Tay's 3rd Day of Ski School

Here is Taylor's first time down the "mountain" all by herself... afterwards, she did it about 10 more times. We finally had to bribe her off the slopes with hot chocolate. Later, we found out that she had already had hot chocolate, a cupcake, and a popsicle at ski school for lunch. Lovely.

We are having the mildest winter so far in Vermont! People keep telling us how crazy it is. It felt like we were skiing during spring break yesterday... so warm and sunny. We are hoping for some major snow soon!

Christmas Catch-Up

It's about time to catch-up on pictures from Christmas! We had a really busy Christmas season, and I feel like we are just now back to reality. One of Taylor's favorite activities is making baby Jesus His birthday cake... here are the kids Christmas Eve.

Christmas morning in Vermont!



After a big breakfast and some time playing with toys, we left for the airport that afternoon for a Tennessee Christmas visit.

We went to Mimi and Grandaddy's house first. Here we are the next morning...
Taylor loves to play in her pink car and this time, she let Will in for the fun.
Taylor showing off one of her favorite gifts... a Belle doll.


We then headed to Brentwood to Marms and Papa's house. Here's our Christmas morning there...


Nano gave me and my sweet cousins, Rachel and Alex, matching pj's again!

Dinner at Maggiano's... yum yum!!

I think dessert was the favorite for Taylor and Will...

Our last stop was Memphis!



We enjoyed spending time with Drew and his girlfriend, Elsbeth.

We took a day trip to Jackson to see Tim and Jen and crew.

The kids had a great time playing together!

We loved seeing our friends in Memphis... thanks to everyone who got together so last minute! Taylor loved seeing all of her friends, but especially her buddy, Lilley-Grace.

We had a wonderful Christmas vacation, but it was time to get back after 10 days. Will says it all in our plane ride back to Vermont. :)

Tay's 1st Day of Ski School

On Saturday, Taylor had her first ski lesson. We were so blessed to have warm weather for her first day. She even told me that she got sweaty! :)

Dropping her off... I think I was more nervous than she was.

Brett and I went and did a couple runs and then snuck back to watch her first "run." She never saw us in all the ski gear. Peer pressure is a great thing at this age!



Brett and I had a lot of fun skiing the rest of the day by ourselves! We could get used to this...

Taylor's 1st Ski "Run"

Snow Date

Warning... kid free post! Rare these days... So last weekend, Brett and I had the best overnight date! It has been ridiculously long since we have been anywhere just the 2 of us. My mom came in town and babysat for us. We went up to Smugglers Notch resort, which is where we have season passes (and Taylor's ski school). We got there in the afternoon and tried out our new snow shoes. I never knew that snow shoes existed, but for my southern friends, it really makes it easy to walk in the snow. We are hoping to get some good exercise with them this winter.

Brett and I are randomly into playing Connect 4 right now. I know it sounds strange, but it was so fun to have a glass of wine and play Connect 4 in the condo before dinner. After, we put on our snow boots and walked to a delicious restaurant at the resort.

The next day, we went skiing! Can you tell it was COLD? We are right at the beginning of the season so all of the lifts weren't open, but we still had a great time. We are looking forward to lots of skiing this winter! :)

Our Thanksgiving Holiday

We had a FULL Thanksgiving holiday! This was our first year without being with family, but we still wanted to do something special. We decided to have a Thanksgiving dinner at our house... we had around 20 adults and 7 kiddos come. Everyone brought a dish, and we had TONS of yummy food. This was my first year to wake up at 6am and put the turkey in. :)

So the day before Thanksgiving, we got our first snow! :) It melted within 2 days, and since then, it's been pretty warm. But it got us excited for what's to come! Well, everyone is excited except for Will. The poor child did not enjoy one minute in the snow. He couldn't walk with all of his snow attire on and it made him miserable. We will have to figure something out for him...


Meanwhile, Taylor loved the snow. She and Brett built a snowman together...

Making cornbread dressing the night before... another first!

The kids had lots of fun together on Thanksgiving...



After Thanksgiving, we decorated for Christmas... Taylor loved decorating our 2 trees (1 being a lovely pink one in her room).


To finish the weekend, Taylor and I went to see The Nutcracker. She was so excited to see the ballerinas and loved it! The only problem was that she kept wanting to stand up and dance in her chair. Luckily, lifesavers did the trick!

It's a ZOO around here...

Taylor was very decisive when it came to her Halloween costume this year. I asked her what she wanted to be, and she came up with the idea herself. There was no talking her out of it... she wanted to be a zookeeper! I think she's been missing the Memphis zoo lately... that's the best rationale I can come up with. Anyways, Will was naturally a monkey, and she took her job very seriously of taking care of him.


We had a great time trick-or-treating in our neighborhood... everyone goes all out here! It was definitely a little chilly compared to our usual Southern Halloweens, but our sweet neighbors had some hot cider and chili waiting for us when we were finished. Happy Halloween!