Day 2

We were up and at 'em early in the morning on Day 2 @ the lake. Which also means day 2 of trying to get the hot tub heated up too. It's been 2 days and has gone from 85 to 91 by the mid-day mark, then back down to 88 @ night. We obviously do not know how to work hot tubs. The kids have had some fun on tubes, slides, hanging out in the before mentioned luke warm hot tub, making up games, and overall being very good! Here's some pics!

Bran, Alex & Avery

Here's proof that Bran & Avery are getting along this year! They are sitting together and smiling!

Camron chilaxin (That's for you Raenette)

We got the setup!!

We made our own water trampoline.


Didn't do the beach, and we still found sand @ the lake!



Little ladder golf

The slide into the lake. Super fun.

More chilaxin.
Blake & Brandon doing some night fishing.

Camron & Alex

The Griswolds-Day 1

The Griswolds, I'm sorry, the Taylors are on VACATION! We're pretty pumped, and Blake had to get us all packed up. Once we made the decision to take the trailer, it all went from there. We brought everything. The boys were SO exited, they "are we there yet"ed every 15 minutes. Well Brandon did. Camron always followed up with some sort of smart alec comment about telling time.

Here's some pics to start us off...

The very full trailer

back full too. Seriously, we need to learn how to pack.

The boys, ready to go, sporting their new do's

Quick visit with the Kosse's in Round Rock on our way out! Thanks Char!

The kids

The grown ups

The girls

Quick shout out to Brooke for her Birthday today! You're getting old! There's proof on HWY 35.

Gotta have the rock band action. Blake on vocals.

Camron on guitar

Brandon on drums. Rocking out.

This is the plan for day 2. After the girls go on the monster shopping trip!

Just picture me, in the recliner, spending way too long blogging.

meet our new Friend, Anna Faith!

Wow! I love new baby posts! I haven't done one in a while, but the babies are here and are still coming! Last week we went to my friend Courtney's to see her new little bundle, Anna Faith. I was really hoping to get a sneak peak of my Matty Bug, but he was down for a nap, which is a precious commodity, so we didn't wake him up. So, Brooke, Raenette, Court & I all got to spend some girl time with each other & see the new sweet thing!! She is precious. So proud of you Court!

Brooke & Anna (she looks like a pro)

Look at this sweet face! And she already has a tan! Court has great skin too.

For some reason, I didn't get a pic with Raenette & Anna (so sorry Rae!!), but here's me! I love the babies!

Welcome to the world sweet Anna. You have an amazing Mom, Dad & Big Brother that are so excited that you are here!

meet our new chicks

I don't even know how to start this one. The Taylors have chickens. Last week, we had a back yard, mostly full of rocks. It did have a very nice back porch that our friends help us build, and a growing garden that our friends helped us build, and a cool fort, that our friends helped us build. Wow. We have some really cool friends.

Then last Saturday, Blake helped our neighbor move his chicken coop from his yard, to our yard. I've been wanting chickens, and the dream was finally coming true. I am excited to get some eggs, and secretly want to be like my menagerie friends down the street. So Sunday, after Church, we went to Blanco to get some chickens. (Thanks to craiglist) So after a couple of hours, a trip to Tractor Supply and lots of hand washing (I'll maybe tell you the story of the chicken people a different time), we had 3 chickens. 1 full grown laying hen and 2-12 week old chicks. Then today, Blake came home with 2 more. Not too sure what they are. The 2 chicks we first got are females, which we want, and we'll just have to wait and see what these 2 others turn out to be. Hopefully they're females too! I don't want roosters. No way Jose.

So, meet the new additions--

The moving of the coop-Thanks Scott!

hmmmm...something we didn't quite think through. The bird dogs, LOVING the birds. Oops. They're doing much better now. (Look @ all the sweet rocks. Aren't they cute?)

My sweet, hard-working husband putting up the second perching limb cause I wasn't sure if they could jump all the way up.

