&t The Taylor Family: March 2007

Saturday, March 31

Mardi Gras comes to the Taylor house!!

This afternoon while the girls were eating lunch I went out to feed the fishies and found a box on our front door step. The return senders were our friends Rayna and Scott who live in New Orleans. We went up to visit them last December just before their first baby was born. I opened the box and found hundreds of beads inside, as well as cups, coins, a ball and a freesbie all from the Mardi Gras parades this last February. After the girls finished eating we had a great time going through all the beads and putting them on to be so pretty. It was so funny because I helped the girls put them on while they were sitting down but when they stood up so I could take their picture the beads were so heavy they kept losing their balance. As you can see some of the beads were so long they touched the floor even after they stood up. The girls just loved the box full of goodies and had so much fun looking at each piece. There were so many different kinds I was really surprised. Thanks so much for the Mardi Gras treats Rayna and Scott, I know the girls just love them!!

posted by We are the Taylors @ 12:02 PM   1 comments

Friday, March 30

Scrub those floors!

Peter had to leave really early this morning (4:30am) to make his flight to Arkansas this morning. I never know what to do when he isn't around, it is hard to be myself, so I decided it was the perfect time to clean the house to keep myself busy. Of course now that I am getting bigger and things aren't as easy as they use to be I can use all the help I can get.

Fortunately I have just the people to give me the help I need. Brye helped me bring in the laundry and after I folded it she put all her things away. Then we went out to give Oscar a quick clean, he feels so much better now. When we came in and changed out of the wet clothes (I think the girls got more water on them than they did on the car) Abbi helped me dust. I think dusting is my least favorite household chore, probably because it needs to be done constantly.












While Brye helped me unload the dishwasher by putting all the silverware away, Abbi helped by vacuuming the floor up. The place that always needs vacuuming is under the girls chairs at the table, wonder why that is?




















The last thing that needed to be done was sweep the kitchen floor, as you can see the girls worked together to get this done. I am so lucky to have such great helpers, even if the house isn't really that much cleaner than it was to begin with, I appreciate the help more than they know!

posted by We are the Taylors @ 5:41 PM   1 comments

Wednesday, March 28

Dinner's ready!

This is one of my favorite meals (that I can prepare) It is parmesan coated salmon with my favorite veggie, broccoli. Tonight I also made corn bread muffins which the girls loved but to Peter and I it was our least favorite part of the dish. Because I am pregnant I have to limit myself to 12 oz of fish a week but that is pretty easy with the price of it as it is. We eat lots of chicken and I have a few really good recipes for that also but salmon will always be my favorite.
Today was so nice out, I was really surprised that we had that nice breeze. Peter and Dave went to work getting his shop ready to open so I took the girls to the park where we enjoyed a nice long walk along a trail in the shady trees. We have lots of nice parks by our house, we are really fortunate. If we continue to get nice weather like today than we will have to go explore some of the other parks.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 8:38 PM   0 comments

Tuesday, March 27

Playing in the Park

This morning my Dad and Judy came over with some tile samples. For my birthday they are going to get all the materials and tile the backsplash in my kitchen. I am so excited about it!! I have wanted it done for a long time but I could never afford the tile and everything else that was needed, there were always other things that needed to be taken care of. Abbi gets so excited when she sees Grandpa, she gives him big hugs and follows him around and climbs up on his lap all the time, it is so sweet! After we chose the tile we liked Peter and I took the girls into town for a dr's appointment. Everything still looks good so we are happy. There was a movie in the park tonight so we met up with Michael and Angela after we picked the girls up from my mom's house. The boys walked down to get some pizza for a dinner and when they came back they had Dave and Bitsy with them. Peter had invited them earlier but we weren't sure if they would be able to make it because they had some painting to do. It was great to be able to see everyone. The movie they played was Funny Face, it was really good, I had never seen it before. We had a great time and the girls fell asleep on the way home.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 10:52 PM   0 comments

Monday, March 26

Happy Birthday to me!!!

