&t The Taylor Family: April 2007

Sunday, April 29

Cats playing Piano

A while ago I looked up cat videos on the internet and found a couple funny ones of cats going crazy or meowing in a way that made them sound like they were saying actual words. The girls just loved the videos and wanted me to play them again and again. Since then Brye still talks about it and tells me how funny it was. The other day Peter's Aunt sent me a link to a video of a cat playing piano so I got the girls and sat them down to watch it. They laughed through the whole thing (actually there are two videos of it) and of course wanted to watch it over and over again. They are so cute, such simple things make them so happy.

Saturday, April 28

Can't get enough

This morning I woke up and Peter was in CT and the girls were at Grandma's house so I was all alone. That's okay though because I had plans. There was yet another Geocaching event in Daytona today and I really wanted to go. All the local cachers that are well known in the area were going to be there and there were a couple that I hadn't met yet. Two of the cachers put out about 25 caches in the area for all the attendees to go and find. I only found a couple because the majority of them were in the woods with lots of walking and I didn't want to attempt those. I found a couple easy ones and will return to the area after the babies are born to find the rest. I didn't have my camera on me but other people took pictures during the Meet and Greet (when we all hung out and had lunch and talked geo-talk) so when they post them on the Greet's site page I will take one or two for this post. I had a great time at the event and I actually had the top cachers came and introduced themselves to me before I had a chance to do the same. We all know each other through our found logs and the caches we have placed but meeting them in person is so much better. This is the month for most of the events because it is the month that Earthday falls in. Glad to still be up and around so that I could be able to attend a couple of them.

Friday, April 27

Just Lucy and I

Peter left for Connecticut this morning and I took the girls over to Grandma's for the night. That leaves just Lucy and I for the evening. Well I could go out and have fun or I could throw a big party but I think the thing that sounds best to me is just to sleep. Yes, that definitely sounds like the best thing to do.

Thursday, April 26

She did it!!

It took a while but Brye finally earned 5 Hero Cards. She seemed to earn the first couple pretty quick but then she went through a phase where she didn't earn any for a long time. Finally yesterday she earned her one more making it five total. We would have gone out then to celebrate but she couldn't find the others so we had to wait. Today while she was cleaning her room she found her other 4 cards and so after dinner tonight we went and got ice cream. I told her we could do anything she wanted to do and that was her choice. I am not surprised since I never give the girls ice cream, I am sure she has wanted it for a long time. Finding an ice cream parlor in Orange City was impossible but there is one down the street in Debary so that is where we went. She got to pick whatever she wanted and ended up with chocolate and vanilla swirl. Brye took her Hero Cards in so she could turn them in for her treat and she was so happy to have her own little bowl of ice cream. During the entire treat and afterwards we all told Brye thank you for doing so well so we could all have a special treat. I actually didn't get anything because they didn't have anything sugar-free, doesn't really matter though, I have found that sugar-free ice cream is pretty gross. Hopefully now that Brye has had her first reward she will be motivated to get many more.

Wednesday, April 25

Blood Sugar

My dr called with the results of my 1 hr GTT last week and the levels were a little high so they had me go in for the 3 hr GTT. Well I couldn't get through the whole thing because I got sick and had to be sent home. The dr didn't want to make me do it again so at my last visit they gave me my own Glucometer so I can check my own blood sugar. 4 times everyday I have to check my blood sugar by pricking my finger and putting a strip with a drop of blood on it into the meter. I had a couple high marks today but all day yesterday and the day before all my readings were fine. I am not really sure what effects the readings, since at lunch and dinner I didn't have any sugar but my readings were the highest they had been from the start, but this morning I had chocolate milk with breakfast and my reading was really low. It really doesn't make sense to me but I guess it does to somebody. After a week I have to fax over my readings and I will see what the dr thinks after that.

Tuesday, April 24

Opening Day!!

