&t The Taylor Family: December 2012

Friday, December 28

Picnic in the Park

The children have been home for over a week now for Christmas Break. I figured Peter could use a break of his own and the kids could use some exercise and a change of scenery. We packed up our lunch and headed to Blue Springs Park.
I didn't think it would be crowded on a Friday but I guess other people had the same thoughts. We had to wait about 30 minutes before we could enter the park because of overcrowding. It wasn't too bad though and soon we were
enjoying our lunch on our blanket spread out on the grass. The park reported having spotted 325 manatees in the springs today. As soon as we finished eating we headed over to the water and didn't have to look very hard to see some swimming around. They seemed to be everywhere and the children all enjoyed seeing them all. There were also lots of turtles,
much to Javan's delight. We walked the whole boardwalk and stopped at each viewing area. The children enjoyed running on the boardwalk and spotting squirrels and birds. After we had walked all the way to the springs and back the children asked to play on the
playground for a while. I took a seat nearby and rested until they seemed like they had exhausted themselves.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 1:44 PM   0 comments

Wednesday, December 26

Enjoying presents

posted by We are the Taylors @ 4:15 PM   0 comments

Tuesday, December 25

Christmas Day

Merry Christmas everyone and Happy Birthday to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Peter and I awoke to happy little giggles
from the children who had discovered the Christmas tree surrounded by presents this morning. We managed to get out of bed and quickly got ready for the day. I made the family blueberry pancakes which the children scarfed down in an effort to get to the present opening sooner. When we were all ready we all sat around the tree and Daddy passed out the presents. One by one the children tore through the package's wrappings and found their treasures inside. Javan got the Lego Police Department (I had wanted it for
years), a firetruck, cars, more legos and a few other things. Abbi got a remote control helicopter, a bench for her keyboard, and an ipod with a docking station, and a few other things. Bresa got a new violin (she outgrew her last one), a sewing machine, a new Brave doll, she also got an ipod with a docking station and a few other things too. The girls both said it was their best Christmas ever. They couldn't wait to get into their
presents and try everything out. We let them play for a little while but then we had to get things together so we could head to Janell and Wyatt's house where we were doing the extended family Christmas. At Janell's the kids played and I helped prepare the meal. Soon we were eating and then it was time for more presents. The kids never tire of opening gifts so they excitedly opened more. By the time the last present
was open I was ready to get home. I have to work in the morning and we still had to drive an hour or so back. We packed the girls and a very sleepy and cranky Javan and headed home. Merry Christmas everyone!!

posted by We are the Taylors @ 8:00 PM   0 comments

Monday, December 24

Christmas Eve

Peter has been working hard on learning songs and getting ready for the three Christmas Eve services our church offers. He had a big hand in writing out the music and selecting songs and meetings with the Worship Pastor started as early as August. I like that Peter plays and I am always proud of him when he is up there but having him go to practice and meetings 2-3 times a week was getting to me. Tonight my
mom came over to our house so we could go together. Peter had already left for church around 3 for the 5:00 service. The children and I all got ready to go and we made it to the 7:00 service. It was amazing (as usual) and the worship teams hard work really paid off. After the service Peter had a couple hours before he had to be back for the 11:00 service so we went to Ruby Tuesday's to have some dinner. It was much later than our usual dinner time and past Javan's bedtime so the kids were all getting slower as the night progressed. Dinner was good and we were one of three groups in the restaurant. The funny thing is the other two groups were also from our church so we talked with them a bit before we headed out.
We got back home but Santa hadn't arrived just yet so the kids got ready for bed and then put out cookies and milk for Santa and a carrot for the reindeer. Hopefully when they wake up Santa will have visited.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 11:41 PM   0 comments

