Treat (Mommy helped him a bit, of course) and put the candy into his pumpkin basket. He had no clue what was going on, but seemed to have a good time.

After Trick or Treating we hung out at the house and handed out candy to the other kids. Four of Noah's grandparents (my parents and Trevor's parents) came up to see him, which was fun. We had a ton of kids come by. The house across the street had a huge Halloween display, as always. It was really fantastic.

Here is Noah, dressed as a golfer. His dad picked out the costume - surprise!

Helping dad hand out candy. Me & Mom at the house across the street. I didn't know that I was supposed to be scared.
Dad's already trying to train me. Here I am with his new golf club.
Hanging out on the front stoop...just about ready to head to bed. It was a fun night!

So, Noah's pretty much had it with the highchair. This came a lot sooner than I expected, but since he refuses to eat in it half the time, we had to do something. My friend Jennifer loves the Cooshie Classic booster seat by BabySmart, so I thought we would try it out.

So far, Noah loves it. Can you tell?

On Saturday we went to the Pumpkin Patch at Bill Gates Ranch up in Celina. They have goats, cows and sheep that you can feed, but I wouldn't recommend it with a 1 year old who wants to touch everything and then put his hands in his mouth. Thank god for baby wipes and hand sanitizer. Unfortunately, we didn't get any good 'pumpkin patch' pictures because Noah is completely uninterested in looking at the camera. Ever. But we had a good time and managed to get out of there before it got too busy or too hot. :)

Today Noah walked through sprinklers for the first time. It wasn't a planned event, of course. We walked to the pond to feed the ducks (which never happened because (1) the ducks weren't around and (2) Noah ate most of the bread on the way there; the kid loves wheat bread!), and on the way back the neighbor's sprinklers were running. He walked right into them, and, as you can see, he had a blast. By the end, he was completely and totally drenched.

So, it happened. Noah was bitten at daycare on Monday. I didn't even know until I got home that night and read the "Incident Report" in his bag. I didn't really notice until then because he's pretty much covered with bumps, bruises and scrapes from playing at school and learning to walk. But, sure enough, there is a bite-shaped bruise on his arm. The teacher said that the 'offender' (who they won't divulge but was referred to as a 'she') "got him good". Gee, thanks. I still haven't decided which is worse: having your kid bitten at daycare or having a kid that bites at daycare. Anyway, here is a not-so-good picture of his poor little arm. :(

Well, I'm going to try the blog thing. It'll be easier to update everyone with all the latest in the Taylor house, and by that I mean the latest on Noah. :)

So, here is what's been going on:
Noah said his first word on Monday (9/24)! We were eating at Chili's and I asked him, "Where's Daddy?" and he pointed at Trevor and said "Dada!" It was AWESOME! He also did it again the next day...but not much since then. He does understand what we're saying pretty darn well. It's truly amazing.

Other Noah news...on Sept 4th Noah got tubes put in his ears. He was having repeated ear infections, and they made him miserable! He was not a big fan of the surgery, but he was fine a few hours later. We think it has really helped his ability to walk since he doesn't have fluid in his ears constantly anymore. He used to be much more unstable and fall down easily, but he is much more sure on his feet now and falls rarely. So far so good. Here are some pics:

Noah also got his first haircut and his first pair of sneakers recently. Lots going on!! Don't forget to check our photo gallery (link on this page). I added new pics to Noah's 13mo, 14mo and 15mo albums.

Now for some bad news...we had to put Copper to sleep the Sunday before last. She had some major problems with her liver, although we're not exactly sure just what since it would have been very costly to do the diagnostic work. The vet said her levels were the highest she'd ever seen. We tried some antibiotics and fluids over the weekend, but she just got worse. We brought her to the vet Sunday night and said good-bye. Trevor had her for 12 years, so it was very hard to let her go. Now that Peanut and Copper are both gone we're just down to 2 kitties. :(

Anyway, I will try to keep the blog updated pretty regularly (every few days or so?). I will also post one new picture a week for your enjoyment. Again, I'm sure 99.9% of them will feature Noah in some way. What can I say?