Let's finish February...

Well I know it has been quite a while since I posted. Don't worry, I didn't quit the blogging world....but I did take a nice vacation from it. Everything is going well for our family. We're a month out from having our little baby girl and I am feeling a bit fatigued. But ready or not we are about to be the parents of two! Here is a quick recap of February (the last month I wrote).

Taylor and Noah took swimming lessons together at the Kearns Oquirrh Rec Center. It was fun to go every Saturday and play in the water with them! And being in the water helped me to forget the aches of pregnancy!
This was Taylor and Noah's first swim lesson in a pretty chilly pool. They were shivering by the end of it and even had purple lips! But still no complaints out of these two - probably because they could hardly even move!
Anytime Taylor can hear kids playing outside she hurries to the front windows to see which of her friends are out. She waves and says hi to them repeatedly. (Most of "her friends" are girls between 8-10 years old). She absolutely loves for them to come over (almost daily) and play with her or take her for walks.
This is one of Taylor's friends, Makayla. One day they decided to watch a little show together.
Levi set up a hut/theater for the Ernest grandkids in our basement. It was fully enclosed with tarps & blankets and a 13" TV to watch their featured film on.
Levi and Taylor heading outside to do some work in the yard!
Here is our little bookworm. Taylor often looks through books on her own and is now starting to jabber a lot more as she turns the pages. Reading before bed is often a must, and is something her Daddy enjoys doing with her too.
I was surprised with a very generous gift for Valentine's Day (we usually don't give gifts on this holiday). A good old KitchenAid! Thanks honey, it has sure been fun to use!
March and April will soon be on their way!

Our little hopper

So Taylor is nearly 14 months old! Wow, writing that just scared me because our 2nd little girl will be here in about 3 months. Yikes! Anyway, to get back on topic.....Taylor is almost 14 months and refuses to WALK! I know, I know....don't worry about it, we should be enjoying her crawling, etc etc. The thing is, she doesn't really crawl either. Well, she does crawl but 90% of the time she actually hops...on her knees. It's a hop/scoot because she gets around...and is pretty efficient with her mode of transportation. I don't know where she picked this up...she WAS always a big fan of the jumper and since she isn't in that much anymore, this must be her replacement. I guess in her mind she's thinking, "Who needs to walk when you can hop!" Thank goodness it's still long pants season because by the end of the day her little knees are bright red - sometimes they look like rug-burns! Isn't that awful?! But she still insists on being the little energizer bunny that she is! Have you ever seen anything quite like this?! (Don't worry, we have plenty of "hopping footage" on our video cam to show her when she's bigger).

Our new place!

Do you remember that home in West Jordan that Levi remodeled? Well, we have moved into it! Yep, I know you didn't even know we were looking to move! We didn't either but with the home just sitting there in this soft market something had to be done right? We feel so fortunate and blessed to be apart of such a wonderful family that helped to make this happen for us!

Levi had surgery the first week of January and by the 15th we were sleeping in our beautiful new home! Hey, with a last name like Ernest, things can happen before you know it! I hadn't packed one box on Monday and by Thursday we were completely moved in! It was kind of crazy and I had all these plans to move in a very organized fashion - ha I know, funny...like that would have really happened anyway. And after the fact, I'm glad it all happened so fast and we hardly had time to even think about the work that goes into moving. Levi wasn't even supossed to lift anything for a month, and overall he did pretty well...saving all the heavy items for his brothers. Which bytheway deserve a BIG thank you! Thanks to all who helped us out! We appreciate and love you so much!

Anyone is welcome to come out for a visit! We'd love to have you!

Well, I pulled it off!!

So, yesterday (February 6th) was Levi's 30th Birthday! I decided I couldn't let such a huge milestone go unnoticed and so I threw a small surprise party for my honey. And, well, I really did pull it off! I hardly even had to lie because tonight we are having a small family party for Levi's and Clair's birthdays. Unfortunately, Levi had the camera in his truck and so I don't have all the action but we did get some good filming in. A big thanks goes out to Levi's parents for tieing him up for me. I paniced when I knew he was on his way home and no one was here yet and so I detoured him to get some milk at the store. He ended up arriving about 5-10 minutes after his friends. It was fun surprising him!