Today Peter opened the doors to his new shop for the first time! He has spent the last couple of months getting everything moved in and preparing the space and today he finally opened for business! He has normal hours of operation from 10-6 from Tuesday-Saturday. This way he gets a couple days off too. I am so proud of him, he is going to do such a great job with his store and he will have a line of loyal customers in no time!! Peter's shop is just 10 minutes from the house which is so much better than the 45 minutes it was to Altamonte. The shop is right off of 17-92 so hopefully all the travlers will see the sign. In the pictures you see Peter working on a neck in his shop and also one of him near his road sign. He designed it with yellow so it stands out and we had it printed at Michael's work. The last picture is Peter locking the door after his first day of work!

Monday, April 23

2 more weeks of Freedom!!

I had my dr's appointment today and was really believing that I would be sentenced to bedrest from here on out. I was really surprised when the Dr said everything looks great and that he would see me again in two more weeks!! Yay!! Sweet Freedom!! I don't have any plans to do anything I am just glad that I don't have to lay in bed all day long everyday. A couple of the surrogates that I talk with through the agency are on bedrest and they are really hating it. I am really not looking forward to that part of the pregnancy but even if the Dr had said I was to go to bed starting today I would be happy that I lasted this long. Most women pregnant with triplets are on bedrest at 20 weeks and I am now in my 25th week and still going strong!

Sunday, April 22

I'm a slacker

Sorry I have been slacking on the blog lately. I just know that bedrest is approaching so I have been taking advantage of my freedom while I still can. Yesterday (Saturday), Peter and Brye and I went to a Geocaching event in Lakeland with two other cachers. We had a great time all day. The event was just to meet other cachers and talk about caching and have some food. No cleaning up this time. On the way we picked up an earth cache which is a cache that takes you to a location that has some significance. We went to the Green Swamp and learned about the four rivers that flowed through the area. There wasn't actually anything physical to find so there was no hunting or bushwhacking involved. We had to gather some information and take a couple pics to prove we visited and get our smiley face. My mom watched Abbi during the day so Brye got all our attention, she loves that.

Today (Sunday), Peter and I were suppose to meet Greig and Cindy for lunch but Greig's nephew turned out to be sick with Chicken Pox so rather than risking me getting sick or the getting the babies sick we decided we will meet up next week. Cindy is only in town until tomorrow so we still caught up with her for a bit. Later we went to Kent and Jake's house and had dinner with them and baby Kendrah. I forgot my camera so I have no pictures to post of all the fun the girls had together. Thanks Kent and Jake for dinner and a good time!!

Tomorrow, I have a dr's appointment. I don't know but I think I will probably be facing bed rest really soon. I guess we will find out soon enough!

Friday, April 20

Signs up

Today my Dad came up and helped Peter put his sign up for his store out on the road. I haven't been to see it yet but Peter said it looks really good. He is waiting on one insurance thing and then the doors will be open for business! Yay Peter!!

I had to go in for a 3 hour GTT test this morning but I got sick half way through and couldn't complete it. I will see on Monday if my dr wants me to try again or not

Also, does anyone know what this image is about?

Thursday, April 19

Belly shot

Lots of you have asked to see a full shot of me with my growing belly. Peter took this today, I will be 25 weeks on Sunday. I'm getting bigger but I don't think I am too big yet.

