thebabyperks

December 22 was my two year YouTube anniversary. Every time I reflect back on the past two years I think about change. If you know me you know I'm hesitant towards change, more so, I'm comfortable with routine. And yes, I know the whole "you should go out of your comfort zone" speech. 

Christmas List- First Video

You may or may not know that I have a slight love for the boy band One Direction. If my math is correct, I haven't talked about One Direction on my blog since August. Obviously this means I need to talk about them again, and this will probably be my last time for a while. 
You may or may not also know that One Direction are taking a "break" or hiatus or something. The time of this break? Yeah... no one really knows, originally it was a speculated 2 year break, then I heard that Harry Styles said 18 months so I really don't know.

This was my first time seeing them in concert and I marveled at this picture for months

Yesterday I sat at my computer with tears rolling down my cheeks watching One Direction sing "History" live on the X-Factor, with old and new pictures flashing on the screen behind them. I know, it's a little pathetic of me but it's fine.
Overall, their absence should probably concern me but I'm not that worried. I have their recently-released (incredible) album to carry me through. 

My second One Direction concert, before Zayn left #byezayn

What I wanted to talk about today, though, is something I've addressed before but I can't look past, especially now.

One Direction as a band, and as individual people, mean a lot to me. This may sound melodramatic but they were "there for me" when I either didn't want to talk to anyone, or felt like no one was there for me. They have been one of my most powerful musical connections. I've made an entire post dedicated to music shaming, so I'm not going to focus on that, but you should definitely go and check it out.

Harry 2015 OTRA 2015-Kansas City

Niall and Liam OTRA 2015-Kansas City

Louis OTRA 2015-Kansas City

A large portion of my life from 8th grade-freshman year was spent watching the X-Factor diaries, squinting at the terrible quality videos of the "Up All Night" tour, and jamming out to every song from "What Makes You Beautiful" to "Moments". As my responsibilities have grown and life because more and more hectic, I haven't devoted, per say, as much time to One Direction. Meaning I haven't sat on my computer every night for the past three years watching the first tour videos, I still do that a lot with the most recent tours, but not all the time.

Liam OTRA 2015-Kansas City (this was the hottest concert they had ever performed, it felt well over 100+ degrees)

I've also been lucky enough to see them live three, yes THREE, times. These concerts were easily the best times of my life. People always poke fun at my love for the boys but no one (besides a select few of my friends) can ever understand it. 

Niall OTRA 2015-Kansas City

I'm excited for their break, honestly. They deserve it. So many people say "well they get paid millions, they shouldn't complain," but they also have families who miss them and don't get to see them. Not only this but being in a boy band for 5 years is a long time. It will be awesome to see them all involved in solo projects, or even if they don't do anything, enjoying their down time.

Harry OTRA 2015-Kansas City

Louis OTRA 2015-Kansas City

I just thought I would throw my thoughts out there. What do you guys think about the break?

Until next time,
Taylor xx 

**I do not own the rights to the first single photo of Louis, all rights belong to the photo's originator. A Twitter user gave me permission to use it**

My parents are easily the best people in my life and I'm so incredibly lucky to be able to say that. So many people have either a horrible, or non-existent relationship with their parents but I'm on the opposite spectrum.

SLU Basketball Game 2014

A big part of this is due to the fact that my parents have let both my brother and I do what makes us happy. For a long time my dad was against my brother playing football but he saw that he was in love with flag football and eventually let him play "regular" football. My parents let me wear really ugly fabric headbands in my hair every day of middle school and never questioned it (or at least they never told me to my face). No-- but in all seriousness they let me quit swim even though I knew a small sliver of their hearts wanted me to stick with it for the year. I'm the happiest I've ever been in my life and I don't believe that would be the case if I didn't stop. 

Oklahoma Mission Trip

This brings me on to my next point. They're understanding.

