Reviewing

Well, I'm in California at my In-Laws finally able to catch up on my blog a little. The trouble is I'm trying to remember what I've done the last four months that is so terribly interesting or important. So... to recap what's happened here is a small list: Our 3 year wedding anniversary on September 28th, 2010, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. For our three year wedding anniversary we went out to an Indian restaurant, and hardly spent any money (thanks to Karl and Megan's coupon, thanks guys!!!!). We thought it wouldn't be as great having to take James out, especially since the last four months James has been very screamy. (Is that a word?) Luckily, James loves Indian food, like his mommy, and was quiet as long as we stuffed his mouth with food. Next, Halloween. For Halloween I made James a cute lion costume, to which I added horns, but nobody noticed them and everyone thought he was just a lion, but he was actually supposed to be the Beast from Beauty and the Beast. I was Belle, and Stephen was going to be Gaston, BUT he wasn't because he started acting like a punk like every single year he does and decides (literally days before Halloween) that he wants to do his own thing. I was able to persuade him to try and do something at least Beauty and the Beast related, so he went as Cogsworth, which nobody got. Whatever, I'm more hopeful for Halloween next year, especially since I told him he could pick the Costume theme. We went to Stephen's Halloween work party Friday during lunch, then that night we went to our ward's Trunck or Treat, which was fun fun fun!! Have I mentioned I love our ward. It's not that I haven't liked our last ward's, but Provo ward's that have mostly newly married students can be very difficult to make friends in. Our new ward is full of young families done with school and staring out in life. There are tons of kids in our ward, so for Halloween I tried to make sure we had tons of treats. I made two batches of brownies, and decided that that might not be enough, and then made a cake as well. There was a total of 110 slices total of the three different batches. We also brought some traditional Halloween candy. By the end of the night we had one brownie left and half a bag of candy. Then Sunday we had a Halloween dinner at Karl and Megan's, but by that time I had already worn my costume twice and was done, so only dressed up James, but here are some cute pictures of us at the work party on Friday.
For Thanksgiving the plan was to go out to Coeur d'Alene, ID and spend the holiday with my family, but there was a big storm, literally the day before we wanted to go. So, because the roads were icy and unsafe we had to stay in Utah. Ugh! But, we went to Uncle Stephen and Aunt Tracy's and still had a lot of fun. Here we are at their place These next two were the day after Thanksgiving.


These next pictures were taken a couple of weeks ago. We had gone to Temple Square to see the lights, and let me tell you Saturday was a bad day to go because it was sooooo crowded!


These were also taken a couple weeks ago James was opening his presents from Uncle Karl and Aunt Megan. Thank-You!
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And here we are at the rest home my Grandma Jeanne is at. We originally were going to use this picture to send out with Christmas cards, but that didn't go so well. We didn't have internet so it was difficult to get everyone's addresses so...again, maybe next year.


Currently we are still in Loomis, CA and haven't finished our Christmas/New Year Holidays yet, and will post it later. Stay Tuned...And Late Merry Christmas!! AND a Happy New Year!!!

The Taylors Clanning Around

This is late I know, we don't have the internet still so I'm updating my blog at Mcdees. Thank goodness they offer free WiFi. About a week and a half ago Stephen's mom, dad, sister and her husband came out and we had a lot of fun. It's funny how when you live near family we all seem to get on each others' nerves, but then when we all live far about we realize how much we miss, and really do, love them. At least that's how I feel. Am I the only one? Wish I had more pictures of us all spending time together but the only pictures I got were at the Taylor Reunion on Saturday. Here they are: The house where we had the reunion was soo beautiful!




And here we are eating ice creams at Mcdees


Ahhh my computer is about to die!

First Cut and First Steps

Update: I gave James his first haircut, and it's a little too short. Yep, kind of scary.

Also, James took his first steps last Friday!!! Woohoo! Then Thursday he took 4 steps, so he's moving on up. Other news, Stephen came back on Tuesday from his business trip to Dallas and then Las Vegas, so I am super happy. That's all.