Today was my 25th birthday! We didn't have any plans (or so I thought). After we got up and ate breakfast I decided that I wanted to grab a couple caches and mostly just hangout with the family. I had a cache in the works for a while that I wanted to place so Peter helped me put it together (it's really evil) and then today I found a good spot to hide it so others could try and find it. So far no one has been able to make the find but we will see. I found just a few caches and placed two of my own. After our fun cache run we came home and as I was logging my finds we had company come! Turns out Peter had invited some friends over to help celebrate and hadn't told me about it. It was so good to see everyone, we all went out to dinner and then came back for cake. Very yummy. It was such a nice surprise! In the picture here there is Reba, Jake, and Kent with Kendrah and of course me with Brye.

Special thanks to all who called and sent Happy Birthday wishes including, Greig, Ali, Mom, Tina, Cindy, Rena, Dad, Judy, Memere and Pepere, Michael, Mike, Kent, Jake, Reba, Becky, Angie, MT, Bob, and of course Peter, Brye, and Abbi!

posted by We are the Taylors @ 10:47 PM   1 comments

Sunday, March 25

Home Sweet Home

This morning Peter got back from TN and came straight to my mom's house from the airport. The girls and I were still there helping out with the garage sale. The sale went pretty well but we didn't have as much traffic as we would have liked. I didn't really have anything in the sale this time so I was pretty much just there to help out my mom. I enjoy doing the garage sales even though it is a lot of work. We get a lot of repeat customers because they know we are always set up nice, it is always good to see them all again. We came back home before the sale was up since the traffic was pretty slow today. It was so nice to get home again. Lucy really missed us and so did the fish. It will be nice to sleep in our own bed again and of course be together. I never sleep very well when Peter isn't home, I just miss having him next to me. Poor guy, he is so tired. He hardly had any sleep all weekend and both his flights were really early in the morning so that didn't help.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 7:52 PM   1 comments

Friday, March 23

Garage Sale!!

This morning Peter had to leave at 4:00 in the morning in order to make his flight to Nashville. I got up at 5:30 so that I could get the girls ready and head over to Grandma's house for the garage sale. I didn't really have anything in the sale this time but I came to help out my mom and to keep me busy while my hubby is gone. I helped a little bit with putting things out (after the boxes were carried out for me) and then I was in charge of taking the money and tracking the sales. The girls and I are staying here tonight and tomorrow and will head home on Sunday after the last sale day. I have to use my laptop today and it is really slow so I won't be posting pictures until I get home on Sunday night. Maybe next time Peter will let me use his laptop and he can take mine until I can use my home computer. Wishful thinking. :)

posted by We are the Taylors @ 7:35 PM   0 comments

Thursday, March 22

Pack it up

Tomorrow Peter has to leave to go to Tennessee for work. He leaves really early in the morning and comes home Sunday afternoon. My mom is having another garage sale at her house so tomorrow I am taking the girls over there to help her out and then we are staying there Friday and Saturday night so we aren't so lonely without Peter. Hopefully the garage sale will go well and we will get rid of all the stuff in my mom's garage. I am glad that I will have something to distract me until Peter comes home. Tonight we both packed our things up so we don't have to do much in the morning.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 8:34 PM   0 comments

Wednesday, March 21

Brye's Airplane

Today while I was doing some volunteer work on the computer, Brye came up to me and said "Mommy, I made an airplane do you want to see it?" How could I say no? Of course I wanted to see what she was so proud of. She had made a wonderful airplane with her blocks and she was so proud of it! I just had to take a picture so that everyone could see what a great job she did.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 7:32 PM   0 comments

Tuesday, March 20

Baby News

I had another doctors appointment today and everything still looks great! The fluid levels were still stable and Baby A's Doppler looked better still. My Dr said that since everything looks good he doesn't see a need for me to be sent to Tampa to be examined for surgery, sounds good to me!! I didn't get any pictures this week so there are no images to post but I have to go back next week and I am sure they will give me some.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 8:34 PM   0 comments

Monday, March 19

And finally, my training put to good use!

