Start him young...

Happy Birthday Jesus!!

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope everyone has a wonderful day with their families today! Last night Peter was playing at church for the Christmas Eve services that were being held. There was a 6:00 kid's service and then a candlelight service that started at 11:00. I took the kids to the 6:00 and then we all went to dinner at our friends, Valleta and Rodney's, house after enjoying cookies and hot chocolate that our church put out. We left our friend's house and headed back home to get a few things ready and meet my mom and Jim. They were coming to the candlelight service. Bresa thought that Santa might come while we were out so we set out some cookies and milk. We had a great service and then Peter wanted to take the girls to see some Christmas lights because he didn't get to do that yet and we knew that come a couple more days we wouldn't get to see anymore. Mom and I were going to go too but mom was really tired so we decided to take Peter's gear back home and lie down. I called Peter to tell him that Santa hadn't come yet and to tell the girls then Mom and I laid down and fell asleep. Next thing I know the girls were waking me up all excited telling me Santa had come. I couldn't believe he was able to come without waking up mom who was on right there on the cake. He had eaten all the cookies and took Bresa's gingerbread house she made him and left presents for the family. Since we were all awake at this point we decided to open the gifts and see what we got. Even though it was late the girls were very awake and excited. They tore through their presents from Santa and Grandma and Papa. It was after 2am when mom and Jim left and we all got to sleep. This morning the girls were good about staying quiet while Peter and I slept in. Once we got up and ate we opened up the packages for the girls so they could actually play with everything. Javan really liked his cars that he got because he is obsessed with wheels. Today we are just vegging around until later tonight when we will go over to Chris' family's house for dinner. After that we are going to see our friends Rena and Reba who are in town for the weekend. I am enjoying this relaxing day with no work for either Peter or I. I hope your Christmas is just as enjoyable!

A Day Off

Every Christmas the cast members at Disney get a nice discount on merchandise. My mom and her friend Patty wanted to go for the day and asked me to come along. I have already finished my shopping but I figured I could go for the walk and window shopping. I took the day off of work and decided to bring Javan along so that Peter could have a day to himself while the girls were at school. Well, once we got to Disney we must have went into every shop in the Magic Kingdom. There was a little bit of light rain on and off in the afternoon but it wasn't bad. The only ride we went on was Pirates of the Caribbean and the line wasn't even 10 minutes (that's the way to do it). Javan was an excellent boy all day long and even took a little nap while we looked at all the Disney things. By the end of the day the stroller was full of goodies that mom and Patty had picked up and Javan was being carried. The park closed early tonight for the Very Merry Christmas Party that started at 8:00. It was a good thing too because I really needed to get home and go to bed. I have to get up at 5:30 tomorrow and go back to work. Ick. Also, you can see that baby Javan was awfully sleepy towards the end there.

Daddy's boy

Abbi's Paint

For Abbi's birthday, Grandma bought her a sidewalk paint set. Abbi really wanted it but after she got it home and put it away she forgot all about it. Grandma was asking what she wanted for Christmas this year and Abbi said the paint set she didn't get for her birthday. I told Abbi that she already got that and it was put away. She asked me if we could play with it this weekend and since Bresa was at Grandma's house having fun I figured Abbi should have some fun too. We did our morning chores and then went to work painting the back patio. She had lots of fun and must have said a dozen times, "We've never done this before." So cute. The rain should clean up the paint whenever that is but I am enjoying looking out back and seeing the pretty colors and what is usually the plan concrete slab.

Park Day

We went to Red Bug park a while back and took a bunch of photos that I had completely forgotten about. It was on one of those kind of cool but not really days that we got to dig out some of our long sleeve wear. We got a couple good shots and the girls both took turns taking pictures too. They enjoyed that but Bresa didn't understand why all her pictures were of our feet because when she pushed down on the button to take the shot she also pushed the whole camera down. Too cute!

