Happy Birthday, Taylor!

We can't believe it's been a year since our Taylor was born! We wanted to celebrate this special time with our family and friends who have been so supportive of us this past year. We threw a "Puppy Party" for Tay, since she LOVES dogs. Here we are getting ready for the party...

Our appetizer was puppy chow on all the tables outside.

Assembling the "pupcakes"

All finished!

The little ones got puppy ears to wear throughout the party.

My mom made Tay a smocked puppy party dress... it was so sweet. She did an incredible job.

All decorated inside...

And outside...

The crew from Nashville...



Fun at the party...









We had a yummy dinner... Gus' fried chicken (so so good), mashed potatoes, green beans, biscuits, fruit salad, pasta salad, and of course, pupcakes and ice cream.

Taylor loved her smash cake... she started digging in before we could sing to her. We finally took it away when a huge chunk was missing...





Here we are on her actual birthday... she finally gets to face forward in her car seat!

Some of her favorite gifts included her shopping cart, red wagon, and bitty baby American girl doll stuff.


Birthday dinner out...

Mary took the pic below... it is one of my all-time favorites from this year. Happy Birthday, Tay-Tay... you are such a joy to us and we are so thankful for you.

Summer Fun!

We've had a fun, busy summer so far... here's a bunch of pics from the past few weeks. Taylor is loving the pool... she loves to splash. Here she is chilling with her daddy...

Grilling out...

Taylor gives "kisses" and also dances when you sing. She is starting to stand a lot and begin walking with someone holding on to her.



Mother's Day...

Father's Day...

Brett had to work a month of nights, so we went to Nashville for a week and my mom also came to Memphis to keep us company. We went out to lunch every day when my mom was in town and ran some errands so Brett could have a quiet house to sleep. At night, we watched Cubs games and mom taught me how to sew. We had some fun girl time! Here we are at Costco sampling some free food...


Here we are at Davis Kidd playing with the trains after lunch...


We went to the pool in Nashville in my dad's neighborhood... Taylor loved it!

With Grandaddy and Uncle Dave...


Dave and Amanda came over both nights for some yummy dinners...


We had a great time visiting family in Nashville... And I also got to see my favorite girls, Mary, Shannon, and Callen!

Chicago!

So about 5 weeks ago, Brett and I went to Chicago for a long weekend. He had a poster presentation at a conference, so I decided to tag along. Taylor's Grandaddy and Mimi watched her for the first part, and then she went to stay with Grammy and Papa. We had great weather... hardly no rain and pretty warm for the season. We, of course, went back to Wrigley for another Cubs game... it's our favorite place to watch a game!



We ate at lots of delicious places, but this ended up being our favorite meal (and the cheapest)...

During the day, Brett would go to the medical conference, and I just walked around Michigan Avenue... it was wonderful. They had this special tulip season display going on, so there were literally thousands of tulips up and down Michigan. It was so pretty.

We went to the Palace Theater and saw the broadway musical, Mary Poppins. It was a really fun show.

Brett is going to be mad if he sees this, but doesn't he look so cute and professional?