Here are some cute pictures of Levi and Taylor. She absolutely loves her Daddy. And lately, goes down to bed much better for him than I. They were routing hard for Daddy's favorite football team, the Carolina Panthers, but unfortunately they lost to Arizona. I love my family! Thank you Levi for all the hard work you do for us. You are such a great friend, husband and father! We love you so much and hope your birthday was fun and memorable!

We are having a....

Well, we had our ultrasound for our baby on the way....and need I say more? We're not done buying pink yet! Everything looked great and the baby looked healthy which puts me more at ease. Our little one was super active and put on quite a show! We had a hard time telling what the sex was but at the very end the tech checked one more time and it was obvious that we were having a girl! I just started laughing and Levi didn't say anything for a minute and then said, "That's...all right!" But then quickly added, "What I meant to say was, that's wonderful!" That just got the tech and I laughing even harder! We really are excited for another girl and hope these little sisters (17 months apart) will be the best of buddies!

Taylor's 1st Birthday

December 26th we started Taylor's 1st Birthday by letting her open her Christmas presents followed by her birthday presents. Poor girl - it will be a hard birthday to have, but we will do what we can to make it special for her. Any ideas? I have heard of a few cute ideas such as: decorate a "birthday" tree for her, have a special half birthday gift or activity, or have an early December birthday party. Anyhow, we'll just have to get creative!

After gifts, we prepared to go to the Ernests. We had such great snow that day, that it reminded me of the day she was born. Taylor went sledding once or twice with Daddy and Levi's sister Michelle put on a fun hot dog lunch.


Wow, looks like I ate too much!

Gma, Alisha and I.

Taylor sure has a friend in Gma. She's even showing teeth which rarely happens on camera!

Don't these two look so much alike? Even minus similar outfits, you can definitely tell they are related! This is Taylor's cousin Maddy!

When we got back to the house we let Taylor dig into a cupcake and ice cream! I think she was a little stage-fright having a dozen people or so watching her every move, but she did great! And even deserved a bath afterwards! We were also celebrating Eddie and Michelle's B-days so they got special treatment too! After opening gifts, Taylor was more than ready for a nice long nap!


Taylor with Auntie Michelle and Uncle Eddie, celebrating the December birthdays!(Taylor shares Eddie's birthday and Michelle's is a few days later.)





Thanks for all the generous gifts everyone! You really spoiled our little girl! She has been loving all her new toys! Thanks for spending the day with us and making Taylor feel extra special!

Christmas 2008

So, it's time to do some quick recapping of Christmas so that we can officially put it behind us! We had a great Christmas! Taylor was feeling so much better (she had had croup) so we were able to join in our family festivities.

We spent Christmas Eve at Levi's parents home where we ate the traditional fondue (it was better than ever!) and then had our special live nativity. This year we did something just a little different though, we bundled up and trekked in the snow down to the hay barn where there was a humble manger for our baby Jesus (Noah played the part like an old pro). We sang carols, read about the nativity in the scriptures, adored the children all dressed up in character, sang more carols and enjoyed the sweet humble Spirit that was there. It was a memorable night! The grandkids enjoyed opening one present from g-ma and g-pa. Taylor loves books right now as you can see.






Christmas Day we actually had to wake up Taylor (probably the last year for that!) and get on our way to breakfast at Levi's parents. So we left our gifts and Santa's gifts for Taylor at home, sure that we'd get to them later. (Levi and I opened our gifts Christmas Eve this year). We had a delicious breakfast followed by much gift giving and gift unwrapping! We gave cabin oriented gifts to Gma and Gpa this year and we got lucky and found a toboggan which we bought with Rosenbergs. Our little Taylor sure got spoiled! Her big gift was the horsey from Gma and Gpa. She loves it!





At noon we were at my sister Chantal's (just a few doors down) for a delicious brunch and fun. The kids did their gift exchange, we played some games, and enjoyed just being together. We were lucky to have my parents and Jeff make the trek up to Utah this year. They are always going overboard with gifts to the kids as well. (I guess that's just what grandparents do!) We ate dinner at Chantal's and then headed back to Levi's parents for a few to play a little Wii and then made our way home.


It was kind of crazy thinking that this was Taylor's 1st Christmas and that I was pregnant last Christmas (having no idea I'd go into labor Christmas night). And it's definitely even crazier that I was pregnant again this Christmas! Let's hope this isn't a new tradition. Thanks mom and dad for the awesome bike trailer for our kiddos and for the baby swing. We are so lucky that we have such great families and that we got to spend time with both of them!