Christmas photo shoot…kinda :)

  

Snow Day

It snowed here today.  And I do mean it snowed!  We have at least 4 inches…and it hasn’t stopped snowing since we woke up!  The girls and I bundled up and headed out mid-morning.

Taylor was unsure at first…

 

Snow Angel

 

Both girls after playing awhile..

back inside for hot cocoa and hot “apple juice”!

Both girls are down for a nap and I am getting to know my new laptop.  Be prepared with a ton of blog posts soon.  My old computer was super slow, so I had to quit posting….now I am excited to keep it up again!

Homecomings...simply the best!

Together again after six LONG months...

Both girls went right to Daddy without reservation. Such an answer to prayer and a joy to see :).
Bailey was beyond excited. She screached, screamed, hugged, kissed, jumped and would have let her Daddy carry her anywhere. Such special, sweet moments (although the people at the airport probably thought she was a crazy girl :)).
Taylor surprisingly had little reservations. She ran around and around Daddy's legs and wanted to play hide and seek with him right away. She spent the next hour or so giggling at everything here Daddy said :)
Thank you to all who prayed for Blair and our family. We have been so blessed to have these special two weeks together. Now I'm off to enjoy my family...whole again!

Smiley Christmas Cookies

In the effort to be a fun, crafty Mom...we made Smiley faces on our chocolate chip cookies with Christmas M and M's for snack the other day. Bailey wore her Indian hat from preschool :). They both did a great job!

Taylor isn't too big on sweets, but loves her some M and M's!

yummy

Cheers!

Bales and Tales have taken to sitting on this green rug in the kitchen to drink their water/juice. They are so cute and they have to do it TOGETHER....
Cheers Taylor!

Aren't they getting so big? Where did my babies go?

Precious. Pretty. Pink.

I am so very thankful for my two girls...they are a blessing from God that I never even imagined! We had a good day yesterday going for a long run and eating dinner at a friend's house. One big piece was missing...We love you Daddy and look forward to seeing you very soon for a few days of R and R!

The sun messed up my pics a bit...

Precious.

Double Cheese. Notice the hand holding! They truely do love each other most of the time :)

Taylor- 18 months

My precious Taylor is 18 months....well, really almost 19 months now :). We went to the doctor last week and got her newest stats. Taylor, at 18 months you are:
- 24 lbs 12 oz (almost 3 pounds heavier then 15 mo!)
-32 inches tall (60%- 2 inches taller then 15mo).
-saying so many words I have lost count. You love to say Mermaids, Nemo (memo), fish (shish), bag, apple and juice. Every single day you learn new words. I love it!
- Have developed your own personality and will. The respite sitter says that you are the "boss" now when you go to her house with other kids :). Still, you are a sweetie and I overall obey Mommy well :).
-LOVE your big sissy. Love to annoy your big sissy.
-dislike when Mommy is holding any other babies...you always come up to me, point and say in a possessive voice "MAMA!". You are telling those other kids that this is MY mama :).
-Have done much, much better at church nursery lately. No pages in 1 month!
- Are almost the age that Bailey was when I had you.
-still allergic to milk, egg and peanut. The doctor said we would re-test you at 2yrs old.

2 of your favorite things...Mermaid and fishy :)

You love your baby and stroller (Bailey never really played with dolls). You love to wrap the baby up in a blanket and giver her a bottle.

You were being a good Mommy and sharing your shades with your baby... :)

Bailey's first ever field trip!

Bailey's 2 1/2 yr old preschool class had a field trip to the zoo a couple of weeks ago. We had a lot of fun...Bailey held her two teacher's hands (Mrs. Davis and Ms. Unsworth) the whole time. I love that she loves her teachers!

We've been to the zoo a few times here in J'ville...it isn't anything to write home about, but we did manage to wittle away an hour or so.
Below is one of the llamas. We are big into the "Llama Llama"books.

Tales and Sydney (Jace's sister) tagged along. I have a pic just like this of when Bailey and Jace were little in these same strollers :)

My Monkey

Tales, Bales and Jace...

Jace and Bailey petting the birdie.

It was exciting to be apart of Bailey's first trip....I am so thankful to be a SAHM that can take part in such trips. I look forward to many more!

Official Half-Marathon pic

Below is a link to an official half-marathon pic! It looks like it was taken at the very end of the marathon, maybe 1/4 mile from the finish...I look pretty tired :). Some of the good memories are starting to return :).

http://rmoep.instaproofs.com/buy_print.php?event=303942&type=original&id=87854738

Half-Marthon!!!

