Riding Charley

Reagan came over this morning to play with Brye. As always they both had a lot of fun while Laura and I caught up. Baby Kendall also came along and I got to hold her again, she is getting so big. Abbi had fun with the girls also but wasn't always sure she wanted to play as wild as they were. Here in the picture Reagan and Brye are riding Brye's horse, Charley, that Uncle Steve and Aunt Heather got her for Christmas last year.

Partied too hard

Happy Birthday Delaney!! Today we went to a birthday party for a friend of ours, she turned the big 4 on the 25th and we celebrated today. There was cake and presents and lots of swimming. The girls both had a great time and by the end of it Abbi could hardly stand up she was so tired. After we strapped them in the car we barely made it out of the developement before they both fell asleep. In the picture they are using the pillows I made them for just such an occasion.

Ivictory!!

Peter waited in the car for me to grab some caches on the way home last night. To kill the time he played Solitaire on his Ipod, he kept complaining because it was too hard but eventually when I got back in the car he had a winning game. He was so proud of himself he didn't want to change the screen from his win. Apparently the Ipod version is hard to win. He is so silly, we took a picture of the screen so he can play again.

Sunset in Sarasota

Driving home from Fort Myers yesterday it was getting darker and we could see the sun getting lower in the sky. Since we were on the West coast we thought we would stop at the beach to watch the sunset. When the sun got low enough we pulled off in Sarasota to look for a place to park. The sky was beautiful and we took a couple shots of the clouds and a sail boat floating by. The sun hid behind a cloud before it was completely under the horizon so we didn't watch until it was dark, but we got a great show of what we did see.

Saturday July 29th

Our friend Rayna, is having a baby due in December and she had a baby shower today. The shower was down in Fort Myers so we took a long car ride and visited with our friends. The trip didn't seem so long because we did so geocaching along the way, that really helps to break up the monotany of the trip and it seems so much shorter. Brye and Abbi both came with us and they were really good but Abbi got a little cranky when she got tired. We had a great time at the party and Rayna got lots of great presents for her new baby. She just found out last week that she is having a boy so now they can start planning the nursery and such.

What am I going to do with these kids?

I got some wrapping paper out to wrap up a couple presents for a friend and while I took a second to eat dinner, Abbi pulled a bunch of paper off the roll and started jumping and walking on it. I don't know why but for some reason she thought this was really fun, so I cut off the wrinkled piece and Brye joined in. They laughed and giggled about it while they made krinkly sounds with their feet. In the picture you can see that Brye has a bean bag balanced on her head while she walked on the paper. I wish I was so easily entertained.

All tired out

We here at the Taylor household have been keeping busy lately. Yesterday Peter had to work all day and girls and I cleaned up the house. Peter got off work at 5 so that I could go to the Police Department and volunteer my time. Then as I was getting home my friend Reba called. She just finished taking the BAR in Tampa and really wanted to get out for while so her and I went out to the movies. Then today since it was Thursday Brye had her Tumbling class. She did really well and was very well behaved so she gets to spend the night over at Grandma's house tonight. After class we went to lunch in Altamonte and then went to see the Cars movie. We had a great couple of days but it sure is nice to be home for a little bit to catch up on some sleep.

Pillow Talk

Today I made pillows for the girls so they can be more comfortable in the car when they fall asleep. They are having a great time with them already. Abbi likes to carry hers around and Brye keeps pretending she is sleeping in weird spots around the house. I picked out the material yesterday, the flower side is a flannel material while the other side has a soft velvet feel. Brye chose the purple one and said that it was because the pink one matches Abbi's new Snuggly Bear.

Sew buttons...

In Brye's Tumble Class they use bean bags to help in certian activities. The children put them on their heads while they are on the balance beam to help create good posture and form, we throw and catch the bean bags to help build coordination, the children use them as "babies" when they act like animals jumping and crawling to build strength in their arms and legs. Grandma had a great idea to make some for Brye so she could practice at home. So Brye and I went off to the store and she picked out four different patterns of materials she wanted the bean bags to be made from. We even picked out a couple extras to help decorate the bean bags with a "snowflake" and letters to spell out her name. I sewed them all up with my sewing machine my mom got me for Christmas a few years ago, and now we are all ready to practice! They came out great and now I am in the sewing mood to make more things. I think I am going to make the girls pillows for the car because when they fall asleep in their carseats they always look like their necks are broken; Ouch!

All tired out

Shopping really drains the energy out of Abbi. We wandered around Target today and on the way home Abbi fell asleep. When I took her out of her car seat she didn't even open her eyes, so I laid her on our bed and she hasn't moved since. Aren't they the sweetest when they are sleeping?

New lights

Peter ordered studio lights for us to take with us when we shoot weddings and expand our shooting possibilities. We want to start taking engagment photos and studio type portraits. Peter set up the lights in the back room and took a couple test shots of Abbi. She is so photogenic, she sees the camera and she makes the cutest faces.

