I feel like the holidays were a blur, but in the best possible way. It was so much fun to see Polly experience so many things on her own this year and my big girls were just as excited to see her open gifts as they were to open their own. We stayed close to home and enjoyed having Josh home with us for a few days (he's always home, since he works there, but he rarely gets to take days off at the end of the year). We've celebrated Christmas here for the last three years, but this one felt the most like home. In an effort to use up all of my almost empty rolls of wrapping paper, we had quite the assortment this year. I loved seeing the packages all piled up in different patterns, but I'm glad to have eliminated so much of my stash! We decided this year to start a sister gift ...
family
Spring Break at Wind Creek
While we head to the beach for a two week stay every summer, we don't travel in our camper as often as I'd like. We've made grand statements about doing it more, we've taken a few fall trips to North Alabama and a random beach weekend here and there, but we haven't really taken advantage of our travel trailer the way I wished we did. When our favorite campground was booked for Spring Break, we decided to book a week's stay at a lakeside state park less than an hour away, and try something new for a change. Josh and I both had to work while the kids were out of school, but we managed to tag team both the computer and the kids, and had a really great family getaway before we wrap up this school year. Here's a quick peek at how we spent our week away. Baby camper naps are my favorite. I ...
A Year of Surprises
Are you sitting down? Because you are going to need to stop what you're doing to make it through this post. Remember when this used to be a straight-up mom blog and we talked about daily life, little kid milestones, and everything in between? At some point, the girls grew up and we had to start sharing different parts of our lives and learn to relate to our readers in completely different ways. I had no intentions of returning to our roots, but you know what they say about the best laid plans. It looks like Taz + Belly is getting an old-school reboot in the form of baby number three?! I've been the very worst blogger this year, but it is not without its reasons. We discovered several weeks ago that we had made a significant error in calendar calculations and despite our perceived ...
A Happy Halloweekend
When it comes to Halloween costumes, this was one of those perfect years. Neither girl requested a store bought costume (not that there's anything wrong with that!) and they both had strong opinions about what they wanted (or did not want) to be. Sophie was digging through a bin of old dance costumes when we cleaned their room a few weeks ago and declared that she should wear one of them for Halloween. This turquoise ballet costume was her favorite and when I asked what she thought it looked like, she yelled Tooth Fairy without a second of hesitation. We managed to pull this costume together for a steal and she was so happy with how it turned out. We had just added the crown headband to our donate pile that same day, so we decided to hang onto it for a few more weeks. We grabbed the ...
Local Fun | High Point Climb
We had such a busy weekend, but it was filled with so much fun. We were all worn out from the circus on Saturday morning, but that didn't keep the girls from spending the night with Nana and staying up way too late. In the event of Saturday evening slumber parties, we usually pick the girls up bright and early to get ready for church, but Josh and I were equally exhausted. We ate leftover breakfast casserole, watched way too much football, and I worked on prepping the blog for our trip next month. The girls came home mid-afternoon and we furiously tried to get ready for a birthday party later in the day. This is the part when I tell you it was raining cats and dogs, the wind was blowing crazy hard, and I had no desire to brave that weather (and a 40 minute drive) for a birthday party. Boy ...
Out of This World
I offered a bit of a disclaimer in my circus recap post from last year and I'm just going to go ahead and leave another one here today. I know that the circus has always been controversial, no more so than in the last year. I have always been uncomfortable with the idea of circus animals, even as I found myself enjoying the show. Sometimes as a parent we find ourselves in precarious and uncomfortable situations and this is definitely one of those for me. I have loved the memories we've made over the last eleven years as circus attendees, but we've also had plenty of conversations with the girls about the care of animals. They were both disappointed when the elephants were pulled, but I was simultaneously relieved. We found that the circus was just as much fun this year (it was actually my ...
Old Baker Farm | 2016
I've honestly been saying no to everything fun for the last several weeks because we're knee deep in boxes and have had a house full of contractors at all times. It's been a good month, but it's been full and overwhelming and packed to the brim with to-dos and wishlists and shopping trips. When my sister asked me to tag along to the pumpkin patch on Saturday, I knew I needed to say no, but I'm so glad I didn't. We snuck away for a few hours and the packing tape was exactly where I left it when we returned. Thank goodness for sweet sisters and brother cousins and beautiful fall weather when we need it! We are still dying in ninety degree afternoons and praying for actual fall in Alabama, but Saturday morning was perfect. Sure, it was blazing hot by afternoon, but when you're at the farm ...
It’s FINALLY Fall
Fall seems to take forever to arrive in Alabama, but it is slowly making itself known around here. When our friends were in town a few weeks ago, we took all of our girls to the local pumpkin patch on Saturday afternoon. It was hot, but that just meant we had the place to ourselves and boy did we enjoy it! First up was the corn maze. I'm pretty sure the "exit" that we used was just a path between rows of corn. These girls were leading us around in circles, so we made a mad dash for freedom when we spotted it. My girls both wanted to take a horse ride and their reactions couldn't be any different. Sophie was grinning ear to ear from the very beginning and waved to me as she rode off into the sunset. Ella, on the other hand, was a nervous wreck! She was very concerned about me ...