Remember that baby...

I'm happy to report that yes, we are still here.  Six kids.  That's a lot.  And poor #6 gets the shaft quite often.  Perhaps that is why the babies of the families are always a little spoiled in comparison to the other kids.  It is because the parents are trying to compensate for all the times baby #6 had to sit and cry while Mom and Dad dealt with babies 1-5.  I've already promised Reddick that I will buy him a car when he is 16 to make up for yesterday when I spent the entire morning cleaning one mess after another that Dodge made and Reddick just had to sit there and deal with it.  If he can earn a car in one day of Dodge going crazy then who knows how spoiled he will be in the end.  

Anyway...here he is.  This was probably taken around 1 month.  

 I love his hair and he gets compliments every time we go out.  He hasn't lost any of it but, after seeing his younger pictures, I have noticed that his hair now lacks it's robustness-not because he is losing it but because his head and face are a lot bigger.  

Look at the size of his head now!  It looks like he ate the baby above! And that he is happy about it.  

This is Reddick at almost 3 months.  He's quite handsome.  

We tried to do a Christmas photo shoot today.  I was focused on getting him to smile and didn't have the camera focused on him so many of these picture have a very clear christmas tree backdrop with a blurry boy in front.  Darn it. 

I like how serious he looks.

And how cute he looks.

And then there is this.  Not all his pictures can be great.

Dodge loves his baby.  As you can see, the feeling is mutual. :)

We had a baby

Here he is, our sixth baby.

Reddick John Taylor.

He was born at 10:52 on September 9th.  6lbs 12oz with a full head of hair and a smile.

As it turned out September 9th was also my kids' first day of school.  I wasn't going to be there to see them off (and Blake started kindergarten!!) so we had this elaborate plan full of multiple babysitters, drop offs, pick ups and overnight guests that would allow us to have the baby and have Ben stay at the hospital with me.  It would also allow for my mom to come later when Ben was back at work.  I was a little anxious about it all and then, out of the blue, my sister came to the rescue!!

Kaylee was headed down to California for a triathlon anyway so she came a few days earlier and stopped at our house with her family.  She handled everything and, if you know my sister, you know that she made it even more magical than I would have done.  While Ben and I were at the hospital she was making breakfast, making flower arrangements, making cookies, making an after school silly string party, making dinner and making a trip to the hospital with all the kids to see the baby.  She was awesome.  I can't thank her enough for what she did.  It allowed me to relax and enjoy the baby instead of worrying about the other five being bounced around for two days.  Thank you, Kaylee!!

We left the hospital the next day and brought our little man back home.  Ben had a week off and it was so fun.  We got lunch everyday.  That was my favorite part. 

Dodge is adjusting very well to the baby.  He loves holding him, watches out for him, and has no problems with sharing his Mom.  What he does have a problem with is his older siblings leaving each day for school.  We had a few days of him crying at the door when they would leave.  It was cute.  He is pretty dependent on Heidi in his life. 

Reddick is now two weeks old (I started writing this post a week ago and am only now finishing it up).  Ben is back at work, my mom and sister came and left for their visit.  We are on our own with just the two boys and myself during the day.  We have been doing well so far except for today when Dodge just left as I was bathing the baby.  Turns out he was at the school and the principal had to call for me to pick him up.  We are being incredibly spoiled by our ward and friends.  I've never had so many meals or goodies before.  It has been nice and also very humbling to see so many people wanting to help and take care of us.  

Maybe this baby will get me back into blogging again.  Or I will just enjoy snuggling my last little baby :) 

Disney Magic

You may or may not believe that there is such a thing as Disney Magic but I am a believer.  Disney is magical and it always rises to the occasion!  We had one last day at Disneyland yet we had many people on our list to see.  We had seen Mickey but not yet gotten a picture with him.  We had a plan to get there early and hope to get in line before it was crazy long.  As you know, one of our kids was sick each day of the vacation.  Today was Daisy's turn.  She was pretty picky about who she really wanted to get a picture with.  While waiting we saw Chip.

Then at 8:00 sharp Mickey came out.  We were ready to run to the line but didn't even have to!  He came right up to the stroller and shook hands with Dodge.

Then he went over to Blake, who, I believe, he thought was handicapped.  Blake sat there with a dumb grin on his face, posing for the picture, and wouldn't walk normally when Mickey tried to lead him over to his picture station.  It was a bit embarrassing but hey, it got our family to be first in line so we will take it!

Our morning was starting out great!

I was surprised how few people were there at eight in the morning.  We should have gotten our kids up earlier everyday!  We were able to get so much accomplished simply because there were no lines.  The last time we had been to Disneyland the princess line was huge.  But this go around the wait was 5 minutes!!  That was it!!

We hadn't gotten any princess pictures yet (with the exception of the fast pass for Elsa and Anna) so we stopped in to see who was there. Snow White, Belle and Cinderella. Once again, Disney magic!

All along our plan had been to wait for Mickey's Toontown to open (Erica gave us a tip that Mickey and Minnie come get the first people in line to open up Toontown).  However, on the way we saw so many characters that we kept stopping!!  Alice tried so hard to get a picture with Dodge.  Instead he screamed and ran away from her.

Ben was great about getting fast pass tickets for us and then saving our spot in line for Toontown.  He was even great about wearing matching Mickey shirts with me.  I love that guy.

Disney  magic continued...Goofy meets us at the gate.

Toontown opened and we were first to enter.  As we walk in, sure enough, here comes Mickey and Minnie!  Dodge ran right up to Mickey and gave him a hug!  (Funny enough, both Ben and I quit watching after Dodge and turned our attention to the girls because Dodge was with Mickey. Turns out Mickey wasn't a reliable babysitter because a minute later we discovered Mickey was with someone else and Dodge was gone! We are awesome parents :)

When recapping our vacation, Ben said this was his favorite part.  Minnie came out and took both Kaylee and Heidi by the hand and walked them to her house!  It was awesome! Disney Magic!

After Minnie we were heading out of Toontown only to discover that Donald was just showing up and we were, once again, first for pictures!!  Seriously, it was crazy how many people we had seen by 9:15 in the morning!

After Toontown our plan was to ride rides.  Ben had already gotten the fast passes and it was beginning to be close to the cut off time and we needed to head over.  We didn't get far before we ran into the Wicked Queen, Peter Pan AND Captain Hook! Since we were also right by pixie Hollow Ben was willing to stand in line there because the girls saw through the plants that it was Iridessa was the fairy and we hadn't seen her yet.  The rides had to wait.  We just couldn't pass them up!

I love this TinkerBell picture. 

The rest of the day we hit up all the rides we really liked and by 2:00 had gone on everything we had wanted to go on.  It was awesome and we still had the whole afternoon left.  We headed over to watch the Frozen play and saw that Ariel was out!  Heidi jumped in line to wait and heard that Ariel would be switched out at 3:15 for Rapunzel.  Time wise, it was cutting it close, but we managed to see Ariel and then jump back in line for Rapunzel.  In the end we saw every princess except Aurora.  (By this time in the afternoon it was hot and Daisy was barely making it.  She just sat in the shade until it was time to see the princess and then went back to sitting in the shade.)

We watched the parade (love Disney parades) and as we went around the park we realized that we were quite satisfied with all we had gotten done.  The fast passes had all been used up and we ended up just watching shows, playing around Toontown until it closed, and then waiting for fireworks.  It was so relaxing and wonderful.  We loved our vacation and can't wait to go back again.