&t The Taylor Family

Tuesday, April 15

Emptying Eggs

I read an article online about a fun Easter craft for the kids to do. Basically you take raw eggs and cut the tops off of them and hollow them out. Then after cleaning and drying the shells you fill them with paint and let the kids throw
them at paper or canvas’ to make a cool abstract picture. I decided to give it a go but didn’t tell the kids what I was doing even though they asked a hundred times what the shells were for. I managed to get 9 egg shells all hollowed out
and set them up to dry well for Sunday. I am excited to see what the paintings will look like and the kids were all excited to get scrambled eggs with hotdogs, cheese and fruit for dinner.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 5:11 PM   0 comments

Saturday, April 12

Marbled Eggs

A friend of mine posted a cool egg coloring technique on my page so I had give it a try. I bought shaving cream and food dye and after boiling a dozen eggs we got to work. Basically you fill a shallow pan with shaving cream then drop some food coloring into it.
You swirl (not mix) the colors around and together then roll the egg through the cream. It was a very messy craft and a little difficult to figure out exactly how to do it but we tried our best.
Once you have rolled the egg you leave them as is with all the cream all over it until it dries then you wipe them off and you have "marbled eggs". I was a little skeptical of how well they would turn out but in the end they look pretty good. The girls got a little crazy with mixing instead of swirling so some of their eggs are just one color instead of designed. They are happy with them though so that is all that really matters. I
think next time we will use less cream and try to swirl a little better to get the eggs colored completely to eliminate the white areas.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 4:02 PM   0 comments

Monday, April 7

Best Daddy Ever

In the past Peter has read the children books he enjoyed when he was a child. He read the girls (Javan was too young) the complete series of Narnia and after each book that had a movie we would all watch the movie about it and have discussions about what was different and what was better for the story.
He just finished reading the children (Javan can sit long enough to listen to most of it) The Hobbit and has now started the Lord of the Rings. He is excited to be able to follow those up with movies as well. The girls LOVE to be read to and ask him every night if he can read more. Whenever they read he makes them tell him what happened last time before they start again and when he is through he makes them explain is happening now and asks them all sorts of questions about the plot and different character personalities. He is such a great Daddy, our children have no idea how blessed they are to have him.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 6:54 PM   1 comments

Wednesday, April 2

I’m trying to make the best of my time while I am up here in Jacksonville. My hotel is really dirty and gross so I don’t like to be there more than I have to. I have a childhood friend that I have known since at least 4th grade that lives in
St. Augustine so last week I told her I would more or less in the area if she wanted to meet up. Her mom was coming up also so we all decided we would meet for dinner tonight. We met at the Avenues Mall and then drove together to Olive Garden and had a great time. It was so good to get all caught and talk like no time had passed at all. I really enjoyed my time with Cindy and was so happy she made time to meet with me. Cindy was a really close friend of mine back in high school and she knew me before I met Peter and was there when we started dating. It’s cool that she has been able to see my family grow to what it is now. I didn’t want to leave dinner but they had to get back to get taxes done and it was already after 9 when we eventually said good night.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 10:48 PM   1 comments

Tuesday, April 1

Visiting Mémère

My work has decided to send me to a 40 hour Crime Scene Workshop here in Jacksonville. I am trying to positive about it but I really didn’t want to come. There was nothing that excited me about going so I am really having a hard time. I left Sunday night and found my absolutely disgusting hotel and then went to class yesterday. I don’t really know the area but I found a strip of shops afterward and walked around window shopping. I will be here until Friday and I already miss
Peter so much I am not sure I can make it. After class today I drove about 20 minutes to see my Grandmother, Mémère. She lives in a Veteran’s home not far from where I was so I knew I had to go see her. I don’t think I had been up there for a couple of years. I sent her pictures in the mail but when I got there she said she didn’t get them. I will have to send her more. She was happy to see me though I am not really sure she knew who I was. She is 92 now but still doing pretty well. I think she was just happy to have company and to show me all around. I stayed for an hour or so but then it was time for Bingo and I could tell she really wanted to play so I told her that I would get going. We said good bye and then I went to find some dinner before going back to my hotel room.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 6:47 PM   0 comments

Sunday, March 30

New Bloom

I found this new bloom on one of the three Iris' I planted in my yard last Sunday. I did manage to get all the plants
from my mom's in the ground but they looked really pitiful from the transplant. My mom said plants always take a beating when you transport and transplant so they may take a while to get happy. Hopefully we will have some rain soon so they can get watered without my having to drag the hoses all around the house.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 3:18 PM   0 comments

Saturday, March 29

Happy Birthday Wyatt

We went over to Janell's house for my nephew's second birthday.
It started in the morning so we enjoyed lunch and some games and crafts before cake and presents. At one point there was a tornado watch for our area and the rain was really coming down hard but we just stayed inside until it passed. We weren't there too long before we headed home. The children all had a great time and enjoyed playing with their cousin Charlotte. It is always good when they get together.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 3:34 PM   0 comments

Saturday, March 22

Garden Grabbing

My mom has been telling that she has a bunch of plants in her garden that I could take for my house for years now. I always wanted to come and get them but never made it happen. Finally, we planned that today I would bring the kids over to her house so Peter could get some quiet time,
before they were all home all week, to get some work done. We have been in our new house for a year now and the garden is pretty lacking. Last week I cleaned out the front garden really well and put in a nice fish pond and bunch of flowers and moved all the bushes that were in there out. It took me all day and I was sore for days afterwards but it is looks so much better so I am happy. We have that really nice long white fence and I wanted to get something to fill in the space around it so it was just out in open. My mom has a beautiful garden with tons of ferns and trees and lilies so we headed over to see what we could transplant. First we had to go around her neighborhood to see all
the garage sales happening and have fun picking through all stuff. After lunch we started getting down and dirty in the yard. The two of us worked for hours and dug up a ton of ferns, peace lilies, iris’, crepe myrtles, loriope, aloe, hibiscus, and pineapple plants. The weather was beautiful and it was the perfect day to be outside doing all this work. We stopped long enough to eat ribs that Jim made on the grill then loaded my van as full as it would go. Most everything fit except a couple hibiscus trees. Bresa was spending the next couple of days there so Mom said she would bring the plants home with her. I am so very thankful for all the free plants. I can’t wait for them to start growing and get big and full in my yard. Of course, first I have to plant them. I guess that’s what I’ll be doing tomorrow.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 8:23 PM   0 comments

Friday, March 21

The Taylors first Broken Bone

I was working when Peter called and asked for some advise. Apparently Bresa had fallen off her bike (today was the first day of Spring Break) and her left thumb looked swollen and a little off compared to her right thumb. I wasn’t too concerned but he wanted to know if he should take her to the Emergency Room
or to an Urgent Care Center. I told him to go to Urgent Care and they should be able to take care of everything there much quicker and cheaper than the ER. After about an hour he sent me this picture and told me that Bresa had a small fracture to her thumb but was doing really well and not be dramatic about it at all. I felt bad for her and I was sad that I wasn’t there at the doctor with her. She had Daddy though and he is a much better parent than I am anyhow so I knew she was fine. The doctor made a cast sort of thing on her thumb than wrapped it in an ace bandage to make a sort of splint. When I got home I made her tell me about it and then I let her choose where we would go for dinner. She has to see an Orthopedic next week to make sure she is healing well.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 7:16 PM   0 comments

Tuesday, March 18

Abbi's helping me make Dinner

posted by We are the Taylors @ 6:14 PM   1 comments