Taylor looses a tooth

This has been a long time coming for us. Taylor has been talking about loosing a tooth for close to a year now. I kept telling her to enjoy her baby teeth because before long they will all be gone. (Why are we always in such a hurry to grow up!)Well, about three or four weeks ago we were out and about when Taylor said she needed a drink, so I got her a sprite out of the nearest vending machine. And that did it, she used her teeth to open the bottle and as a result her tooth FINALLY loosened up. She has been telling everyone she knows (including Chase) that that's how you make your teeth loose so that you can finally loose them. On that following Sunday Cort announced that he thought it was FINALLY loose enough for him to pull it out and that's exactly what he did. Taylor was so excited and couldn't wait for the tooth fairy to come. I just love her zest and love of life. She is such a peach and we are all so excited for her. Love ya Tay!

magical childhood

I came across this really cool website the other day. It seriously has some great ideas. I thought was too good not to post. Anyways, here’s the address and a little tid-bit of what I found. www.magicalchildhood.com.

20 Ways to Make Today Special

How many individual days do you remember from your childhood? How many were magical? Here's some things to try that your children will carry with them. And hopefully make you smile a little too...
Leave a secret "I love you" message hidden in a lunch box, painted on their pancakes or tucked into their shoes. Better yet, leave a dozen.

Fake a doctor's appointment. If you have kids in school, let them (and the school) think they have to get out of school for an appointment. Pick them up and take them to a picnic in the park instead (or whatever you'd both enjoy).

Have a tacky fashion show. Get together the loudest clothes you can find and give out awards for the worst entries. Eat supper in costume.

Write them a letter telling her how much you love them, and why. Be specific.

Square dance. In the living room. Grown ups too. Make it up if you don't know how.

Tell your kids their birth stories. Add the little details and tell them if you cried or daddy wouldn't let them go.

Serve meals out of order. Have lunch for breakfast, desert for lunch, etc.

Eat it with the wrong utensils and be artistic with it. Pipe tartar sauce haikus across the fish sticks and then scramble them to make new poems. You get the idea.

Crawl under the table with your little one. Do at least three different normal activities under there (reading books, brushing teeth, snack time...)

Get together a pile of your children's artwork and take the kids to a senior citizen center. Pass out the art and spend time with the residents. Let your kids know how happy they made people.

Give your child a disposable camera and tell her to record all her favorite parts of her life with the photos.

Go for a long walk and just talk.

Play truth or dare.

Have a campout in the living room. Roast marshmallows over candles and tell ghost stories by flashlight.

If you have access to a camcorder, record at least an hour of silliness. Add some sentiment too, having everybody tell things they're thankful for, what they've loved about this year, and things they love about each other. Close with more silliness.

Help them decorate their rooms with glow-in-the-dark stars, bugs or images. Better yet, get GITD paint and they can paint their own.

Go on a road trip for the day, anywhere you've never been.

Write a silly poem or story just for him. Make him the hero and fill it with stuff he loves.

After dark, go look at the stars together.

Spend the whole day saying "mommy loves you." Say it so much you're annoying and strange! At the end of the night, tiptoe in and whisper it to them as they sleep. Fill them up with how loved they are, and tiptoe out

The Happy Tag

Here are the rules:

Write down 6 things that make you happy.
Tag 6 others. Tell the person who tagged you when your entry is complete.

Six things that make me happy:
1. Setting a goal, and achieving it
2. exercising
3. anything with sugar in it
4. spending time with those I love
5. Knowing that we are an eternal family
6. When everything is in it's place

I tag anyone who hasn't done this one yet!

Catching up

I love blogging, the great ideas I have gotten, keeping in touch with old friends, and the looking at what everyone's up too. It seriously is so much fun. But even more than that, I love that I am documenting our lives. Mostly the good, (who wants to remember the bad?) and the small moments that I would forget if I didn't write them down. With that said, bare with me as I back track a bit, update my blog, and fill you all in with what we have been up too lately.

About a month ago Chase became a SUNBEAM in primary. I was a little nervous of how he'd do, since his birthday is in November he's one of the youngest. However, he has done AWESOME! He walks to class with Taylor and goes and sits with his class with no hesitation at all. We talked a lot about it the week before he went for the first time and he was all excited and geared up to go. Here's a couple pictures I took of him right before we left for church that day. I swear I could just eat him!

Should I be worried??

Taylor was off track too the whole month of January. It was so nice, not to have a schedule, to just be together, the sleeping in, and doing whatever we wanted. We went swimming a couple times, hit the children's musuem up too, and just hung out and had a good ole' time. I was very sad for it to come to a end. Here's some pictures of the fun we had.
Goofing around at the Children's Museum


Again at the musuem with our friends the Francis'. Photos courtesy of Emily's blog. (hope that's OK!?!)Thanks Em!


Playing games at home
Talan playing a little basketball.

The kids love to play this video game we have called Shrek super party. It has different boards that they play against each other on. Chase and Taylor are so funny when they play it, whenever the other person wins they will lean over and tell the other person "Congratulations" followed up with a huge hug.

Go FISH.

Swimming at the Lehi Pool

My attempt at getting a picture of all three. Sigh.

We were able to go ice skating downtown for a fundraiser in my dad's neighborhood. Taylor was loving it. She refused to be helped. It was a lot of fun.

A couple weekends ago when the Jazz where playing the Cavs, my good friend Leslie, that I have know for about ten years now, (Les we are getting OLD!) called and asked if I wanted to go, just us girls, and sit in her husbands courtside seats. We seriously had a blast! She is such a dear person to me, that no matter what we are doing I ALWAYS have a good time with. I just love you Les. Honestly, you can't not have a good time with her.
Here's a picture of us together when we worked at Franklin Covey together about ten years ago.
I miss my tan.
(How do you make these pictures bigger?)

And here's a couple more shots I got before my camera died at the game.
Close enough to touch.

Here we are at her house right before we left. Thanks again to her hubby Blake for taking the pic and for staying home with the kids so I could have his ticket.

I tried all night to get a pic of Lebron James dunking. I'm no expert, but that kids got some moves. This is the best I got. You can't really tell it's him...but it is, I promise.

And this last one is for any of you girls who might be interested....

A picture is worth a thousand words

I have been going through all one hundred thousand (maybe not that many...but pretty darn close!) pictures I have taken over the last maybe year or so and picking my favorites and editing them, so that I can print them off and put them in a book for us all to enjoy.
Anyways, I found this one of Talan and had to share it. I think he is about 7 months here. Seems like yesterday! He is getting so big. He is now 17 months and he struts around here like he owns the place. He is such a riot and very independent. He definitely completes our little family. We all love him so much.