Another Baby Girl!

My fourth niece is here! Little baby Charlotte came just 3 days after our 2nd anniversary. (She's the reason why I took a short break from blogging.) Since today is her mother's birthday, I thought I would go ahead and share some of my pictures of her.

Garrett loves "Baby Sister". He only occasionally acknowledges that
her name is Charlotte and not Baby Sister.

Baby Sister gave him a new Dinoco McQueen!

Already smiling in her dreams!

So happy she's here!

Not to sure about being out.

A very happy grandpa.

I love seeing Jonathan with our nieces and nephews. I know he'll be such a good dad!

(No, that was not a pregnancy announcement.)

Garrett helped make a sign to welcome the addition to the family.

We all love baby Charlotte!

Five

For those of you on Instagram, I'm sure you've been seeing a lot of posts with people sharing five things about themselves. Well, my cute friend Jamey tagged me in her blog version and so mow here are my five.

  

1. For the first year of my life, I watched Peter Pan every single day. It had to stop because I wore out the VHS. (Boy, do people even know what a VHS is anymore!)

2. In my entire life, I have lived in a 3 mile radius. Thanks to Jonathan, I at least left the city I grew up in for almost two years. That should be changing by the end of this year though.

3. I can out belch just about anyone, including my husband. I refused to do it in front of him because I was worried that it would scare him off. Luckily, it didn't and now I've been helping him to not burp like a little baby.

4. When I was in high school, I really wanted to get through school, have a career, and eventually settle down and have a family. That seems pretty typical in the world we live in. What changed it for me was my nephew Tyler. I was rather uncomfortable with little babies and toddlers because I'm the youngest of my family. I babysat a lot, but they were usually older kids. By the time Tyler joined the family, I had already been an aunt for 3 years and was feeling really comfortable with kids. I don't know how to describe it, but the best I can come up with is that Tyler and I are kindred spirits. I loved spending as much time as I possibly could with him and was very bad at sharing him. (Sorry mom!) He helped me realize that I really do want to be a mom when I grow up.

5. Thanks to watching my mom do a million crafts and various projects throughout my life, I have no fear of trying things. We installed my ceiling fan when I was in high school, my first sewing project was a clutch, last month I did a little bit of simple embroidering, and this month I'm trying something new for a birthday present for one of my sisters. Trying new things is fun!

FYI, because you are reading this you are tagged!

Lover's Month

When I was growing up, I don't ever remember really caring about Valentine's Day (especially when there were no more class parties and candy Valentines). Now I love the entire month of February! Not only for Valentine's Day, but also for our anniversary. I don't feel silly for leaving up all of my decorations for the entire month.

Jonathan and I take turns being in charge of celebrating Valentine's Day and our anniversary. This year he was in charge of Valentine's Day and can I just say that he made the best meal ever! He decided to cook dinner for us and I just figured it would be a really simple recipe. I was totally wrong! He found a recipe for Chicken Paillard with Cherry Sauce & Parsley Rice. I was really skeptical at first, but it was sweet and tart and delicious. (I LOVE tart!)

There was even enough for lunch the next day!

Here is the craft that I was hinting at in this post. I have been seeing so many cute embroidered crafts on Pinterest, I just had to try it for myself.

They didn't turn out perfectly, but it's a start!

A little something special thing that I tried to do for Jonathan was give him a cute little Valentine each day leading up to Valentine's Day. I was a slacker and only gave him about 5 or 6, but that means I can give him the other ones throughout the year.

For our anniversary we went out to dinner to Piatti. Holy cow do I love that place! It was a lot fancier than what Jonathan was expecting, but he really enjoyed it. (To give you an idea of how fancy it was on a scale of Ruth's Chris to McDonald's it ranked around PF Chang's.) While dinner was so good, we were both really excited about dessert. 

A little over two years ago, Jonathan and I went to the Imax theater with his brother Taylor and his wife Kenzie. Afterward I introduced them to Rick's Diner. All they serve are delectable desserts. (It's part of our tradition when we go to the ballet as well.) 

This is only a small portion of one of the two cases of desserts!

 Jonathan had a hard time picking out his dessert, but he finally settled on Death by Chocolate. I am pleased to report that in spite of the name, Jonathan is still alive!

Isn't that cake beautiful!

Jonathan's Death by Chocolate and my White Chocolate Mousse Raspberry Tart!

Jonathan's laughing at me because this is my 5th time trying to get a good picture!

 I love February (even though it seems like it went by really quick!) I love that I have 2 special days to celebrate my love for my sweet Mr. Nelson!