She's Five

I can't believe it but it's true. My little Rhaegan is 5 years old! I remember looking at her lying in my lap at 2 weeks of age thinking "she's never going to grow up." She is now my little lady, my #1 helper, my sidekick. She keeps me on my toes and helps me remember what is really important in life.

Her birthday was filled with many fun and exciting activities. She had incredibly long list of things she wanted to do and get for her birthday. We of course couldn't do them all (I mean lets be realistic here) but we did do a lot hopefully making this a birthday to remember. Rhaegan did say this was the best birthday ever.
(ok she says that about everything)
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, RHAEGAN!!

DC part II

Our Thanksgiving in DC continues...

On Thanksgiving Day we celebrated with some of the other temple workers/missionaries with a nice dinner at the church. It was nice to meet some of the wonderful people Reed and Jackie get to work with each day. As you can see Rhaegan warmed right up to some of the men. It was literally a room filled with "papas"

The food was delicious! There was enough to feed an army too.

After we ate it was time to hit the basketball court for a little three on three (or chasing the princess ball and playing keep away from Rhaegan)

We then decided to head downtown to do a little sightseeing. It wasn't crowded and the weather was pretty nice which made for a great evening.

More to come...

Thanksgiving in DC

This Thanksgiving we decided to head over to Washington DC to visit Shae's parents. They are on a mission at the DC temple. We are really excited to see them and celebrate the holiday with family. When we arrived we gave Marlee and nap and then headed out for a little pre-Thanksgiving shopping and a wonderful dinner and my favorite: The Cheesecake Factory!

On Thursday we decided to hit the Zoo (it's free by the way). We got there right as it opened and were able to see everything with the normal zoo crowd. It was cold but very fun. Thanks to my good friend Melissa we had a double stroller to help us.

The girls (especially Rhaegan) were so excited to see all the animals. Marlee was waiting patiently for the elephant exhibit.

This bridge extends all the way across the elephants. Luckily one of the elephants was out.

The best part of the whole thing was getting to see the panda (or Po from Kung Fu panda). As you can see from the pictures below he was extremely close. He was so cute.

This was just the first 24 hours of our trip. More pictures to come...

Nick's Birthday

We were so luckily to be able to celebrate Uncle Nick's birthday with him this year. Rhaegan is all about birthdays and everything that comes along with them so when we said we were having a birthday "party" for uncle Nick she was ready and willing to do whatever she could to help. She actually used her own money (one dollar) to buy him and present (king size Twix bar) and made him a cute card.

My mom made a delicious German chocolate cake (as you can see for the picture) and Nick was able to blow out all 31 candles!

You can't leave Marlee alone for two seconds with dessert of any kind close by or this is where you will find her.

We loved celebrating your day with you, Nick!!

Bye Bye Goldilocks

Well it happened! Rhaegan has been asking for a while now if she could get her hair cut. And when I say "cut" I mean chopped off. She's of course gotten trims here and there, but now it was time for the real deal. I had to work on the day my mom decided to take her so I gave specific instructions on the length and off she went. Below the collarbone was my only request.

As you can see my request was ignored. My mom tried to convince her to keep it longer but Rhaegan wanted it short. She actually wanted it even shorter than this but luckily my mom stayed strong.

When she came to work to show me I didn't even recognize her. That can not be my little Rhaegan was my first thought. I'm not going to lie, I was a little emotional about it at first. Now that I've had a week or so to get use to it, it has definitely grown on me. I actually love it and have to realize it's Rhaegan's hair not mine. If she loves it then that's all that matters (and she LOVES it).

Day two and three...

So here are the pictures from the rest of our Halloween. Sorry they are over a week late. Friday was Rhaegan's Halloween party at school which she was looking forward to for over a week. Below is a picture of her class all decked out int their adorable costumes. Their teacher, Mrs. Murray is such a fun lady. The kids just adore her.

Then Saturday was our "trick or treating" day. It was pretty chilly out so we drove around the neighborhoods collecting candy. Luckily Marlee's costume was super warm. Rhaegan, as you can see, was so excited about being allowed to wear makeup. She wore it proudly and acted like a typical preteen. Now I know the Bengals are not doing very well this year but being a Cincinnati fan we had to go with the Tiger costume for our little animal.

Luckily Krista was in town for Halloween and was able to come with us to all of our activities. She also brought along her wonderful camera and photography skills and captured some amazing pictures for us. For more pictures by Krista check out her blog, http://adamowfamily.blogspot.com

It was a great Halloween and I am really enjoying the candy stash we have now. Fortunately it's in our bedroom so we can keep an eye on how much our girls consume (they are candy monsters).

Three Day Extravaganza

This Halloween was filled with a TON of fun and activities. It all started on Thursday with our first stop at P&G. The girls went trick or treating to different departments within the company and ended up at a big conference room with pumpkin decorating, treats galore, coloring, gift bags, etc. The costumes were adorable (I thought I would see a Tide bottle or tube of Crest) and Rhaegan and Marlee loved every minute.