Finding Perfect Balance

It's Thursday, so once again Brye had tumbling class. Her favorite thing overall is the balance beam which we start off on with each class. She gets up on the beam and walks across (pretty quickly) and then jumps off the end and lands on her feet. Brye still doesn't like "the pit" but I think we are getting closer to getting her into it.

Could you find this?

I was having a little camoe problem with a Geocache that I had placed so I sought help from a fellow cacher in my area and was able to come up with something that blended in better. The location of my geocache is under a tree that drops a lot of dead leaves so I gathered a bunch up and concealed my container. Geocaching is a sport where people hide things all over the world and put the coordinates online for other cachers to go find. Once you find the cache you sign your name and trade out items and then log your find on the geocaching site (see link to the right). I have placed three caches of my own and still can't decide if it is more fun to hide or seek.

House seats?

Abbi and Brye love to sit in their car seats when they aren't in the car. Abbi always thinks they are so fun to play in, when she had the infant seat she would get in it and rock and hug her snuggly but when we put her in it in the car she would protest. Here the girls are watching their Spanish video they got for their birthdays from Dad and Judy. They each had their seats out of the car because we needed to put them in a different car for the day.

Finger paints

One of the gifts Brye got for her birthday from Aunt Janell and Uncle Wyatt was this set of finger paints and markers and coloring book. They are this really cool type that don't make any mess and don't even have color until they are on the special paper. Brye had a great time coloring and colored a little bit on just about every page. She laughed at the markers because of the delay from the point when she touches the paper to when the color appears, she thought that was really cool. I had looked at the markers before but never got them for her. Brye really had a great time coloring and probably worked at if for a couple of hours! She probably wouldn't have stopped but I made her dinner so it was time to eat. Thanks Aunt Janell and Uncle Wyatt for this awesome gift!!

Happy Birthday Bryanna

Today Bryanna turns three years old!! It is so hard to believe that our little girl is already three! To celebrate Peter and I took her to Sea World for her very first trip. We had a great time and got to see lots of animals. We saw the dolphin show and Brye really liked visiting the penguins and puffins. It was really hot outside but we enjoyed ourselves anyhow. We have tickets for the rest of the year so we are going to go back again when it is cooler and less crowded. My mom took Abbi for the day and then we met up with her at my sister, Janell's house where Brye got to open some presents. After we got home for the night we had cake that Brye picked out special just for her birthday. Also our friend Chris came over, sometimes I think Brye loves him more than us. Brye had a great day and I am sure we are all going to sleep well tonight.

Also Happy Birthday Robert!!

Parent's night out

Tonight we dropped the girls off at our friend Kim's house and then Peter and I went out to dinner and movie. Something we haven't done in probably a year and a half. We wanted to go see Pirates but by the time we got there the two soonest shows were sold out. Peter wanted to see Superman so we went to that one instead. It was better than I thought it would be so I was happy, I am not a huge Superman fan but I did think the movie was good. It was nice to get out and enjoy each others company, even if it was just for a few hours. We picked the girls up afterwards and they slept all the way home. They had fun too and were really worn out. Thanks Miss Kim and Chris for taking care of our girls.

Also Happy Birthday Uncle David!!

Abbi's a big helper too!

Check out Abbi helping me out, click here to view the video. It's a short one minute movie of her at home. Sorry it's so small but we wanted to make it easy to load for those who have a slower internet connection.

Show me your stuff

Today was Brye's second day at Tumble Class. She did really great again and had a lot of fun. We started with the balance beam which she does really well and always has a great dismount. Then we moved on to our circle where we practiced tumbling, back bridges, head stands, hand stands, and pencil rolls. Once that was through we went through the obstacle course which was set up with a bunch of different activities. Today Brye's favorite was the big bouncy house where they had to do 10 jumps through to the other side. She got to swing on a bar and she did a great back flip (with my help of course). Later they wanted the kids to crawl through the block pit but Brye still didn't want do that so we just watched the other girls do it. Brye had fun swinging on the rope though and I can tell that her arm strength is getting stronger just from a couple weeks ago. I guess all that practice really does help. In the pictures Brye is doing a head stand, from there she goes into a straddle and then pushes up to a hand stand, in the other picture she is doing a back bridge. She has gotten really good at those. At first she couldn't pick her head up at all but she is getting better each time we do it. She has tumble class each Thursday at a gym just a couple minutes from our house.

The Passion Flower

Peter and I needed somthing to fill in the area between our two windows in front of the house. After looking over all the pretty flowers and plants at Lucas Nursery we kept coming back to the Passion Flower. They had lots of different colors, but purple being my favorite easily beat out the rest. I planted this guy not too long ago and it is really thriving. We get new flowers just about everyday and I never get tired of looking at all the detail that this flower holds.


The 'Passion flower' acquired its name from descriptions of its flower parts supplied by priests in South America known at that time as the 'New Spain'. The parts were interpreted by Giacomo Bosio, a churchman and historian, in Rome (1609), as representing various elements of the Crucifixion. The five petals and five sepals are the ten disciples less Judas & Peter. The corona filaments are the crown of thorns. The five stamen with anthers match the five sacred wounds & the three stigma the nails. I thought this was very interesting.