Wednesday, April 18

Poor Baby

Yesterday Abbi was running in the house (we don't encourage that) and I didn't see what happened but she started crying out in pain. I ran over to her and she told me her foot hurt her but she was crying so hard it was difficult to understand what she was saying. I thought maybe she hit her head when she fell but when I asked her she said no. Eventually she calmed down enough to show me where it hurt and I massaged her hip, knee, toes, and foot to find the source of the pain. I tried to get her to stand on it but she wouldn't and just cried. I carried her to my bed and tried to figure out where on her foot it hurt. Soon she calmed down and stopped crying but when she went to get off the bed and walk she started whining again. It was after 5 and our Pediatrician was closed so I couldn't call them to see what to do. Peter came home after I called him and we decided to wait a little bit to see if she got any better. We had to go to the store and run a couple errands so we put her shoes on her and carried her to the car. When we got home she would walk on her foot but only using the ball of her heal and not putting any pressure on the rest of her foot. When she would take a step she would say "ouch" and then after a few steps she would sit down and not walk at all. I called my friend, Rena, who is in med school to be a pediatrician and she said that we should wait and see if it gets worse. This morning Abbi was still walking with a limp and when we put pressure on her foot she told us it hurts. She wasn't crying about it or saying ouch when she walked but she still wasn't walking normal. I called the Pediatrician this morning to see what they thought and the nurse told me that we should wait a couple more days to see if it improves. Rena called me back and said she spoke with other people who were a bit further along than her and they told her the same thing. Because Abbi is so young she would heal really fast if something were wrong and also lots of times they won't even do x-rays on children her age because in a week they will be healed. We didn't see any swelling or bruising and nothing that looks obviously wrong. The nurse told me to just keep her foot elevated and put ice on it, so today is a day of rest and movie watching. Abbi has been real good about keeping the ice on her foot and she hasn't tried to get up at all. I don't usually let them watch TV or movies at all so she probably welcomes this special day. We will keep this up for a few more days until we are sure she is all better.

Tuesday, April 17

Peter's home!!

Us girls get so excited when Daddy comes home. He had to be in New Jersey over the weekend and he left on Thursday night. He got home yesterday after a long weekend and was just as happy to be home as we were to see him. They had a terrible storm up there and we were all afraid his flight would be canceled but everything went smoothly and he returned safely. He said there were lots of technical difficulties and other things that made the trip unpleasant but one thing he was excited about was when they got back to the airport in Long Island the night before their flight they had a round of drinks and now he can say that he has had a Long Island Ice Tea on Long Island. He is so cute, and he thought this was blog-worthy. :)

Monday, April 16

Share a Hug!

Friday, April 13

Cache to learn

Earlier this week a new cache was published in my area. It wasn't your typical 'find this cache and trade gear and be on your way cache' it had theme of reading. The owner of the cache placed it in a preserve behind the Deltona Library and filled an enormous ammo can with many different children books. On his post page he said to take your kids and read them a story from the cache and enjoy the benefits of reading to your children. There is also a separate bag of goodies for trading if you would like but the real reason for the cache was for reading. I took the girls today to the cache, it was placed easily so that children could make the find so there was no tough bushwacking or difficult terrian to endure. I found the can easily (it was probably as tall as Abbi) and we sat at the nearby pavilion to read some stories. The girls loved this cache, we read a few different books together and then each of the girls read their own while I took pictures and signed the caches log. This cache was a really great idea and I am happy that the girls and I got to visit it today, especially with the beautiful weather we had all day.

On another note, Peter is in New Jersey this weekend so I dropped Brye off at Grandma's house and Abbi and I are going over to my friend, Reba's, house in Daytona Beach tomorrow and staying the night so I will not be posting again until Sunday. Have a great weekend!

Thursday, April 12

Glucose Tolerance Test

This morning I had to go in for a one hour GTT. This is a test they do on pregnant women to check for gestational diabetes. They also use this test in longer forms to check for diabetes and hypoglycemia in people who aren't pregnant. I had the 4hr test done before and that is when I found out I was Hypoglycemic. The tests are really long and boring but this one today was only an hour so I just brought my book with me and it wasn't so bad. What they do is make you drink this nasty sugar drink within five minutes and then an hour from when you finish they draw blood to see how your body reacted to the sudden increase in sugar. I won't know my results for a few days but hopefully everything comes back normal. There is a serious increase in the possibility of gestational diabetes when you are pregnant with twins and even more so when you are pregnant with triplets, it has to do with all the extra hormones your body produces during pregnancy. I will let you know how everything works out when I get the results. If they are abnormal I will have to return for the 3 hour GTT, ick.

Wednesday, April 11

Oops

When I was taking pictures for Brian's prom the girls kept running up to the camera and saying cheese when I was standing around holding the camera at my side. Since they kept doing it I decided to take a picture of each of them without looking through the viewfinder and just shooting from the hip. I guess if your camera is good enough, you don't need to be a good photographer...

