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!!

Congrats Greg and Alyssa and Welcome Beatrix!!

Derek's sister Alyssa and her husband Greg welcomed Beatrix last night around 11 pm! We are all so excited to have her in the family!! Derek, Taylor and I had fun visiting her tonight at the hospital! She was 9 lbs and 21 1/2 inches! We are so happy for Greg and Alyssa! We can't wait to get more pictures this weekend!!

Halloween Weekend

Sara, my good friend from Purdue, came out to visit this weekend! We were so excited to have her and had so much fun with her here! Since Taylor is a little too young to enjoy Halloween I'll just post some pictures from our weekend! One of our favorite things to do is go to the horse track (Turf Paradise) and since we had a new visitor we had to show her our hot spot! We didn't win big but we had a nice afternoon watching the races! I think Taylor enjoyed her first trip to the track! Thanks for coming to visit Sara!! We had so much fun!

I had to include this family picture we attempted with Copper...as you can see she was way more interested in giving Taylor kisses!

Baby Time and Pumpkin Carving!

We had a fun day today! Taylor and I went to Baby Time at the library with Grandma Moon. Taylor is in the "Itty Bitty Readers" program at the library and one of the requirements to get her prize is to attend Baby Time, so we decided to check it out today! We had a lot of fun with Grandma Moon's friend Pat who leads Baby Time! We got to sing songs and Pat read Jack and Jill to the group! Here are some pictures of us at Baby Time with Pat! Thanks for the fun morning Pat! I think we'll try and make it again next week!

When Derek got home from work we decided to carve our pumpkins. Unfortunately out here you have to wait until the last minute to carve pumpkins or they will rot really quick! I mentioned to Derek that on the Today show there was a man that was carving pumpkins using a power drill...well I guess like any man would, he thought it sounded like a great idea! As you can see Copper was a little unsure, she went and hid under the table! This year the holes in the pumpkin look A LOT better than when I have attempted with a knife in the past! I think the excitement was too much for Taylor, she wasn't happy watching on my lap so she spent most of the time on her Baby Einstein mat and then followed that up by falling asleep in her swing! We'll take some pictures out front tomorrow when she wakes up!

Pumpkin Patch...or lack there of!

Well, we ventured to the "pumpkin patch" today and being a Midwestern girl I was sorely disappointed! I was so excited to go with Great Grandma and Great Grandpa being in town, I even had Grandma and Grandpa Moon meet us out there! I had noticed this "pumpkin patch" that I had passed several times that I thought would be better than the parking lot pumpkin patches that make up the other alternative places to get pumpkins out here! I was very wrong! There was indeed a "pumpkin patch" where you could go pick your own...however there was not really a selection to choose from! Most of the pumpkins were very small or not ripe. We decided to purchase one small one because we felt bad for the place. We made the best of it and had fun though taking pictures with our tiny pumpkin and Taylor :) On the way home we stopped at one of the Catholic churches that we have purchased from in the past...they are at least normal sized pumpkins!

Since today was not real exciting I thought I would post an adorable picture of Derek and Taylor. This morning when she woke up I sat her down on the couch next to Derek and she was all smiles!