Family Home Evening

I asked Taliana what she wanted to do for Family Home Evening tonight and she said she wanted to play with my hair and put earings in my ears. I was too tired and my hair was in a bun, so I told her to find something else to do. Jason said, "you can play with my hair." So.... she did.... Ammon even had fun doing it as well.


Can you notice the earings, too??

The DI shopper

Okay... so since my dad has retired he loves to go shopping. His favorite place to shop is the D.I. (Deseret Industries). He comes home weekly with a car load of "good deals". My brother, Sean, teases him because my dad will go and buy bikes for all the grandchildren to ride when they are at his house. However, what my dad doesn't know is that Sean will take a load of his "good deals" back to the DI. Sean says my dad has bought this one particular bike 3 (three) times. HAHAHA! We still love you dad!

When we were down in Gunlock last weekend my dad had just purchased a wheelchair from you know where.... the DI of course! My kids thought that was the coolest thing ever and played most of the day with it. My dad saw them and said, I was at the DI yesterday and I saw another wheelchair there and it was only $15. By the time I thought about what a "good deal" that was I turned around and it was gone. He said he looked all over the place and couldn't find it. He was bummed. He said, "it would have been fun for the grandkids to have wheelchair races with." However... if you've ever been to my parents house... they live on five acres and they don't have any paving in their drive way. It is just gravel. So I was thinking.... the only place the grandkids could "race" the wheelchairs would be on the main road. Can you imagine what a sight that would be?? I'm sure the people of Gunlock would be thinking.... "great, there goes those crazy Taylor grandkids again." Hmmm.

Monday mornings

I went to wake up Taliana this morning for school. I knew it was going to be hard to get up this morning because she has spent the past week staying up late and sleeping in. So I wasn't surprised when she started to cry. After a minute or two she sat up and said, "Mom, you wrecked-ed my dream." I couldn't help but laugh and that just made her even more mad.

Reality Check!

Okay... spring break is over and Taliana and Ammon are back in town. Malia and I flew down to St. George Wednesday night and then Jason drove down Thursday afternoon. It was nice to get away from the cold weather of Salt Lake, but the weather wasn't as warm down in St. George as I had hoped it to be. At least it was warmer that Salt Lake City. (My parents live in Gunlock, so my kids get mad when I say we are going to St. George when we are actually going to Gunlock. BIG difference!) It was fun to spend time with my family. Taliana and Ammon always love to go down to St. George. Ammon started crying when we were getting ready to leave. He said he wants to live in Gunlock forever. But he wanted me to go to Salt Lake and pack up his room and move it down to Gunlock so he could live in it there. It was funny.

We drove back last night and went through the WORST snow storm I've been in this winter. We hit snow around Beaver and then fog the rest of the way home. We had to stop in Filmore so I could feed Malia. So in all.... it took us 5 and a 1/2 hours. Jason was so frustrated by the time we got home he didn't even say a word. He likes to speed home and try to make record time every time we drive down and back. He usually won't even stop for bathroom breaks, but with a new baby he gives me 15 minutes to feed and change the diaper and then we are on our way.

So... I was hoping for warmer weather... and I woke up to 5 inches of snow all over the place. Jason was tired from driving so he slept in with Malia and I took the kids to school. Usually I won't drive in the snow, but I felt bad for Jason. So I was brave and drove the kids to school... going 25 miles and hour on the freeway of course. Taliana commented on the way to school, "Mom, you are going way too slow. Dad never lets this many cars pass him." Yea, Jason doesn't like it when anyone passes him. hahaha

Freedom Continued....

So... Taliana and Ammon have been gone for 48 hours now. In that time I have managed to sit on the couch, clean their rooms, make their beds, sit on the couch, do laundry, take a long awaited nap, browse the world wide web. Did I mention I sat on the couch?? Jason and I even went on a "date". Of course we took Malia with us. I think the last time we went out together without the kids was well over 7 months ago. So... it was much needed. I worked at Pottery Barn Kids Monday night, Tuesday night and this morning. We got our new summer bedding. Some of it is cute and some is "what were they thinking when they designed this?". You'll have to look for yourself and tell me what you think. I mainly saw the boys bedding because we did boys rooms the two nights we were there. The Safari bedding is the one I do not like. Anyways... back to my blogging.... I love coming home after working floorset at PBK because it puts me in the mood to clean and organize my house. I have an art closet for my kids that I keep stocked with art supplies so they can play anytime they want. However, it is the messiest closet and hard to maintain. I bought some "organizing" boxes to hopefully help with that problem. We will see. I'll keep you posted.

FREEDOM!

