Valentines

I love Valentines Day. This year was pretty simple for us. Husband bought me some beautiful flowers, and I made him Indian food, and the girls and I made cookies. lol Pretty simple but very fun.

And Valentines morning for whatever reason, these two decided to wake me up extra early and then put themselves back down for naps on the wood floor. Doesn't make any sense? Try telling them that. ;)

 For Christmas this year my Mom bought Grace a cookie press and Valentines cookie decorations. SUCH a fun gift. It gave Grace something to look forward too allllll January, and made Valentines really easy for me.

 Her cute friend Jayda came to help.

 I wasn't brave enough to let Camilla J help. She was pretty easily comforted however, with a cookie to chew on.

Happy Valentines!!!!

The funny Faces of Camilla Jane

I sure love my girls. Camilla Jane in particular is getting so grown up lately. I thought I'd share a few photos of her that I snapped one day, while we were outside pretending it was warm enough to play.

She cracks us up and keeps us laughing. Love our Camilla. :) Stay LITTLE already!

My Birthday

     So as I am wayyy behind in posting things, I thought I'd start at the beginning of our year (you know, cause that's a very good place to start), which brings me to....my birthday. :) I'm getting so OLD! But I have to say, being a grown up is a lot more fun than everyone made it sound when I was a kid, I've thoroughly enjoyed it thus far.

     For my birthday this year Craig took me out on a date, with no children thanks to some great friends, and we had a blast. It was just dinner, dessert and a redbox but it was nice to get out and stretch our dating muscles again, and I'll take all the alone time with my man that I can GET! Another thing that made it fun was that we found a restaurant that we really like! It's taken us some exploring over the last two and a half years, but I think this is restaurant #3 that we have found, that we really enjoy. This is so going to sound like a restaurant review since most of the pictures we took that night were pics of food...sorry. Such a 2014 thing to do. ;) But without further ado, a few pictures from "The Slice"...

As a general rule, we don't order appetizers. My personal thoughts are that it makes the meal expensive, and fills your belly with really fatty unhealthy foods BEFORE you even order the main dish. I just think they aren't a good deal all way around, but Craig could totally see me drooling over their cheese board appetizer and it was awesome. Next time I'll forget the pizza and just order this. It was flat bread, some thin Italian meats, goat cheese, blue cheese and a fresh mozzarella, some local organic honey that was some of the best honey I've ever had, and a balsamic vinegar glaze both for drizzling over the whole thing. It was pricey, but as Craig said, "it pretty much doesn't get more 'Dorothy' when it comes to food" lol and it was a very fun birthday treat. 

The Pizza that we ordered was kind of similar in that it also had the prosciutto etc and was topped with goat cheese, arugula and drizzled with their fantastic honey. Totally my fault that I ordered the same thing in pizza form, but it was awesome and my birthday so I get to do that, right? ;)

After dinner we decided to head to Baskin Robins for an ice cream cone...

My pistachio almond ice cream cone.

Husband always gets his in a cup. Silly husband cups are for boring people who think they are too grown up for cones. ;) jk

Did I mention I got birthday presents?! lol I Always love waiting to see what husband is going to end up wrapping my presents in. It never disappoints. ;)

And a last birthday kiss before going to pick up the hoodlums. I don't know which I like better, alone time with husband or picking up my tiny crazies and seeing how much they missed us. We'll call it a draw. 

 

Sunday Tea

This past week our precocious little three year old became a Sunbeam! She'll be the youngest in her class since she doesn't actually turn 4 until the end of next December, but I'm not worried, she's been ready for a year at least. Sundays for us can be a bit frustrating. Grace HATES nursery. Every time she has gotten used to a nursery leader in our ward it has changed, and you add in to that that children in nursery do not interact with her the way she would like (in a civilized adult manner) and the fact that our church previously started at 1:00 which is her nap time, and we'll just say that I happily go for my children and I very happily go to partake of the sacrament and while I'm there I happily dream of a day when I will get something out of the lessons again. But maybe that will change soon! Church is now at 9:00am which means that Grace is her normal happy self, and she loved primary. I was subbing for a different class and got to sit in the back and observe her. We definitely need to go over some primary manners, but she did really great. It was the first Sunday without tears in I think months. She went in by herself, sat down on her little chair and introduced herself to the little girl next to her, and they immediately became "best friends", which she yelled back to me a couple times. lol I did have to reprimand her a little for getting out her book bag and sharing books and chap stick with her new friend, and there was that one terrible moment where she walked up to the front, tapped on the choristers skirt, told her she didn't like the song they were about to sing and insisted they sing, "I am a Child of God" again, but when the request was denied she did go back and sit quietly. She also ran back to me a couple times to give me a kiss on the cheek and tell me she loved me, but well...I loved it. lol Overall I think she'll do great. I told her before we got to church that if she was very good and there were no tears, that we would all have a tea party with her when we got home. So we had a picnic lunch per her request on the floor with hot cocoa for the tea. It was her first tea party with her new tea set from her Grandparents and she and Camilla Jane both had a great time, as did Craig and I. :) 

Love my girly girls!

This little thing may have been my favorite part of the tea party. lol She ate a whole peanut butter sandwich square before I remembered she can't have peanut butter yet! Luckily no reaction, and we'll be more careful in the future, but it sure was fun watching her enjoy it. 

Cocoa mustaches aren't exactly becoming at a tea party but sometimes they just can't be helped. ;)

Husband hamming it up as usual. 

Our sandwiches and "tea"

The little dress she is wearing was actually one my sisters and I wore when we were little. I thought she looked so pretty in it.

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Good job little one, here's to more tear free Sunday's! 

