Baby Taylor is Almost Here

Well, baby Gid got showered like woah a couple of weeks ago and I have to say this was one of the better baby showers I've been to in a while! I ADORED the Peter Rabbit decor, and the activity was to paint onesies for the baby-- loads of fun!

V-Day Pt. II

There were, of course, less presidential proceedings for Valentine's Day -- Sarah made me a panda valentine and I made a kick ass dinner! Blackened chicken breast over cilantro lime quinoa with an avocado creme. For dessert, pound cake with fresh fruit and whipped cream. YUM! After dinner we went over to see Iggy and Wade where we ate too many chocolate grand marnier pecans... those things were addictively good!

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day was quite exciting around here! President Obama came to Decatur to talk about the importance of Pre-K education and visited our very own CHECLC and gave a speech at our brand new Rec Center! Decatur's no stranger to Presidents; Bill Clinton came through in '92 on a re-election tour and I saw him at my high school stadium!

Decatur is a fairly blue city, so the only protesters were poorly organized environmentalists (which is a shame, I do agree with them about the Keystone Pipeline) and everyone was in high spirits. The police/SWAT/state troopers/secret service/visiting LEOs were all very kind, attentive, and a pleasure to spend time with while Obama was in the rec center. I missed seeing him by half a second, but it was still amazing to be there!

Friends

I got to spend a lot of time in February with some dear friends-- Sharyn (whom I haven't seen since her divorce was initiated!), Monique, Nedghie (new friend!), Brittany and Britney are my AOII sisters and we had a blast warming up Britney's new apartment. Then, a going away party for my friend Emily who moved to KY to work on a farm! We're so so so lucky to have wonderful friends like this in our lives, and we are rich beyond measure with them!

The Birdi's crew back for one last hurrah!

Amelia Anne

We spent Easter Saturday with mom's cousin Kim and her daughter Amelia. I absolutely adore Amelia and love having a little girl around to play with! Amelia loooooved mom's dog Maggie so much she even got in the crate with her! Then, before they left, she got an early Easter present-- a Hello Kitty umbrella I bought in Japan!

LOUIS!

We always tease my friend Louis about how dark he is-- when he came to visit last month, we got a reminder of how tricky it is to fit him in to pictures! It was a blast to reminisce about dressing him up as a Hershey's Special Dark bar for Halloween one year and enjoying some amazing Italian food at Capozzi's! Come back soon, Louis! 

AOII LA

This year, Leadership Academy for AOII was about Recruitment, so I got to go up and spend a couple of days in a recruitment crash course-- it was awesome! I'm a major rush nerd!

Me and TJ Sullivan, who went to school at IU! He had a great speech about motivating the middle portion of membership.

We woke up Saturday to snow! It was even nice enough to go away by the next morning so we could drive home.

Morgan! I'm so proud of her-- she's lost almost 60lb in the last year and is an inspiration to me-- hopefully the next picture you see of us we'll BOTH be this skinny!

The beautiful chandelier at AOII Headquarters! I want to say it's by some crazy classic designer but I honestly can't recall... Swiggett?