things around the Taylor house...

Things have been busy!! Busy, but GREAT! Yeah, the little things like washing protective cups, untying knots in cleats...again, washing poop off chicken eggs, NEVER ever being anywhere close to being done with laundry, getting mad @ the bugs eating the new little leaves on my garden plants, holding sweet precious babies while watching those babies grow up & have their first Easters-all of it sometimes stinks, but sometimes makes me tear up because I am so happy to do it!! And I wouldn't trade it for the WORLD!

ohhhh...my teeny tiny cucumber plant coming out of the ground from seed!

the first mater!

boys on a roof...

look @ those yummies!

Easter kids! -growing up too fast!

Easter family

Eli's first cascarones!

Elli's first hunt...

Friends!

The closest thing I have to a bluebonnet picture this year. Kids wouldn't let me stop & take them!

Sweet Lela was born!

Another field trip with Madison!

Brandon has the best faces!

check out the intensity!

oh my goodness...for real. NO ONE can put their stuff away. Ever.

baseball hat anyone?? For real.

one picture...several thoughts

So, as I sit on my computer...downloading pictures from my camera, for my not no nice friend Brooke, I go through my old pictures. (I know, you think Brooke is nice. But-look at this not so nice post of her slacker friend...me!!) So, here's me & Bran at the Taylor Family Christmas, and here are my 10 thoughts (as I am still waiting on pictures to send to Brooke):

1. Why are my arms so long?

2. How did my BABY boy get so big?

3. Why didn't Brooke bring her own camera to Easter? It's her kid's first Easter hunt for crying out loud.

4. Are my elbows big or it just the picture?

5. Can I hire a housekeeper to do laundry?

6. I buy gel, spike the kids' hair, and no proof of that.

7. I used to be blond...what happened?

8. It's night time in this picture...why do I still have sunglasses on my head?

9. How in the heck did I get all those eye wrinkles?? Seriously?? @ 33?

10. What did I ever do to be blessed beyond belief like I am...even with wrinkles!?!?!?

Good morning world & all the wind happens...

Hello blog world, again. It's been way too long, and catching up would take way too long, and you would feel like you would need to take a nap, so I will try and spare you the boring details. :)

Here's a couple of most recent things... (in no particular order!!)


baseball season started! (2 teams again this year...double the practices & double the games-one reason I haven't blogged) my 3 favorite boys in the world!!

look at these handsome boys. love them.

This is Cam's first year at kid pitch. Let me just say that it hurts my stomach.

Brandon's on machine pitch this year!

We got to go to the Kingsville & the ranch to start off our spring break. 2 things we don't do nearly enough. Dang busy schedules!

RIVER!!! Love the river! It's so nice & full this year too!

Both in pink shirts...both dressed themselves. Again.

We make it a point to love on this boy as much as we can. Makes it real easy that he's stinkin cute & only lives 2 houses down!

Cowboy's doing so well that we had to shave him again. We went from having no hair to tooooo much hair again. It was a wonderful blessing, but a woman has to keep her house somewhat clean.

It's gardening time!!! This is our strawberry topsy turvey w/strawberries!! CAN'T WAIT!!

Cilantro in the pot so it doesn't burn in the 50+ days of 100 degree heat! SALSA!

Here's my mama BIN444 or something like that. Didn't have good luck with the garden last year, but hopefully with 16 tomato plants, we'll get some yummy yummy tomatoes! Ohhhhh...love gardening!

We finished up another season of Upward. Again...Brandon started figuring out the game @ the last game. Hope he remembers for next year!

Camron LOVED basketball this year!

My baby turned 7. Can't comment on that one yet. Makes me sad. (and can't get the picture to turn)

Well, hopefully I'll stay on my game & keep this up!! Only time will tell, huh??

blog world...where did you go?

I don't know where I've been. I know that I have so much to blog about, but can't put it into words. I try. I sit down, try to blog, then stop. First thought...who is really out there reading my blog? Not many people. It gets discouraging. As I sit here now, with my hamster running around on the key board, well not my hamster, Camron's hamster but I like her, I think hmmm...will she soon pee & poop on the key board? Should I blog about it? It's kind of funny in my head. No pictures, just me & my hamster. But then I realize, not many people will read about me and my hamster, or anything else I choose to write about, right? Some will, but not a lot of comments. Sometimes makes us bloggers feel like we're writing to no one. But, I'm going to try. I will try to keep pictures of my beautiful boys, who are growing way too fast. I will write about silly things like my hamster who is now asleep in one hand, as I type with the other...very...slowly. (still no pee or poop, just in case you were wondering) Happy blogging!!

I gotta throw in a pic just cause she's cute. Isabella in her ball. :)

I got a new car!

Well, a NEW TO ME car!! I was so excited, I couldn't even blog about it. But my friend Brooke did!

For the big news story...click here. Just couldn't reproduce her eloquent words.

OHHHH...and you also gotta read up on another Brandon moment...click here. Again, Brooke's words are too hard to beat. We've had to have this last conversation again since that post. The kid forgets everything.

33 and FEELING IT!

Well, I had another birthday. There's a point in life where I think people are excited about birthdays, and then you get to a point where you kind of start dreading them. I was kind of in the middle of those 2 feelings this year, up until I found this.

A flippin hand freckle! FOR REAL??!! This might not be a big deal to most people, especially for my friends who are not freckle challenged, but for me it was huge. You see, my grandma has freckly hands. Now, my mom has freckly hands. Some might see them as cute, but I see old. No offense Mom & Gma, but it's my first one. The rest of them probably won't hurt as bad.