Gardening

In the Spring Brye helped me plant a bunch of flowers in my garden. Well all that hard work paid off, we have lots of flowers and everything is growing great! Brye loves to help in the garden, she is great help too. She helps me dig holes and put the flowers in and put the dirt back around them. It's like having my own gardener. The tree to the right of the photo was planted on Brye's first birthday, it was just small then, it has really grown tall in the last two years.

Fun in Photoshop

We finished editing all our pictures we shot for the wedding we did last weekend so I started playing with a few to add special effects for the new couple. I like the fun stuff much better than the editing part because I can be as creative as I want and I have no limitations. We usually give the couples 8-10 "Special Effects" photos to go along with all their regular pictures. People really go crazy over this stuff, it is so fun to do though I never get tired of it. As always, you can click on the image to view it larger.

Abbi steps

Abbi walks everywhere now. She hardly ever crawls since she figured out how her feet work. I made a picture like this for Brye when she first started walking so I had to make one for Abbi too. I don't like this one so much so I am going to do another one sometime soon and hope it comes out better. This one is still fun to look at though.

Let's go to the Movies

I had an appointment downtown Orlando today so us girls had to come into town with Peter for the day. He was working an open to close shift so we had to find something to fill our time. It rained just about all day so anything outside was a no-go. I was looking through the paper and I found a movie theater in Altamonte that was only 50 cents per person!! 50 cents! You can beat that so we were off. We went and saw Ice Age-The Meltdown. I had really wanted to see this movie but we hadn't gotten a chance before so this was perfect. Brye had a great time and she was really good but Abbi was very squirmy. She behaved though and didn't cry at all so I was happy about that. After the movie we just window shopped at the mall and because both the girls missed their naps earlier they were out after a couple stores. On a very sad note, Abbi lost her Snuggly Bear somewhere at the mall. I backtracked every step I took and I left my name and number with every Lost and Found so hopefully I will hear something soon. Abbi was so tired but she just wouldn't give it up because she didn't have her Snuggly. It is really sad, I don't know what we are going to do tomorrow when we still don't have him. She is already so sad. :( Poor little baby.

Mommy's Big Helper

Brye helps out all over the house. She cleans her room and all her toys that are laying around. She even helps me unload the dishwasher. Whenever I ask her to anything she is always anxious to help me out, I couldn't ask for a better helper. One of her favorite things to do is bake. She makes all sorts of treats and is such a great cook. Brye likes to make sweets because normally we don't have any in the house so it is always a special occasion when I ask her to help with that. In this picture she is making cup cakes and they were so delicious, they didn't last long. After Brye made the mix up, I poured them into the cups she laid out and when they were frosted Brye picked out sprinkles and coated them all herself. She is such a good girl and loves to please, I don't know how I would get on without her.

Bubbles

We got this fish last year just after Brye turned two. She really liked him and we decided to call him Bubbles. He doesn't do a whole lot more than eat and sleep. Lucy likes to watch him but she knows she can't do anything more than that.

Happy 4th of July!!

To celebrate America's Birthday, we all went over to Janell and Wyatt's house where we met up with Mom, Jim, Brian, Mark, and Angie. Wyatt bbq'd hot dogs so we all had a great dinner with lots of salads and corn. After pie we went outside where Brian, Wyatt and Peter set off lots of fireworks for us girls to watch. We were afraid we would hit a lot of traffic on the way home but I guess we left late enough to where everyone was already where they wanted to be. We had a great time, Brye and Abbi both like to watch the fireworks but they don't like the noisy ones. On the way home it didn't take long for them to fall asleep, I guess they had enough fun for one day.

Catching up

Mark had to come to town to do some work so Angie and Garrett were staying at my mom's house. I got the girls together and came in to see them and we all decided to go over to a friends house that we hadn't seen in a long time. Ed and Charleen are long time family friends but they hadn't seen me since Brye was just 3 months old and they had never met Abbi. We had fun catching up and talking about old times. They live on a beautiful lake with lots of wildlife so Brye enjoyed exploring while we were there. After that we went back to my Mom's and had BBQ chicken for dinner. We watched some fireworks from my mom's backyard and then played with a bunch of sparklers. By the time we got home we were all worn out. Check out Grandma's House Blog for more pictures.

Give a Hoot, read a book

Our neighbor around the corner came by and brought our girls a bunch of books that his kids use to read when they were little. Brye and Abbi both love to read so they were very excited to see all these new books to explore. Brye went through each one and wanted me to read them all. Abbi had fun looking at all the pictures and seeing new things. We are going to have to get more bookshelves pretty soon, I don't know that we have room for all these books!

Another Wedding

Peter and I had shot another wedding today. The ceremony was at a church in Apopka and the reception was at another church in Winter Garden. It was a great wedding and you could tell that both the families and all the friends were really close. Those are always the best weddings to shoot. We got about 600 pictures of the whole thing and from what we have just seen briefly the shots turned out really nice. We gave out a lot of business cards and got a lot of compliments on our work from the guests who were watching us, so hopefully we will get some more work soon.