Just another day running errands

You walk into Home Depot. What do the kids do? INSTANTLY start climbing ALL OVER EVERYTHING!!! Then in the middle of the 5th lecture of "Let me tell you again-the reasons you can't climb on the racks @ Home Depot", Brandon grabs himself (normal!), and says, "I've got to peeeeeeeeeeeee". They ALWAYS have to go to the bathroom @ Home Depot. I think it's just this malfunctioned inner brain thing that they are born with. It goes something like this-You walk into a store and your kid, anywhere from 2 1/2 years old to I think 15ish, and the kid has to either pee or poop. The store that the kid has chosen either does not have a customer bathroom available-and you have to walk, WITH the people that work there, through the super over crowded back room, to a place that only resembles a bathroom because there's a toilet, OR a store where the bathroom is just a few feet away from walking to CHINA. That's the story @ Home Depot. The only way that you could be anywhere close to the bathroom is if you were looking for concrete bags. Seriously. Otherwise, you have to walk 150,000 feet with a kid holding his privates ALL the way to the bathroom. The people who designed these places did not have children.

Anyway, so we make it to the bathroom. I don't know what y'all normally see when you walk into the bathroom @ Home Depot, but here's our experience.

4 Dogs in a cart. In the bathroom. At Home Depot. That's normal, huh??

The Day the Bomber left...

It was a sad morning @ the Taylor house. Well, sort of.

Long story short, we bought an 1990 Oldsmobile Cutlas Cierra 2+ years ago from my Dad, which had been previously owned by my 19 year old sister, in the attempt to try and get us closer to where we wanted to be financially. So what do you get when you trade in a car payment? What ever you can afford,-this was it!! We named it "the bomber" and she was a beaut! Well, she died about a month ago, and is now on her way to being donated to Comal County's Habitat for Humanity. It's kind of sad. We'll miss seeing her in the driveway, rusting away. (Even though I am SURE that my NEIGHBORS will miss seeing her even more!)

Isn't she pretty??

The boys watching...

Going....

Going....


Gone.She did us well, and we can safely say that we got our $750 out of her.

10 years and a WEEKEND AWAY!

We celebrated our 10 year anniversary this weekend and were blessed with some wonderful babysitters (THANKS MOM, TONI & MARY) and we able to get away for the weekend to Marble Falls!! The kids had tons of fun with Grammy & Aunts, and we were able to just be US!

Blake is always wonderful & gets me roses on our anniversary!

Here's an attempt @ a self-portrait @ sunset! (New diamond earings in my ears!!)

We went to a place called Badu House in Llano for dinner. So fun!

Can you believe this view? I just can't get used to it, and the fact that we live so close to this! We LOVE the hill country!!!!

I got all tatted up @ Market Days.

And put on my bikini in downtown Fredricksburg. I am just crazy, huh?

We got to do a lot of hanging out together, even went to a winery for a wine tasting. Very nice! (No pics of that.)

Here we are @ River City Grille in Marble Falls. Outside on the deck, waterfall in the back ground, band playing, no kids around, wonderful weather, just fun.

I LOVE YOU SEEP!!!!!!!! Can't wait to see what the next 10 brings.

When Ike came to town

Ike was a very bad thing. Didn't like any part of him. We had lots of friends and family in Houston that probably dislike him a LOT more than me. So sorry guys.





Ike didn't really come to bad in Spring Branch though. Would have been a little nice to have a couple inches of rain, but nope. Just turn the sprinkler back on, Jen. No rain for Spring Branch, again.





Ike did leave a few traces around here though...

-must have had some big winds. Socks & shoes were all over the house, homework spread everywhere, dog hair in more places than I can count, and there toys were found in every room.

-some evacuees got to come hang out. Troy, Anna, Bailey, Inde, Katy. Winds got so bad @ times, Bailey's ears were out of control.

-poop was spread all over the back yard. I wonder why?? See any culprits?

-acorns got all over the trampoline. Just a mess. Gave Cam a headache.

We were so distraught, that we just had to have a sister sushi night. Then, the tuna tower was different again? Could it have been Ike?

-Then I think the barometric pressure hit the boys. It was throwing them off a bit. Had to put on some sleeveless shirts and jump some more to fix it.

I do have to say, that Ike made my sister Toni not have power for about a week, so she got to come and stay @ our house. And that, my friends, was a huge blessing!! I was much needed to have time with my sis. Really makes me wish that I was around my family more. I miss all of them!

through my head

Since my friends decided to get me into the blogging scene, I now take pictures wondering, "what can I add to this to put onto my blog?"

So, walking through the house the other day, I found my fierce guard dogs ready and willing to take their stance on anyone who was going to come by.

Well, not so much.

This is Lucy. She is normally in 3 places throughout the house.
1. Laying IN her dog bowl in the kitchen
2. Sleeping on her bed
3. or See below

She holds the wall by the back door. Wanna see proof, look at the large quantity of DOG hair on my curtain.

Then there's Cowboy. He's pretty much worthless, but full of LOVE for us. Total companion dog. All he thinks about is being where ever we are. Including when you go to the bathroom. He follows you everywhere and is thinking "What are you doing mom, huh, huh? What are you doing? and can I come in?? huh, huh? Can I see? What's in there? You in the fridge now Mom, huh, huh? You going to go into the laundry room? I wanna see what's in there? Can I come, huh, huh??" Constantly. He loves us. And he loves his ball. Here he is guarding his ball by the front door.

