San Jorge

I've always wanted to exclusively call it that. I don't know why.

Anyway, my sister-in-law, Jessica (Jordan's younger sister) and her husband, Joe, eloped in Vegas last year. Well, time flies, and they were ready to be sealed in the St. George temple. So, we all went down to witness the big day!

The sealing was so beautiful. Performed by a gentleman from South Africa--could've listened to his accent all day :) It was great.

Here are some pictures of the day, taken by my father-in-law's long-time friend who lives in St. George:


















LOVE LOVE LOVE this picture of Claire. OF COURSE she has my lip gloss. Of course.

And here are some shots from the casual BBQ we had after the sealing:


Jess and her friends, Nikki and Katelyn

Lenore, Anya, and Jordan

Me and the Groom :)

Claire and Ava: Partners in Crime. They got SO DIRTY at the playground!


Daddy-daughter bonding time

Jen encourages her boy, Solomon, to bring out his feminine side and never shy away from that...


On the left, had to document the fact that Camille ate her ENTIRE raspberry cream jello salad thing (anyway, it's goooood) even though she had a huge heapful on her plate and I told her she'd never finish it. She proved me wrong. All 100 pounds of her little frame :) On the right, there she is with her brother, Ben... he just had shoulder surgery and had "lots of fun" being hauled around everywhere--not to mention driving to St. George in the first place!


Jess and Joe's niece, Marley, and our nephew Sam...or as Claire likes to call him, "Sam-o." He calls her "Claire Bear" all the time. It's really cute :)


Jess wanted cupcakes at the BBQ, so OF COURSE I volunteered! (leading to a cupcake hiatus I am currently on for the next little while...ok til May 21st when I make some for my sister's bake sale). I made chocolate peanut butter (the ones on the right), the vanilla dulce de leche ones, and a coconut cream (not pictured). They turned out yummy, if I do say so myself :)

Anyway, the day was so nice...so nice to be in San Jorge too...it was so cold in Utah still and it was great to be in the nice warm weather. Notice I didn't say "blistering hot?" Yeah, that would have NOT been nice...so I'm not moving there any time soon Honey, sorry...I know you are cold ;)

Anya: The 6-Monther & Photo Shoot :)

OK, I know all of you have been eagerly awaiting Anya's new stats...right? :) JK. But I like to have them recorded because it's fun to actually look back and compare her stats to Claire's at This age!

Weight: 15.9 lbs, 50th percentile
Height: 26 inches, 61st percentile
Head circumference: 16.9 inches, 67th percentile

So, weight is the same percentile-wise, but then she's leveling out in the height department and her head is getting too big for her body. Interesting!

So, photos for this post (except for two totally lame ones from my not fancy camera) are courtesy of Jordan, who took pictures of Anya impromptu actually, when we were in Vegas a couple weeks ago. This is in my niece, Sydney's room, and she has the cute stripes on the wall--actually HAD cute stripes...more on that to come!



All is well with her. She is developing well, aside from all of her ailments lately. She has now had RSV, a variety of less serious colds off and on, and an ear infection.

Anya really likes practicing walking. It is so cute :)

She really likes sleeping...but still not enough. Mommy could use more breaks. She is a CAT NAPPER unless you're holding her. It is so freaking annoying and tiring :( But this too shall pass!

She is incredibly happy :)

Some more Anya-isms:

-She is OBSESSED with soda cans. It all started with Mommy's Fresca one day. Now, any time she sees a can, if she could sprout wings, she WOULD.

- She's a total mama's girl--this too shall pass :) Just like Claire probably, at this age. She will soon be a Daddy's girl, if she is anything like her sister.

-At first, when you fed her anything, she acted like she was going to throw up her whole body. It was hilarious/sad. So, I started feeding her off my finger...then started with spoons, and then realized that I really needed to stop mixing formula in with the cereal, and then she was golden!! "Formula is NASTY, Mommy."

-So I admit she's now 7 months old, since I've been so slow at blogging it (I'm so behind!! I still have to do our St. George trip, Vegas trip, and Easter!! AH!)...anyway...this was a few weeks ago, trying to get her to figure out the eating thing:



-She still doesn't roll over, or even think about crawling. We joke that she'll probably walk before she even crawls. She loves walking with Daddy.









She's just the cutest. What can I say?