Here's Abbey. (Camron named her) She'll lay blue eggs.

Was hoping for the golden egg, but blue will do.

Here's Diddy Kong & Dixie Kong. (Brandon named Diddy, and renamed Dixie chick to Dixie Kong. Come on Mom.)

Here's one of the nubie's - Jiggly Puff (she/he has a pom pom on the top of it's head)

and here's the other new one - that we're calling turkey. Mainly because we're not fo' sho that it's not a turkey. So, time will tell. But it got a name of turkey because of it.
Blake was taking Brandon out to help put in the two new chicks, and we found our first egg! Way to go Abbey!

See, regular store egg on bottom, Abbey blue(ish) egg on top.




Dixie & Diddy are pretty darn cute together. When they grow up, don't think they'll be as cute. Chickens are pretty ugly. But, they're cute now. They're always together.

Sea World with Mrs. Blevins' class

There could be some alternate titles for this post: The Mother of all Field Trips; Mom vs. 20 kindergartners; Tomato Arms-Don't look now, but Mom sun screened the kids and forgot herself; and last but not least-Brandon and Madison are just too darn cute! You'll see the proof below.


Sea World with 3 classes of kindergartners=what I call the Mother of all Field Trips. Don't get me wrong, I would never trade my time in with my kids for the WORLD, but this Sea World trip is a LOT of kids. Our school was there, plus our neighboring school Bill Brown, and about 4 hundred others. I was only responsible for 2, thank goodness. I was given 2 children once they got off the bus at 9:45am and gave 2 back to the bus @ 1:30pm. My job was done. And, we had tons of FUN in those 3 hrs 45 minutes, which seemed like 8 hours and 45 minutes on kinder time. Here's a couple of highlight pictures from the trip.

First we all lined up, got maps, and the kids couldn't wait to find the first thing on the map-the fountain. That lasted about 22 seconds.

The two I was responsible for. One lives in my house. And is very cute.

Then they try and get ya! $4 for a tray of fish to feed these guys!

First time anyone in the Taylor family has ever been able to touch one! He was just hanging out letting all the kids pet him. (Notice my arm...praying that he didn't fall in!)

"Mom, what?"

So, what do you do when your mom says no way to paying the 4 bucks for fish? You let your sweet friend Madison give you all of hers cause fish are yucky.

Proof # 1. Too cute. Buddies. They were very upset that both of their parents were going and that they couldn't be in the same group. So, Madison's mom & I stuck together. She's tons of fun anyway. :)

The group

Proof #2

and finally, proof # 3. My favorite. Friends.

Gotta stick my head in, proof I was there. (Madison's twin brother, Brandon, is beside her. Don't even get me started on how we keep the Brandon's straight.)

Brandon # 1 and Brandon # 2.

2 of the teachers with Madison, Brandon & Brandon

Me & my baby!!

Proof # 4.

Proof # 5. With their (really cool) teacher on way back to bus.

BIG shout out to teachers, especially the ones @ Arlon Seay. You rock. I don't know how teachers have the energy, all the time for these energetic kids! It is a huge blessing to have you guys help us raise our children. You have no idea how much I am grateful to your time, heart & patience!!

Easter 2009

baseball fun

(Click to see larger)

10 on Monday

OK, so I really don't know what that means, "10 on Monday" but I've seen other bloggers do it, so figured I'd do it too. But here's 10 random things for today.

1. I heart blogs. I love to every now and then go to a friend's blog, and click on one of their friends. Then click on a friend of theirs. And just keep clicking. You can find some pretty interesting stuff that way, let me tell you.