8 Months

Camilla Jane turns 8 months old in the morning, and I wanted to put up a few pictures. I took these a couple days ago thinking I would do a tiny 8 month photo shoot with her, but between the fact that I still have a pretty AWFUL camera and the fact that she makes her sister look comatose in comparison with the busy bee that she is...they didn't turn out like I'd planned. But that's okay, one of my goals this year is to put off my desire for perfection in simple things, they eat at my time and happiness and quite simply, they can't be helped. :) SO....without further ado, pictures with Baby Jane

One of my favorite things about the current stage she is in has got to be her fascination with her sister. Camilla Jane LOVES Gracie (although Grace is still a little wary of her hair pulling, face exploring little sibling), and she gets so excited when she is in the room. The other night after Grace was tucked in bed and Camilla Jane was playing in the living room, Grace got upset about something and started crying and yelling from her bedroom. Camilla Jane immediately started looking around concerned about the welfare of her screaming sister and took off looking for her. She crawled and followed the sound all the way to Grace's bedroom door and then actually managed to push it open by standing up and leaning on it. Grace was of course startled that her door was suddenly open when she couldn't see the means of doing so and stopped crying long enough to start yammering, "whose opening my door?! Whose dare?!" Camilla Jane crawled all the way in, over to Grace's bed, pulled herself up along the side and then cooed and cooed at her sister so excited to have found her. Craig, who was watching them at the time, gave them a couple of minutes to play together and then went in and put Grace back to sleep, taking the stow away out again. I love love watching them interact.

She crawls so fast now it was difficult to get ahead of her fast enough to take a photo. 

All in all I took about 50 photos, most of them blurry. lol We played for about an hour though and she thoroughly enjoyed herself...  

And tired out her Mama...

I finally decided that if coming to her wasn't working maybe she would come to me, so I laid down in the middle of the floor and sure enough, she finally got worn out enough to come and see me for some VERY sweet cuddling before she scampered off again of course.

It was so precious while it lasted.

Happy 8 months Baby Jane, your family sure loves you!

To New Beginnings!!

Wow! So much has happened since my last post! I was pregnant and then BAM, I now have an adorable chubby cherub named Camilla Jane Taylor

and next week, we will be ringing in the New Year for 2015! I could make this a catch up post about how busy we've been, and how crazy Camilla Jane's birth was, followed by an unexpected medical surgery for my husband, followed by him working nights, followed by Camilla Jane having read my last blog post about the CIO method of parenting, followed by her making me eat crow with lots of things IN that post followed by the fact that she still wakes up to be fed 3 or 4 times a night, but I WON'T. 

 I think I'll just start fresh and say that I've decided that this is a good time to blog. I sit here on December 27 looking at my beautiful Christmas tree, my biggest little one climbing her father like he's a Maple tree while the other one, who now looks like this when she's clean...

crawls around looking for leftover bits of wrapping paper and pine needles to eat. Oh the fun we've had in 2014, but oh the PEACE and QUIET that I hope 2015 has in store. Husband just started a new job which will have him working an 8:00am-5:00pm position which has us both tickled to death, the girls are getting SO big it thrills and kills me all at the same time and I am excited for lots of new changes coming my way in the form of personal improvements. The New year is coming at a wonderful time for me this year. Up until now our life has been a bit of a sink or swim kind of escapade, but I see a light at the end of a rather stressful (although not without its moments) tunnel, and I am excited to continue on with some things for ME. I have hope of a little more sleep, a little more cleaning and organizing, a little more healthy food and exercise, hopefully some good reading, a little blogging, a larger amount of time with my main man and a lot more fun in the world of having two little bright eyed, wonderful, miraculous baby girls! So Happy Early 2015 everyone, and welcome to the new addition of what I think will turn into a little bit of a lifestyle blog. 

Cheers! 

And if we missed you at Christmas, Happy Holiday season from the Taylor Family!

Pregnancy

     As pretty much everyone knows, our little family will be adding a little human addition in April. I am SO excited, and not nearly as nervous as I was with Grace. Not because I think it will be easy by any means, or because I can't wait to get no sleep, but I think it's probably more because of the fact that after having Gracie I also know how wonderful it will be, and that no matter what it will be worth it. With Grace I wasn't sure if I was ready for something that life altering and big (ok ok, so I don't do change well), but this time around I think I have just come to realize that when life isn't all about me aka it's about husband and daughter now, it's better anyways, and oh so worth it. I hope that makes sense. 

     Anyways, so with Grace I was so anti-prego pictures that I think there are a total of 3 from the entire pregnancy and I only willingly took one of those. This time I wanted to document it a little more, and wanted to take one a week and then put them all together to watch the baby grow....BUT I still have that innate (inherited from my Mother) dread of photos so my once a week has turned into 3 sets of photos. BUT, we're only half way through the pregnancy so that means twice as many as last time, right?! 

I'm not putting these on Facebook because I know that not everyone is into seeing pregnant woman pop up on their screens. This way I figure you clicked on my link so it's your own fault. ;) And without further ado...the before picture...

Yes I know, they aren't very glamorous selfies, but as afor mentioned, pictures of myself in front of mirrors isn't exactly my forte.

I'm about 8 or 9 weeks in these first ones, but I realize you can't really tell. It just gives you kind of a beginning growing reference. Also please note the baby getting into my "make'dup" in the background. lol

At 17 weeks...

Big difference, eh?!

Up to date at 20 weeks...

I got husband to take these. The selfies were killing me. 

This one is my personal favorite. I asked Grace to "come take a baby picture with me" and this is her version. lol

And stay tuned in 3 days for the big gender reveal, that I am VERY excited about....any guesses?!