Last Sunday (5 days ago :)) I completed a half-marathon. That is 13.1 miles for you non-runner folks!. While I have always been fairly active, I have never called myself a runner. I ran to play basketball. I ran to stay fit in college, but only when I could get to the gym or aerobics class. After having 2 little ones in 2 years I struggled to find a workout routine that would fit with our schedule. We finally decided to purchase a BOB stroller (HIGHLY recommend by the way) and off I started..slowly. I have now been running for maybe 8 months? 2 months ago a friend encouraged me to maybe run this half-marathon. I told her she was crazy (she, by the way just completed the USMC full marathon..so yes...she is crazy!). I had never ran more then 4-5 miles at that point. Well, long story short...she drew me up a training plan and told me it was totally possible to finish training for the half (I had already been running consistently for 5 months). I took the training plan and went full steam ahead. Surprisingly, I LOVED the long runs. First 6, then 8, 9, and 10 miles...they were all so much more fun then I imagined. Who knew? I kept running around a 9-9:30 min/mile pace during those long runs so set my goal of running the half at 2hours even.

Here I am leaving the house EARLY for the half-marathon. Which, by the way was dedicated to all servicemembers...I dedicated mine to my awesome husband!


Here are some of my fellow "stroller warriors" We meet on Tuesday mornings with our strollers and run/ have a blast!

The race went very well...I felt fairly good the first hour and then the second hour my back started hurting a little bit. Here I am racing to the finish! I finished at 2 hours and 43 seconds. There were no "clocks" during the race so I am a little frustrated that I didn't know how close I was...I am sure I would have made it under 2 hours if I would have known!!

Immediately following the race I headed to the bathroom. My back was really hurting and I peeped bright red blood (which scared the dickens out of me). Here, I had just finished 13.1 miles and am bleeding?!? I then began to realize that I was probably having a kidney stone attack (lucky me). I went and talked to the medic just to see what he thought (I have never peeped bright red blood before)..he confirmed my thoughts. He encouraged me to head to the ER in Wilmington. I decided to make the very long, painful 1 hr drive back to Jacksonville to go to the ER there so that I would have friends to help and to be closer to the girls. At the ER, they confirmed the diagnosis and gave me some blessed pain meds.

SO, not quite the way I imagined for this day to go...I am already planning on running more half-marathons to redeem this experience. I am honestly so proud of myself. From not running at all to running a half right around 2 hours is awesome!

Thank you to all my friends who took care of my girls (overnight), drove me home from the hospital when I was too drugged to walk straight, brought me meals and otherwise just encouraged me. You are the best!

Halloween Celebrations

Halloween weekend was super busy and fun-filled at our house. We went trick or treating with the Schneiders on base and then stopped by our friend Mary's house for some more fun!

Here we are roasting marshmellows for Bailey's first smore! (she loved it :)). PS- roasting marshmellows in the dark with two little ones is kinda stressful!
Bales and Tales enjoying all of their friend's toys after being hyped up on cookies and candy (otherwise known as dinner that night :)).

Me and my precious two little girls!

The night before Halloween we had our SS party. Here is most of our class all dressed up! After some debating, I finally decided to go as Dr. Meredith Gray from Grey's Anatomy. My McDreamy was in surgery :). When I told Blair that is what we "were" for halloween he was like, "Who are those people?". Ha! My favorites?

It was my turn to bring breakfast for our Sunday School that Sunday...so I was creative (well, for me it was creative!) and made "eyeballs". Pretty cool! I also brought apples and caramel dip :).

We still have a pumpkin holder with lots of candy left. I let the girls pick out one piece a day.....and we only went to a few houses! I can't imagine what that amount will be once they are in school and really into the whole trick/treating thing!

Go Gators!

So, I am quite a bit behind on blogging right now...I will try and catch up over the next couple of nights :).

Here are the girls almost 2 weeks ago now sporting Gator gear on Game day. We beat Georgia :).
Sister kisses (not quite sure why Tales is pointing to her nose?)

Hugs are the best!

Go Gators! Taylor has "Gator chomp" and "touchdown" down. I know. I am the coolest Mom ever....Gator terminology comes way before letters :)

Thankfully, it looks like our Gators have turned things around....I hope this weekend is just as fun!

Pumpkins and Praise

I put on Taylor's favorite video (Praise Baby) for her to watch while I spent some time carving pumpkins with Bailey....Here she is praising God! She is just the sweetest thing ever and loves music :)
Bailey was passionate about pumpkin carving...until....she put her hand inside it and felt the "guts". After that, she was no longer interested in being my helper!
Eww...Mommy it is slimmy!