2. My sweet friend Brooke is 12 weeks pregnant already. It's already going so fast!

3. My dear friend Jamie just posted a muffin top picture of me on facebook. I politely sent her an email through facebook. I couldn't comment on something like that for the whole world to see. So, I'm blogging it instead. (If you don't know what a muffin top is, it's ok. I only found out about 2 months ago-from my Dad.) (And don't go check it out. It's embarrassing.) Not that anyone really reads my blog anyway. HA! Silly me. :)

4. Blake had my computer out yesterday and the dog stepped on the keyboard. The 4 key no-workie right. Then, as I figured out tonight, the 7 key no-workie right either. Or the 3 key. Damn dog. (I was not very nice to him about it either.)

5. In no sort of revenge, I accidentally washed Blake's blackberry. It's very clean and smells good, but the verdict on if it'll still work or not is still out. (He was, however, pretty darn nice to me about it! Sorry Blake!)

6. I have been blogging for about an hour and my phone had buzz...buzz'd about 25 times. Which means I have 25 new emails. Seriously? From 9-10pm? 25 emails?

7. My 4 key is sticking up and looking at me in this kind of "hi there, what ya doing?" kind of way right now.

8. Blake taught the boys to play 21 tonight. Monday nights is poker night with the boys. Which normally lasts for about 15 minutes with Brandon's attention span. I watered my dying plants while they were learning about gambling.

9. I love sitting down with my family at the table and eating dinner together.

10. Cowboy's had this sore spot on his foot ever since he came home from his surgery back in November. It sometimes acts like it's gonna get better, then he'll start licking it again. After a couple of trips to the vet including a shot this past Saturday, the vet suggested rubbing on Arrid Xtra Dry roll-on deodorant to get him to stop licking it. He hasn't licked it since! Who knew! It worked! Well, it has worked for 3 days. We'll see how long it lasts.

Off to bed for now! OH....here' a sweet picture of my boys! Aren't they handsome?!

The Secret Lives of Moms

There's a new show that I am excited about...In the Motherhood. For those of us who are Mom's, it's no wonder that they finally made a show about how FUNNY being a mom is, and that everyone is in the same boat-even though nobody knows it. I never watch Oprah, but I did yesterday, and she had a panel of ladies on there which gave the idea for the new show. The Oprah show was hilarious and just reminded me that #1, Moms are FUNNY, and #2, we are not in this alone.

It did remind me of this video though. I got to see Anita Renfroe @ Women of Faith last year, and she did this piece. This is someone else doing it, but still great. I don't care how many times I've heard it, it's still funny.



Here's one of my favorite tid-bits from the show...


Dee-Dee is currently a stay-at-home mom, but she was a working mother once too. "The competition is there because we create it for ourselves," she says. "There's really no reason to compete, because [stay-at-home moms] are just as busy as the working mom. The working mom is just as busy as we are. We just tend to sometimes put the focus on the wrong things. We're all busy 24/7. I consider myself an at-home working mother." Amy says these wars arise out of our own uncertainties as mothers. "We're insecure about the choices we're making—that's why we're judging each other," she says. "We need to give ourselves a collective break." Try Amy and Trisha's judgment exercise. "Have compassion for each other," Trisha says. "Realize we all have issues, and we're all doing the best we can."

OH yeah, one lady on the show started a blog when she was pregnant with her first baby. She just was REAL about the pregnancy & about becoming a mom. Her husband has quit his job, and they both full time run this blog. Why you ask? Cause she gets $40k a MONTH in advertising $ for her blog. WHAT? Seriously. I think I am almost there. Anyone want some advertising on mine?

Brandon's class made the paper!

From THE BULVERDE NEWSPAPER---

Teachers Wendy Clark, Rachel Kaspar and Mary Blevins, and their students are all smiles as the Comal Education Foundation awards a $4,206 grant: Outdoor Classroom: Green for the Greenhouse.

Way to go Teachers!! So proud, and you'll have SO MUCH fun building your greenhouse!

I showed this to Brandon, and he said, "Yeah Mom, I know. I told the kids 'Let ME in!' so I could get in the picture!" Front and center. Don't know where he gets that from...hmmmm...