Easter Dress

SO, now that I have my new sewing machine, I've been going crazy with sewing projects! I love it!! And I'm getting way better at sewing...to the point that I've finally made some apparel-items I wouldn't mind anyone wearing in public.

Drumroll:

Ta da!!!!!!!!


And there she is showing it off with her signature Chuckie smile!

Now, I have to say that I TOOK these pictures with Jordan's fancy camera. So, basically there were a LOT of out focus pictures. Mainly because I have no idea how to use his camera, and then I had issues taking pictures of a squirmy 2-yr old (go figure, right?)









So I actually made TWO super cute coordinating Easter dresses. But Anya's was off the second church got out, so I only got pictures of Claire. But I'm obsessed with how adorable they turned out, actually. To the point that I even forced...ok...helped...some of my friends make them for their girls for Easter too :) I want to show off and say they were soooo hard, but they're not, let's be honest here :)This is me we're talking about!







Oh, funny about when I was pinning the pattern pieces to the fabric... Claire comes up and says "I do ouchies" and she started jabbing pins into the pattern pieces haha. She was calling the pins "ouchies" because we always say "oh, don't touch those, they're ouchie!" LOL.

More Claireisms

Claire is saying so many cute, funny things, it's getting overwhelming to blog them all, I must say.

Sad thing is, when she's with cousins or friends, all people really see are her "terrible two" moments...

So I have to document her cute moments to make sure they exist haha. But there are some "terrible" ones too, let's be honest.


Love this pic of the girls. Claire loves laying on the floor next to Anya.

And this one! "Baby Sister and Claire!" as Claire says :)

Claire enjoys makeup. Every once in a while I put one swipe of mascara on each set of her lashes. I think it makes her look a little like Cindi Lou Who :)

This is Claire's favorite thing about Costco. Besides the hot dogs. No wait, maybe that's my favorite :)


Claire was putting the moves on Connor at her friend, Ella's birthday party. He wasn't having it lol!

And speaking of that birthday party: I am kind of obsessed with the cake Kjirsten made. I even watched the video about how to make it on marthastewart.com. I am so impressed, Kjirsten!! That is why I make cupcakes. They are WAY easier to decorate :)

Other funny Claireisms (minus the pictures I guess!)

-We've been teaching Claire to--instead of let out an annoying whine--say "no thank you" when she doesn't want the food we're trying to get her to eat. So far so good. But the other night, she REALLY didn't want the food. She said, "DUDE! No thank you, DUDE!"

-What's Claire's favorite food? Butterfly food. I don't know why, but that's always what she says.

-The other day, Claire really wanted Jordan to paint her nails (he's done it a couple of times...) His excuse was that he was sick (Jordan is always sick :( ). So she said, "Please Daddy! I have medicine!"

-Recent FHE lesson was on saying your sorry. Claire should know this one since she goes into time out 57 times a day, and always says "sorry baby sister" and gives hugs after... ANYWAY, we related the story of Nephi building the boat and how his brothers wouldn't help and then they repented and told him they were sorry. Jordan then held up the picture that corresponded to the story. There was Nephi in front of a boat with a pile of building supplies next to him, and the brothers, etc. etc. Anyway, Jordan said, "Claire, what is Nephi building?" She said, "He's building a boat!" And then Jordan sked, "Claire, what's he building it out of?" And she said, just as resolutely: "He's building it out of CRAP!" Jordan says she said that because the pile of building supplies beside Nephi looked a lot like the "crap" (computer stuff, circuits, etc.) I tell him to pick up in the living room. Ooops! :)

-OK, this may be a little TMI, but she's 2 so.... I have to tell anyway. So, lots of mornings when Claire wakes up, I look at her, and she can tell I'm kinda trying to look up her nose to see if she has these enormous "crusty boogies" I may need to extract (which is her NOT favorite thing) before we are seen in public. It's funny because when she sees me looking she'll cover her nose, haha. Anyway, so the other day I was changing her diaper, and was giving a closer look to her little bum crack because I thought it has "residue" in it. Gross I know. (btw. there wasn't--it was just diaper rash cream) So, Claire looks at me sternly and says, "Mommy, there's no crusty boogies in my bum!!"

