A visit from Wawa and Papa

So Papa Taylor had business meetings in Idaho this past week so my parents decided to stop by on their way back to Utah. (I was 4 hours the opposite direction of home but I wasn't going to tell them that)! So Wawa (grandma) and Papa came for a visit and my boys LOVED it!

We have lived so far away for the past 5 years that being so close to our parents has been great! We've had more visitors in the past 10 months that we've lived in Idaho than we've had in the past 5 years of living in Cleveland and Colorado! We're loving it.

We love when parents visit. They took us to dinner, my dad helped Jared hang a blind in our bedroom (which meant it saved me from helping and most likely an argument on reading or not reading the instructions), they helped wrangle the kids at church, pulled a few weeds in the garden and did my dishes. Yeah for parents!!

Thanks mom and dad or as Gibson calls you Wawa and Papa. We loved seeing you and you're welcome anytime!

a GREAT book!

I'm finally finished. It took me forever to read book 7 because I went back and read book 6! Good thing I did because I had forgotten the whole book and storyline so it was a great refresher. I LOVED book 7. It was fantastic!

Yes, I really did make a list and I followed it for the first day but then I limited myself to read while the boys were asleep or Jared was home to play with them. Each book had 30+ chapters! I'd never have finished:)

Now, on to the book I'm suppose to have done for book club next week....completely different, I hope I can switch gears fast enough to get it done!

ALL IN A DAYS WORK

This week I had ECST training aka (pre-deployment training). My cycle for deployment is coming, however, not sure if I am going, but always being prepared is important. I learned all sort of fun stuff. Some stuff I am not suppose to mention, but especially fun was the M-16 training. These next couple of photos I am loading the M-16, blending in, and staying low. It does look like fun but the parts that weren't so fun were avoiding snakes, ants, the HOT sun (while wearing some heavy gear), and cleaning the M-16 after we were done. It took an hour to clean the guns before my group past the inspection. Hope you all enjoy the pictures.

I went through about 120 rounds.

I am still cleaning the dust out of my teeth!

Well, it was going to be a productive day, but then.......

My neighbor just brought me over Harry Potter!!! (Yes, I let her go stand in line at the bookstore at midnight to buy it and then I reap the rewards of getting to read it for free)!

So, the laundry may have to go another day without being folded and Gibson will definately be having something from the microwave for lunch. Ah, all the plans for a productive day out the window. At least she just barely brought it over so I did get a few things done this morning:)

My friend Laurie laughs at me because I'm always "playing games" with myself. You know, the kind where I say (to myself) "fold this basket of laundry and then you can send 3 emails" or "if you clean the bathrooms you can watch Oprah". I actually laugh at myself, not because I do it but because it actually works!! So, I think today is going to be one of those days. I'll make me a list and after I complete each item from the list I can read a chapter from Harry Potter....sounds pretty fair, doesn't it???

happy birthday jared!!

If I had one wish it would be, a happy, happy birthday to YOU from ME!!

I put together a small slideshow highlighting Jared the past few years. To check it out, click here.

32 things you may not know about Jared:

1. His favorite color to wear is Navy Blue
2. He LOVES to workout
3. He eats raisin bran every morning for breakfast
4. He uses 15 inches of floss to floss his teeth EVERY DAY!
5. He turns into the tickle monster every night before G goes to bed
6. He never complains about changing a dirty diaper
7. He's a night owl, rarely going to bed before midnight
8. He loves to eat out
9. He makes the best Saturday morning breakfasts
10. He will only let a gal named "Kim" cut his hair
11. He loves to clip his fingernails
12. He works with the youth in our church
13. He would love to run a marathon
14. He drinks A LOT of protein shakes
15. He sleeps on the left side of the bed
16. He will eat anything I cook (or at least try it)
17. He's ticklish
18. He checks this blog everyday
19. He'll sing with The Wiggles if asked by a certain 2 year old
20. He loves the outdoors
21. He's very patient with me and the boys
22. He can build the best tower out of blocks
23. He LOVES ice cream and brownies
24. He misses being close to his parents
25. He's a great dad
26. His favorite food is steak and potatoes
27. He has a testimony
28. He would love to have more time to read
29. He drives an old car that has been hit twice without complaining
30. He's a great dentist
31. He LOVES his family and shows it
32. He's LOVED by many

Happy Birthday! We love you from the moon, to the stars and back!

Ready to exercise!!
Jared has two options when he gets ready for work each day. 1) Wear his uniform 2) wear PT (Physical Training) clothes. As you can guess, Jared wears PT clothes most mornings. It's very convenient since he goes to the gym before work and it sure beats lacing up black combat boots. So every afternoon G and E see their dad in PT gear, so when we went to the BX and saw PT gear in their sizes, we couldn't resist.
I tried to get Jared to put his PT gear on and join in the picture but he refused since the shorts are made just a bit too short for his liking:) Silly guy, doesn't he know that's why I wanted him to put them on:)

My New Love

Found these the other day at Wal-mart and I can officially say, I'm in love.