When you become a mom of kids anywhere in the 1ish to probably 80ish age, you learn to NOT go to the grocery store with your kids. You tend to walk out with WAY more than you expected. Here's what we walked out with on Friday.

You've probably all seen them, and wondered, "hey, I wonder if those things are any good?" Well let me tell you, YES they are!! The boys loved them, and so did I.

Saturday we were invited to the Tejas Rodeo in Bulverde. It was tons of fun, and I just found out that George Strait's new video for "Troubadour" was actually filmed there. It's a really cool place if you are looking for something to do. We all had fun! http://www.tejasrodeo.com/

Here's a pretty sweet "brotherly love" moment. Blake and I were still down eating our dinner and we told the kids to go find the kids and sit with them. We looked up to see this...

Then, the boys being boys...not looking @ the signs.

"It's just horses & bulls Mom."

Our friend GRADY turned 5!!! I can't believe it. Happy Birthday buddy!!

Here's what must have been going through Grady's mom and dad's mind that day before. -Geez honey, our son wants a hunting party. What do we get? A cake with a deer head on it, all the kids in camo, some camo note pads, some sticky men (that made the kids go CRAZY), and why not a hunting DOG!!

Here's the kids with their new friend "Chocky"

She's DARN cute!!!!!

Here's all the kids. Aren't they beautiful?

And last but not least, I have to make a shout out to my friend Zane. He's just so darn cute!!! Look @ his little face! And, that smile comes fresh with two dimples. How could you say no to this face when he asks for a snack and a drink "for the road"?

We're gonna try and bunker down for this hurricane that doesn't seem to be coming this way. We'll see!!

Just another Thursday afternoon...

Mid afternoon after school-

In walks in Brandon.
Mom: "Brandon, where are your pants?"
Brandon: "I didn't want them on anymore."
Mom: "Brandon, it's 4:15 in the afternoon, you have to have pants on."
Brandon: "Why Mom?"
Mom: "I don't know, just cause you need to wear pants."
Brandon: "why?"
Mom: "Just cause Brandon! And Logan might be coming over."

5 minutes later...
Mom: "Caaaaaammmmmm-Logan's Mom is bringing him over in a few minutes-this house is a mess!" (really not, but people are coming over! Time to panic.)
Camron: "COOL !! It's ok Mom, I'll help clean up."
In walks in Brandon
Mom: "Brandon-where is your SHIRT?" Now is standing there in just underwear.
Brandon: "aaaaahhhhhhh, I didn't want that anymore either."
Mom: "Brandon, you have to wear clothes."
Brandon: "why?"
Mom: "Cause I said, and Logan's on his way. And cause it's 4:30 in the afternoon."
Brandon: "Fine. But if I'm gonna get dressed, you gotta let me play game cube." (they haven't been able to play in 4 days.)
I then give in, and he comes out dressed in BRIGHT yellow shorts and a BRIGHT yellow shirt.
Mom: “Brandon, why aren’t you wearing what you wore to school, and what in the WORLD are you wearing??”
Brandon: “I didn’t want to wear those clothes anymore and it wanted to wear yyeeelllllllooowwww. You know I love to wear yellow.”
Mom: “Brandon, you never wear yellow.”
Brandon: “I know.”
And so the kid wore yellow.

Brandon's moves

When the music starts pumping, the kids start a movin' over here. Here's a rare moment where they let me grab the camera.

Brandon's attempt @ the worm...he wants to be like Mr Chris & Mr Lance.

(kinda dark though)

just a normal Wednesday night over here...

the out of towners...

Because we are not in ANY sports right now, we are able to play around a bit on our weekends. It's not something we are used to doing, since we are normally wrapped up in soccer, basketball, baseball, cub scouts, or any combination of the 4. BUT, we are off for about 4 months, and I hope we are able to just find something to do with ourselves.

So, we took our 3 day weekend and headed down to Rockport to see the family. My parents have lived there for almost 5 years already, and we hardly ever get to go visit.



We went to a restaurant in Key Allegro and the kids found this cool leopard eel and made me take a picture. Brandon, of course, looks like he has to pee, as he does in all his pictures. It's embarrassing.







While we were in Rockport, we got to catch up with some old friends (Jeff & Connie Sue) that we hadn't seen in 3 years since they moved to Corpus from SA. They moved to a sweet house that happens to have a lake, a boat, and a pool in their back yard. The kids were happy!



Here's Brandon and their daughter, Jordan, on the tube.

Here's Cam and their son Caleb.

They have this pole off the boat that helps the kids learn how to ski and wake board. I guess it's a pretty common thing in boat world, but here in Taylor non-boat world, we thought it was pretty cool! Camron was a natural!

Our friends are having Caleb's 5th birthday party next weekend. He is having a Spiderman party, and a friend of theirs decided that he wanted to buy Caleb a Spiderman pinata. He got it, and Connie told the guy, "This isn't Spiderman, it's a Mexican wrestler". We walk in to see it, and Brandon freaks! It's a Power Ranger, not a Mexican wrestler. And since Brandon thinks HE HIMSELF is a Power Ranger, he falls in love and wants to take it home. He finally settled with a picture.

Sunday night we were able to head to Jack & Joanie's house in Rockport and have dinner with them. (Insert picture here, if I would have been on top of it and actually taken in my camera!)

We got to finish up the weekend with lunch @ Johnny Carrino's with my Mom & Dad, sister Toni, and brother Leo and his family. (Sorry Mar...we missed you.)

That does it for the weekend. We had lots of fun, and MAN was it hard to get back to the school routine!