Merry Christmas

We hope you all have a very Merry Christmas celebrating our Savior’s birth with family and friends!With Love,

The Taylors

Family Photo

On Sunday while we were all dressed up for church we took the opportunity to set up the tripod to take a family picture. And one of the kids by the Christmas tree. We are getting so excited for Christmas!! Tyler is really starting the grasp the true meaning of it all. Mike and I are enjoying to be able to re-tell the Christmas story and experience it through his eyes! Tyler is learning that Christmas is all about Jesus and what he has done for us. We are teaching him that giving each other gifts is a symbol of God’s gift to us. Cute story: We were driving down the road the other day and Tyler said, “Look Mommy, all these people decorated for Jesus’ birthday.” It is so fun to see his excitement as we count down the days till Jesus’ birthday, CHRISTmas!

We are looking forward to the Christmas Eve service at Church tonight, then for Grandma Kloote, Uncle Calvin, Aunt Jess, and Boomer's arrival in the morning!

Happy Christmas Eve!

Our First Gingerbread House

This year I decided to get a Gingerbread house for us to decorate. I figured the kids were old enough to enjoy it and it was one of my favorite things to do at Christmas time growing up.

Mom and Dad helped with the frosting and then Tyler did the decorating with the candy. He was very careful with his placement of the little candies, he didn’t want any of the same colors next to each other. Here his is telling us how he wants to decorate the roof. Kalen tried to help a little, but she just ended up knocking the candy off the house and then putting them in her mouth! Tyler enjoyed some of the leftover candies after the house was done.I think our first family gingerbread house came out pretty good! It was such a fun activity, I’m sure we will be doing it again next year! Oh, and the best part was that the gingerbread house was pre-assembled!! So all you had to do was decorate! So easy!

Southern Snow

On the first Saturday of this month we got about an inch of snow overnight! Tyler was so excited when he woke up and saw it outside his window! He kept telling Kalen about the snow since she couldn’t remember it earlier this year. We got all bundled up and went outside to play. Here is Kalen’s first look at the snow.Tyler and Daddy had fun throwing snowballs at each other.And Coco and Bailey enjoyed playing in the snow again.  Coco loves shaking and eating the snowballs. I think they are wondering when the rest of the snow is coming though? This is Bailey buried in the snow when we lived in Michigan. She had to hop like a little bunny to get out. I like the Southern snowstorms a lot better though! It’s gone by 11am :)

Kalen wasn’t too thrilled with the snow. Especially since she couldn’t walk in it and fell.I love this face she gave me, tears and all! We did get a couple smiles out of her though.Tyler made a little snowman. Then he had to smash it with a baseball bat. Which gave Daddy a great idea! That was cool Daddy, do it again! Then after about 20 minutes the kids and Mommy were crying that it was too cold and we had to go in!

Daddy was in his element though, I think he would have stayed out all morning!

Preschool Christmas Party

Bright Lights, our homeschool preschool group, had their Christmas party at the beginning of this month. We have our party the same day as the church has the Homebound Christmas party so we can sing to them.

First we lined the halls so we could sing Christmas carols as the Homebound guests arrived. Tyler played his drum and Kalen rang her bell.They really enjoyed singing to everyone as they passed by.   Then the kids had their big debut! They got up on stage to sing for all the guests!First was Little Drummer Boy and they all played their drums. Then they sang Angels We Have Heard on High, Away in a Manger, and Go Tell It On the Mountain.  As you can tell by these pictures, Tyler was all over the place!! He got down off the stage twice and tried to grab the microphone a couple times too! Some of the older kids read bible verses and Tyler decided that he wanted to also. I’m thankful for the sound techs in the back!! They knew just when to silence the microphones! Ha!Kalen stayed in her stroller during the performance. Good thing too, I didn’t need to chase two kids around!

Then we went upstairs for some lunch and fellowship with our friends!  Did you notice Kalen’s cute little Christmas tree shirt? I made it for her! It is so fun having a Cricut and a sewing machine! Here are some close ups. Super cute! I will definitely be making things like this more often!

Catching Up

Can it really be that I haven’t updated this blog in almost a month!!! We have been so busy with all the Holiday activities! I have decided to give a lot of handmade Christmas gifts this year, so that has taken up a lot of my time. Yesterday I sent out two boxes to Michigan, so now I’m feeling a little bit more relaxed. There are a few things that I need to get done before my sister, brother in law, and grandmother get here on Christmas morning, but that can wait.

So I am going to try and catch you up on what’s been going on this past month in the next few blog posts.

First off, Thanksgiving. Mike’s parents and my sister, Meagan, came down from Michigan to spend Thanksgiving with us this year!

Grandpa and Grandma brought Tyler a new bike! He loved it and wanted to ride it all weekend!!

We had Thanksgiving dinner at our house, Dad brought the turkey and I provided everything else. I thought it was going to be more stressful, but it wasn’t and I really enjoyed hosting. We got a few pictures with Aunt Meagan, since she was leaving in the morning. Don’t ya just love my kid’s smiles? And I had to get one with my little sis too! Saturday morning was beautiful and we went up to Green Mountain for a hike around the lake.My favorite picture, the kids are watching the ducks. And our attempt at getting a picture with Grandpa and Grandma. We probably should have done it at the beginning of the hike, when the kids were still happy. They had to go home later that afternoon! We are so glad that they came to visit, and the kids enjoyed getting spoiled for a few days!