Family blessings

Yesterday, Kenadie received her baby blessing, so the whole Mayfield family went to Nate & Alisha's ward. I wish I had gotten some pictures of Kenadie, but I at least got to hold her a couple of times. After church, everyone went to Nate & Alisha's house for dinner. Their church starts at 1:00pm which is Taylor's naptime, so she only got a very short nap after we got to their house. We figured she would be a terror the rest of the night, but she actually was quite cute and had fun with everyone. For dinner, we had lasagne, bread, and salad. I was nervous about eating in the living room because Taylor has been really picky with her food lately and likes to throw most of it on the floor. She ate every bit of the food that I gave her and didn't spit out a single bite!! Then, she even went around to her aunts and uncles mooching off of their plates... haha She'd get a bite from someone and then walk around all excited.. haha.. It was quite hilarious. Dr. Nix- the OB doctor that delivered Kenadie and Taylor and five other babies that were there- was there with his wife and kids, and once we started eating dessert, Taylor was even mooching off his wife and one of his daughters. I was just happy that she ate so much-- and something other than goldfish for a change.

Thank you to Nate & Alisha for the wonderful dinner! We definitely enjoyed the company, too!

Last Sunday, Taylor officially started walking. She has been able to walk for a while but still mostly crawled. Well, last Sunday after church, she suddenly decided she was only going to walk and has been doing it ever since. She's an old pro now! She also likes to carry around her baby doll and say "oooooh" and give it kisses. She will put the doll in our face and make a kissing noise letting us know that she wants us to give it a kiss. She still only has two teeth on bottom, but she now has four teeth coming in on top. She likes to make very cheesy grins, and she just started doing something where she rubs her bottom and top teeth together (not grinding them but just where they are touching), but she has to off center her jaw to do it and ends up making not such a cute face.. haha I hope that doesn't last long! She also seems to be trying to imitate things that we say more. Today, we were watching the video of us singing happy birthday to Jared, so I started singing, and then it totally sounded like she started singing happy birthday. So cute!

On another note, we got feedback from our realtor today about what the people thought about our house on Saturday. They really like it and are trying to decide between our house and another house!! She said the other house was bigger because they had enclosed the garage, but she said that she of course let them know that our house was the better choice ;-) I'm trying not to get too excited, but I think it's great because their realtor had told me that they were going to be looking at like six houses, so the fact that it is between our house and one other is great! They are supposed to decide sometime this week, so I'll keep you all updated!

Happy Birthday, Jared!

I just want to say how much I love my husband and how wonderful he is. I think I probably take him for granted a lot, but he is truly amazing and sacrifices so much for our family. Saturday was his birthday, and I'm the kind of person that likes to go all out for birthdays (I get it from my mom-- actually she likes to go all out on any occasion), but we have been really tight financially lately, so not only were we not going to get to go out and do anything to celebrate his birthday, but he ended up telling me to not even buy him a gift (at least not until we save up some money to get him something). I got to thinking about it and got really sad because technically he never got a Christmas present either. I ordered him a punching bag set from walmart.com, but it was missing a part, so we had to take it back to the store and get a refund. We never reordered it because Jared has a friend who works at Dick's Sporting Goods who could get us a good discount, so he thought we might could get one there for less. So, as time went on, we eventually ended up spending the money that we got from the refund and never got him another punching bag. As you all know, he got me lots of wonderful gifts for Christmas, our anniversary, and Valentine's Day, so basically, he spent all the money for HIS Christmas and birthday presents on ME.

As I thought about it, I started crying because I felt very selfish, and I wanted to be able to do something more for him. I realized I was going to have to rely more on creativity- and I am definitely not the most creative person. Cari gave me the idea of making a coupon book with washing and detailing his car as an example of something to do. Well, it just so happened that he left his car windows down one night when it rained, so he didn't drive his car for a few days. So, on Thursday, while he was at work and while Taylor was taking a nap, I vacuumed out the inside of his car, cleaned the windshield, and cleaned the steering wheel and dashboard. I even got an old toothbrush and tried to clean in some of the crevices around the cup holders and stuff. My time was limited because I had to finish before Taylor woke up (although she was a very good girl and slept for 2-2 1/2 hours!!), so the washing of the outside of the car wasn't fabulous, but it definitely looked better than before.

Then, Saturday morning, I tried to let Jared sleep in a little bit, and I made a little sign that said, "Happy Birthday, Jared! 25 reasons why we love you..." and hung up 25 sticky notes all over the house with reasons why we love him (25 because he turned 25). Then, I made him biscuits and sausage gravy for breakfast. However, it ended up getting cold before he could eat it (if he got to eat it at all) because as I was cooking, a realtor called and said he was bringing someone by to look at our house! So, I ran to the bedroom and said, "Jared get up! Someone is coming to look at the house!" (oh and happy birthday, by the way!) So, we were rushing around trying to get everything straightened up, and then I had a baby shower that I had to go to, so he took the baby and went to town for a little while while the people were at our house. When I got home from the shower, I cooked lunch- well, I started to, but as it usually ends up, I ended up trying to keep Taylor under control and feeding her something while Jared finished making lunch. Then, I baked him a cake while he took a nap. (Taylor was also taking a nap at this point.) I think the nap was probably the thing that he enjoyed the most because he doesn't get to do that very often.

Later that night, we went to my mom's house. She cooked steaks and shrimp, baked potatoes, steamed cauliflower and broccoli, and rolls and made a salad. Everything was delicious! Neal, Sarah, Bryson, and Rylan were also there to celebrate. After dinner, we sang happy birthday to Jared. My mom had also gotten him a cookie cake (which just so happens to be MY favorite...haha) My mom had asked me for some ideas of what to get Jared. He loves to golf but doesn't get to go that often, and we all know that he loves Auburn. So, she and Sarah went shopping together, and they got him some Auburn tumbler glasses, an Auburn golf set with a towel, golf balls, and tees (I think little Aubie tees are perfect; that way if you accidentally knock his head off instead of the ball, then you still get a pretty good shot), an Auburn visor, and an Auburn water bottle. My mom also gave him some money so he could actually go golfing. His birthday turned out to be better than I originally thought, and I think he actually had a good day. His brother, David, is also planning on buying him a ticket to go see some national soccer games in Nashville later this month for the Olympic qualifier. So, thank you to everyone who helped make it a great birthday for Jared!!