Well, today I signed a lease on a retail space in DeBary that will soon house Chellee Guitars Repair and Custom Guitar Shop! This is extremely exciting for us. I now can begin to build the company I've been dreaming about for several years now. It's a fairly quaint space that requires a wee bit of TLC, but should be open in a couple of weeks. It's right on 17-92 just south of Highbanks - a location that will hopefully get a bit of exposure for the locals and isn't a million miles from home either. I'm sure I'll be busy for a while getting it up to snuff and hopefully won't have much of a breather once the doors are open. I'll let you all know when it is ready for visitors.

- Peter

posted by We are the Taylors @ 11:18 PM   1 comments

Sunday, March 18

Sugar Lips

This morning we got up and then met with Michael and Angela over at the Winter Park Art Festival. Today was the last day of the show so I was happy we got a chance to walk around and see everything. We were suppose to meet up with Alex and Leiah also but I don't think they ever made it out which is kind of odd because it was their idea yesterday. Oh well. After the the Festival we stopped by and saw Peter's mom real quick and then stopped by my mom's house so she could say hello to the girls. We left there and on the way home we stopped at Dad and Judy's house. We hadn't been by in a while and decided to see what was new. They are doing well and Grandpa (Dad) gave the girls popsicles, I think their first ever, they were very excited about this. They made a mess but not as bad as I thought it would be and they ate them on the back porch so it was an easy clean up. Later we headed home for dinner and night night time, once again I am ready for bed.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 7:41 PM   0 comments

Saturday, March 17

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

Today was such a beautiful day we had to take advantage of the weather. First Peter made sandwiches and we went to Gemini Springs and had a picnic in the park. The girls ran around and chased each other and Daddy. Then they played on the playground there until it got too crowded. We then headed over to Lake Monroe Park and put the girls in the bike cart and went on a nice bike ride.The trails were really nice and most of it is shaded in the woods but the trail is competely paved all the way. I think the trails are about 5 miles long but we were not going to attempt the whole thing. We just rode nice and slow and enjoyed the weather and scenery. When we got back to the car we packed up and then headed off to Rotary Park, right across from our neighborhood. We grabbed a snack along the way and then enjoyed it in the park. When we were through with our snack the girls played on that playground. Brye loved the swings with Daddy pushing her and Abbi spent her time climbing up the jungle gym and sliding down the slide, she would just do that over and over again. We finally headed home and pretty soon the girls will get dinner and be off to bed. I won't be far behind them as I am really tired from all the sun and fun we had.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 6:03 PM   0 comments

Friday, March 16

still down

Blogger still doesn't like Safari so I can't post pictures. I will use a different browser tomorrow to get some new pictures up for St. Patty's Day...

posted by We are the Taylors @ 11:40 PM   0 comments

Wednesday, March 14

Ruth and Zane

Tonight our friends, Ruth and Zane, came over for dinner and we just hung out and watched a movie and played cards. We use to work with them both at Ritz a long time ago. Neither of them work there any longer either. They are engaged and set to be married in October next year.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 11:56 PM   0 comments

Tuesday, March 13

Amnio Update

Wonderful wonderful news! I had a dr's appointment set for tomorrow but they called and wanted me to come in sooner because my normal Dr was going to be out of town for the next few days. When I went they told me right away that the results from the Amnio all came back normal for each baby. They will get a more in depth result sheet later but they said that it is very rare for them to get that back with descripencies when the initial report is normal. Next they pretty much just checked to see how things were developing after the amniocentesis last week. They checked the fluid levels and did a doppler on all the babies heartbeats. They will wait to do measurements in two weeks. Anyhow...Everything looks great!!! We were so surprised at the vast difference that we saw. Baby A's fluid had gone up some more and B's had actually come down a bit. The Doppler in A showed a couple episodes where the bloodflow was cut off during the heartbeat but overall she looked good. My dr said he was going to call the clinic in Tampa (though I don't know if he will because he said that last week too and didn't) and see if they still wanted to see me or wait things out. I have another appointment next week for the same type of exam to make sure everything is still going well. I was so relieved when I saw everything on the screen, I really didn't expect everything to just fix itself after last weeks visit. Just shows you that God can do anything! Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers, they really went a long way. The dr said the clinic probably won't want to see me unless things change again and looking at the fluids this week I shouldn't need the amnio every week. Thank God!! Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers, they went a long way!
The pictures posted are the pictures of twins from today. They did a 3D ultrasound and it was really cool. I had never had that done before. The left is A the right is B (both girls, identical twins) on A you can see something across her forhead, that's B's leg and foot, A is also sucking her left thumb. It was so funny to try and make everything out with so many arms and legs floating around. LOL

