Just call her Cinderella!

I don't know what is up with Taliana, but she is OBSESSED with cleaning lately. It all started when my mom came up Monday night to visit and watch Taliana's dance performance at her school. We had to HURRY and clean Ammon's room and the bathroom. (If you know me... I am a procrastinator when it comes to cleaning. I just feel that I clean much better when I have a 30 minute deadline.) Both Taliana and Ammon BEGGED to help me clean the bathroom. I wasn't about to PASS that up! So... they took turns spraying the fabuloso. (THE best cleaning tool! Every household needs a bottle.) I don't know if they were actually loving the fact that they were cleaning or getting a chance to spray. Either way... I loved the help.

Taliana started cleaning the windows yesterday. Of all the things she could have done, she wanted to clean the windows. But... of course I let her. Later she asked me... "Mom, can we play house?? You be the mom and I'll be your MAID." Yep... we had fun playing. I was able to sit on the couch and feed Malia while Taliana walked around with her list of things to clean. Thanks Taliana!

*** Thank you mom (aka Grandma Randee) for coming up to watch Taliana's dance performance. It really meant a lot to have you here.***

Family

Just wanted to post a few more pictures of my St. George trip.

This is me and my sisters. Look how cute Jennifer's belly is!

Alesi is concentrating hard at the word scramble game.
Malia and Alva. They are just 2 weeks apart. They are both growing so fast they've already passed the 12 month clothes.

Generations

This is 4 generations of my family. I thought it was pretty cool for Malia's scrapbook.

Drake Bell

Instead of driving 4 hours to St. George I flew down. However, I flew on United so I had to fly to LA and then to St. George (4 and a half hours total). Why, you ask?? Because it was FREE!

Anyways... while I was on the flight from LA to St. George I was talking to the guy next to me. I noticed he was with 5 other guys so I was curious why he was going to St. George (of all places). He said that he was doing a "show" (aka... a concert). I asked him, "Whats the name of your band?" He said, "Drake Bell. He's the singer." And I just said, "Oh, okay." I asked, "Do you guys travel a lot for your shows??" He replies, "We've mainly toured on the east coast and midwest. We haven't really done a lot of shows on the west coast." I just said, "Oh, that's cool." Then I over heard his friends talking and one said that he went to music school with Norah Jones and then his really good friend is Charolette (a back-up singer for American Idol). I was thinking... "these guys must be really well known to know these type of people." So the rest of the flight I was trying to think of a way I could tell them about my brother, Sean. Since they were going to be playing in St. George, I was thinking it was going to be a little show or something. Anyways... when we got off the plane, we just said our goodbyes and good luck. When Jennifer came to pick me up I asked her if she has ever heard of Drake Bell and her eyes just got big. I pointed to the guys and she said, "Remember Drake and Josh on TV??" I said, "Yea, that is Taliana's favorite show." Jennifer said, "That is Drake!" I could NO believe that I didn't know who he was. So... I went over the the guy I talked to on the plane (he plays base and does back-up singing) and said, "I am so sorry. I didn't even realize who you were. Can I get a picture of you guys with my niece??" And they did. They were awesome! Then he asked, "do you want me to put your name down?" I was thinking he would just do a shout-out, so I said, "yea. It's Montana Miller." Then he asks, "how many tickets should I put down." Once again I acted stupid. I didn't realize he was giving us tickets. I'm sure he thought I was the biggest ditz. Anyways... Jennifer, Tana, Sarah and Ashton went to the concert. They said it was pretty good. (I would have loved to go, but I didn't have the excuse of taking a child to the concert.) Maybe next time.



Drake Bell is the one that is standing behind Tana (with the glasses on). The guy I sat by is the one with the black jacket on, holding the guitar.

Baby Shower

Last weekend my sisters (including sister in-laws) and I gave a baby shower for my nephew's wife, Camille. We had it in Shelly's newly remodeled back yard. It was a great day (excluding the nasty gusts of wind). I just wanted to post a few pictures. My sister, Jennifer, and I planned all the food. We had SO much fun planning and we weren't totally realistic about the time and effort it would take. But as I was telling Camille, "we are over achievers."

Instead of serving the regular boring fruit tray, Jennifer thought it would look prettier if we created a bouquet of fruit. If you've ever seen an "edible arrangement" before, this is where we got the idea. We (Jennifer, Alesi and I) cut the fruit shapes. We used a cookie cutter to cut the pineapple into daisy shapes and I free handed cut the honeydew into tulips. (You kind of have to use your imagination when you look at the honeydew) It was fun. But the true talent came from Jennifer who actually arranged the bouquet. I have no skill or creativity when it comes to that so I just assembled what she told me and she arranged it in the basket. There is styrofoam in the bottom of the basket and the fruit is stuck on skewers. Then the skewers are stuck into the styrofoam. The coverage on the bottom is shredded green and purple cabbage. I loved how it turned out and HAD to take a picture.Jennifer, Sarah and I went in together on our presents for Camille. I love to go in on presents because you can give more than just something little. So... we gave her a diaper cake and some burp cloths made from cloth diapers. Sorry, I didn't get a picture of the burp cloths. But I did get a picture of the diaper cake. If you've never made one, you are missing out. It is the BEST present to give. Every new mother needs diapers. But it's boring to just give the bag, so have fun with it. You can put anything around it to embellish it. Sarah just got a few little things from Camille's Target registry and we put them around. Super cute!
Shelly and Robert just added an outdoor kitchen in their back yard. My brother, Travis, built it. I wish I would have taken more detailed pictures of it, because this picture does NOT give it justice. Also, my brother, Sean, built these metal doors for the cupboards. (sorry no picture) I will take some the next time I am down and then post them. So... check back.

