Taylor turns Four

Taylor is now a four year old. Just take a moment to process that. I started this blog in 2008 right before she was born, and most of you have been reading it since its beginning. Which means y’all have virtually known my daughter since the day her eight pound, nineteen-and-a-half inch body entered this world. And that was FOUR years ago. That’s a long time, folks. That’s the total amount of time you spent in high school or college. Think about how much you changed from the beginning to end of those journeys. And look how much this little peanut has grown since I gave birth to her four years ago.

 Ah. Those CHEEKS! We still got a bit of them left, but she’s really starting to lean out and grow into a real person. Gone is the squishy baby whose cheeks would hand below her chin and arms looked like they were bound with rubber bands. And while Luke’s face is super kissable, there is no comparison to Taylor’s baby-face. I pretty much smooched those delicious cheeks away.

And her personality has grown so much this past year as well. Three was a good year for Taylor. She became a big sister, she started school and she really blossomed into the caring, sweet little Miss that she is. I always pictured her being a bit of a diva, and while she still is a girly-twirly-pink-princess, she is sensitive and kind and funny and charming. She is a fantastic sharer-of-toys with her friends, a super tolerant big sister to a silly brother who is always on top of her and a well-behaved little person who listens well and is eager to help me and Chris as needed. She is perfect. And I am so lucky to get to spend everyday with this lovely girl and bask in her adorableness, and Chris and I are beyond thankful that she is our daughter.

So for such a precious girl, we had to make her birthday pretty special, right? And the day began with Chris and I sneaking in some balloons into the nursery to surprise her. And the awesome reaction was enough to solidify it as a tradition from here out:  Wake up to balloons on your birthday.

And my four year old was thrilled to be able to celebrate with her Yaya and Papa. It truly made her day that much more wonderful to have them here to give her birthday hugs and spend the day with her and watch her open their presents to her.

Oh yes. Of course there were lots of presents. Chris and I were pretty adamant to not buy her anymore plastic Princess junk that eventually ends up at the bottom of the toy chest. And since the weather is warming and we prefer to all be outside together, we got Taylor her first real-bike for her birthday. And she loved it.

A PRINCESS Huffy that has a attachable little carriage so she can ride with her dolls. Chris wanted to get her a normal, no-theme bike that Luke could possibly ride one day, but we knew she would prefer the pink, glittery one. Sorry, Luke.

So, as you can see, it was a wonderful day. And since Miss Taylor was born at 9.29 in the evening, all day long Chris and I would check the clock and announce, Four years ago RIGHT NOW we were doing such-and-such. Yep, we’ve been parents for four years now, and may I say we’ve done a pretty awesome job. High fives and Woot-woots! to us. So far, so good, eh? And I have a sneaking suspicion it will only get better from here. 

Fashionista

She says she's a Princess Cowgirl Fairy.

I just think she's awesome.

My little mermaid

Last summer there was a little girl at our pool who always wore a Little Mermaid swimsuit, and Taylor was OBSESSED with it. Every time the other kid would walk or swim past her, Miss T would scream out, ARIEL! And when I asked the little girl's mom where she got the suit, she said it was a handmedown from some cousins. Which is typical of any amazing outfit or accessory that you spy on someone else and immediately want for yourself. Oh, THESE earrings? These are just a little something I picked up in Paris. Well, a lot of good that does me.

But this weekend, in my first post-sickness attempt to get both kids out of the house solo, we were browsing through a store in the mall and Taylor started squealing, Mom, Ariel! MOM, ARIEL! MAH-AHM! AIR-EEE-ELL! And there it was. A Little Mermaid swimsuit. And for as much grief as I gave Chris for caving and getting her the Happy Nappy Unicorn earlier in the week, there was no way I couldn't get her that swimsuit.

And she was so excited about her new suit, that we just had to break it in at the pool yesterday.

