Valentines Day 2012

Taylor before school

Sisterly love

Going through Taylors valentines from school

Hugs and kisses

Zoey tickling Taylor

Family candlelight dinner

Tissue paper and candle aftermath

Taylor and Nathan

Zoey likes her new book

My sweet girls!

Valentines Day was memorable this year. We had a candlelight dinner in the dining room as a family. We then opened presents in the candlelight dining room. Taylor was opening a present and threw her tissue paper which landed on top of the lite candle. It went up in flames as did my table cloth. Thankfully Nathan was able to put it out quickly and no one was hurt.  We had a little talk about fire safety after that! We then moved to the living room to finish opening presents and blew out all the candles.

I love my girls and my wonderful husband. God has truly blessed me with an amazing family.

Zoey walking at 15 months!

On January 15th, Zoey stood up on Taylors stage and walked from Nathan to me. We were in total shock! She had taken one or two steps before, but never truly walked. After she walked across the stage, I ran downstairs to get the camera and ran back upstairs. We could not get Zoey to walk again. She refused to even stand up that night. It's like she knew we wanted to get a picture and she just wouldn't do it. She's so funny.  The next day Zoey walked across our bedroom and I was able to catch her on video.  She walked a little bit every day that week and then she hasn't stopped walking since. Now her and Taylor play chase and are having a blast together.

Sign language class

With the ECPTA, we took a family sign language class on Saturday afternoon for an hour and learned a ton of new signs. We used a few signs with Taylor when she was little like eat, drink, more, and milk.  We also taught Zoey those signs and it has been so nice avoiding numerous meltdowns due to lack of communicaton.

At the sign language class, we learned banana, orange, hot dog, hamburger, please, thank you, mom, dad, grapes, dog, cat, bacon, eggs, pizza, numbers, letters, and a few more. Taylor picked them up immediately and loves using them. Zoey didn't really get them that day, but she does do banana pretty often because she loves to eat them. We make her use her signs when she asks for things. It's a lot of fun to do with the girls.

Zoey talking to her friend. Taylor is in the striped dress watching the teacher.

Soccer skills class for Taylor

Taylor took a soccer skills class this January. She learned how to shoot, how to dribble and teamwork. Zoey wanted to get out there so bad with her big sister she could hardly stand it!

The animals within.......

I have to preface this post by saying that I do not believe in reincarnation or animal spirits or anything like that. With that said, if God does give us an animal spirit or if we are animals in a past life, I know exactly what my children are/were. Taylor is part Turtle and Zoey is part Honey Badger.  Taylor is as slow as molasses. I really need to pray for patience with her and how long it takes her to do anything. I don't know if she just gets distracted like I do or if she just isn't in a hurry to get anywhere! Now, Zoey on the other hand is a total Honey Badger (those of you who have seen the internet video of the Honey Badger know what I'm talking about). Zoey seems to be fearless and just does what she wants when she wants to. She will head dive off her little chair into another chair, she climbs on everything, she takes what she wants and she listens only when she wants to.  It is truly amazing to see how God has created these two little girls to be so much alike and so different at the same time. The best part is, they adore each other and play so well together.  I love my little girls and I can't wait to see the young ladies they turn into. It will be interesting to see if they stay the same animals or if they create new ones.