Our New Home

One of the most exciting things about this year has been a move to our new home in Lakeland, TN.  It is just about 10 minutes from our old house but closer to Matt's family and still close to mine as well.  We are trilled with our new neighborhood and home.  We closed on July 3rd and moved in shortly thereafter.  We had so much help from our family and friends, I can't even begin to thank them! Ashley and JT (my sister and bro-in-law) came in town and along with Matt's sister, Kim, and brother in law, Josh, and our parents, the guys did a TON of manual labor!  In one day they loaded up all our furniture from our old house and unloaded it in our new house.  WOW!  What a blessing to have them help!  Of course we lived among boxes for a bit but soon we were settled into our new home.  

Here are a few of our favorite things about our new neighborhood and house: 

-Large neighborhood with lots of kids

-Great public schools (with the Elementary school literally inside our neighborhood and walking distance from our house!)

-A community pool about 4 or 5 houses down from ours

-More than enough room in our house for our growing family and visitors!

-Room for entertaining

-Great small city of Lakeland with walking trails and parks to enjoy

-Driving home, walking along the sidewalks or looking out the window to see deer hanging out!

Daddy and Taylor at the pool

Swimming in the backyard to cool off on a hot Memphis summer day

Who needs a swimsuit when you are in your backyard?!?!

Taylor enjoying some of her toys in the driveway

I know we will fill this new home with so many great memories.  We are so very blessed to be able to move into such a lovely place!  And now that we are settled and have more room we are ready for visitors!

Beach Trip!

We had a great trip to the beach this summer with Matt's family.  We have made it sort of a yearly tradition to head down to the beach and rent a beach house/condo for a week with Meme, Peepaw, Kim, Josh and Kayla.  Taylor's debut trip was last year at just 7 weeks old.  This time she had a little better idea of what was going on.  She LOVED playing by the beach in this little blow up pool that was at the house.  She also spent lots of time exploring the shore with Meme!  She loved seeing the birds flying around and was quite the social butterfly greeting people as they passed by.  

Daddy, Josh and Kim ventured out for a deep sea fishing expedition again this year.  It seemed to go much better than last year with more fish caught and less sea-sickness :)  We found a restaurant that cooked the fish that they caught for us and it was very yummy!  

Uncle Richard, Aunt Linda, Hailey, Matthew and Garrett were also at the beach just a few minutes away while we were down there.  We spent one night with them which was a nice treat.  The plan was to eat at a restaurant, however there was a major monsoon on our way to meet them and all of the restaurants were full with very long waits.  So, we bought some food from the street vendors and headed back to their condo to spend some time relaxing. It ended up being a great time to hang out and visit for a little while.  

One night Matt and I went out for a nice dinner together while Taylor stayed back with the rest of the family.  Matt loves seafood so he really enjoys all the good fresh seafood at the beach.  We had a great trip and definitely spent a lot of time resting and relaxing!

Staring longingly at the beach!

Taylor spend many fun times by the ocean in her pool!

Matt with one of his fish

The deep sea fishing crew and their catches

Taylor and PeePaw

Meme and Taylor

What a life!

Family picture

Hailey, Garrett, Jenn, Matthew and Taylor

Kayla, the tan momma, and Taylor

Out to dinner

Lions and Tigers and Bears, oh my!

Just days after Taylor's first birthday, we took our first family trip to the Zoo!  Uncle JT and Aunt Ashley purchased Taylor a year family membership to the Memphis Zoo for Christmas.  We are so lucky to have such a wonderful attraction so close to home.  We will certainly be visiting the zoo many times over the years to come.  Taylor really enjoyed the monkeys and we saw lots of them!  She was also able to get very close to the panda bear which was cool.  What a great opportunity to show and teach Taylor (and our other future children) about all the wonderful animals that God created!

Taylor spotting a bird!

Taylor - ONE YEAR!

My, my, my, time has really flown!  It's crazy to think that a year ago today we were meeting our sweet girl.  What a delight and blessing God has given us with you Taylor! What fun and entertainment you have brought to our family.  You are growing up and becoming more and more like a big girl every day.

You finally got 2 more teeth, the 2 top middle teeth, on Easter!  You point at everything these days and say something when you are pointing, we just don't know what that something is :)  You have learned how to turn light switches off and on.  You are still as active as ever.  You have learned to crawl up the stairs, which caused mommy and daddy to quickly get the baby gate up!  You also love to rock yourself back and forth in your carseat, sometimes you get going so fast I think you might rock all the way over!  You have also started to become quite the climber these days.  You are hearing "sit on your bottom" a lot throughout the day. :)  You still love playing in the kitchen and you love pulling down the dish towel and throwing it around.  You love brushing your hair when we are getting you ready in the morning.

Your monkey is still one of your favorite toys!  You also love you Violet Leapfrog labtop and you have found the button that plays "Twinkle, twinkle, little star" along with making some other sounds. You press the button over and over skipping all the sounds until it starts playing "twinkle, twinkle, little star" and then you listen to the whole song!  And then you start all over again, we can usually hear that song at least 10 songs on a car trip!  You also have started "singing" along with it. . . so incredibly adorable!

After not being the greatest eater over the past few weeks, you are starting to come around a little.  You still absolutely LOVE green beans and will eat them over just about anything.  You also like tomatoes.  It is so funny to see you enjoying so many veggies since mommy and daddy are not the best about eating them.

At your 12 month check up we found out you actually lost weight over the last three months.  Only a few ounces but we are officially trying to bulk you up.  Your weight is 18lbs 3oz.  Height is 27.5in, which was about the same as your 9 month visit.  Your head got bigger though, up to 47cm.  We were told that you needed to gain 3 pounds in 3 months!  You were also a little anemic so we had to start you on a multivitamin with iron which smells pretty yucky.

Taylor, mommy and daddy love you so very very much!  You are such a sweet girl.  You have filled our lives with joy and we are entertained by you always.  The Lord has truly blessed us with your life and we pray that we can always be great parents to you, filling your life with joy, love and learning about how special you are to us and God.

Happy first birthday Taylor!

Taylor's 1st Birthday Party!

Happy Birthday Taylor!  We had such a wonderful time celebrating your first birthday!  We had family and friends over to Naly and Buddy's house for a cookout and fun time.  When it was time to sing happy birthday and bust into your cake, you weren't quite sure what to think about it.  You even had a meltdown when mommy tried to remove your birthday outfit prior to all the cake mess.  After a little coaxing, you realized that the cake was pretty yummy.   You wouldn't use your hands to eat it-instead you just leaned forward into the cake and took bites with your mouth! Such a little lady!   

Aunt Ashley and cousin Ty

Mommy and her birthday girl

Daddy at the grill!

Deep discussion between Taylor and Ty

Grandpa's and their grandbabies

We had such a fun day celebrating and can't wait to see what the next year has in store for you!  We love you Taylor!