Taliana and Ammon are on their way down to St. George for 4 (four) days. WOO HOO! Since Sean and Sarah were up here, they ended up taking them back down with them. My loving sister in-law, Alesi, is going to watch them for the 4 days until we go down. I am hoping that during these next 4 days I will have a chance to regain my sanity. I didn't think it was that hard having a third child because Malia is such an angel. It's the two older kids that have been giving me a hard time. Well.... Taliana has been such a great helper with Malia, so I know I will miss her help. But Ammon... he really needs time away from me so he can appreciate me again. hahaha. Plus, he needs to spend time with his cousin Talmage. Ammon needs boy time. He just hangs out with us girls all day. I am excited for them. They have been on a count down for the past 2 weeks since I had arranged this. Thank you Alesi. Remember though... I get your kids for a week during the summer. All FOUR of them.

Happy Easter

I hope you all had a good Easter. I was SO lucky to have my brother (Sean) and his wife (Sarah) and their kids (Ashton and Alva) here with us for Easter. Sean was up for the weekend to do a show, so Sarah came up to watch it. It was nice to have family come up and visit. It doesn't happen that often, so I get really excited when it does. The kids woke up around 8am (which is "sleeping in" at our house). The kids went through their Easter baskets and then I made my dad's special squaw corn and tried a new recipe for Monkey Bread. It was really yummy! We all went to sacrament meeting together and then later on in the day we went to Jason's mom's house for dinner. We had a really fun day. Thank you Sean and Sarah for staying with us an extra day and sharing Easter with us. We love you!

Here are some fun photos from Easter....

Just your friendly neighborhood Spiderman(s)

My nephew, Ashton, slept over last night. He brought his Spiderman Nerf set for him and Ammon to play with. They were in heaven.

Discovery Gateway

Jason's missionary companion and his family were in town for their spring break, so we took all our kids to Discovery Gateway. If you haven't had to chance to go yet... it is well worth your time and money. (It is pretty pricey.)

The top two photos were taken at the Planetarium. It was FREE! I love free activities.



Here is Ammon and his friend Ben playing in the water area. This was their favorite place to play. It kept them occupied for more than an hour. We had to talk them into going upstairs for MORE adventures. We eventually made our way back to the water though.


Okay... I know this was for the kids... but I had so much fun building a Jet Fighter (from star wars) that I was really sad when the kids destroyed it to make their own.

They have a grocery store where the kids can play. Taliana loved working at the check-out stand and ringing people up.



Malia loved watching all the kids play.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

We had a fun St. Patrick's day. The kids all wore their matching shirts. I made an Irish Stew and served GREEN milk with it. The kids thought the green milk was pretty cool. They actually drank it all and even asked for more. Which is a SHOCKER for my kids. They will only drink milk if it is from their leftover cereal. I may try this coloring milk trick again in the future.

New bike

Taliana got her new bike on Saturday. She was SO ecxited! She needed a new bike so badly. Her first bike (which she got about 3 years ago) was SO small for her. She out-grew it about 2 years ago, but we just kept putting it off. She looked like one of those clowns that ride the tiny bikes in the circus. Ammon has now grown into it. He is way excited. He doesn't even care that it has glitter all over it. hahaha! When we were in the store. Taliana showed me all about her bike. It has a break on the handle bar and so she can pedal backwards if she needs. However, I don't think she has figured out that she won't actually ride backwards by pedaling backwards. It has a backpack tied to the handle bars. She said that she can go get the mail now because she can put all the mail in ther backpack. Also, the backpack comes off so when she goes on a long bike ride she can take it off and go eat at a picnic. Its funny how much your children pick up on your tactics. I do this type of stuff to her all the time when I want to talk her into something. I show her all the perks!

Funny Faces

Last night we were pretty bored, so the kids made up a game where you have to make a funny face to try and make the other people laugh. If you laugh, you are out. It was so much fun. By the end, we were all laughing we could barely hold our funny faces.

Big Eater!

Malia is now 4 months old. I can't believe how fast time has flown by. We took her in for her Dr appointment and she is 16 pounds and 27.5 inches long. She is 100% in her height and 95% in her weight. She is going to be tall like Taliana. Taliana has always been tall for her age, but really low for her weight. Malia has NO problem with her weight. hahahah

She is now eating rice cereal. She LOVES it! We gave her her first bite and she wasn't really interested in it, but by the third day.... she was in heaven. My friend, Emily, let me borrow her BUMBO (if you have a little baby, this is a MUST!). Then my mom bought a tray for it and now it is a little highchair that can sit on our table. Every time I feed her she acts like she can't get enough of it. She holds onto my hand that is holding the spoon. And she sucks on the spoon like more is going to come out of it. When she has eaten it all I wipe her face and she has a melt down because she knows that is the end of it.

We tried giving her squash and she loved that too. However, a few hours after she ate it she screamed like she was in pain. So I am going to hold off on solid foods for a few more weeks and let her stomach get used to all the rice cereal.

