Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

We had a fantastic St. Patrick's Day at the Taylor Home!  I had the day off which made it even better.  As I loaded my photos, I noticed that all I have is pictures of food and no people, man pregnancy brain is killing me.  We started off the day with a fun St. Patrick's day breakfast, some leprechauns visited our house and turned some of our food green!

We had a fruit rainbow....which Milo LOVED.

 Breakfast menu: fruit rainbow, green milk, green shamrock pancakes, and a few Lucky Charms.  Milo loved everything.  Though I have far too big of box of Lucky Charms, so they will be going to Grandma's house, Kevin and I don't eat them, and Milo shouldn't.

 Here is Milo's food...

 He really liked his St. Patrick's Day shirt, he is a Kermit fan.

 I told him to say "cheese", pretty cute if you ask me!  (Please ignore the nap hair...)

 I saw this fun craft idea on a blog the other day, so I made these cards on Photoshop.  I had ink from my parent's anniversary party and I was glad I got to use it again.  Here is the before....

 Some leprechauns left us a pot of gold!!

 For dinner we had family and a couple friends over.  Randall, Traci, and Eli came, and half of the Lignell family, Kristin and Ashley,  the other half was sick poor Lindsay and her nice Daddy Elliot, we missed them; Katie and Julian also came, it was so fun to get all the babies together!!

Traci made DELICIOUS treats, rainbow Jello.....

 And green butter beer....

 Here is the dinner spread, Reuben sandwiches, rainbow jello, butter beer, a green salad, potato chips, and mint Oreos.  It was all yummy!

 Here is the after photo of Milo's card.  We used his thumbprints to make shamrocks, it turned out cute and he thought it was fun.  All the babies made one.

Such a fun day!  We even took a trip up to the outlets in Park City and used a tiny bit of our tax return to buy Kevin and Milo some summer clothes.  It was nice to spend the day as a family and with friends.  Now back to the grind, the next month is going to be crazy, I won't see much of Kevin.  He has his big test in 2 weeks and graduates in about a month!! We will be so glad when he is done.

Birthday Boy.

Milo has been so fun lately.  As hard as the 10 daily tantrums are, he does tons of cute stuff to make up for it.  He is a little parrot lately, repeating everything you say.  He is also starting to pretend, which is way fun, I love seeing him grow.

Milo has been really into birthdays lately.  Lots of family members have been having them and he has been to 2 parties in the last 2 weeks.  One of his Sesame Street books also has a party where it is Ernie's birthday and every time we read it we have to sing the birthday song and blow out the candles.

IKEA has this really great/dangerous benefit where you can make a large purchase and then have it deducted out of your check for 9 months.  You can see how this is great/dangerous, right?  We used this to buy his big boy bed and while we were at it, I bought the play food, it was just too cute to resist and the dessert package came with this....

 Milo has been LOVING having daily birthday parties and playing with the play food.  We invite Elmo, Cookie Monster, dog, bunny, Milo (he is a stuffed animal that is really named Milo), and monkeys, we all enjoy the party and eating the food.  We sing the birthday song and blow out the candles.  I always ask Milo who's birthday it is and of course it is always his.  He is too dang cute.  Here he is getting ready to sing the birthday song and blow out the candles.

 Blowing them out.

 I wish this was a better shot of his face, he gets so excited when he blows them out.  Poor Nixon in the background, he doesn't get invite to the parties since he tries to steal the food!!

 This is a grumpy face, but he was having fun I promise.  Here he is just feeding cookies to Cookie Monster.

He is going to have a blast next month when it really is his birthday.  I can't believe he is almost 2!  I have done a lot of the work for the party already, since by that time I will be 4 weeks away from my due date.  I am super excited, I think he will love it!

Good for the body and the mind.

I have always known exercise is important.  I studied exercise science in college and even taught aerobics classes.  Unlike many people, I really enjoy exercise.  I love going to the gym and the feeling you get after a workout.

When Kevin took his internship this summer and we evaluated our finances, we looked at my gym membership.  I couldn't give it up, I have been with 24 Hour Fitness for 6 years, and didn't want to pay the start up fees again when I would eventually join, so we stripped it down to the basic.  I still tried to squeeze in time, but with Kevin's new schedule, it wasn't happening, I wasn't making it.

Since we moved and Kevin got a very small raise, we talked about adding the kid's club to my membership.  It would be the same price as it was before we stripped it down, but I was still trying to get on board with adding $15 dollars a month for one kid.  We decided to do it, I want to get in shape and have an easier labor.

I am not a work out at home person.  I get too easily distracted and don't feel like I get a good enough work out.  I like the variety of machines and weights at the gym, and the fact that I can change it up.  Also I need to get out of the house, and Milo does too.

We went for the first time on Wednesday, I dropped Milo off at the kid's club, and headed up to do some cardio.  I started off slow, since I am pregnant I figured I should take it easy, and did 35 minutes on the elliptical.  I love that machine, to me it is the most bang for your buck, the most calories burned in the amount of time, and I love the low impact.  Especially when my pregnant hips are aching.  I went down and did my arms, and when I looked in to see Milo, he was climbing all over the place, in a place that climbing is encouraged, YAY!