Besides that, I had a WONDERFUL DAY!!! I woke up in the morning to sweet cards from the hubby, kids & dogs. I also got a box of sham wow's! A whole box of them! (If anyone wants one, please let me know. I have 12) And inside the box was a check to go and get a new car!! YEAH!! My sweet husband rocks. So, now I am off to find the perfect car for our family!!

I was also blessed to have spent the day getting a pedicure with Brooke, got to have sushi with some of my great friends, and had dinner with my favorite boys!! What more could a girl with a hand freckle want??!!??!! (ok...maybe a maid. But we'll start with a car!)

Cam's turn

Brandon writes me love notes, Camron cracks me up. This is on the hall walking through the halls of Arlon Seay (the place to BE!) A "Who am I " project.

40 for Brooke on Saturday

My sweet & dear friend Brooke posted a comment about not making my 11 on Thursday post. So, this one is for her.

Frankly, I have had a REALLY hard time trying to come up with something to say about this sweet Brookie lately. She has really left me speechless for the last 6 weeks, so here is an attempt of her greatness.

1. You let me forget that I am 5 1/2 years older than you.

2. You are brilliant. And you don't let my non-brilliant self feel dumb. Well, sometimes you correct me, but that's ok, cause you could do it a lot more than you do.

3. You watch girly movies with me (and watch our husband squirm in the chairs next to us).

4. When I am making you NO sense, you understand me.

5. You can finish my sentences.

6. You are not a hugger, like me.

7. You made me somewhat of a runner. I still don't like it, by the way, but I NEVER would have done it with out you.

8. You call me to go for a walk/run.

9. You listen to me.

10. You help me with ANYTHING I ask you to do.

11. You help me when I don't even ask.

12. You watch my kids. A LOT.

13. You clean my kitchen all the time.

14. You never say I am a bad Mom, when you've seen me do lots of stupid things.

15. You love Jesus so much.

16. You taught me to love Jesus.

17. You are my #1 emergency contact on all the kids' forms. Have I even told you that one? Mental note, if you see that 980-8700 # come across...

18. You always have brilliant ideas when it comes to anything that needs to be done.

19. You are a very eloquent speaker.

20. You helped me get my baby weight off (even though it had been there for 5+ years)

21. You never, ever said that I had baby weight to loose until it was gone.

22. You calm my nerves when I am crazy.

23. Have I mentioned that you are brilliant?

24. You buy me gifts when you don't have to.

25. You call me all the time even though you don't like to talk on the phone.

26. You are one of the best mothers I have ever met.

27. You tried sushi cause I asked you to. (and loved it)

28. You threw me a suprise birthday party.

29. You are a wonderful cook.

30. You make desserts that make me want to put that #20 back on.

31. You lift me up when I am really down.

32. You keep me in check with myself.

33. You don't make fun of me.

34. We wear the same shoe size which is very convienent.

35. You will let me borrow anything, anytime.

36. You were the best pregnant person I've ever been around.

37. You recovered SO fast from the pregnancy!

38. You just turned in your 120+ page dissertation proposal!

39. You've been awarded 2 fellowships!

And last, for now, and the most important one...

40. You gave me the best gift in the WHOLE entire world by letting me be in when you had Eli. No words could ever express my gratitude!!!

11 on Thursday

11 things today...

1. Camron learned 3 new cords this week in guitar lessons. He's up to 8 cords. Yeah!
2. He played "Happy Birthday" & SANG to Harrison @ his Bday party. He's getting a little less shy!
3. Brandon got 4th place in the hand stand contest @ tumbling class. Yeah!
4. He now has to start practicing hand stand push ups. Ouch.
5. He is also VERY into spelling everything. He walks around all day long spelling everything he wants to say instead of saying it. It's quite cute.
6. The 2 boys & I got flu shots today. Yuck.
7. Cowboy is COMPLETLY healed! Yeah!
8. Blake works late...every night. Yuck.
9. Camron and I are running (and walking) The Loft's Soul2Sole 5k this Saturday!
10. Blake is the MC guy.
11. The chickens are out of control. They are stinky. Mini, the one with the growth, runs really really funny.

Here's Brandon's note for today. Remember, he is still learning to spell.

Translation: Thank you for breaking the family. I climbed out the window. I moved to the Gilberts. Bye. Thank you for reading this note.

My sweet boy. He was mad @ Blake for making him go to his room when he couldn't calm down. What am I gonna do with this kid!?!?

Happy Last Day of October!

Another year down!

I think next year, we're going to get more creative with the costumes. The whole "going to Target and spending 30 minutes in the Halloween isle finding the perfect costume" thing is getting old. We did creative last year, and I missed it this year. They were still cute though, and they thought their costumes were pretty cool!

Bradie, Logan, Cam & Bran @ Bulverde Baptist Fall Festival. The cool thing about this pic is that we only had to worry about Bradie smiling! The masked kids didn't count!

Jamie, Elli & Cam

My favorite almost-10month old out there!!! (Brother was the cowboy and sister was the indian!)

Bran & Charis

Look @ that sweet face!!!

And NOW ON TO MY FAVORITE 5 Week Old!!!! Man!!! He's a CUTIE!!

We matched in our orange & black outfits. I did not have on velour pants though. Couldn't find any in my size.

Another note from this picture-this is the 9th halloween that I've worn this shirt. Got it when Cam was 11 months old. (side note from the first side note, was reminded of how old this shirt was from Jenny & Jessica's sister's blog-she has a boo shirt that she wears once a year) This shirt too gets worn once a year. And, it too is getting shorter & shorter every year, hince the under shirt. Are shirts shrinking? Am I getting taller? Are pants getting lower? Or is it just not as cool when you are 30 something after having 2 kids to have your belly hang out? Or your butt, for that matter!?

3rd note, Hi Cowboy sticking your head out from behind me! He wanted in the pic too!