Rhaegan was trying to give her pumpkin some hair which wasn't working too well

Marlee of course was getting into trouble and had to be supervised at all times. At least she was enjoying herself and wasn't eating the decorations.
We then went home for a quick bite to eat and headed back out (minus marlee and Shae) to our ward Halloween party.

This party was put on by the Young Men and Young Women and I have to say they did a fabulous job. The kids really enjoyed themselves. Rhaegan was so excited to get more candy and her face painted!!

Sis Dalziel painting a snake on Rhaegan's face. There were so many pictures to choose from, princesses, Hello Kitty, flowers. But Rhaegan picked the snake because she wanted to "scare Dad!"

Day two to come.....

Shaw Farms

Rhaegan had her first field trip this past week and it was a big hit. With it being fall and with Halloween just around the corner, a trip to a pumpkin farm was a must. Rhaegan was looking forward to it for 2 weeks and when the day finally arrived she spent hours deciding what to wear and asking, "who's going to be the line leader? Are we riding a bus? Can I get two pumpkins?" She just couldn't contain the excitement.

For those of you in Utah (Pleasant Grove mainly) this pumpkin farm was a lot like Hee-Haws. It was so cute and filled with kid-friendly activities. The hayride was by far the longest hayride I had ever been on.

All the kids wore the same t-shirt making it easy to spot any runaways.

I quickly snapped this picture while we were trying to arrange the kids for the professional group photo. You can't see everyone unfortunately.
It was a fun trip and I still can't believe Rhaegan is going on field trips!!!

Mommy-Daughter Date

It doesn't always have to be a "Daddy-Daughter" date. It can be a mommy-daughter date and still be just as fun. A couple of months ago one of my friends called and asked if I would want to buy Disney's Princesses on Ice tickets. When she said it was in October I thought I don't even know if we'll still be in Ohio but I decided to go ahead and buy them. Awesome seats for only $11.00 a ticket was not something I was going to pass up. Well, the day finally arrived. I hadn't told Rhaegan anything about what we were doing which made things even more exciting.

We started out with a little dinner at Noodles & Company (a favorite of mine). Then after dinner I realized I had forgotten sweatshirts for us (I mean seriously). So we ran over to Old Navy and got Rhaegan this adorable fleece (see below).

We then arrived at the arena! I had told Rhaegan before we got there where we were going and the excitement in the car was unbelievable.

I of course gave in and bought her a Sno-cone which came in an adorable Cinderella cup. I'm not going to even mention what it cost me.

The fairies from Sleeping Beauty were hilarious. Their costumes where great!

And when the seven dwarfs came out the place erupted with screams and applause. The whole show lasted for 2 hours and Rhaegan didn't move the entire time. It was so much fun.

Recap

We have been so busy lately with school and my new job that blogging has unfortunately taken a back seat. Here's what you've missed over the past month. King's Island was where we spent the most of our summer vacation. Here we are the the Peanuts characters. Linus scared Marlee a little so of course I had to be in there too.Rhaegan loved Sally and of course her pink dress.

And of course Popsicle were a favorite heat-buster.

At the beginning of September we were able to get a wonderful visit from Grandma and Papa Taylor. They were on their way to D.C. and decided to take a detour to good old Loveland, Ohio. We were so happy to have them here. Our first day was spent at the Cincinnati Zoo. The girls LOVED it!!

Marlee imitates an elephant really well so we thought she would love to see a real one. We were right. See thought they were great.

Strolling through the zoo on our way to the next exhibit.

My favorite part!! I love polar bears!

Proud grandparents!

It was a fun but exhausting day.

Favortie New Spot

Gizmo has found a new place to sit during every meal. If he waits long enough something will fall. Marlee didn't know he was there for the longest time. He was always so quiet and patiently waited for his little treat. She has discovered he's there now and has decided he needs more to eat; half to him and half for her.

Gizmo doesn't really like Marlee but now he's found the perfect solution. As long as she's strapped into her chair he has the best of both worlds.

First Day of School

Rhaegan had her first day of school last Wednesday and from the look on her face you can see her excitement about the whole thing. She was so thrilled about meeting her new teacher and seeing her new classroom but most of all she couldn't wait to use her new Hello Kitty backpack! It was a fun day. I can't believe my little girl is in school.

New shirt, new shoes, cute hair-do...

And of course her backpack!

I was so proud of her. She loved her first day and couldn't wait to go back. It was also nice because Grandma and Grandpa Taylor were in town and got to go with us to drop her off and see her classroom.

Reds!

No I'm not a baseball fan now or anything but when you're gifted fantastic seats by your awesome brother well, I decided to quickly adopt an interest. I love any live sporting event, though especially when you are sitting close enough to hear the ump yell "Strike." I use to go to the Reds games growing up so I was excited to reminisce a little. We grabbed a couple hot dogs and drinks and watched a very exciting game.

Joey Votto up to bat. I wasn't lying when I said we had great seats.

It was 100 degrees when we arrived at 7pm and even though the sun set shortly there after, it remained quite hot as you can see from the sweat on my face.

The games are usually sold out now because they are doing so well. The stadium was packed!