And she is just getting so brave at the pool, and each time we go she jumps a little further and stays off the steps for longer stretches. And because Luke is always with us, sometimes in his bag and sometimes in my arms, I can't always be in the water for her to jump to. And she has adjusted beautifully.

I am so proud of her. And so is her little brother, who was cheering from the sidelines.

Like winning the toddler lottery

About a month ago Chris was talking with a woman that works in his office about Taylor's uber-obsession with Princesses and how our house currently looks like the Disney Store, and she remarked upon how her granddaughter's also adored Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty when they were younger, and that she had some old dress-up costumes that were gathering dust at their beach house that we might be interested in. And after spending her holiday at the coast, she so kindly brought back the frilly, sparkly outfits for our precious Princess. And when Chris showed them to her, her little body started convulsing and she started shrieking, SLEEPING BOOTY DRESS! CINDERELLA COSTUME! with such enthusiasm that Ruby even got up from her nap to check out the action.

And who better to share her new loot with than her very best princess friend, Elliot. And just watching these two beaming toddlers prune in front of the mirror and remark on each other's outfits was like watching Taylor open her Christmas presents all over again. An absolute joy.

Now the only problem is trying to leave the house without one of the new costumes on.

Best. Christmas. EVER.

Happy Christmas weekend from the Famous Amys household. I hope that everyone enjoyed their holiday as much as we did in snowy Asheville. Yes, SNOWY. It was the first White Christmas on record for our area since 1981. And while we usually revel in our year-round mild temperatures, it was quite the treat to have a winter wonderland surround us for the holidays. And even though the weather forecasters had been predicting snowfall for days leading up to Christmas morning, we were a bit skeptical while we were playing in the balmy sunshine the day before. Here’s the picture of Taylor and Chris I snapped right before Mass on Christmas Eve – note the lack of coats:

And after waking up to beautiful, big snowflakes on Saturday and having it steadily drop throughout the day, here’s what we had 24 hours after I took the previous picture:

So, snowy wonderfulness on Christmas is always a bonus, but what was more fun then any accumulation was watching the pure joy and excitement radiating through my toddler’s body while opening the presents she had patiently been staring at for the past weeks. And because Chris’s parents had come into town earlier in the week to celebrate the Amys Christmas, she already had scored a sweet dollhouse and had mastered the ability to rip decorative paper off of packages in record time.

And because the Young family always unwraps the majority of our presents on Christmas day, and the Amys clan opens all their presents on Christmas Eve, Chris and I had to meld our traditions a few years ago to encompass our present-opening heritage. And so at our house we open all extended family and friend gifts on Christmas Eve, and then we get our Santa presents and just-us gifts on Christmas Day. So on Friday night we watched Taylor enjoy all the booty that my parents, her aunt and uncle and my Granddaddy generously gifted to her. Which included some beloved princess shoes from YaYa and Papa, some crafty items from Beeba and Dirky and some blocks and a bus from Uncle Ryan.

And just a quick byline here – At the beginning of the month I got a frantic email from my 90 year old grandfather who was standing in the Homewood toy shop looking for a present for Miss Taylor. And when I responded, Anything to do with a Disney Princess, he took that message to the ladies working at the store and this is what was selected and shipped to my lucky daughter:

A Cinderella Barbie and matching pony. You can only imagine how excited Taylor was when opening the gift, and just moments after ripping it out of the package she looked at us with all joy and enthusiasm on her face and said, Opening presents is lots of fun!

And after falling asleep that night with Cinderella wrapped tightly in her arms, we awoke the next morning to find that Santa had made a significant stop at the Amys house overnight, bringing Taylor oodles and oodles of Princess loot for her stocking and the one gift she had been asking for since we starting questioning what she wanted Santa to bring her for Christmas, a Rupunzel Barbie doll.