Saturday, December 22

Christmas Lights

There's a house in Winter Park that goes all out for Christmas. Peter and I use to go to the house every year when we lived in that area and every year they added more and more lights to it. We hadn't been in a couple years, since before Javan, and we weren't even sure if they still did it. I had a friend invite us
to an event there so I learned it was still going on. Apparently this is the 19th year this family has done this and they use the power from their house as well as a neighbor's. Bresa is at Grandma's house until tomorrow but we were in the area and decided to stop by. We parked the car and got out so we could walk around the sidewalk and walkway to see all the details. This house even uses the windows into their houses and builds cities and towns so you can see them through the glass. It is all really amazing. Abbi and Javan loved it and didn't want to leave. They wanted to keep walking through it all again and again (until we told them we had to get dinner). I am glad this house still does this, it's such a great Christmas spirit lifter and really gets the children excited.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 7:46 PM   0 comments

Saturday, December 15

Happy 90th Birthday Memere!

My Dad is the oldest of 7 children in his family and today we were celebrating his mom's 90th birthday. Peter and I got the children all prettied up and drove to St. Augustine where the party was going to be.
There we got to see all of my aunts and uncles and several of my cousins and their children too. It was so great to see everyone and catch up. Most of the children there I had never met before. Our kids loved playing with all the other kids while us adults talked. There was lots of food and lots of games and toys for the kids to play with too. I really enjoyed talking with my aunts and uncles whom I hadn't seen in several years. I would have been happy to stay much later if we didn't have to drive all the way home still.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 9:00 PM   0 comments

Friday, December 14

Dad and Judy

My Grandmother, Memere, is having her 90th birthday party this weekend
so my Dad and Judy came into town. After visiting with my sister earlier today they came over to our house where we talked for a bit then went to Chick-fil-a for dinner. It's the best place to go because the kids can play on the indoor playground and we can sit and talk without interruption. My Aunt Terri and Uncle David also met us there so the 6 of us talked for a good while before we gathered up the children to head home.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 8:30 PM   0 comments

Tuesday, December 11

Christmas Cards

I decided to go simple this year. Every year I get all stressed and overwhelmed when I think about Christmas Cards so this year I decided it was going to be simple or not at all...

posted by We are the Taylors @ 10:01 AM   0 comments

Saturday, December 8

Ornaments

These are the ornaments that I got from St. Nick this year.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 10:29 AM   0 comments

Thursday, December 6

St. Nick's Night

It's getting closer to Christmas but first we have to celebrate St. Nick's Night. Javan went to Grandma's house but no worries, the girls made sure to put his shoe out so that St. Nicolas could leave him a present too.
*Update: The girls woke up and found St. Nick had left them beautiful fish ornaments from China. ;) Peter got one of a whole family of snowman with our names on on it and I got two ornaments with my surro-babies names and birthdays on them.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 8:00 PM   0 comments

Saturday, December 1

DeLand Christmas Parade

There are lots of Christmas Parades
in our area every year but somehow we have never actually gone to any of them. This year our Life Group Leaders decided we would make a social out of it and we all met 2 hours before the parade was supposed to start. We all
brought camping chairs and set them up in a nice location (people were already there before us waiting in their seats) and then we grilled some hot dogs on a camping grill. We had all brought some sides to go along with the main dish and this morning the children helped me "make" cookies. I say, "make" because they were just the simple break and bake kind that were buy one get one and I needed a bunch for tomorrow's Worship Team Christmas
Party too. In all we made 120 cookies and took about half to the parade with us. Lunch was great and filling and it killed a bit of time too. We had about a half hour before the parade was going to start so we just talked and the kids played. Finally the parade started and we had awesome seats and the sidewalks sure did fill up fast and full as the time had gotten closer.
Lots of people passed out candy to the kids and they all went crazy for it. There were a lot of people in the parade that we knew so that was fun too. Javan got to see firetrucks, police cars, and a race car which he was very excited about. He was also very interested in all of the marching bands. The parade was about an hour and a half long but it didn't seem that long and ended with Santa Claus of course. We packed up all our things when it was through and then remembered why we never made it to any of the other parades as we sat in the traffic that followed in order to get home.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 6:00 PM   0 comments