I feel like it was a good decision, we both really enjoyed it.  I think it is important too, for your kids to see that exercise is important to you and that it is fun, so that they will want to do it too.

That day I was in such a great mood.  I had more patience to handle tantrums and I was just happier.  When Kevin came home for lunch, he noticed the difference.  I know that I have depression, especially in the winter, and I know that exercise helps combat it.

We went again today and are going tomorrow.  Hooray for fitness!

Milo's Muffin Tin

Eating has been hit or miss for Milo lately.  I don't know if he just isn't into some foods or if the move messed him up or what.  It could be snacking or maybe he is drinking a little more milk, I don't know.

Here is a meal from the other day.  About a year ago, we had some Amazon credit and bought these food picks.  I had forgot about them and then when I unpacked them the other day I tried them out to see what Milo would think.  HE LOVED THEM.  Who wouldn't!

Top:

Grapes, Smiley cheese, pickles

Bottom:

Bunny egg, bunny crackers, and edema me

I was trying to go with foods he liked, it was a weird combo.  It was a rough meal and took 45 minutes of playing with, smashing, and me begging for us to get to the after.  Pretty good considering.

 Here is a close up of the bunny egg.  He thought it was awesome, but as you can see above, he still wasn't too into it.

Bittersweet.

Good riddance February!  Usually I don't mind the month, but this year it was rough.  We finally sold our condo and moved a few blocks south to Murray.  My in laws own a condo and they are graciously letting us rent out the top floor. 

Let me just say that moving, while 6 months pregnant, with an almost 2 year old, while your husband is in his last semester of school, isn't the smartest thing I have ever done.  It has been exhausting to say the least, but we are moved in and adjusting well.

It was sad to leave our condo, there are so many memories there.  I lived there before we were married, it was our first place together, and where we brought Milo home.  We are sad to leave our wonderful neighbors and the ward.  It is for the best though, hopefully, we can get Kev done with school, save lots of money up, and get settled as a family of 4 soon.

We bought Milo a big boy bed and thought we would slowly try to transition him into it.  He has slept there 2 times so far, once for 2 hours, and once for 3 hours, both at night.  He wakes up crying, still in the bed, we can't quite figure out what is going on.  We aren't in any rush though, so we will just take our time.

After seeing Daddy use his tools to set up the bed, Milo had to go get his tools to help.

So cute.

Happy Heart Day!

Valentine's Day was really low key for us this year.  We had too much going on between, school, work, and moving.  Kevin and I decided we would pretty much forget about it, since I had to work that night, and budgets are tight.  I still tried to make it fun for Milo though and although we had a "let's not get each other anything" agreement, some one, ahhemmm Kevin, didn't hold up on his end of the bargain.

Milo got a fun Valentine from his friend Aspen, he had fun opening it and was excited about the car!

 My Mom gave me this Valentine bear a couple years ago, Milo liked it a lot.  I found this very boy Valentine container last year on clearance and had fun filling it with a few things.  I don't really want to get in the habit of getting "presents" for every holiday, but I think a holiday book each year will be a fun tradition to start.  I like that the container is small, so I can put a little surprise in it every year.

 For Christmas Milo's cousin Eli gave him a bunch of Sesame Street characters.  He LOVES them.  Lately, he has been talking a lot about Ernie, but we didn't have the Ernie one.  While perusing the toy aisle at Wal-Mart the other day in an effort to keep Milo entertained, I saw the Bert & Ernie pack.  I thought they would be a fun Valentine surprise.  He loved them and was so excited about Ernie!

Here is all the loot, some candy (which he shared with Mommy, what a nice boy I have!), Bert & Ernie, a Valentine book, and some foam stickers.  He has had a blast sticking and re-sticking those everywhere!

 He really liked his Valentine book too, I think I have read it about 20 times now.

 Milo immediately had to take Bert & Ernie and have them join their friends.  Here they are on top of a moving box.  You will have to excuse all the clutter from moving in all of these pictures.

 I held up my end of the bargain by not getting Kev much of anything.  Although, if you know me, me getting him Mountain Dew is pretty much a huge gift!  I NEVER have soda in the house, especially no caffeine, I would say that is love. :)  Milo also made Daddy a gift by coloring the sucker lips.

 I made a bunch of the sucker lips for people at work.  Our Communication & Interior Design department got really into the Valentine's Day spirit this year and made Valentine bags and gave other departments heart attacks.  It was fun, it reminded me of being back at school again.

When I got to work I found out Kevin had not lived up to his word of not getting me anything when my coworker told me there was a package for me.  This is what I found....

It was really nice and I couldn't help from smiling.  What a thoughtful, amazing husband I have!  I took the picture at home after work, so needless to say it is not the best.

Kevin and Milo even came to work to visit me on my lunch break.  It was a wonderful holiday!

Happy Valentine's Day!!

From this little heart breaker!!!