We then ate breakfast, made a big fire in the fireplace and started opening the final presents under the tree. Chris and I were pretty excited to give Taylor her big gift from us – a Princess trunk full of dress-up clothes. I’m sure I have mentioned how much T loved her Cinderella costume, and how after months of nonstop wear she finally shredded the skirt and popped all the seams. So we knew she would be super jazzed about a whole trunk of shiny, sparkly princess gear.

And the cherry on top was her very own full-length mirror to put in her room. What can I say, my daughter’s a diva.

So after playing with our new toys, taking a nap to recharge and then building a giant snowman in the front yard, we packed up the Envoy and braved the roads to get to the Bound family’s annual Christmas night throwdown. Because the majority of our good friends here are all Asheville transplants, LeAnn and Jamie open their house for a big celebration the night of Christmas. And they definitely got the party-with-your-kiddos thing down, putting up a projector screen in their media room so the kids could watch holiday flicks while the parents were able to converse downstairs.

I even brought a bottle of Fre alcohol-removed Brut for the occasion – That’s right, even a preggo lady like myself knows how to get down. And baby-in-my-belly was having fun too.

And while driving home last night, Chris and I just kept remarking about how wonderful this Christmas was. Best one on record. The snow, all of our gifts, being with our best friends – We are a very blessed family. But the most awesome part of the whole weekend was being able to see the absolute joy in my daughter’s eyes throughout the last few days. To be a kid again on Christmas is pretty fun, but to WATCH your kids on Christmas is by far the best thing ever. And we can’t wait to do this all again next year, with one more little precious bundle

A dream is a wish your heart makes

I am pretty sure I’ve mentioned about a billion times about how Princesses have hijacked the Amys house for the past six months, and after reviewing Miss Taylor’s wish-list to Santa, it looks like they’re here to stay for a while. So when a friend approached me with the two of us taking her daughter and Taylor to a Disney Princesses on Ice performance, it might have been classified as child abuse if I had passed up the opportunity for my daughter to see real live Princesses.

So yesterday morning the four of us packed up the car and made the short trip to Greenville to watch our little girls squeal in delight. I don’t know who was more excited, Taylor getting to see the object of her obsession close up, or me being able to watch the happiness overtake her teeny-tiny little body.

And let me just take a moment to reflect on the whole production of the show, namely the outrageous amount of Disney Princess plastic CRAP that lined the hallways, positioned right at toddler eye-level. I hadn’t been to an event like this since the Shrine Circus as a kid, and immediately this morning I called my mother and apologized for the fits I’m sure I threw over not getting a $10 glow stick that was surely going to fizzle out on the car ride home. Mom, I’m SORRY! Because the tantrum that overtook my daughter as we were trying to leave because she didn’t get to take home a $20 plastic Tinkerbell crown was awful enough that I had to snatch off her feet and into my arms after the show and stomp out of the building fuming, Just wait until I tell Santa about THIS, young lady!

But I digress, back to the happiness that Disney was also responsible for before the toddler melt-down after the show. So we arrived in Greenville, parked, got an outrageously pricey box of Princess popcorn and got to our seats right as the lights were going down. And you could almost see the energy surging off of Taylor. I’m smiling right now just thinking about it.

I tried to get a good picture of T during the performance, but her expression was one of complete awe and amazement throughout the entire show.

Her favorite parts of the show were the bits about Ariel and, of course, Cinderella.

So the show itself was an entertaining ice skating performance... None of the princesses or princes fell down, which was pretty impressive. Especially considering the get-ups the characters were wearing. So, Bravo, to the performers. But a big whopping BOO! to the all the vendors waiting outside the arena, tempting all the impressionable kiddos with expensive plastic crap and causing a large amount of car rides home to be filled with, I wanna crown! sobs and cries. Is that what I have to look forward to during future trips to Disney World?

Oh well, even with the tantrum it was a pretty awesome experience for all of us, and I am so happy I was able to take her. Just seeing the excitement in her face as she was watching the Princesses made the road trip and the price of the tickets and refreshments totally worth it. Love ya, Princess!