Is it Christmas already?

OK, this month has FLOWN by.  I cannot believe how busy and hectic this month has been for us.  Never has Christmas come so quick.  The late Thanksgiving didn't help.  And neither did the car breaking down or Ben's extra work load.   And the snow week REALLY didn't help.  But luckily we remembered to snap a quick Christmas picture in front of the tree.  Note to self: white cardigan is not very flattering.  I like this little tradition we have.  I plan to actually print them all up from every year so we can have them displayed during christmas time.  Sad that Ben isn't in them but what was first a casual photo became a tradition and we can't add him in now. Although I do keep adding more kids :)

Here are some pictures I have been meaning to get up on my blog for so long and just don't get around to.  Sucks to be the 5th.  You definitely don't get as much blog time as the other kids did. Dodge will be 6mths at Christmas.  6 months!!  Can you believe it?  I'm so glad I have a baby.  I see Blake as a big kid and am so glad I have a baby to hold.  We like to play with my hair when I hold him.  Oh, how I love it. 

I am definitely his favorite person. 

Here was our Thanksgiving photo we took at Ben's Parent's house.  Don't ask me what Heidi is doing.  She did that in all the pictures.  We really had fun with Ben's family.  They are almost all in Utah now. We are the lone Taylor family still on the West Coast.

The nice thing about his family moving to Utah is that it is Utah.  There is a ton of church stuff to do. Our kids will get to see it and do fun church things.  We went to the lights while we were there-way too crowded.  We didn't even take them through the visitor's center because you couldn't walk through it.  We will have to plan a better Temple Square visit the next we go there.  

I'm glad I got these up two days before Christmas.  I'm excited for Christmas.  It will be our second year in our house, first time with just us. We have so many plans for the next two days that Ben has off.  After that I head to California with the kids for Fake Christmas with my family.  I can't wait for that either.  I just love Christmas.

Broken

I feel like things are quickly deteriorating at my house.  I just made a craigslist post to sell our van that broke down on the side of the road in Nevada.  Who is going to want that? I don't know.  But we want it off our hands and have to figure out some way to get our stuff out of the car.  It's in Nevada.  We are in Oregon.  Therein lies the problem.

I just got off the phone with the pool guy.  Our pool is losing water.  QUICK.  It was frozen over enough this last week that they girls were able to walk on it.  Then this morning the ice was broken up and sticking up out of the water because it was down below the first step.  Crap.  Ben went back to his idea of just getting rid of our pool.  But I found the leak(s).  The pool guy is coming on Monday.  

And I just tried to load pictures from November.  This was all I could get and it somehow is to the right:

Why? Because our mouse is broken on the computer.  It's been dying for a while.  Slowly getting worse and worse, clicking really loudly, sticking, highlighting things at random, etc.  I think posting this picture was it's last act.  I don't know what to do because to replace it is like $70 but at the same time our computer is about to bite the dust, too, so do I buy for a breaking computer or just get a new computer?  Who knows. This all sucks.

And then you can add on my own life right now.  There is laundry on my couch that has been there since last night.  There is a basket of dirty laundry on my table that has been there since yesterday afternoon waiting to be started.  Pretty much I don't want to do it.  I'm a bit broken down myself as the CEO of Taylor Inc.  Nothing is wrong with me.  No bad day or anything.  I just don't want to do it.  It has been cold, the kids had four snow days in a row.  All I really want to do right now is pretend I don't have kids and spend all afternoon cleaning my house.  That brings me such satisfaction.  But I do have kids.

I will just end this post with this.  Our Thanksgiving was great.  We had so much fun in Utah with Ben's family.  It was just relaxing.  The kids got along with this cousins and we even shot a few family pictures.  Ben's whole family has/is slowly moving out to Utah.  We will be the lone Taylors in Medford along with his Grandma in California.  It is a weird feeling that his family is now from Utah but that isn't Ben's home.  But we are really excited for his parents.

Harvest Party

I don't do fun things for my kids very often so when I do I want it documented.  After Halloween we had a haunted house to put together still, and hadn't bobbed for apples like Heidi asked, and never made the leaf wreathes I thought would be an easy craft for the kids.  Ben was headed to work that Saturday so I told the kids we would combine all those activities and have a Harvest party!!  I also told them to go write out what they would like to do for the party and see which ideas we could use.  They came up with some good ones, including having friends over.  So we called up a few people and started working.

We had a few craft stations-leaf wreathes, thanksgiving day turkey cards, and color your thanksgiving dinner.  We had an outside Flying Turtle station and a sugar cookie station.  But their favorite was getting the snacks and going to the story time station.  This was Kaylee's idea.

There was no way I was going to be able to read a book while doing everything else so instead we had Ben's mom read to them off a DVD she sent us years ago. 

After they did stations we then had dinner, then went out to bob for apples.  I don't know why Heidi wanted to do this so badly but she did.  Most of the kids figured out that if you grabbed it by the stem you didn't have to get your face wet but Heidi went all the way!!!  She did awesome.  She was the only one who actually grabbed the apple by the apple.  

So there you have it.  My once a year good mom activity.

My two boys

I really love having these two boys at the end.  It is a fun change.  Dodge is finally getting the hang of sleeping all night.  I'm enjoying it. He is also about to get some teeth.  Say what you will but he looks like Ben.  

Blake is all boy and also very smart.  Tonight he knew I was writing out the phrase 'Mater the Greater'.  I think he will be quick to read.  But he is also quick to scream. We are working on that and I hope he quits quickly because I don't like getting him in trouble.  I like spoiling him. 