P.S. I'm still trying to figure out how to download pix and videos from my phone, because I do not want to pay the money to send them to my e-mail.

Cousins Camp 2010

What is Cousin’s Camp? Basically it’s a family reunion on my side of the family that we do once a year to see everyone, have fun, spend quality time together, and allow the cousin’s time to spend together. It was such a blast this year, but then again it was a blast the last time we went, which was 2 years ago. (Last year we couldn’t go because I was to close to my due date.) We left Tuesday evening, stayed the night in Idaho Falls, and then continued the drive on Wednesday, arriving around 5 at my parents. The drive isn’t too bad; it was about 10 hrs, not including stops. We were the second ones to arrive. Mindy had already arrived with her kids a few days before us. Megan had come to drop off her kids and then return later on Thursday. Aaron and company arrived Wednesday night late, with my brother Jeff from Seattle. Wednesday we had fun in the backyard, which is huge (my parents have never had a backyard this big) setting up a slip n’ slide, having waterballons, etc. My parents also bought this huge playground thing for the kids to play on. Everyone else arrived Thursday in time to go to dinner at a pizza place for Charlotte’s Birthday. She turned 4! Happy Birthday!!! Then we went back home for presents, cake and ice cream. Friday was crazy! We went to this amusement/water park 15 minutes away called Silverwood; so much fun! We (the Heaths and Taylors) camped next to the toddler pool with our toddlers and switched off watching the kids and going down slides. We all got a little burned; I thought we’d put lots of sunblock on. The problem was we forgot to reapply. Opps. Then we went to the buffet. Yum-yum. You did not see me eating salads. Nope, it’s all about the pulled pork my friends. After dinner we went to the rides part of the park. Stephen took Haley and Brinton on all the rides us sane people with full stomachs wouldn’t go on. All in all it was a fantabulous day. Saturday we all kind of lounged about. We were so exhausted from the day before. Plus, I got James’ cold, so I actually woke up sick. Then we had an early birthday party for James Saturday evening. KFC and cupcakes; which I totally thought he would chow down, but he mostly poked at it taking a few bites here and there. I tell you this kid does not like to eat. All I have to say is… he didn’t get it from me. Then that night we had a campfire and roasted marshmallows around this campfire pit my parents had made in their backyard. Sunday we came home, and very reluctantly I might add. I cried on Monday and told Stephen that I wanted to go back to Cousin’s Camp; despite that fact that there were 26 of us in a 5 bedroom, 3 bathroom home. It might sound crowded and a bit overwhelming, but we (all of my siblings) have very much grown up and are past our petty years. There were a few squabbles among the grandkids, but all in all a great time. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa Brinton!!!! We love you!!!

P.S. When James opened up this tiny fire truck that we got him his cousin, Elly kept trying to say fire truck, but instead was saying fire sucks. haha! Indeed it does. Then when we tried to record her saying it, she said it right. :D

P.P.S. More pics of James Birthday Party to come as well as videos, I just have to figure out how to get them from my phone to my computer. Any suggestions.

Fourth of July Weekend

This is really late, but I really wanted to post what we did because we had a lot of fun and we took some great pictures. Because the fourth of July was on a Sunday they split the festivities between Saturday and Monday. Friday night, as mentioned in the last post, we moved, but because our house was a mess in Lehi, it was late, and all the fourth of July festivities are in Provo, we ended up staying at Stephen’s parents house in Provo. On Saturday we went to the Freedom Festival on Center Street in Provo. It’s basically like a giant Farmer’s market with lots of booths set up with handmade crafts and great food, etc. Last year they had some rides to, but I didn’t see any. It also could have been because we didn’t go all the way down to the end. We got tired and it as time for the babes to take a nap. Plus, we had a BBQ to go to at Uncle Stephen and Aunt Tracy’s and we didn’t want to be late; especially since they always have great food. Tracy is an awesome cook! We skipped James nap and went straight there, but he ended up taking a nap on there floor. Isn’t he cute? If you think you see lumps in his diaper then you’re correct, but I didn’t want to wake him, so we just let him sleep like that. Then we set off some fireworks that we’d gotten. We took some really cool pictures, so go here to see them. Sunday we went and saw my Grandma Jeanne Dean. Then Monday we went to the Fourth of July parade (again) in Provo. James peed through his two outfits that weren’t packed up, so we got him a baby tee at the dollar store. He went around with no pants on and daddy’s hat from Ecuador. Finally Monday night we went to our new home, and spent our first night there. Ahhh…home sweet home. P.S. I’m still unpacking. P.P.S. Did I mention that we don’t have internet?

