The Taylor Times: 2008

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Our Christmas Holidays...Starting in Kingston

Sorry for the long delay in my posts. Boy have we been busy! I don't even know where to start. This is going to be a long post with lots of pictures so here I go! Stay tuned for more about our Christmas within the next couple of days.

We had a great Christmas and stayed busy the entire time. It all started on Friday, December 17 with a "Happy Birthday Jesus" party that Caleb, Kathryn and I threw for our friends. We had 9 children here as well as there mom's to celebrate. I told the Christmas story, we made ornaments of baby Jesus in a manger, we sang Happy Birthday to Jesus and we ate birthday cake. We even all brought toys to donate to Toys for Tot's. It was so much fun and was a great way for the children to celebrate what Christmas is really all about. I hope to make this party and annual tradition.

Here we are making the ornaments

The birthday cake - all the children got to put their own candle on the cake and then blow it out. This signified how Jesus came for each of them :)

The kids singing Happy Birthday to Jesus

After the party, we quickly cleaned up, packed up and headed to Kingston Tennessee to celebrate Christmas with 3 different families on Saturday. We stayed at my grandparent's house, so it was fun getting to spend some good time with them. We went to Russ' Aunt's house on Saturday morning to do Christmas with Russ' mom's family. There were 10 different kids there and it was wild! The kids all got to open there presents and they had a blast!

Caleb got a new dinosaur Hot Wheels set - 2 of his favorite things!

Here's Elijah helping Caleb with his new toy

Kathryn got 2 new twin dolls. She absolutely loves them!

A few hours later, we headed back to my grandparent's house to celebrate Christmas with them. My parent's as well as my dad's family all came to eat lunch and spend time together. It was so great getting to see all of them. Caleb and Kathryn took naps most of the time, but they did get to spend a little time with everyone.

Caleb and Kathryn with great-grandma Stephenson

Here is my grandfather. He is 89 years old and recieved his first pair of dress blue's for Christmas this year from his children. He served in the marine's for 4 years in WW 2 and he never could afford to buy him his own pair back then. He always regretted that. So my dad and his sibblings went in together to get him his own dress blue's. He was shocked when he opened it and he LOVED it. He actually acted like a 5 year old child at Christmas. He put them on and modeled them all afternoon. It really was priceless!

What a couple - married for 65 years!

Here is my grandmother showing off her new quilt that my mom made her for Christmas. It has all of the flowers mentioned in the Bible on it as well as the sripture verses. It is beautiful and my grandmother loved it!

Kathryn got another baby doll - she is really into babies this year!

Here are my children with my cousin Jennifer's boys Andrew and Owen.

It was the best picture we could get!

We headed over to Russ' grandmother's house later that afternoon to spend Christmas with Russ' dad's family. We had a delicious dinner and watched the children open all of their presents. They really were spoiled with more toys, but of course they loved it!

Kathryn got a new vaccuum cleaner from Aunt Sally. It was a hit! Caleb and Roane had to keep taking turns with the vaccuum as well. Who would have thought? Kathryn also got a new baby doll, a sleeping bag and an adorable piggy bank.

Roane loves his new motorized car...

and so does Caleb! He also got his own digital camera, a sleeping bag, a big construction set and a dinosaur.

Flynn racked it up on toys too!

We got home from Kingston on Sunday evening and started to get ready for 3 more Christmas's! Stay tuned!

Monday, December 8, 2008

Walk Through Bethlehem

I am first going to start out by saying that this weekend has been crazy busy. I had to play in the Christmas musical at Church and had rehearsal from 9-12 on Saturday morning. I then ran some arounds, came home for about and hour and then rushed back out to play at the performance at 4:00 that afternoon. Then I went by Chick-fil-a to get dinner for everyone, ran home to eat it and then bundled up to take the kids to Matthew's Methodist to do the "Walk Through Bethlehem." On Sunday morning I played in the musical at 9:30 and 11:00 services. We got home from church at 12:45, we ate lunch and then I headed back to church for my students violin recital. My dad met me at church so that he could accompany my students and practice with them. The recital started at 3:30 and lasted until 5:00, we had a fun reception afterwards. My students did great and it was a fun recital! Then my dad and I went back to my house so that he could eat dinner with us and see Caleb and Kathryn for a while. I was so glad once I went to bed last night and knew that it was all over! Now I just have 1 more rehearsal on Tuesday night and 1 more performance on Wednesday night...