Our little man is 7 months old today!

I'm not sure what's harder to believe; Christmas was 7 months ago or that it's been 7 months since E joined our family!! Wow, time sure does fly.

Hubby and I figured out the other day that feeding E adds $80 a month to our grocery bill!! This kid can eat! He loves sweet potatoes and applesauce and can finish super fast.

We sure love him!

Going Green.....
It seems everytime I turn on the TV or log onto the Internet I read or hear something about the environment and "Going Green". A few months ago for book club I read the Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. After reading that book and after seeing the constant ads for lightbulbs, hybrid cars, recycling, etc. I decided our family needs to do our part. So, I bought new lightbulbs.

Fact: If every American home replaced just one light bulb with an Energy Star qualified bulb, we would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year, more than $600 million in annual energy costs, and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of more than 800,000 cars.

Fact: You save about $30 or more in electricity costs over each bulb's lifetime. The average U.S. household has 45 light bulbs; replacing that number of 75-watt incandescent bulbs with CFLs would save $180 per year.

Fact: CFL bulbs produce about 75 percent less heat, so they're safer to operate and can cut energy costs associated with home cooling.

Not too shabby huh?

Our city also recycles which I've never done because I've never known how. Stupid reason I know. Not anymore. I washed out our recycle bin, asked for paper bags at the grocery store and now I throw our empty milk cartons, OJ cartons and other plastics into the bag and put them on the curb with our regular trash. It's not much but I do feel better about trying to make a difference.

Speaking of the earth. Has anyone seen Planet Earth on the Discovery Channel? Awesome show, great for families and some of the images and storylines will blow you away. Our earth is amazing!! Check it out. I know it airs on Sundays but not sure if it also runs throughout the week.

Going Green.....what are you doing?

Rolls, Shoes and other random thoughts.....

If I could be anything professionally, I would be a chef. Well maybe not a chef that works in a demanding kitchen on a busy Saturday night but a chef that could whip things together with ease and throw the greatest culinary parties and fix the best Thanksgiving dinners. (I'm loving "The next Food Network star" right now. That would be a dream if it were me:) I would love to go to culinary arts school. I love to cook but I don't feel that I'm very good at it. I have always been afraid of making bread and I've only attempted it twice (once was sweet rolls, which I found if you top it with enough cream cheese frosting everyone loves them, and the second was rolls which I threw away after taking one bite.) My friend Jade makes awesome rolls and offered to teach me--step by step-- She gave me an awesome recipe and I was able to make them yesterday and they were SO good! I'm amazed how easy they were to make!

G LOVES his dad (he calls him Jer) and immitates him on a daily basis. Hubby had just taken off his shoes when G went and put them on and began walking around the house.

Tonight I had my fill of G and was really needing a break from his energy and him dancing around my clean, folded, laundry piles. Hubby was wonderful and suggested that he and G go on a walk to McDonalds to get an ice cream cone. I love that Hubby is a hands on dad and that he loves his sons and is willing to be outside in hot weather to give me a much needed and much appreciated break!


Hubby has a great dad and looks up to him so much. Following in Rulon's footsteps is often hard since he is an amazing man in so many ways. However, hubby has seen first hand how important it is to be involved in your children's life and how important it is and what a difference it makes to have religion as a foundation for raising a family. His dad is a great example of this and hubby has brought those two qualities into our home.

So for G to wear his dad's shoes and follow him around and look up to him is 100% okay in my book. I love that Hubby is G's buddy and I often hear G say "I stay here with dad" when I ask him if he wants to go somewhere with me.

So G , keep following in your dad's footsteps and you'll achieve great things, I guarantee it!

On a completely different note- I hung pictures in E's room today! We have lived in our house for 10 months, E is 7 months old and yet his room was never finished. Not that I didn't want it to be finished but we're never upstairs other than nap time and bedtime and I've never taken the time to hang anything up. Today, I was feeling a bit project oriented and really want to cross something off my list so I cleaned E's room- I organized his drawers, rotated his clothes, hung pictures and shelves on his walls, vacuumed, dusted- the works. What a difference it makes! It's actually a pretty cute room and it's officially the cleanest room in the house!! (Don't worry, I rewarded myself with a nap)!

Dear Grandma & Papa;

Thank you for sending me a t-shirt and fun sparkly star from your trip to Florida. I really like the alligators on the shirt. Perhaps it's been too long since I've seen you, I must have grown. I was unable to get the shirt on, not sure if it's my broad shoulders or big belly. Mom said that maybe we can find a stuffed animal to put it on or maybe we'll send it to baby Kelton to wear.