posted by We are the Taylors @ 10:17 PM   1 comments

Monday, March 12

Bead crazy

Yesterday while we were doing a few errands we stopped in Michael's (one of my favorite stores) and touched everything we could see. Abbi is such a little princess and loves to be pretty. She walks around the house with all the necklaces and bracelets she can find, she likes to look in the mirror and say "Pretty" and then go on her way. Brye on the other hand isn't into the whole "dress up and pretty thing" but she loves crafts so I decided yesterday to get some beads and string for them to each make their own jewelry. My mom had done it once with Brye before and she had a great time so I knew should would like to make some more. This morning after breakfast Brye wanted to get started right away so we sat down and all had fun making the necklaces and bracelets. I helped Abbi put hers on the string but Brye did hers all by herself, I just tied it when they were done. They each made a necklace and a bracelet and wanted to make more but I said this was enough for now. They wore their jewelry all through lunch and I took it off for nap time but I am sure once they get up it will be right back on them. They are so proud of their work, as they should be, they look great!

posted by We are the Taylors @ 1:47 PM   0 comments

Saturday, March 10

Happy Birthday Lucy!!

Today is Lucy's 7th birthday, what a big girl! I took her collar off and let her run around "naked" all day, she loves that. Whenever I take her collar off she bats it around and bites at it, it's pretty funny. Lucy got extra "treatsis" today since it is her special day. We were going to throw her a party but she doesn't get along with any of the neighborhood cats.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 3:43 PM   1 comments

