Birthdays!

I confess..I've been a bad blogging mama.  I totally skipped over Taylor's first Christmas.  I'm not going to go back and rehash it all...but it was awesome.  She was totally surrounded by our family and we had so much love in our house during our two week break!  We had grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, and many many more people around our house for Christmas.  We also got to spend New Year's Eve with my dad's family which included 11 kids under the age of 11!  Eek!  It was so fun though.

Although I got a Kindle, Dustin got a new iPhone 4S, and Taylor got many many toys and clothes, our best present was a new sister in law!  Dustin's brother Derrick proposed to his girlfriend Erica, and they are getting married in May!  We are very excited for them and can't wait for the wedding.

Derrick and Erica

So...on to January!  I applied to Grad School at UTA!  It was a decision I've been trying to make for a long time and the opportunity presented itself, so I decided that was God's way of nudging me to go.  I'm going to major in Curriculum and Design with an emphasis in Literacy (my favorite subject).  I'm very excited!  And plus because I work at a Title 1 school, it is all paid for!  A-MAH-zing!  God is so good!  

Side note:  We've had some prayers answered lately, and it just reminds me how good God is!  Dustin and I were talking last week after church about our interim pastor's message. One of the verses he read was about loving God more than your husband or wife or children.  We discussed how HARD that is!  It sounds so easy...love God...put Him first...ok, done.  But do I REALLY love Him more than Taylor?  I don't know...and I'm being honest about that.  So that is our challenge this year; figure out how to really LOVE God and put Him first in everything our family does.

Back to January...we celebrated my mom's 25th (haha) birthday and my 29th birthday!  What a great time of celebration.  For my mom's we went to our favorite little local Mexican restaurant, La Isla.  Taylor yelled the whole time!  It was so funny!

For my birthday Dustin took me to Studio Movie Grill on Friday night to see "The Grey."  We never go to the movie, and we didn't know ANY of the movies that were out!  It was too funny.  The night before we had to look at all of the previews for the movies because we didn't know what they were!  The movie ended up being great.  We came home and I finished the book I had been reading on my Kindle and Dustin worked on basketball stuff.  Saturday Taylor and I went to a birthday party for her friend Anderson and then we all came home and watched "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" that night.  Sunday (my actual birthday) we went to church and voted in our new pastor!  Yeah!  Then we had lunch with my parents at Cheddars.  We all came home and took a nap and then went to the park!  Here are some pictures from this weekend.

 Ready for church!

 Donuts before church!

 At the park

 So pretty

 Love my baby girl!