G likes his shirt too and he loves his squeaky alligator (mom doesn't, she says it's annoying).

Love you and miss you.

E

Fun, Fabulous 4th of July!

What a fun, fabulous 4th of July we had!! We spent the day at the lake with some friends from our ward. As we drove to the lake G kept telling hubby "fast daddy, I want water pool". Once we arrived G put on his floaties and didn't leave the water for 5 hours! Luckily for G he has a dad who doesn't mind getting wet. As for his mom, she prefers to sit in a chair and read a good book while basking in the sunlight.

E sat in the shade with me and the two of us hung out with the ladies. I read a whopping 15 pages of my book since I was enjoying myself while we chatted and nibbled on red vines. E eventually gave in and took the nap that he was fighting to avoid. Sorry for the belly shots, who doesn't like to get a little sun on their belly while they nap? Both my boys love to sleep with blankets on their heads. Weird I know, I can pull them off over and over again and 10 minutes later I'll find that they've somehow pulled it back over their faces. G eventually grew out of it and I'm assuming E will too but for now, he loves it.

E did great at the lake. He slept, he played and he left on his hat which I thought was pretty amazing!


The day at the lake made us all exhausted! G crashed within a few minutes of being put in his carseat and once we got home we let him sleep for a few hours since we knew it would be a late night.

Once we all got fresh and clean we headed to some BBQ's and off to the fireworks.

Our friends the Drapers have this great boat in their backyard. I stuck E in front of it and snapped some pictures. I invited G to join in the photo shoot (okay I bribed him, threatened him and begged him but he politely told me "no thank you momma") Isn't E adorable? Here's hubby and his twin. I think it's the ears that make them look so similar.


I was trying to take pictures fast before the drool started and before E figured out he could eat the rocks!
Good thing he's such a good sport about getting his picture taken. If only his brother was as cooperative.....

While I was taking pictures of E and inviting G to join us, he sat on the trampoline like this and watched.

We had some great fireworks for a small town. Where else are you going to watch the fireworks but in the Wal-mart parking lot! Heck, we go to Wal-mart almost everyday so why not on the 4th of July? G was SO much fun to watch fireworks with. He was very dramatic and was shouting out the colors of each one as they exploded in the sky above us. He loved the show and cried when they were over and cried "more firework". How thrilled he was when we got home and our neighbors were lighting some fireworks. We let him watch them from his window as long as he didn't get off his bed. That trick works everytime. He was asleep within moments and our 4th of July came to an end.

What a wonderful day we had. How blessed we are to be living in America and to enjoy the freedoms that we so often take for granted. Living in a military town and being a military family we have known many, many families that are separated while one parent goes to fight in the war in Iraq or Afganistan. How fortunate we are that we have not had to face a deployment yet and yet, how aware we are of the dangers that these men and women are put in to protect the freedoms that we enjoy.

So a big shout out and THANK YOU to the troops from our military base and others who serve in the military. We appreciate your service and we pray for your safety. To our good friend, Michael, be safe and know we love you and wish you the best while you serve our country.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHANA!

You're spunky, wacky and a little weird
I wish you lived closer so we could be near

We could hang out and have lots of fun
Just think of the projects we could get done!

I hope your day is swell and happy as can be
Sending my love to YOU from me!

Love ya banana.

A little man

E is our little man. We call him Mr. Magoo or Chubba Lubba. He's almost 7 months old and we LOVE him to pieces.
Makes you wonder what he's thinking huh? He was eating prunes and I couldn't resist taking a picture of him with a prune mustache. Check out the drool hanging from his chin in the second picture!
Look at those rolls! E is 20lbs and 27 inches long. He's solid. He has been nicknamed "the brick" since he's so thick. E won't take a binkie but who needs one when he has his toes to suck on!
Pure sweetness! He loves pounding on his highchair tray like a drum.
E makes a sound like dark vader- too cute! Look at those blue eyes. We hope they stay blue. G's eyes have softened a bit and have a little bit of green to them. E's are very blue at the moment and we hope they stay that way.

A Sunday Favorite

It seems like every Sunday we're in the kitchen baking something yummy to eat for an afternoon snack. It's one of our favorite things to do and we look forward to it each week. Today was chocolate chip cookies! G is very patient as I add each ingredient and when he sees me add the flour he knows they are about done. It's about then that he grabs a spoon from the drawer and asks to sit on the counter.

The spoon is good for a few tastes but the beater is always the best!

This recipe makes over 4 dozen so G and I drove some around to some friends. If they stay in the house I'll eat them for breakfast, lunch and dinner so we thought it was best to share them with some friends!