Friday, March 9

Amniocentesis

Yesterday we had another doctors appointment to go over the findings of last weeks visit. They wanted to get new measurements and see if everything had resolved itself or if I would need further intervention. We were at the dr's for about 3 hours (seems typical for this pregnancy) and after they did all the measurements and Doppler and heartrate check they said that the two twins were growing farther apart in size. Baby B's fluid was above the normal desired amount and Baby A's fluid had only gone up a little bit. My dr came in and we talked more about the surgery that they offer in Tampa with the cutting off of some blood vessels, we had discussed this last week as one of the options to correct what may be happening. He said he would definitely recommend me for this. What the surgery entails is going into the uterus via Laparoschopic technology and using a laser to cut some of the blood vessels that run from the placenta to baby B so that she isn't getting as much blood and pressure and therefore hopefully evening out the two babies. The DR said that I would have to go to the clinic in Tampa once to be evaluated and see if they wanted to accept me as a patient and that he would call the place today. He told me that I needed to have amniocentesis done and they could either do it at the office or in Tampa but he was thinking that Tampa wouldn't want to see me until they already had the results because it takes a couple days to get them back. He asked me if it was alright if we just did it there (I didn't know he meant right then). I said yes, of course if it is necessary, and he said "okay I will go get the the consent form and send the nurse in to prep you". That was weird, I was really surprised at that because I was thinking maybe next week sometime or something. I have never known of anyone that had Amniocentesis done so I didn't really know much about the procedure. I had read lots of books and such that told what it was for and some basic information on it but I had never talked to someone who had gone through it. Basically the dr goes into the uterus through the belly and takes out some amniotic fluid that surrounds the fetus in the sac. Of course usually there is only one baby but because I have three they had to do it to each fetus. They send the fluid that they remove off to a lab that will check the chromosomes in the cells for abnormalities, such as downs syndrome or something more serious and life threatning. So then we read through the consent form which described the basics of the procedure and post care and I asked them to call the IPs so that they knew what was going on, they prepped me and it was really odd. They put drapes all around like they were going to do surgery and then they put a ton of betadine on me to get ready. When the Dr put the first needle in I just felt a pinch but as soon as it went through the uterus I got instant contractions. It hurt really bad and he had to keep moving the needle around to get to an area in the sac that had fluid and that baby B or membrane wasn't in the way. When he moved the needle it made the contractions stronger and it hurt so much. Peter was there to hold my hand so it was nice to have something to squeeze tighter when the pain got worse. Then he had to move to baby A, and that was awful, all the while the contractions were getting stronger and stronger and they never let up it was just one constant contraction. Finally he finished with the twins and then moved on to Baby C. That was even worse! C was up high and when he put the needle in the contractions started even harder and I seriously could hardly breath. When I tried to it made the pain so much worse and when he kept moving the needle around it only amplified it. C didn't take as long as the other two but the pain there was 10x worse than when he did A and B. Then he had to go back to B to pull some extra fluid out around her so that the pressure wouldn't be so great against baby A. I don't know if it was worse because I was already in so much pain or if it was the location, but I thought I was going to pass out from the pain. It took so long for him to be able to get fluid from B, I tried so hard to be still and let it be done but I was dying. I tried to watch the monitor the whole time to distract me but by that point all I could do was close my eyes and I actually had tears coming out. I was so relieved when the Dr. finally pulled the needle out. I still had contractions but just the relief of him not moving the needle around inside me made a lot of the pain go away. The nurse checked all the baby's heartrates after that and then they cleaned me up. I had to rest in the office for about 25 minutes and then we left. They gave me a prescription for if the contractions started again but I haven't used any yet. The Dr told me that depending on what the clinic says they may have to do this over again every week. They wouldn't send the fluid in for testing every week but they would have to go in and pull fluid out to relieve the pressure on A and try to even out B's area. After we left we went to my mom's where the girls were. Peter had to leave for work in St. Louis this morning so I would be all alone with the girls. My mom is so great, she let both the girls stay the night at her house because I can't lift them and I am going to get them later today. Last night was terrible. My stomach hurt so much just from being poked a bunch of times and it was so tender. I couldn't use any of my stomach muscles at all and had to get help getting up and I couldn't reach over or bend down and I couldn't twist my body around at all. Luckily I was so tired at night that I went to sleep pretty quick but I could not get comfortable at all. I woke up around 4:30 when Peter was getting ready to leave and I had a hard time getting back to sleep. I feel a little better today but I am still so tender I have to be careful when I move at all. I will probably be going to Tampa sometime next week for the first evaluation and I have another appointment at my parinatologist (my normal Dr., high-risk) next Wednesday if I am in town. If you have never had amniocentesis done than I would never recommend it to you, it was like torture and there were many times that I wanted to scream out to the Dr to just stop it altogether. It's over with now though but who knows if I will have to go through it again every week.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 10:40 AM   1 comments

Wednesday, March 7

H2O

Anyone who has seen me in the last few months knows that I don't go anywhere without my water. Since I found out I was carrying triplets I decided to take up water, big time. I drink a minimum of two liters of water a day and only after I finish all my water do I allow myself to have something else to drink (i.e. grape juice, orange juice). It was really hard at first and even still I have days where I have to force myself to drink it all. Lately I have really been craving liquids with flavor, I really miss the taste of juices. I just want to make sure that that babies are getting all the water they need in order to function and grow properly. Also it helps me cut down on my sugar intake and hopefully I can escape this pregnancy without developing Gestational Diabetes.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 10:20 PM   0 comments

Tuesday, March 6

Fun with Company

This is our friend Nathan, I know most of you probably thought he was fictional since we would only mention him but never have any proof. But here you go, see he is real. Nathan is a police officer for the city of Oviedo. He comes over from time to time and we have dinner and hang out. Tonight he came by and the girls had a blast playing with him. He flipped them all around and lifted them high in the air, they couldn't get enough! We had a good dinner and talked for a while. Nathan just got engaged to his girlfriend who is from Canada. Congratulations Nathan!!

posted by We are the Taylors @ 10:26 PM   1 comments

Monday, March 5

In Case you were Wondering...