Crazy Weekend and More...

We moved on July 2nd a Friday with, thankfully, a lot of help from the members in our ward, and they were able to do it all in 1 hour and 15 minutes. Funny, I told Stephen on Sunday to tell them that we would be feeding them pizza for their help (don't you hate it when you work hard with absolutely no reward, not even a cool glass of lemonade? I do.), so about 6 people volunteered; but when the pizza eating time came after packing I had to threaten people to eat it. Gee wiz, doesn't anyone like pizza anymore? Maybe because it was $5 buck pizza and not Papa Murphey's. Oh well. When we went to pick up our U-haul truck they accidentally overbooked the 14' truck, so they gave us the the 17' upgrade for free. Which was really nice by the way, I don't think that we would have been able to fit it all in the 14' truck. I forget to include the washer and dryer and love seat when reserving the truck size. So we were blessed. (Tangent Note: we actually had to leave our other/old loveseat behind because when we took it out of the garage where we had been keeping it in storage for the last almost two years we discovered that mice had been using the loveseat as their latrine. yuck!) One of the guys/ward movers even complimented me and said that out of all the moves he has ever done our was the most organized. Thank-you! I had packed pretty much the whole house by myself, and had felt a little bitter about it, but then when moving the actual boxes came in to play I didn't lift a finger. Mostly because I had to hold James, so Stephen did his part loading and unloading everything. Plus, I had put signs up everywhere trying to make things easier for them. Now I'm just trying to still finish all the unpacking. Man we have a lot of stuff! I'm trying my best to downsize, and still working at it. It's hard because we have a lot of family preparedness stuff that takes up room, and we can't obviously downsize those things.
So, we're pretty much all moved in and we love our new ward. We already have friends. Stephen has a friend from work, an old mission buddy, and a second cousin (one of the Stratfords) in our ward, and they all are married/have families. It's great. Our last ward was so hard to make friends because all the younger couples were moving so frequently, and/or they were busy with school or work. Not to mention being newly married they are very much into each other. But this ward seems more stable, in the sense that in four months a third of the ward won't be full of new people. I'm very excited, just trying to get used to the idea of not being near anything. I think that these new friends will fill that spot though...

(again sorry it's been awhile, we don't have internet anymore, since July 1st to be exact . Once I figure out where the Lehi library is hopefully I'll keep this more up to date.) (July 4th festivities' post coming soon...)

Moving Woes...

I sooo wish we had a truck. With moving Stephen and I have decided to get some real things for the apartment. Not that the things we have are fake, but they are old, ugly, and shabby. We decided that we want to get a newer couch, a newer bed (including bed frame, mattress, box spring etc., plus we need these because we've spent the last almost three years sleeping in a full sized bed. note: we are not thin. Plus, Taylors sleep funny with their elbows flying all over the place, a queen bed is badly needed), a baby dresser (instead of just piling James' clothes on his changing table), and we'll need a washer and dryer as well. (We were going to get James a new crib, but with all these other things we need I think we'll just stick with the one we got on freecycle.) I say newer, because we couldn't afford brand new things, so they we're looking for gently used. The problem is we don't have a truck. So, I have been looking on KSL and Craig's list to time it right so that when we rent the moving truck we can pick things up with it and then come back home and pack the rest of the stuff in. The problem is that nice gently used things are limited in the first place. Secondly (is that a word?) everything that we want is far away. Finally I had found a nice couch located in North Orem. Not as close as I'd like, 15 minute drive, but closer than most. We set up an appointment to go look at it and guess what? When we get there she's like "oh sorry, we just sold it." hmmm....thanks brat face. You could have called and let us know so we could save 30 minutes of our day! Not a big deal you say. Well, we've already spent so much time driving around to several different places to look at couches realizing when we get there that they looked a lot better in the pictures than they do in person. Another woe, we're moving 4th of July weekend, meaning we won't get to celebrate the holiday as much and, not as many people will be able to help because it's a holiday. I can't wait for this month to end.

