Dress up...

So after opening Christmas, Taylor now has a good stash of dress up clothes. Here she is the day after Christmas playing and having a great time with her new "stuff" as she says :)

Christmas night at Grammy and PawPaw's house

We had a wonderful time Christmas night too with Grammy, PawPaw, Mimi, Popie, Aunt Brandy, Uncle Keith, Skyler, Aiden and Ellie. We missed Aunt Kerri and Uncle Jimmy and the two boys!!!

Uncle Jim and his family even stopped by for dessert and to see everyone! We had a house full and we had a wonderful time.

Caroline and Mimi. Of course Caroline just ate and spit up all over her new Christmas bib!

Looks like Mimi and Popie have their hands full right here!

All the cousins played hard all night...especially little Aiden and Taylor!

Daddy's girl

Airplane with Uncle Keith

Ellie and Taylor ready to tear into their giftsChaos at Grammy and PawPaw's house

Princess Ellie all dressed up!

Taylor not sure what do to now (I think she was ready to crash after a BUSY day!)

The Holidays

Well hope everyone had a wonderful Holiday season! I have been really bad about updating the blog but I am sure most of you can understand with all the events during this Holiday season. We had a wonderful Christmas! Taylor was really excited this year about Santa and all of her toys. She loved everything from Santa and all our friends and family. This year we had told Taylor that we needed to give her pacifiers to Santa Claus so he could give them to other little babies that didn't have one of their own. We explained that if she did this that Santa might bring her a Barbie Jeep. Taylor has always loved her pacifier but fortunately we had gotten to the point where she was only allowed to have it at night and for her nap. She was such a big girl Christmas Eve going to the Christmas tree and leaving all of her pacifiers there for Santa. That morning much to her delight Taylor saw that Santa had indeed left her a Barbie Jeep! Well we have been successful at letting go of the pacifier although now our child that has always been a great sleeper is not so great at it right now!!! She only asks for the pacifier once every now and then but she is up until ALL hours of the night. We still do our regular night time routine; she goes into her room between 7:30 and 8 and around 10 or 11 she is still awake in her room playing or crying for one of us?! Rob and I are not sure what to do as bed time has never been an issue like this (any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!)

She isn't even crying for her pacifier she is just whining and not attempting the whole sleep thing. Other than this issue (a big one actually right now!!), everything else is going great.

Caroline enjoyed her first Christmas. She got an awful cold the weekend before Christmas and still didn't feel great that morning. She was up a lot during the night before so she actually slept through everyone opening gifts on Christmas morning. Her big sister Taylor was more than happy to help Caroline open her gifts as I think Taylor really likes some of Caroline's new toys too! :)

Taylor making sure Santa didn't happen to forget to take her pacifiers that she left under the tree! (I am sure she hoped that she would find at least one!)

Opening all of her other gifts...

Still into the bows!
She loves her new computer too!
Thanks Grammy, Taylor has so much dress up clothes now & is loving being a princess
The first drive outside!

I am sure you can see in Caroline's eyes that she has a bad cold. I felt horrible for her as she was so pitiful but still adorable!

Just check out these cute PJ's (thanks yet again to Emily and Crawford!!!) And YES poor thing was up pretty much all night b/c of this nasty cold!

Opening her first Christmas gift for her very FIRST Christmas! She wouldn't let go so guess she liked it :)

An eventful weekend...

On Sunday night we all went over to Grammy and PawPaw's for dinner and another nice visit with Aunt Sharon and Uncle Tom. Taylor had a great time reading, playing with her baby dolls, running up and down the stairs, dancing and playing hide and seek with Uncle Tom!

Dancing by the Christmas tree...wish we got it on video as she was hilarious!
My friend Emily is so good to us letting us borrow some of Crawford's favorite toys. Obviously looking at the pictures, Taylor loves these toys as well :)
She is so crazy and silly!!

I think Caroline is wondering what Taylor is doing...she looks pretty confused here!

Taylor spent the day at Mimi and Popie's doing some Holiday baking! Here is a picture of Taylor and her gingerbread house that she and Mimi made. They also made some Snowman cookies too...Guess no one will eat these sense Taylor thought it was funny to put her foot in the bag!!

Friday Rob and I took the day off to spend some time with Uncle Tom and Aunt Sharon without the kids! We had a great time as we went to lunch and then shopping at Concord Mills. It was a nice day and ended even better after we got the girls from daycare that afternoon. Taylor was excited to see Uncle Tom when we walked into her class room. She ran right to him and gave him a big hug! Here they are cheesing for the camera...

Aunt Sharon is a natural...the girls loved her and Uncle Tom!
Taylor and PawPaw...always smiling!


Little Caroline was hungry and TIRED from her day at school!

Visitng The REAL Santa!

Taylor was so excited all afternoon about going to see the REAL Santa. I kept asking if she would sit on his lap and tell him what she wanted to Christmas and of course she said YES! Well as we were walking into the door to see him at Friendly Center Taylor told us that she did not want to go in and that she didn't like Santa?! Of course we went in anyway. We picked the right time as there really wasn't anyone waiting in line. She was very hesitant about going up to Santa. We took Caroline up first to sit on Santa's lap. Still Taylor wasn't sure about it so i took her up there to talk to Santa. She told him what she wanted for Christmas and then he asked her several times to come and sit with him. She didn't agree until Santa told her that she could have one of his bells from his sleigh. Well that did the trick! She sat with Santa, took some pictures and even ended up hugging Santa before we left!

Santa visit at Friendly Center

Since the girls were dressed for the Holiday season and Taylor was doing better after a good nap we took the girls to Friendly Center to visit Santa. This was actually a great experience and a good visit. I will post more tomorrow along with pictures. I have to tell you though that Taylor asked Santa for a Barbie Jeep, a Pony and blocks!?! (Her response to Santa was firm and to the point :-)
I am still trying to figure out what kind and what size pony she wants and where she got that from?!!!

One more try for Christmas Cards

OK so now I KNOW why I haven't taken the girls into a studio to get their pictures taken! Taylor has a mind of her own and if she is NOT in the mood to do something then she will not participate no matter what we try to bribe her with?! Rob and I tried everything with her this morning to hold Caroline in front of the tree for a picture. Taylor obviously woke up on the wrong side of the bed as she was a little bit of a pill this morning!! We got a couple of cute ones before we finally ended up feeding her lunch and putting her down for a nap, hoping that she would wake up refreshed and in better spirits :)

Taylor only wanted to take a picture with Santa Claus (This is suppose to hang on the door and has a calendar on it to count down the days til Christmas...whatever made her happy at the time!!)

Caroline isn't too steady here...

Always love the naked pics in the Santa hat!

Here Taylor only wanted to hold baby Jesus in the picture. We finally got her to smile on the next one!

Taylor inspecting the ornaments...I hope she doens't throw the balls on the floor again this year!

Little Caroline, our little flower

Ok so I tried to make a hat myself that I thought was really cute. I am sure if you know me, you know that I am not very crafty. Of course making my own hat was not my idea. My friend Monica said that I could make one for cheap instead of buying one online. Of course I wanted to buy one and have it right away to take pictures. Instead of waiting for one to be shipped and spending more money I made my own with Monica's assistance. I used one of Taylor's old pink hats and bought a flower from Hobby Lobby. We had to take the flower apart for it to lay right but I thought it was precious on Caroline. Now all I need is a professional photographer to help me take pictures. I am just not talented in that at ALL! I am going to try to do another photo shoot soon but wanted to share these first :)