Anyways, here are some pictures from the "Walk Through Bethlehem" that Russ and I took Caleb and Kathryn to. It was very well done and it really gave us a good picture of what Bethlehem was like when Jesus was born. When you walked up to the entrance of Bethlehem, we were met by a roman soldier and a woman who was handing out 4 gold shillings per person. We then had to pay 1 shilling each to Ceasar, sign our name on the census before we entered the city. There were many booths set up outside and lots of animals. We got to see a camel, donkey's, sheep, rams, goats, alpaca's and mule's. Caleb loved seeing all the animals ~ I think that was his favorite part! We then went in to the gym of the church and it was really neat. They had brick walls all around, booths set up everywhere, a starry night on the ceiling as well as the big star of Bethlehem. Roman soldiers were walking around all over the place patroling the city. Caleb got to smell frankensence and myrr at the spices booth, eat bread from the bakery, drink wine (apple juice) from the city and even see a replica of a home in Bethlehem. We followed the big star to the inn, where the inn keeper told us that there was no room at the inn, but to follow the star outside to the stable. The stable was actually pretty big with Mary, Joseph and a real baby ( who was very unhappy at the time). An angel was standing in the stable and singing. This scared Caleb a little bit! There was a big pile of gold coins and gifts in front of the stable where we could give our gifts to baby Jesus. It was really neatly done and it was a great way to be reminded of what Christmas is all about. Caleb really enjoyed it and was full of questions about everything. It was hard for him to understand that the baby Jesus he saw, wasn't the real Jesus, even though it was a real baby!

Caleb watches the camel

The rams

Caleb feeding the goat some straw

Caleb buys some Bethlehem "wine"

Kathryn drinking her "wine"

The stable with the Holy Family

Caleb buys some bread from the bakery with 1 shilling

Kathryn checking out the rams and goats

One of the men of Bethlehem walking around with a pony.

Caleb tries to pet a donkey

Saturday, November 29, 2008

So Many Blessings

It is hard to believe that Thanksgiving has now come and gone. It was a great time to reflect on all that the Lord has blessed us with. Our blessings are too many to count. We enjoyed celebrating with both of our families. We were especially thankful that my brother Jay and his wife Stephanie, along with 2 of their 4 dogs, Righteous and Moses, drove all the way from Crested Butte Colorado to spend 5 days with us. Yes, they DROVE 32 hours each way, with 2 huge dogs! I can't even imagine. They are troopers! They drove into Greenville last Friday morning and were able to stay until Tuesday evening. The kids and I drove to Greenville last Saturday and Russ joined us on Monday evening. Jay and Steph are such a fun couple to be around, with a lot of energy. They love Caleb and Kathryn and they spent a lot of time playing with them. Kathryn was absolutely in love with Jay and it was so sweet to see them together! We all got to eat some great food together (thanks to mom), we celebrated Christmas with Jay and Steph (they won't be here again until next summer), and even went bowling as a family. Caleb really suprised us at bowling when he scored over 30 points with no bumpers - he almost beat my dad :) We were just very very thankful to be all together as a family. The time always goes by so fast, but we can always look forward to our next visit. We thank God that Jay and Steph made it here and back home very safely!

On Thanksgiving day, we went over to Russ' parents house to celebrate with them. Greg and Amanda were there as well as Brad, Anna, Roane and Flynn. My in-laws cooked a great meal as well as some delicious desserts! We enjoyed watching the kids run around and play together. We especially loved getting to know our little 4 month old neice, Flynn a little better. She is such a sweetheart!

Friday, November 28, 2008

A Showman, 2 Cooks and a Couple of Bouncers

Sorry it has been almost a month since I have done an update! We have had a lot going on and I just haven't taken the time to upload all the pictures! I am finally sitting down to get it done now (or at least part of it!).

A Showman:

On Tuesday, November 18 Caleb had his first ever singing performance with his preschool class. It was family night at Carmel and all the 3 and 4 year old classes had to sing a song as a class. Caleb's class sang a fun song called "God is Number 1" and they did great. Caleb really surprised us and did a great job. He was a hoot and was definitely a big showman! He sang really loud, danced, jumped, spun around and even threw in a final pose at the end of the song. He does like to make people laugh, and he sure did that. Russ and I were very proud of him and we were just glad that he didn't resort to taking his clothes off to get more laughs!

Here is Caleb's 3 year old class. He is the last one on the left.

Here he is doing some sort of dance move

One of his spins...

Sweet Kathryn sitting with Nana and enjoying the show

2 Cooks:

Last Friday, Caroline and Roy Austin came over for a little while so thier mom could go have her hair done. While the babies slept, Caleb and Caroline made some turkey sugar cookies. They put on their aprons, mixed up the batter, helped roll out the dough, cut out the turkey shapes and watched them bake. They had a lot of fun and I had fun cleaning up all the mess (cracked eggs and tons of flour on the floor)!

Preparing

Stirring

More stirring

Watching

Eating

A Couple of Bouncers:

On Saturday, Russ had the idea to take Caleb and Kathryn to Monkey Joe's to get out of the house. Monkey Joe's is a big inflatable place where the kids can run, jump, slide and get out lots of energy! Caleb absolutely loves to go and this was Kathryn's first time. She didn't know what to think about it at first, but she quickly warmed up. We all had a great time and we went home exhausted!

Saturday, November 1, 2008

Ride 'm Cowboy!

Caleb and Kathryn had a great time last night Trick or Treating. They were the cutest little cowboy and cowgirl you ever saw! Caleb rode a horse, and Kathryn pranced around in her pink cowboy boots. We trick or treated around our neighborhood for a while and then headed over to Nana and Papa's house. After that we stopped by the Curtis' (some good family friends) to visit and get some treats. Caleb and Kathryn got a bag full of candy and loved being the center of attention!