Tuesday, April 10

So smart!

The other morning while I wasn't home Peter came out to find that Brye had written her name on the fridge with the magnets. She did it all herself with no help at all. Peter of course had to take a picture to capture this moment. Brye is so smart, I can't get over it!

Sunday, April 8

Happy Easter!!

Us Taylors sure had a full Easter Day. In the morning before the girls got their pretty dresses on they wore bunny robes to keep them warm. Brye said she was the Easter Bunny and was going to pass out eggs to everyone. We finally got dressed and the girls looked so pretty in their special dresses. They loved the dresses and didn't want to stop dancing around in them when I tried them on them at the store. Brye was really excited to be able to wear hers again. I went to four different stores looking for ribbon that matched both their dresses and finally found some so I could make their socks pretty and Abbi's hat match her dress. Also I had ribbon for their hair too. We met Peter's mom for lunch in Orlando on our way to my sister, Janell's house. Peter's mom gave the girls little baskets with bubbles and a baton in them, they both really liked the baton.



When we got to Aunt Janell and Uncle Wyatt's house Grandma, Papa, and Uncle Brian were already there. The girls gave everyone a hug and then we were off for an egg hunt in the backyard. There were eggs with B's and eggs with A's on them so the girls knew which ones to find for themselves. Brye went quick and picked all hers up in no time but she wanted more after she had already found all hers.


















Abbi had a great time and got so excited when she would find one, she would always hold it up and yell out. It was really cute.





















After they were all found we went inside where the girls opened them all up to see what treasures were inside.



















Once that was finished, we went inside to color eggs and came up with lots of pretty colors. Abbi liked to drop the eggs into the cup but Brye liked to make the eggs two different colors. They had a great time seeing the results when we pulled them out of the cups with the pretty colors on them.









While the eggs dried off the girls went to open Easter baskets. Uncle Wyatt and Aunt Janell got each of the girls cool buckets filled with goodies. They played with everything as they pulled each thing out and had a great time discovering each new toy. There seemed to be something of everything in there. As you can see a couple things Abbi got was a pretty necklace and pretty tiara that has lights that blink, she loves that stuff.













After they opened all the things in their buckets they got their big baskets from the Easter Bunny (Grandma). Each basket was filled with lots of good stuff and the girls went crazy pulling everything out. They really had a great time.


After all the goodies had been explored the girls helped Grandma make an Easter Bunny cake. Abbi helped put the frosting on (and eat the whiskers) and Brye made a smile and eyes with jelly beans with the help of Aunt Janell. In the end the bunny was great but first we had to eat dinner. Janell and Wyatt made a huge ham and we all had sandwiches with sides that my mom had brought (I brought eggs and the cake necessities). Dinner was great and the cake was great too. On the way home we stopped at Chris' house and the girls played with him and Miss Kim while Mommy rested and Daddy talked. When we finally got home both the girls were sleeping and Peter and I were ready to also. It was a great Easter and the girls had a ton of fun. Thanks Aunt Janell and Uncle Wyatt and Grandma and Papa for all the goodies!!

Saturday, April 7

Cache in, Trash Out!!

Every year the Florida Geocaching Association sponsers events where cachers get together to clean up a cerian area in our forests or along the roads, pretty much where ever needs it. This year a cacher named Clan Riffster organized an event by the Econlock-
hatchee River in Oviedo. I contacted him early on and told him that I wanted to come but couldn't do any physical work like lugging garbage filled bags or even a lot of bending and stooping. He was great and let me help out on the admin side of things so that I could still participate. I was in charge of checking everyone in and handing out raffle tickets to all that showed and also for each bag of trash they brought up. There were a couple other things I did to help out but the best part was just getting to meet everyone and also seeing those I had met before. We all had a great time and in the end we had a pile of trash from just around the riverbanks. Some cachers went out in canoes to help bring back the trash and others loaded buckets full of broken glass. After the clean up was done Clan Riffster raffled off a bunch of goodies including 10 really well camoed ammo cans (to hide for your own caches) trackable geocoins (always coveted) and t-shirts. In the end I think I was the only one that didn't win anything because I didn't get the chance to collect extra tickets by bringing up trash. CR saw this and came by and gave me my own ammo can that he had set aside for me for helping him out. Later a bunch of us cachers met for lunch nearby and talked about different caches and GPS' and technology (I know sounds great to you non-cachers). I had a great time and wish that these events were held more than once a year. In the top pic you can see the camoed ammo cans in a pile in the lower left corner. The bottom picture is the pile of trash that the cachers collected on the trails, ew.