St Nicholas' Night

St. Nick’s night is always Dec 6th, though sometimes we forget and it gets pushed back a couple nights. This year we were actually on the ball and ready for Santa to come fill our shoes with a pre-Christmas present. We got home from the party last night and Bresa immediately took one shoe off and asked if she could put it outside. I told her to get ready for bed and we would do it all together. Once everyone was ready (Javan was in bed) we took our shoes and set them on the doorstep in hopes that Santa would make a stop just for us. This year we had a new addition to our shoe line, and though I don’t know that his shoe is big enough to hold much, Javan could expect his first Christmas present. This morning I got up and was brushing my teeth when the girls came in and said “good morning.” I knew something was up because they usually go straight to the kitchen for breakfast. I finished up and we went and looked at the shoes to find that Santa had left photo ornaments in each of the kid’s shoes. It looked like he forgot about Daddy and I and raided the pantry where he found mixes for blue berry muffins and brownies that he left for us by our shoes. Maybe that’s his way of saying we are too old for this tradition. Bresa also found a note in her shoe from Santa himself that reminded her to be a good girl and a big helper and to control herself and be respectful. The last few weeks have been hard for Bresa and I am not sure if it’s the anticipation of Christmas or her just trying to test the boundaries but we would hate for her to end up on Santa’s naughty list. I am excited about the ornaments because they hadn’t had any photo ones yet and each year I still pull out my wreath that I made that has a photo of me from Kindergarten. I also have one from when I was just 2 or 3 and I enjoy looking at it on the tree each Christmas.

Partying nonstop

It’s a full day at the Taylor house today. Peter was playing on the worship team this morning for church so he had to get up early and go to practice. The service was great and I was excited to finally be singing some Christmas songs in church. Right after the service let out we headed home for our final Crown social. Crown was the class that I was teaching on finances at the church which ended a couple weeks ago. The group decided to have our last social today and since I live fairly close to the church we made it at our house. Peter grilled up some hotdogs and everyone brought a dish or drinks and we had a great time discussing what we took from the class and just enjoying each other’s company. We hung out for a few hours but then we kind of had to usher people out because we had another party to go to that was over in Deland. Peter and I lead a Life Group for the church and there are several more Life Groups that do the same. Over each of the Life Groups is a Coach in charge of several of the groups. The party we were going to was for all the Life Groups under our same coach so there was a lot of people there that I didn’t get to see on a regular basis. We left our house and had a couple cars follow us over (one from the Crown party). We were asked to bring Chili and chips and since Bill is the cooker in our group he made a great pot to of chili to share, Peter and I bought chips which we left in a bag in the living room (oops). The hosts cooked up some more hotdogs for those who didn’t want chili and we all hung out outside the house. There was a huge playground and a trampoline for the kids and a fire pit and several tables and chairs set up for the adults. We put up Javan’s stroller but after he ate his solids he was passed around and loved on the rest of the night; much to his delight. We had some really good talks with some people we had been meaning to get together with and enjoyed relaxing with no agenda set. We left at about 7:15 to get home and put the kids to bed, Bresa and Abbi were pretty cranky at this point, and they both have school tomorrow. It was a good full day but I am going to have to get some cleaning done tomorrow after work before our Life Group meets; I don’t mind though

Giving Joy

Peter and I had planned to get up super early and take the girls to Disney to be there for the filming of the Christmas Parade today. Janell and Wyatt won tickets for it and put us on their list for tickets. I had it all planned out, what the girls were going to wear, how I was going to do their hair, and made sure we had everything packed up for the day. Well, when the rain started and didn’t stop yesterday and was predicted to do the same today Janell did some research and found that the parade had been put off until tomorrow morning which we can’t go to because we already had a Sunday. I was really disappointed that we were going to miss the parade; I had been looking forward to it all week. In the end it worked out though because I had also signed up to volunteer for a program, “Giving Joy” that the church was putting on and it landed on the same day. I was going to help with the set up yesterday because I wouldn’t be here today but now that my day was free I was able to help for the actual event. Giving Joy is a program that the church started last year where people in the church donate new or gently used toys and clothes and then the church holds a “shopping day” for free for families in the community that don’t have the means to provide Christmas for their families. Children were encouraged to help their parents work the event to see what giving was all about. I decided to take Bresa to be my big helper and we rode over with our friend Brenda for the 12-4:00 shift. There was a room in the back for kids to play if they got tired of working and needed a break. We walked through the room but I decided not to tell Bresa she could go there until I felt she needed it. We worked the girl’s toys table (perfect) and helped many parents pick out toys that we thought might suit their child’s interest. Bresa did a great job of keeping the table stocked and found all the really cool toys that hadn’t been put out yet. Every time she would find a cool toy she would point it out and pretty much the next person to come up would take it! She didn’t get tired or cranky at all and probably could have gone on for several more hours. She found lots of toys that had parts or went with other things and made sure to put them all together so that the person who took it home would have the complete set. The families that came in were very appreciative and I was almost brought to tears many times. Once all the families had come through the kids who had helped out were aloud to go around and pick one toy of their choice to take home. Bresa was really excited about that because she had been eyeing a blue fairy doll on our table. I don’t think anyone who came through the church could have possibly felt as blessed as I did by being able to bless them. It is truly better to give than to receive!