I hear stories about people's parents being super strict and over-bearing but I've never experienced this. I don't have a curfew, mainly because I don't do anything and I value sleep too much to stay out past midnight (but that's besides the point). My parents trust me which is something I think a lot of parents lack. Other parents need to understand that they won't be able to keep their kids on a metaphorical leash forever and giving their kids some breathing room won't hurt.

Trizou Triathlon 2014

On top of Mauna Kea in Hawaii

Now some of you parents reading this may have a heart attack at what I'm about to say but give me a chance to explain. Also, sorry mom and dad if you don't want me to tell the world this. My parents never gave my brother and I specific chores *gasps*. It was just understood that we would clean up our rooms, take things off the steps, etc. I know this isn't possible for every family and I'm not judging/hating on you if you do have specific chores, I'm just saying that for my family things just fell into place. For example, I'm always in the kitchen baking so I'll do the dishes. My brother is usually upstairs in his room so he'll take the dirty towels down to the wash. Now, I am lucky enough that my grandma does our laundry (thanks grandma), so I don't have to worry about it. For the most part, though, we all just pitch in and do what we see needs to be done. I'm sure there were moments that my parents wished we had a strict chore chart but after reflecting on everything I think we're doing just fine.

Lava Rock beach- Hawaii

Hawaii

I think that another big factor into the person I am today is the fact that my parents have never given me everything I want. From a young age they taught me that just because I wanted something at the store doesn't mean I was automatically going to get it. I wanted a new computer so I saved my money and combined it with my birthday money, they didn't just hand me a Mac. Same with my first phone. In fact, my "first phone" I actually shared with my mom and even when I actually got a phone, I didn't get the Razr and iPod Touch right away like everyone else at the time. I got my Samsung phone and my iPod shuffle and I was fine. 

Hawaii

Another point I want to bring up is how blessed I am to have two parents who are still happily married. I sit through my classes and hear "yeah my dad moved out", "I'm at my mom's this weekend" or "my parents can't stand each other" countless times. Sometimes thing don't work out and it's best for everyone for parents to separate and get divorced, I'm not saying it's wrong or bad. I'm just saying that my parents celebrated 20 years of marriage in October and I'm just so happy and proud of them. They love my brother and I, and each other unconditionally and I'm so incredibly proud of them.

Rams Game today

Finally, if you can't tell from the pictures, my family has done some pretty incredible things. We have gone on so many amazing trips and I cannot thank them enough. Traveling has become a huge passion in my life and we've had so many great opportunities to experience some great places together.

So if you're reading this mom and dad, I love you so much. And to everyone else, I hope you all have someone in your life whom you love as much as I love them, and if not maybe you can be that for someone else.

Until next time,
Taylor xx

A few days ago I compiled a list of "newspaper things"--sayings, memories, and moments. Newspaper has been my favorite thing about high school and I don't know what I'm going to do without everyone next year. This is just a really casual, old-school list blog post I thought I would post for fun. It's also for me to reflect on at the end of the year.

I don't know if these apply to everybody's newspaper staffs or just mine, but I thought I'd give you a little insight into my (our) lives.

1. Who's going to the gas station after school?
2. Are you going to Starbucks?
3. Three fonts per spread MAX
4. Comic sans, yellow, and hashtags are Hoffmann's favorites
5. "How much does dinner cost?" *Five minutes later* "How much is dinner?"
6. Crying from laughter or too much stress (mainly me)
7. The Eagle Squad
8. Mr. Steal Yo Girl (thanks Brandon and Tristin)
9. The quote wall and its infamy 
10. Trying to explain to someone what you want for a last minute infographic
11. Jamming to One Direction even though the guys hate it 

12. Listening to more Disney music than you thought one person could possibly listen to
13. Bread Co runs
14. Last minute page changes on Thursday at 9:00 :)
15. The overwhelming amount of sarcasm in the newspaper room (which may or may not border on the line of cruel)

16. Being at school until 10:00 pm and then being back at school by 6:45
17. Not even caring how awful you look on layout or the day after
18. Basically eating your weight in Walmart $3/52 cookies
19. Really bad bonding games that end up with us sharing our weird dreams, travel plans, and goals
20. Overall, just being as close as a family


Until next time,
Taylor xx

Last year I made a blog post about what my family put in our Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes. This year I decided to do it again, I meant for this to be up last week but you know how that goes. 