Time Flies

I came across this video in our camera. I didn't even know Stephen had taken it. It was taken about a week after James was born. Time flies, and now he's almost one. Agh!


Change topics, I cut my own hair. Two weeks ago I did, and it looked like this.


Then I decided two days ago my bangs weren't short enough, now they are halfway up my forehead. I look like Jim Carey on Dumb and Dumber. yep, it's pretty bad. BTW, I'm holding a sppon because I'm an Amelie wanna be. That's who I was trying to cut my hair like.

What's new?

Hurray!! Finally. James is a crawler!!! He crawled , like a real crawl, once at 9 months, but after that he didn't do it again. We kept working on it and finally the day before his 10 month mark he did it and stuck with it, and he's been a speed demon ever since. Here he is:


Other tidbits of information: The Sunday that James turned 10 months was my last day of pumping. Hurray! I had originally wanted to go to 12 months, (because that's how long I had planned on breastfeeding him before he was born) but the more James become mobile the more difficult it became, plus the cruise kind of threw off my schedule; plus, I wanted to really start losing weight. I don't know why, but for some reason the woman in my family cannot diet when we're producing milk. To be honest, I used to think that was just something my sisters said as an excuse to eat what they wanted without feeling guilty. Then I tried it (dieting) somewhere after Thanksgiving and before Christmas, and my supply went way down. I started drinking more water, but still nothing. Then when I was in the mother's lounge at church I overheard this one woman that was nursing her baby complain about how she couldn't diet, or even eat reasonably healthy because her milk would dry up really fast and her baby would be so fussy and hungry. So, I stopped trying to diet, and just ate what I wanted, when I was hungry, and it went up again. Plus, because I pumped it was soo much easier to see the visible difference between when I would eat small/normal portions, or even a salad, and when I would eat a good lumber-mill-man-sized portions. That's how much I would have to eat. It was so crazy, especially since there are lots of woman that can just eat normally when they are breastfeeding. After eating Ice Cream I was like the Dairy Queen.
Other news, we're moving. Ever since Stephen's work moved him to Sales and gave him Salary instead of hourly he was working from 8-5. Right when traffic is at it's peak. He would spend 1-1.5 hours on the road everyday, plus he would have to workout every day for over an hour to try and prepare himself for if he makes the CHP. Finally, I got fed up with never seeing him, so we decided to start looking at places closer to his work. Despite the fact that he gets Salary, it's still not a whole lot of money. Lucky for us we found a place less than a mile from his work called Mayflower Harbor. It's one of those limited income housing complexes. In other words, it's one of the projects. But it looks really nice and safe, and the first month's rent is free and it has a kiddy playground. Not to mention a big playground across the street. The best part is that we'll get to spend more time together, and even eat lunch together everyday. Another plus is that we'll live closer to Karl and Megan and company. The downside is, THERE IS NOTHING IN LEHI, UTAH. Literally. American Fork is close enough, and it has lots of restaurants, etc, it's only 5 minutes away. But still... there's nothing in Lehi. Except Thanksgiving Point and Cabella's. Stephen is way exicted about that, that's a man's candyland. But I'll be further from Joanns. SAD FACE. :( The closest one is in Draper. But... since we are so close to Stephen's work, he's going to ride his bike and I can have the car. Everyday. A luxury I've never had, and which will be especially nice in the winter time. Originally we were going to move at the end of July, but Stephen's work is sending him to Dallas, TX for a week. I'll be alone. Then the day after he gets back they're sending him to Las Vegas, NV, and I think one other place later in the summer. SAD SAD FACE!! With him being gone so much I'm still trying to decide when to have James' Birthday Party, since the weekend before we're going to Idaho/Washingon for the Brinton Reunion. hmmmm...
Other news, we have a treadmill. Hurray! My papa-in-law found it for $15 at a garage sale, after my gripping that he always found the things I wanted for way cheap, sometimes free. Now I can have a way to keep my excerising up during the wintertime. Last month I forgot to mention that my neice Emma Rose Brinton turned 8 on May 7th, and I forgot to wish her a Happy Birthday. (She's the oldest, w/ the red hat) She got baptized on her birthday as well, HAPPY BIRTHDAY EMMA, and CONGRATULATIONS!!! Also, this month my was my neice Camryn Karen Taylor's birthday. If you're on the Taylor side you already know, but here are some pictures and video's we took at that happy event. Happy Birthday again. This is the dress I made her, though you can't see it very well in the pix.