-Claire likes to feed everyone but herself really... She likes to say, "Here comes the train" and put it in your mouth. Tonight she didn't like the spinach in her soup. So, she offers me her spoon with the spinach on it, saying "Here comes the leafy train!" Then, she graduated to "Eat the leaf, giraffe!" That went a little too far. I am not a giraffe.

-Claire can count in Spanish and loves to climb (singing "sube!" from Diego) and then yell out "Ayudame!! Help!" til we come get her. Auntie Natalie especially loves this Claireism :) She likes to call her "Natty Bones" too.

-When Jordan drives the car fast, or does a quick turn, Claire says "CRAZY driver!"

-Claire has adopted the phrase, "You're killin' me" into her vocabulary. I wonder where she got that from? What mother would say that to her 2-yr. old??

-The naughtiest and most all-over-the-place Claire has ever been during family night has been during the "Obedience" lesson. Go fig. We definitely remembered which lesson we were on the next Monday, when usually we forget.

-Today Claire saw that I had an "owie" on my finger, and she said, "I'm worried about you, Mommy." And I said "Why?" She continued: "Your owie. I'm worried about you, Mommy."

-Claire is obsessed with bullying (pushing, headlocking, WWF...whatever you want to call it) younger boys. I hope this doesn't last into her teens...

-One playgroup when Claire was in timeout for pushing this sweet defenseless little boy, Cooper, another little boy (she also does the same thing to), Hudson, came over to her during her stint in the naughty corner, and she yelled at him: "Go away! I in time out!!" Haha :)

-She just started thinking potty language is hilarious. The other day she spilled some food (can't remember what it was) on her shirt. She was picking it off with her fingers, all the while saying "
mmmm, poop! Mmmm poop!" She's crazy.

-She loves telling us that her name is "Claire Michelle Taylor" especially when we call her by other pet names--she corrects us defiantly. And "Anya Corinne Taylor" is baby sister's name. She also LOVES calling Jordan by his first name, or "Honey" and saying "Jordan Dewey Taylor" or just "Daddy Dewey Taylor" or what sounds like "Dewey Dewey Taylor." She loves the "Dewey" part. It's her great grandpa's name so that's good! She doesn't ever remember my name though.

-When she wants to be held, she says, "Cara me! Cara me!" Jordan corrects her. I don't. I don't like to correct the cute ways she says things...it's depressing because I want her to stay young and adorable for as long as possible!

I just love my little sweetie bug. I love tucking her into bed and singing her songs. I love it when she says "I love you so much" and "Snuggle me, Mommy" and "Thank you mommy!" I love it when she says "It's OK sweetie bug" to Anya or "baby sister, bless you!" when she sneezes. And I love it when she screams, "Daddy's home!" nearly hyperventilating with joy, when Jordan walks through the door. She is my little monkey.

Vanilla Cupcakes with Dulce de Leche Center and Almond Buttercream

These were pretty yummy too.

Back on the diet. I have been bad this week. I don't know about you, but the last 5 lbs. are the HARDEST!!

Magnolia's Vanilla Cupcake

• 1 1/2 cups self-rising flour
• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1 cup milk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Line 2 (1/2 cup-12 capacity) muffin tins with cupcake papers.

In a small bowl, combine the flours. Set aside.

In a large bowl, on the medium speed of an electric mixer, cream the butter until smooth. Add the sugar gradually and beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the dry ingredients in 3 parts, alternating with the milk and vanilla. With each addition, beat until the ingredients are incorporated but do not over beat. Using a rubber spatula, scrape down the batter in the bowl to make sure the ingredients are well blended. Carefully spoon the batter into the cupcake liners, filling them about 3/4 full. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the center of the cupcake comes out clean.

When cooled, fill with dulce de leche (you can put an unopened can of sweetened condensed milk in the crock pot for 8 hours and it will "magically" turn into dulce de leche, by the way).

Almond Buttercream:

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 8-9 cups confectioners' Sugar
• 1 1/2 Tsp. Vanilla ext.
• 1 Tsp. Almond ext.
• 1/2 to 1/3 cup milk

1.) Cream butter in mixing bowl until fluffy. Beat in confectioner's sugar 1-2 cups at a time with mixer. Add extracts. 2.) Add milk slowly until the desired "frosting" consistency is achieved.

YUM.
Ps. Stole the picture. I don't have any time to take pictures of the cupcakes I make and they're never as pretty, let's be honest :)