Catching up...

This has been a hectic week with school field trips, Art Night and Birthday parties. Not to mention... major computer problems. We upgraded our modem to a wireless modem because we had a $400 credit on our phone bill (I'll explain later) so I figured... why not. Well, that was a HUGE mistake. It has been nothing but a headache ever since we got it. When I downloaded the new software, it crashed my internet. But... after 4 days, 10 hours and talking to a total of 7 people (on the phone and chatting online) the problem is finally solved. Did you know you can restore you computer?? Yea... I didn't know that and THAT was the trick I needed to know. Anyways... here we are.... Hope you enjoy these new posts.

Craziness

Okay... I now know where my kids get it from. While I was slaving away in the kitchen today making a NICE birthday dinner for Ammon. Here is what Jason and the kids were doing.....

Birthday dinner

We let our kids pick where they want to eat lunch and dinner on the day of their birthday. Because Ammon's birthday was Sunday this year, we went out on Saturday night and then I made dinner at our house and invited Jason's mom over to eat with us.

I asked Ammon where he wanted to go to dinner. He said "McDonalds!" I told him we should pick something nice and he replies, "Taco Bell?" I was hoping for Applebees, Chilis, or Olive Garden... anything but McDonalds. So... you guessed it.... we ended up at McDonalds for Ammon's birthday dinner.

The Paperbag Princess

Taliana's Kindergarten class performed at their school Art Night Fundraiser. I love her school. They have so many art programs (Singing, Music, Dance) that not every school has to opportunity of having. In Taliana's dance class, the kids made up a story and dance. It was called The Paperbag Princess. It was about a princess and the stuck-up prince. It was fun to watch her dance. She loves to dance and sing. They also sang that night and of course.... Taliana was the loudest one singing.

Ammon is 5!

It's the day we've all been waiting for.... Ammon finally turned 5 years old! Ammon's actual birthday as Sunday, but you know how it is with a sunday birthday... it is celebrated all weekend long. He has been in heaven. On Saturday we had his birthday party. (This year was Ammon's year to have a friend birthday party.) We went to Classic Fun Center. They had an area that had like 7 bounce houses and a jungle jim in it. A perfect place to entertain 10 5-year-olds. We had pizza, drinks, cake and ice cream. We were assigned a party hostess that took care of us during the party. PERFECT! If any of you are wondering where to go for your next party.... Classic Fun Center is the place. Here are a few pictures from the party.... Ammon blowing out his candles on his "Darth Vader" birthday cake. Okay... I think Ammon's had WAY too much sugar! Ammon and his friends from his class. (can my son have a normal face in a picture for once??)

Kindergarten Field Trip

Taliana had her first Kindergarten field trip this week. They went to Wheeler Farm. Jason and I went along as "mommy" and "daddy" helpers. This was Taliana first time riding on a school bus. She was SO excited. The weather wasn't the best for going to the farm, but the school had already arranged the date and was unable to change it, so we went anyways. The kids didn't mind the cold. They were too busy running around looking at all the animals. Wheeler Farm was getting ready to plant their crop for the summer, so they had all the cow manuer in the field ready to plow. The kids got a real kick out of knowing that they put cow "poop" on the dirt to make their plants grow. GROSS!

Feeding Time

Malia is very much enjoying solid foods. Her favorite foods are peas, bananas, and applesauce (after gagging on it the first few bites). And lets not forget the RICE CEREAL! The smell makes me sick, but she seems to be in heaven while eating it. She still has to wash each bite down with her thumb. She will take a bite of the food then suck on her thumb for a bit then let go and wait for another bite. It's nice because then I can cook and do the dishes while she is snacking on her thumb in between bites. (Check out the "pig tails". Her hair is getting so long on the top I am going to have to do the comb-over like I did with Taliana.)

I can't believe how fast Malia has grown up these past few months. She is now 5 months old. She is learning to sit up, and has almost mastered it. She only likes to sit up during bath time now. Which is nice, but she LOVES to splash! Which means the bathroom gets a nice wipe down when she is done. I guess that is her efforts in helping me clean the bathroom. Thanks Malia!

Busted!

Okay... I totally got busted last night. Jason had to work at the airport last night (9pm-1am). When he left, I read the kids their night time book and put them to bed (around 8:45pm - it was a late night... my kids are still adjusting from Spring Break). Anyways... I came downstairs to check my email and then I was going to head to bed. I decided to post a few blog entries while I was at it. Then I looked at a few other blogs. Then I found a TON of other blogs to look at. I can't believe how many people have blogs. There were a ton of people from St. George so I just browsed through theirs. I was so consumed with the blogs that I didn't even realize what time it was, until I heard the front door open. Jason came home from work. Ahh! He asked how long I had been on the internet and I said, "just since 9pm." I know... I know... 4 hours! This thing is just so adicting. I'm really going to have to control myself. :)

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....