Operation Christmas Child is an event through the organization, Samaritan's Purse. People pack shoeboxes for either a boy or girl (or both) of an age they select. At my church our Operation Christmas Child event ended but some other churches may be doing

We selected both a boy and girl in the age range of 5-9 and here's what we got:

For Both the Boy and Girl (5-9 years old):
1. A toothbrush/toothpaste set. If you are participating in OCC make sure you get a kit with a toothbrush cover because the kids most likely don't have clean countertop or cup to store their toothbrush in without it getting dirty. This kit also is in a plastic package, as you can see, which offers another layer of protection.
 2. Dove Sensitive Skin Bar of Soap. This soap is unscented which is what you want because it has less (if any) risk of irritating the kids' skin.
 3. Crayons. Kids love to color and we got the kids notebooks (below) so they can draw or write whatever they want.
 4. Mini Notebooks. See explanation above. 
 5. Washcloths. Each kid gets their own wash cloth. I read a story about a now-adult man who once lived in a Russian orphanage and was so happy to get his own wash cloth because everyone usually had to share them but because of the washcloth in his shoebox he could claim one as his own.
 6. Gummy Bears. Personally, one of my favorite snacks but gummy bears don't spoil and these ones are in Christmas colors to add to the festivities. 

Boy's Gifts:
1. A rubber ball to play with.
 2. Hotwheels cars because every little boy loves toy cars.
 3. A (Plastic) Christmas Ornament full of Legos. The plastic "ornament" doubles as storage for the Legos.
 4. A plain blue t-shirt. We got it a little big because we weren't sure if the boy was going to be 5 or 9. He can grow into it if he's five or it'll fit great if he's nine.
1. Jumprope. In elementary school I loved to jumprope. This particular one's handles light up. 
 2. Mini Doll. They say to try to get a brown hair/brown eyed doll. I went to the Barbie section but the Barbies are too big to fit into a shoebox. These mini dolls work perfectly.
 3. A plush stuffed bear. We saw mixed reviews on getting stuffed animals but I think that as long as the stuffed animal is friendly you are good.
 4. Sparkly Hair Clips. These hair clips come in a variety of colors and work in a variety of hair styles/textures.


Okay so that is everything we got for the kids. We bought all of these items from Target because they are higher quality materials. These are the only things these kids get for Christmas and it's worth it to my family to spend a little bit more so the gifts last. I hope you all got to participate this year and if not, you can next year.

Until next time,
Taylor xx

P.S.:
Operation Christmas Child 2014

It has never been my intention to bring politics to this blog because I don't believe I should be forcing my beliefs on any of you. Sure I'll suggest how I feel but you are your own person and you can make your own choices. Today some things came up and I need to address them.

If you did not know, terrorist have killed 120 (and counting) people in Paris in a planned attack. Five different locations were under the threat, and over 100 people were held hostage in a concert hall, according to Buzzfeed. That's just a general quick synopsis.

As I was scrolling through social media, Instagram and Twitter all offered up hugs, prayers, love, and support to everyone in Paris and everyone who is being affected by the attacks. But then I turned to Facebook and was completely and utterly disgusted with what I was reading.

There are Muslim extremists in the world who perform terrorist acts. But here's the deal not every single Muslim is a terrorist. For someone to even group all Muslims into being terrorists actually disgusts me. This is like saying that because one group of pastors rapes children that all Christians are terrible people. NO. One group of people's actions cannot account for everyone who identifies as a certain religion. Terrorism holds no religion. Plenty of non-Muslims commit terrorist acts and for anyone to ever lump all Muslims into a degrading group is awful. Especially because people who are crying out that all Muslims are terrible identify as "Christian" even though Jesus called on us to love one another. Instead of hating on a group of people, pray for Paris because Paris needs all of our love and support.