Here's the kiddies playing together. It's kind of funny. Camryn is sharing her blocks, picking which ones she wants James to play with and which ones she'd like to keep for her to play with. Ironically enough James wants the ones she has, and not the ones she's giving him. hehehe.
So, sorry this blog was so long. Just wanted to catch up on everything.

The Flutter Frock

...and no, this isn't a give away. I had to post some pictures of this cute cute dress I wore to church today and got no less than 3 compliments.


(Note: No one complimented me when I wore my rock candy dress to church. *sigh* c'est la vie.) First off I cannot take credit for this dress, because I didn't make it, my sister-in-law Becky did, but I did put the cute butterflies on it. It was an attempt to make it look like this blue skirt


from Boden (gosh oh gee I love their clothes!!!). She made it just a little too big. Ok...that's an understatement. When she made this I think she was a size 4, I am between a 12 and a 14 now and it fits me perfectly. I've had that problem myself, but you can't help it when you measure your body correctly and the measurements of the pattern envelope are so ridiculously off. I remember when I was thinner I measured myself to make this dress and it said I was a size 18. I was mortified. Especially since I wore a size 8 at the time. But I decided to do it like it said because the last thing I sewed was a skirt, and I didn't believe I was the size they said so I did it smaller. Needless to say I couldn't wear it until I had lost some weight. Anyways, back to the dress; I brought it to my ward sewing group, and was about to start sewing it together when the lady said I really should try it on first. Surprise, it was huge, she helped me get it down to wear it should be which was between 6 and 8. BTW, if anyone is wondering yes I cute my hair, and no I don't like it. In fact, I have to keep it in a ponytail because it looks like I have a female mullet. Yuck!

Taylors Breed Big

This is very true. All of Stephen's siblings are fairly tall, some more than others, and his dad is tall, too. I am not tall. Luckily, James got more Taylor genes when it comes to height. When I was pregnant with James I signed up to get one of those Gerber Baby Newsletters, the kind that tell you where your baby should be at each month, except mine come two months in advanced. For example, I got "Your Baby at 11 months" when James was 9 months. It gave where your baby should be at, including height and weight, etc. At 11 months 30 and 1/4 inches is considered to be in the 90% percentile for height. So, I was staring at James thinking, "Wow, my baby's pretty tall, I wonder where he's at now." So, I measured him, at 9 months, and he was 31 inches. I thought that maybe I hadn't marked it correctly, but yesterday James had his doctors appointment and he was 31 and 1/4 inches tall (which is actually like the 100% in height for a 11 or 12 month old), 21 lbs. (60% percentile for weight), and for his head circumference he's in the 95% percentile. Yep, tall...big head, he's definitely a Taylor. If he'd taken after me he'd be in the 50-60% for height, and 70-90% for weight.

James was developing a mild diaper rash yesterday, so I'd had some diaper rash ointment I'd left on the coffee table, look who found it.




Not too happy that we confiscated it.