Friday, April 6

Surprise!

Today the girls got a nice surprise from Miss Kim in the mail. Miss Kim sent them an Easter package and they both got little purses with candy in them and also they each got a gift card to Target. Thanks Miss Kim. Brye called Kim right away to thank her and she got to talk to Chris too, I am sure that was the highlight of her day. The girls love their little purses they went to each of their rooms and found things to put in them (I took the candy out). Thank you Miss Kim, you are always so thoughtful!

Oscar went to the Dr today to get new brakes and Peter borrowed my dad's truck while the van was at the shop. Peter moved all his tools and work benches to his new store and now there is room in the garage. How exciting!! Thanks Dad for letting us use your truck, it was perfect!

Thursday, April 5

Can you Handle this?

Yesterday I wanted to take Brian his prom pictures and I had a couple other things that I wanted to do in town so I took the car and Peter stayed home with the girls. I was gone most of the day and when I returned Peter had a surprise for me. He had installed handles on all the kitchen cabinets and drawers. I noticed right away, it makes such a difference. It looks so great, it's funny how something so small can change the whole room like that. We were talking about how it makes the cabinets look like they are brand new, odd considering they have been the same since we built the house. Peter of course did a perfect job and they are all straight and level, I wouldn't expect anything less from him though. Once we get the tile in the kitchen is going to look like a whole new room.

Tuesday, April 3

Sticker books

You may remember that my sister sent the girls sticker books for Valentine's Day this year. Well the girls just LOVE them, Abbi especially! Everytime there is a sticker anywhere she runs to get her book so she can add it to her collection. A week or so ago she found my postcard stamps and got so excited I had to let her have one. She took off and returned with her sticker book seconds later to add her newest addition. Today while we were cleaning out Brye's room we found a bunch of stickers that Santa had brought as well as some that Grandma gave to the girls. We had a good time going through them all and putting the new stickers in their place. Thanks again Aunt Janell, the girls really love the books you made them!

Monday, April 2

Geocache America

Every cacher has a profile page where other cachers can go and look you up. You can put anything you want on the page. Most people put up their milestone caches (1st, 100th, 200th, etc.) with the name of the cache they found to get there. Others have maps that show which states they cached in. Most maps are real simple and straight forward, a US map with the states borders and each state they cached in colored red. No other info. Steve (my brother) is the one who got me into caching and he had a cool map on his profile so he showed me how to make my own. Anyhow, everytime Peter has gone out of town he takes my GPS and finds me at least one cache in each different state that he visits so I can add it to my map. Here is my map so far. Each blue circle represents one cache found in that location. As you can see FL is getting harder and harder to make out. There are a ton of circles you can't see because they are all on top of each other.

Sunday, April 1

Brian goes to Prom

Last night was my little brother's Senior Prom. My mom wanted lots of pictures so of course I came over to make sure that was taken care of. After he got all dressed up (he looked so great!) I took a bunch of just him and then when his date arrived with Brian's friend and his friends date I took lots more pictures. They all looked so good, I wish I had a reason to dress up like that and go out. Brian's prom was exactly 7 years after mine, to the day. That is when Peter and I got engaged. I was a senior but Peter had graduated the year before and came to my prom. Seeing Brian and his friends all dressed up brought back lots of memories. Brian called me today said he had a great time, I am so happy he went! He looked so good. Here is a picture of Brian with his friend Taylar being cool before they took off.