Taylor

I scrolled through all the blogs I follow earlier hoping to find something to inspire me to write because my last post here was on November 2. A blogger whom I follow, Alita Joy, posted something today that I read just a few minutes ago entitled "The Unrelenting Nature of FOMO". First I want to recommend you read Alita's blog post (here). 

I'll give you a small synopsis. If you don't know what FOMO is don't worry because I literally just learned about it. FOMO stands for fear of missing out. Basically you over-commit in multiple aspects of your life in fear of missing out on something. In Alita's post she talked about how in high school she didn't get as involved as she may have liked to and when she entered college she wanted to make sure she never felt like that again. In her case she overcommitted to clubs, activities, jobs, etc. This year she cut back but she said she's still overwhelmed (but likes the busyness). She has 4 campus jobs, 2 internships, and her social media accounts/blog to run. 
Here's the deal, I do this, but to an extent. My freshman and sophomore years of high school the only thing I was involved in was swimming. Junior year I tacked on DECA, newspaper and a job, although it's seasonal and runs from March-November. Senior year, I've dropped swim but I've taken on way more with DECA and newspaper, and I still have my job. I'm weird because I have this "fear of missing out" in the form of social anxiety. Sometimes I wish that I could be the person who wants to go out every night and have a flaming social life but at the same time I've learned to accept that it's okay that I enjoy staying in with a good book and Netflix. I watch people's Snapchats and "like" their Instagrams on Friday nights asking myself how they can even bare going out after going to school all week. That's just the thing though, we're all wired differently. I'm sure a lot of people question how I'm fine with just lounging around the house all weekend with my family.

I'm notorious for saying yes to everyone because I'm a HUGE people pleaser but I've definitely been working on it. This year especially I've put into practice saying no to things and I can already see/feel the positive effects. For the first time in my life I can honestly say I'm happy. So much so that I had to stop a few days back and try to pick out what was "off" in my life and then I realized it was that I didn't have any worry in it for the first time. I'm so excited that I can finally enjoy winter and I'm just in better spirits over all.

Try to eliminate the "FOMO" from your life. If you're feeling overwhelmed identify and eliminate the most toxic things in your life and start to cherish the great moments in your life more. From personal experience I know it's easier to say than to do but once you actually do so, life becomes so much better.

Until next time,
Taylor xx

(I feel like this was choppy and I didn't mean for it to be so, I just kind of rolled with my train of thought)

For the last year or two years (I don't honestly remember) I've been apart of the hour of prayer event at my church. If you don't go to SunRise or you don't know what the hour of prayer is, the hour of prayer is where every hour of every day in October someone is in the prayer room at church. 

You can click on the picture to make it bigger so you can read it, or zoom in

I cannot believe it has been two weeks since I last blogged. Actually, if I'm being honest I can. My life has been super crazy these past two weeks and I've barely had time to breathe. 

Starting with two weeks ago...
It was layout week (*cue cheers*). I talk about layout week a lot on this blog and in life in general because newspaper is a huge part of my life. If you don't know what it is, once a month (respectively) the newspaper staff stays after school in increasing time increments so we can finish that issue of the paper. If you go to Timberland be sure to pick up a paper, we distributed them on Friday! On layout night we were only at school until 9:30 rather than 10:30 like last issue which was a positive. 

On top of that, though, we had our first of two large tournaments at the concession stands. Over 120 teams from around the Midwest (and I believe some Canadian teams, too) were playing last Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I worked at the soccer stands, and then one of the smaller baseball stands so we honestly weren't crazy busy but adding layout on top of it all equals an exhausted me.