Meesha

So Meesha has decided to live with another family. So she thinks. There is this dog (Dominick) that lives down the street that Meesha has become good friends with. She is over there constantly and has frequent sleep overs with. (There are some nights where I am just too lazy to go and get her.) I have talked to the lady at the house and she says that Meesha will bark at their door and wait for them to open it. She will play with Dominick all day and when they try to let her back out, she will just stand by the door and look up at them. When I go to pick her up I have to carry her home or else she will run back to their house. Then when we get home Meesha sits at our door and waits for us to let her out again. Or she will lay in her kennel and act like she is being punished. What should I do??

I think Meesha feels like she is being replaced by Malia. Every chance she gets she will jump into Malia's car seat or bouncy seat and go to sleep. I feel bad. I don't want her to feel like I dont love her anymore. I know I sound crazy, but she is just like one of my kids. She was my little baby before I had Malia.

Taliana is FINALLY 6!

The day Taliana has been waiting for..... she has FINALLY turned 6 years old. She has been waiting for this day for about 364 days. Here were our events for the day....

Jason, Ammon and I woke Taliana up by singing happy birthday to her. We then went down stairs to eat breakfast together. (Which is rare these days for a weekday. I usually make a nice breakfast either Saturday or Sunday morning so we can all sit down and eat together.) I made crepes... Taliana's favorite breakfast.

We all headed to school. Jason and I were parent helpers in Taliana's class. I usually help every-other Wednesday, but this was Jason's first time going. He had a lot of fun and the kids did too. He was in charge of the science center. The kids had to predict how many drops of water could go on top of a penny before it spilled over the edge. It was really cool. I was at the math table helping the kids glue beans to their paper. Ahhhh... remember the good 'ole days of Kindergarten?? We had to bring a class treat for Taliana's birthday, so I make rice crispie treats. There is a girl in the class who can't have milk, so this was the best thing to make. However, I did make her a special one with just sprinkles because the others had frosting and M&Ms in the middle. (both containing milk products.) They turned out really cute. They are MUCH better than making cupcakes. They are less messy and you don't have to worry about taking off the paper wrapper before the kids eat through it. If you want to know how to make them, then just let me know.

After school we went to eat lunch. Taliana wanted mashed potatoes so we went to KFC. Yummy! Taliana used to not like mashed potatoes, but I told her that Tana (her cousin she idolizes) loves them, now she asks for them all the time. Mothers... yes, we can be tricky at times.

When we got home I sent Taliana over to her friends Abi's house so I could finish up her present. I wasn't able to finish it the night before because I was finishing the class treat. I made her a magnet board. Jason painted it the night before then I cut out these flowers from a cute scrapbook paper then glued it on with Mod Podge. Taliana is always taping her art projects to her wall in the bedroom, so now she has somewhere to put it.

That night we all went out to dinner. SIZZLER! Taliana favorite place to eat because she can make her very own ice cream treat. We tried to help her at the salad bar, but she just replied, "I can do it. I'm 6 now."

When we got home, Taliana had to go look for her presents. I hide their presents and then we play the hot and cold game to find them. Just adds a little more fun to the day. Ammon gave Taliana UNO spin game, which we all played. Definitely a fun family game! Jason and I are buying Taliana a new bike, but we have to take Taliana to the store to pick it out. And the magnet board was from Malia. It was a fun day!

It's just crazy how time has flown by. I can still remember being pregnant with Taliana and wondering if she was EVER going to come out. (She was 8 days over due.) And now she is 6. But now she says she can't wait until she is 8 so she can be baptized!

Loving Syblings

I love how much my LOVE each other. We were all laying in our bed last Saturday morning (which is our Saturday morning ritual) and Ammon asks if he can hold Malia. After she was sitting in his lap, he asked me to get the camera and take a picture of them together. He asked me if I would make a copy of it and put it in his room so he could see it right when he woke up in the mornings. I asked him, "How are you going to see the picture if you wake up in OUR room?" He has been sneaking into our room at night and snuggling up to anyone who will let him in the bed. However, I have woken up several mornings and didn't even realize that he has come in the bed in the middle of the night. But... Jason loves it! I think he would have to kids sleep with us all the time if I would let him. I know I'm mean, but I really need my own space when I sleep. I hate to be crowded. Okay.... back to the blog heading....(Sorry about that side note)...

Taliana and Ammon have always been such great friends. I guess that's what you get when you are 13 months apart. They have their fighting moments like every other brother and sister, but the majority of the time they are great together.

I thought having a third child would put me over the edge, but it seems like it has really completed our family.

Dancing

Taliana had the oportunity to dance(with her cousin Ellie) at her cousin Eva's wedding this past weekend. She LOVES to dance when she can. Her favorite dance right now is White Sandy Beaches by Brother Iz (aka Isreal Kamakawiwo'ole). Taliana has to dance to it everytime she hears the song. It is fun and we all love to watch her do it.

Jason's mother taught her this dance. I love the tongan culture and I am so happy that my kids can be apart of it. And I am so greatful that Jason's family is so willing to teach my kids.