This is how you eat Spaghetti!

posted by We are the Taylors @ 9:18 PM   0 comments

Saturday, March 3

Pet Fair

The Orlando Science Center was having a fund raising Pet Fair today, I didn't know anything about it but Angela works there so she told me about it last night when we went to dinner. I decided to take Abbi since Brye was still at Janell and Wyatt's and Peter had a couple things that he needed to do before work tonight. Abbi and I had a great time, she played lots of games and got her face painted. She petted an aligator and got to see a tiger, a panther, horses, and of course lots and lots of dogs. I think her favorite thing was the bubble tent where they made big bubbles, even one so big you could stand in it. We went back to that tent a couple 3 times because she liked it so much. After we saw all there was in the park we headed inside the Science Center and Abbi had a blast running through the kid zone, everything was just her size. She touched and played with evertything until it was time to go. On the way out we got a quick snack and decided it was time to go get Brye. We didn't get far when we ran into Michael, he was looking for me all around the park and didn't know I had gone inside. We talked a bit and then headed off. Abbi and I really had a great time, I hadn't been to the Science Center since I was a Brownie in girl scouts so it was very long ago. Thanks for all the fun Angela!!I made this picture pretty big so if you click on it it will open in it's own window so you can see it larger.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 4:33 PM   0 comments

Friday, March 2

Our Princess

My sister, Janell, was going with her husband and some friend's to Disney's Pirate and Princess Night and she wanted Brye to come along. Disney encourages the children (and adults) to dress up so I got Brye all ready to go. My best friend, Christina*, sent Brye this dress a long time ago but it is just now starting to fit and perfect timing! Brye loved being all pretty in her princess dress and couldn't wait to go. Peter and I took her over to Janell's earlier to drop her off. We know she is going to have a great time. After Disney Brye is going to spend the night at Aunt Janell and Uncle Wyatt's house and then we will get her back tomorrow. Brye was excited about spending the night too, she has never stayed anywhere other than Grandma's and Kim's unless she was with Peter and I. She was so sweet in her dress, she definitely is our little princess!


**Update: Brye had a great time with Janell and Wyatt and they both said she was very well behaved. Just what I like to hear. Here is a picture that was taken at Disney with Pirate Mickey. Thanks again, Janell and Wyatt!!

*Correction: Christina's husband, Noah, picked out this pretty princess dress. Sorry for the misunderstanding. :)

posted by We are the Taylors @ 9:14 PM   1 comments

Thursday, March 1

A, B, C

When I go to the Dr's and they take measurements and heartbeat rates and all the label the babies A B and C. Baby C is the boy that is not a twin, then the twins that share a placenta (the girls) are A and B. Every time I have been to the Dr's we can see Babies B and C clearly with plenty of room around them but Baby A is always tight and squished in her spot. I made a comment to the nurse today and she checked it a bit more clearly. Turns out that Baby A is smaller than the other two and though her measurements are acceptable at this point a few of them are close to bordering too small. When they measure the fluid in the sacs of each of the babies they consider anywhere from 2-8 safe. Well Baby A's fluid was only 3.1 and Baby B's was 7.5. Normally those would both be alright but because they share a placenta the dr is concerned that B is getting more bloodflow than A and therefore could potentially harm both of them. The Dr did say it was too early to tell just yet and that everything could be fine and even out on it's own. I made an appointment to go back next week so we could get the new measurements and make sure everything is going smoothly. Hopefully next week we will find that everything is normal and there are no problems. I thank you all in advance for you prayers for the safety of all the babies as well as for me. This baby picture is not from one of the triplets but it shows what the babies should look like right about now.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 8:50 PM   0 comments