Happy 1st Birthday Aiden!

Today we went over to our friends Mike and Deanna Bailey's house for their son Aiden's 1st Birthday party! I can't believe it has already been a year! We are so happy we were in town to celebrate his birthday, we missed some of their other son Trian's birthday parties because we would be back in IN for Christmas! We actually almost missed getting to meet Aiden last year before we left for Indiana, lucky for us he came the night before we left!

The Bailey's have quite the birthday month in December...so....Happy 1st Birthday Aiden...Happy 5th Birthday Trian...AND Happy Birthday Deanna!!! We had a great time today spending time with all of our friends and Mike and Deanna's families!

Taylor's First Christmas

We had to celebrate Christmas a little early this year since we are headed back to IN for the real thing! I also am notorious for buying Derek presents that have a 15 day return policy...this guarantees that we will get to have an early Christmas! We decided today would be the best day to do our Christmas as our own little family since Derek was off work and we had other plans for the rest of the weekend.

Our Christmas started with Coppers new present first...a new bed! Her old one is..well...just that..OLD! She was pretty interested in it, she was also very curious following Derek around when he was throwing out her old one! I am thinking she'll get over missing the old one pretty quick!

Taylor was actually very helpful in opening her presents! She has quite the grip so she would just latch on to the paper and tear away! It is a good thing we only got her a couple of presents, her attention span isn't too great yet! From her face in the picture it looks like she really likes the present! I guess we did a good job!

Derek got an MP3 player to use while he is at the gym, I am surprised he has made it this long without one! I had to have one when I use to go...then again I wasn't really as interested in the working out part as the people watching!

Derek likes to play games with me on Christmas (I feel sorry for Taylor for when she gets older!), last year it was basically Let's Make A Deal...this year he gave me a tiny tape covered piece of wrapping paper and told me if I could open it in 5 minutes or less without damaging the contents I could keep whatever was in it! I figured it was a golden graham or something like that...but thank goodness I played his game, it was a picture of new oven! Some of the burners on our oven have decided to stop working so we are getting a new one!! I also got some clothes that I asked for!

Christmas was a lot of fun with Taylor this year! I am looking forward to the next two Christmases we still have coming up with both of our families!

Thanksgiving Week

We have had a pretty big week with a lot going on...so this will be a long blog entry to cover it all! My parents came in town on Tuesday and we have been having a great time with them! I am going to be so sad tomorrow when they head back, I am thinking they will be too when the leave this beautiful weather!

For Thanksgiving we went over to Derek's parents house. We had a delicious dinner and enjoyed spending time with his parents, sister's family, grandma, aunt and my parents! Taylor had fun watching Beatrix, she is becoming so aware of who is around her!

When we got home we got to do my favorite thing in the world....decorate for Christmas! Dad and Derek helped me with the tree and it went up really fast! Taylor is really enjoying looking at the lights!

On Friday we went up north to Jerome, Arizona. It is an old mining town that is on the side of a mountain. My Aunt Debbie recommended a great restaurant for us to try, so we had lunch at The Haunted Hamburger, which had a great view looking down from the mountain and really great hamburgers. We walked around for just a little bit, it was a kind of chilly up there so we decided to head back home.

Our good friends Seth and Andrea were in town from Philly, and they came over Friday night with thier daughter Abby for dinner. We had so much fun getting to spend time with them and watching Abby! It is fun to see what is ahead for us! As always you can see Copper needed to help them get Abby ready for bed...either that or she was feeling left out of the pictures!

Today we went to the horse track. It was a gorgeous day with the temperature in the 70's so it was great to be outside! Mom was the big winner...she placed her bet and realized it wasn't the horse she had wanted to bet on...well lucky for her that horse won!

We have had a great week! We are so thankful mom and dad were able to come spend 5 days with us. We can't wait to see them again in a few weeks! We love you guys!

Welcome back Mamaw!

We had dinner tonight to welcome back Derek's grandma! Mamaw spends her summers in Indiana and her winters out here in Arizona! We were so excited to see her and introduce her to her new great grandchild. Derek's Aunt Judy also came with Mamaw to help her get settled. We really enjoyed getting to see Judy and spend some time with her! We were also celebrating Derek's mom's birthday...a few days early! Happy early birthday Grandma Moon!

Cookie Time!

Two of my friends that I worked with at Dial came over last night to make Christmas cookies! This is our second year making yummy treats together! I didn't get a whole bunch of pictures because we basically declared my kitchen a disaster zone and wouldn't want any one to see it! Jena took off before we got a picture...so Cheryl and I found a stand in for Jena at the end of cookie making! Copper made it in the picture too, I suppose she figures she was a big helper standing around watching! We made snickerdoodles, chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter/chocolate fudge, fudge with nuts and all of our favorites...buckeye balls! I think Derek has already gotten into the buckeye balls this morning!

I also had an exciting visitor last night, one of my sorority sisters that I haven't seen in about 6 years stopped by! My friend Julia is in town to compete in the Ironman competition! For those of you that aren't familiar with it...here's the breakdown: swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles and run 26.2 miles! Yikes! I am so excited for Julia and wish her the best tomorrow! I felt bad having her come over while we were making tons of cookies...but I guess if you are the kind of person that can compete in a triathlon you probably have more will power than I do :) Good Luck tomorrow Juila we are rooting for you!!! We can't wait to hear how it went!

Lunch at Grandma's

We went to lunch at Grandma and Grandpa Moons today. Taylor napped for most of the time but when she woke up we got to get her first pictures of her hanging out with her cousin Beatrix! Here are a couple of cute pictures of the two of them.

Taylor has also decided that our ceiling fans are the greatest things on earth! She can be in the worst mood and if we put her under one of them she is the happiest baby around! We have been having a lot of fun listening to her "talk" to the fans and watching her smile so big while she is looking at them! I guess we'll save a lot of money on toys :)

A few nights away!

Our friends Mike and Deanna were nice enough to offer a few days use of their time share up in Show Low Arizona! We decided to head up after Derek got off work on Thursday and enjoy a couple nights away. We were also excited to go because our 3 year anniversary was this week so it was another little way to celebrate! We waited until we got up there to have our anniversary dinner and decided to go to Charlie Clarks. This was the restaurant that Derek took me to the night we got engaged! It was really nice to get to go back to the restaurant! Derek went fishing on Friday, Taylor and I just hung out in the timeshare...we tried going for a mini walk around the resort but it was super windy and a little chilly for her! So unfortunately we didn't get very many pictures since we stayed inside for most of the trip! Even though we didn't spend much time outdoors we still had a nice time and enjoyed the time away! Thanks SO much Bailey's for sharing your timeshare with us...also for all of the goodies you left us! We really appreciate it!

Copper got a little vacation too, our friends Charlie and Jena are great and always watch Copper for us when we go out of town. It is pretty much like a relaxing resort for Copper, they really spoil her! Here's a cute picture of when I went to drop Copper off at their place. Jena was feeding Taylor and you can see the "jealous pup" had to be right with Jena the whole time! Thanks so much Charlie and Jena for Copper sitting, we know she had a great time!!