This week...
This was basically my attempt-to-catch-up but still fall behind week. Layout is stressful but it's also satisfying because you see your ideas come to life. However, I do this by justifying how I really don't need to study my English vocab or do a college algebra assignment after layout, which consequently makes me fall behind. Plus some other stressful decision making had to happen this week which left me in tears three separate times during this past school week.

Then, the second tournament this weekend at work is even bigger -- 150 teams are here. I worked last night 4:30-11:30, got up and took the ACT this morning at 8:00 and then work tonight from 4:30-11:30. I'm not upset by this at all because I really enjoy and love the concession stands, if anything I'm just very tired. 

But what you all really read this for...
Yes I quit swimming. I made an entire YouTube video about it and at the time I felt like I didn't say everything I needed to say. However, as I have watched it back and gotten feedback from it, I'm really happy with what I said. If you haven't watched the video click here. 

Here's the run down-
I am a people pleaser and I focus so much on making other people happy that I never make time for myself. I took on a little (okay a lot...) more than I thought I could handle this winter. As I tried explaining it to people, a lot of people who are close to me understood, while others did not. Swimming is not my future, yes it's been a huge part of my life but for right now my time is consumed with newspaper and advanced marketing stuff. I'm happy with that though because I want to major in Public Relations and Advertising so both of those classes/ extracurriculars will help me grow toward my future goals. When I started swimming freshman year, it was a stress relief. After January of this year, swim was more of a burden and worry than it was worth. Over the summer I didn't swim on a summer league for the first time since third or fourth grade, and I can truly say I didn't miss it. I am still a part of the HS Tri Club and I'm still training with them, but I can honestly say that I'm super excited to have this winter off. It'll be extremely nice to be able to actually enjoy the Christmas spirit and all the festivities instead of worrying about practice.

Okay so that was basically a long blurb of my thoughts. Definitely check out the video for a somewhat more organized version of all those thoughts, and I expand more on why I quit there.

I'm going to go try to do my College Algebra homework now.

As work winds down, and as I now have some time in the winter, I hope to blog more frequently now, so look out for more of my posts.

Until next time,
Taylor xx

Today is World Mental Health Day, and if I'm being honest I didn't know until I saw John Green tweeting about it. While I didn't know the exact date, World Mental Health Day is extremely important. 

In America we try to shy away from discussing mental health. Our society fails to properly address mental health and how it affects people, especially young adults. America's mantra seems to go something like this- "keep going and even if you want to stop, don't", while this thinking has gotten us far, it has taken its toll. People don't have time to breathe, they work for hours on end and then get home and still feel the pressure of work, family, friends, etc. For me personally, I recognize the fact that, yes, I probably should talk to someone but at the same time I feel like I don't have enough time to take out of my day and talk to a professional. This thinking is wrong, I shouldn't feel guilty about taking the necessary steps to improve my sense of living. 

Tweets from John Green

Mental Health can be scary, there are so many unknowns and we are constantly finding out new information about the brain. The first step is acknowledgement. Research how you're feeling, and talk to someone. Maybe you can't speak to a professional but just talk to someone who is open and willing to listen to your problems. This could be anyone: a friend, a teacher, a counselor, a family friend. Just make sure it is someone who you are comfortable with and can honestly share how you feel. 

If you have time, go to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) website and read about mental illness. I found this info graphic on mental illness and the here are some of the findings.
    - Suicide is the 3rd leading cause of death in youth ages 10-24
    - 50% of all lifetime cases of mental illness begin by age 14 and 75% are by age 24
    - There is a delay period of 8-10 years between the onset of symptoms and actual intervention

We can change the stigma surrounding mental illness, and World Mental Health Day has generated more initiative to recognizing the steps we all should take.

Until next time,
Taylor xx



Sources: 
-http://www.nami.org/getattachment/Learn-More/Mental-Health-by-the-Numbers/childrenmhfacts.pdf

I'm very excited, but also very sad, about this post. This past Saturday was my last Homecoming ever. It's bittersweet to look back on each of my homecomings because they were all so different.

Freshman-Senior Year (2012-2015)