&t The Taylor Family: November 2013

Saturday, November 30

I sure do love this man!

posted by We are the Taylors @ 1:39 PM   0 comments

Friday, November 29

Changing Seasons

With Thanksgiving now behind us it's time to move on to Christmas. Bryanna went home with Grandma yesterday so we just had the two younger children home. Peter's brother, Chris, came to stay with us so while the two of them were playing with guitar stuff Abbi, Javan and I decided to make this house feel
like Christmas. We got everything out of the attic and brought it downstairs and put up the tree. We fluffed it up a bit and then somehow managed to get Daddy to put the lights up for us. He was going to dinner with his brothers and his dad so while he was away the three of us decorated the tree with ornaments. We made sure to leave room for Bresa's ornaments. I knew she would want to hang them herself. I was sad she wasn't there to do it with us but I didn't know when I would have time to do it again after I went back to work next week.
I don't really look forward to decorating the tree but once I open the ornament boxes and go through each piece I remember all the stories behind each one. Each of our ornaments has a meaning they bring back such good memories that I don't think about during the year. When we finished our ornaments we admired our work. The tree looks nice but it will look better when Bresa adds hers. The kids have already done some Christmas shopping so I helped them wrap a few presents to put under the tree.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 7:12 PM   0 comments

Thursday, November 28

Happy Thanksgiving

Peter and I are very grateful for all the
ways God has moved in our lives this past year. This is our first Thanksgiving in our new house and we were excited to host for our parents. My mom and Jim came over and Peter's Dad did also. We also invited our next door neighbor to join us when we found out he didn't have any plans. I have only cooked a couple turkeys in my day because normally we go over to other families homes and the host usually provides the bird. Peter and I wanted
this turkey to be the best and I though I thought my mom's classic method was good I always think there is room for improvement. We did a bunch of research and ended up doing some pretty weird things to our bird but we didn't tell anyone any of it until after they had tasted it and told us how delicious it was. We brined our bird for the first time ever and we cooked it upside down (breast side down) for the
first 2/3 of the cooking time. We didn't stuff the bird as we know this adds to the turkey being dry and we didn't baste it once and we left it uncovered the whole time. We weren't really sure what to expect but it was so good and I am pretty sure we will repeat this method from now on. All our guests brought food to share so my part as host was not as overwhelming. We had a great time conversing and just relaxing on this wonderful cold day. I couldn't have asked for a better Thanksgiving.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 5:05 PM   0 comments

Wednesday, November 27

Time off

In the past we I have always been given the day of Thanksgiving and the following Friday off from work with holiday pay. This year City Hall decided to change things because they are not open on Fridays so they see a point in paying any employees for a day they aren't working anyhow. That makes sense except
that not all divisions within the city are closed on Fridays so for the rest of us we were expected to have Thanksgiving off and then return to work Friday and then have our weekend. I asked my sergeant if I could work the extra time Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday so that I could flex my time on Friday and have a 4 day weekend. She didn't care and my co-worker had time to flex for some callouts so he was taking off too. We have a Community Service Officer who is filling in until we are back up to full staff with our Crime Scene Techs and she was still going to come in on Friday so that someone was there in case anyone needed anything. She did go home early on Wednesday to give her a little bit more of a break so the rest of us (we have an intern) decided to decorate our white board to hopefully bring her a smile on Friday.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 2:57 PM   0 comments

Thursday, November 14

Bird Watching

I came downstairs and found all the children looking out the window at something. Upon closer observation I realized they were actually watching Goose who was watching two doves pick at the bird seed outside. I had bought a bird feeder several weeks ago
with a shepherd's hook in hopes to attract birds to the backyard. I put the hook up in front of the window that Goose always sits at and looks out but no birds even came near it. Eventually I took the feeder off the hook and just placed it on the concrete slab outside our sliding glass door. A few days after that we noticed something had knocked the feeder over so I went out and picked it back up. A few hours after that it was knocked over again. It's too heavy for the wind to blow it over so we know something had to come and do it but we hadn't seen anything. I guess the birds and squirrels are getting more gutsy because today they were right up at the door pecking at the seeds and Goose wanted to jump through the glass to get to them. It was pretty entertaining for all of us.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 4:51 PM   0 comments

Saturday, November 9

Fall

I am so excited to be be able to decorate this year. With so many places in
our house that can be prettied up I am trying to find fun inexpensive ways to make the house feel more festive. Our neighbors across the street are having a garage sale and they had a bag of leaf garland. I picked it up thinking it would look great on our staircase. I will have to get some good deals after the holidays so that next year things can look even better.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 12:32 PM   0 comments

Friday, November 1

Happy Birthday!!

Wishing my surro-twins a wonderful and Happy Birthday!! They turn 2 today (and tomorrow). Don't they look so adorable in their Indian attire? Peter and I are planning a trip back to Hong Kong, I can't wait to see them again!!

posted by We are the Taylors @ 12:24 PM   0 comments