Batter up!

Luke scored a ton of sweet outside toys for his birthday, like this tee-ball set from my parents:

Thanks, Yaya and Papa!

Luke versus Balloony

Who needs fancy toys when you can get a free balloon while shopping at Sam's Club?

Channeling her inner Beeba

Taylor got a fun toy from her Grampy and Grandma for her birthday:  A vtech Kidizoom camera. It’s pink and durable and oh-so-fun for her to walk around the house and take pictures with. It’s pretty sweet, and because it’s got a memory card and actually takes semi-decent pictures, I just had to share some of my budding photographer daughter’s work.

As you probably gathered, it's got a rotating lens that allows us to take self-portraits. And it also has a function that lets you add shapes and silly effects to the pictures. 

Her Beeba will be proud!

An epic Christmas

As anticipated, we had a fabulous Christmas. Let me rephrase that – We had the best Christmas ever. Now that we are a blessed family of four, and now that Taylor is old enough to really enjoy Santa Claus and unwrapping presents, Chris and I were in heaven just sitting back and watching our children’s big blue eyes light up and pure happiness radiate through their smiling faces as they tore paper off their new treasures.

Taylor received quite a few costumes and other glittery, magical toys from family:

Luke scored big with lots of new boy-toys:

And, of course, my baby boy ate his fair share of wrapping paper:

Santa was gracious enough to slide down our chimney, stuff all of our stocking full of goodies and leave the Princess her coveted ballerina doll and Luke got a firetruck.

And then we opened gifts from our family of four, ending with Taylor squealing in delight when Chris brought in her fancy Princess scooter from the garage:

It was perfect. And I truly hope that all of you had as much love and joy swirling through your house and hearts as we did. Happy Holidays!

Doctor doctor. Gimme the news.

In which I get put on antibiotics and Taylor gets a unicorn

So Monday afternoon I started to feel a bit rundown, which isn’t all that uncommon after coming off a busy Father’s Day weekend and considering the fact that I have been sleeping in three to five hour intervals for the past two months. And then I noticed that my chest was super tender, but chalked it up to getting a Taylor-elbow or running into something. Because I’m a total klutz, and my legs and arms are constantly flailing into objects, resulting in random bruises and scrapes. I’ve never been graceful, and throw in exhaustion and the fact that I’m constantly stepping over and around Taylor and Ruby while holding Luke, I’m bound to always have a few battle-wounds on me.

But then nighttime arrived, and I went from feeling rundown to completely whooped, and I started shaking with the worst body chills I’ve ever had. And my chest went from feeling uncomfortable to having red streaks running across it and being so painful I would scream if any pressure was put on it. And when I looked at Chris and said, I don’t feel very good, he got out the thermometer and took my temperature, which registered at 101-degrees. I was sick and miserable.

And when I finally got out of bed Tuesday morning I felt like I had been hit by a bus. I was so weak I could barely walk up and down the stairs, and my body ached like I had been hit to here and back with a sledgehammer. When I called my doctor’s office and let them know what was going on, they got me right in for an appointment and diagnosed me with Mastitis, which is a bacterial infection prone to mothers who are breastfeeding. And after prescribing me a super-duper antibiotic and telling me to alternate pain meds every three hours, I was sent home to heal and lay on the couch for the rest of the day.

And because Taylor had been cooped up in the house for two days, she had enough pent-up energy to run to the coast and back. Meaning her and I were on completely opposite wavelengths. So Chris came home early and was put directly in charge of exhausting the Princess. And because it was stormy and gross outside, I suggested he take her to the mall. And if you know my husband, you know his deep hatred for shopping. Despises it. Did I ever tell you the story about how he threw a tantrum while we were registering for our wedding? Right there in the middle of Bed Bath & Beyond, Chris spiked a bundle of washcloths to the ground and stormed out of the store because he couldn’t shop one second longer. So sending him and Taylor, the girl who LOVES to shop, to the mall to get out of the house for a few hours was a bit risky. But I didn’t care. I needed to sleep.

And when they got home, Taylor burst through the front door and squealed, MOM! MOM! MOM! and bounded up the stairs into my room to show me what she had suckered her Dad into buying her. A Unicorn Happy Napper, something she had seen many commercials for while watching cartoons and would always jump up and down and scream, I WANT ONE! I NEED A HAPPY NAPPER! And now she had one. And she was beyond thrilled. And Chris was beaming too. And I was all, Huh? I thought you HATED shopping. And he said that when they walked into the As Seen on TV store and she threw her body on top of the unicorn, all he wanted to do was to buy it for her. And the high that was accompanied with getting his precious girl a new treasure was enough to erase the pain of shopping. And I’m sure her squealing and bouncing around him in delight while clinging to her new napping buddy was enough to make the price worth it as well. He even said to me, Brooke, I would have paid $500 for it if I had to. Wrapped. Around. Her. Finger. And once I’m completely healed, I’m totally gonna take him to JCrew and try the Taylor-method of shopping, throwing myself on top of a few sundresses and pair of jeweled flip flops with pure joy and enthusiasm. Let’s see if it works.

Doll lunch

This morning I took Taylor to a Baby Doll lunch at the Country Club. I had heard about these sorts of functions in relation to American Girl Doll stores and such, and because my daughter loves dolls as much as this pregnant woman loves lunch, we were ecstatic to join my friend, Jen, and her daughter, Marin, for a celebration of all things girly and delicious.

And at the very beginning of the luncheon, all the little girls were asked to say their name and the name of the doll they brought. And when it was Taylor's turn, she proudly announced that she was, Tay-wurr E-wiz-a-beth A-muss, and that she brought her doll, Stwah-berry Shortcake.

And after a fabulous lunch of chicken tenders and grilled cheese sandwiches, the itty-bitties sang songs and played a passing-the-baby-bumblebee game.

Taylor was especially excited for the cake. And when she saw that the candle was an actual sparkler… Well, let's just say we're gonna have to step it up for her birthday cake this year.

It was a super cute party and I was really happy that we were able to go, and with Baby Amys scheduled to arrive in a mere five weeks, any sort of special Mama-Taylor time makes my heart smile. Especially when cake is involved.

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