And I hear the last guy in my life pulling into the garage.  Finally.  He has had a busy week and been working late almost every night.  But I can't complain too much since it means his business is growing.  I'm going to hang out with him now!!

The Pumpkin Patch and Halloween

One thing I love about our school is that the kindergarten class still gets to go to the Pumpkin Patch.  For me that is a coming of age for kids to go to the Pumpkin Patch.  We don't ever go as a family so it is a pretty big deal to go with their school class.  Daisy's trip was so much better than when I went with Kaylee.  As hard as Daisy was for me this summer (and can still occasionally be) she has really blossomed in school.  She is maturing how I wanted her to but couldn't get her to.  It has been awesome.

She knew exactly which pumpkin she wanted and followed all the rules in taking care of her pumpkin.  

Then we headed to the hay slide.  This just doesn't seem worth the hay you get stuck in your clothes but the kids all love it.  Daisy always looks so much older in her jeans.  So cute.

Adjusting her pants and picking out hay before going back up again. 

Daisy's group I was in charge of had two little girls from church.  The one with the big black and pink jacket is an older kindergartener who has a late birthday.  She is nice and responsible.  The other little girl in pink is just a character who talks and talks.  I always like seeing how she interacts with the kids at school.  It was fun.  As soon as I pulled out my camera Daisy and Kylie started posing.

On the hay ride.  I love her hair but she wants to grow it out again.  Makes me sad. Maybe if you all say how cute her short hair is she will believe you because she doesn't believe me.

Being the lame mom that I am I have no-NO-pictures from Halloween.  Not a one.  I barely even got a phone picture and it was only of Blake and a friend of his.  But this year our Halloween wasn't anything to document anyway.  I put zero effort into the costumes and the kids had to figure them out with whatever they could find from their closets.  Blake used his outfit from last year, Daisy used a Barbie dress up dress, Kaylee used a church dress pretending to be a bride and Heidi put on her pumpkin shirt, spray-painted her shoes orange and went as a Halloween Queen.  We did have cool decorations though.  This was also the first year we did the whole neighborhood so the kids got a ton of candy.  It was also the first year of just keeping the candy instead of the Great Pumpkin taking it.  Now it is all sorted and stored away to be our FHE treats.  We will see how long it lasts.

I did, however, get this cute picture on Halloween.  Dodge looks a lot like Daisy but in this picture he really just looks like his own person.  He rolls over now and is getting his teeth.  He is also out of our room and we are working towards him sleeping through the night.  Last night I only got up twice, gave him his pacifier and he was just fine.  He is a cute little boy.

Around the house

We have officially been in our house for one year.  We have done a lot to our house in the past year however it doesn't really seem like that much when you look around.  I've mainly done a lot of painting.  And repurposing closet doors.  

This week I decorated for Halloween.  I know it is not nearly as trendy as my sister's house will be, nor as vintage as Katie's house would be but it works for my house.  I like how it turned out and it all came from either the dollar store or something I cut up and painted here at the house.  

Here is the entryway dresser.  I love having pictures of my kids up so I developed some past Halloween pictures, painted and glittered some dollar store frames, and got those really cool Halloween busts.  My favorite this is the Boo.  

I repainted a B that used to be in Blake's room and then cut a small basketball in half, painted it white, then painted the eye part and used a red sharpie for the veins.  I love it.  I am going to make an exclamation point to go at the end.  I think it needs that to be complete.  I like that it is eyeball stuff because of Ben.

Blake two years ago as Lightning McQueen.

This year's pumpkin day picture, and Heidi and Kaylee eating candy on the door step during our first Halloween in Memphis.

The girls during our first Halloween here.  At Jacksonville for Trick-or-treating.

And this cute picture of Daisy's first Halloween but it looks a lot like Dodge right now :)

Thanks to my Mother-in-law I have a plethora of fake spiders that the girls helped put all over the dresser.  I love how it all turned out.  

Then outside we hung some bats, spiders and placed rats around the front door.  I also stuffed some old clothes and to make creepy people sitting on the porch.  It is still a work in progress but the kids love it. Balke has thanked me a couple of times for decorating for Halloween.  Who knew that would be so important to them?

Sadly we have also cut down some trees in the yard.  I loved the trees around our house however, most of them had died from the house being empty for so long.  It was sad when we realized the maple tree in the back yard was dead.  Yesterday it was removed.  We also cut down six trees in the front yard.  It is pretty depressing to see it look so empty.  We still need to grind the stumps and put in new trees but that probably won't be happening until the spring.  Sad.

I have been working on other small projects here and there.  It takes a long time for me to get anything done now that Dodge is here.  I bought these windows before he was born and it took months for me to get them painted and hung.  I like how it turned out though.  This wall was bare for quite some time.

I also did a bathroom renovation. Here was our bathroom when we first moved in.  Yuck.

Then I tore down the wall paper and painted with some random paint we had in the garage.  I also spray painted the shower bronze.  It looked better but still wasn't my favorite. 

Eventually we tried to fix the faucet-weren't able to-and bought a new one.  I also bought a mirror at a yard sale for that bathroom and it all led to another bathroom renovation, once again using paint from the garage! This time I love it!

Some may say I use a little too much teal but I don't care.  I like it.  I like things to be bright and bold.  I like the contrast with the white.  As I said before, my house and decor will never be super trendy, or universally liked or even pinned.  But I like it.