Christmas...

Christmas Festivities

This is long overdue, but we've been having fun preparing for Christmas...


We decided to cut down a tree this year. So on our way back from Thanksgiving at the Twain Harte cabin, we went through the little goldmining town of Columbia and up to a family-owned tree farm. The people were really nice, they had farm animals to feed and pet, the whole scene was just picture perfect. Until it was time to find a tree. You've never seen such sorry looking trees before. A whole farm of Charlie Brown neglected trees. They even had a a different breed of trees that were pokey like juniper bushes. But, the great thing about this tree farm is that all trees are the same price. So we figured let's get a Big Daddy of a tree. We ended up with an 11 ft skinny tree, with not so many branches. But I have to say after we dolled it all up it was beautiful. Now we've decided to make this our family tradition. We plan to keep going back to that tree farm for the challenge of finding a choppable tree out of all the duds.


We took the kids to see Santa at the Blackhawk Plaza. We would rather drive the extra 20 minutes and have no line, than do the mall thing. The kids did great. Zeke wasn't sure about the furry guy, but he didn't cry. I think it helped that he was there with big bro and big sis.

Don't you just wanna eat him up?

Taylor Trash in P-Town. The neighborhood is really goin down...

A good Blogger

A good blog is one that is updated frequently.
I'm a bad blogger.

Just an average day at Taylor Trash...

Our little girl is growing up

Genevieve lost her first tooth tonight!
She has been wiggling that thing around for a few weeks now. Finally tonight she has mommy pull it out. She was SOOOO excited. In fact, she decided she needed to go to bed right away so the tooth fairy could come....
Wonder what the Tooth Fairy will bring her???

My silly boys...

One of Dane's favorite past times is dressing up his little brother. I wish I had taken more pictures of his funny little get-ups. I'm sure there'll be more to come....

Zeke as Captain Hook....

Zeke as a princess....

Wow Genius!?!

You can get your blog rated here at this website.
It basically says what level of education is needed to understand your blog.
I don't know if it just counts the big words or what....

Get a Cash Advance

I think the program made a mistake. Genius? C'mon.......

Praise God

This is a follow-up to the "Things we need to sell" post.
Drumroll please..................
We sold the houseboat, and BOTH Rossmoor units!
Praise God!

Tinkerbell, Captain Hook, and a turtle?

The kiddos had lot's of fun at the pumkin patch. Rumor is that it's the last year for Joan's. How sad that we won't get to keep measuring the kisds by the 'How tall this fall' sign anymore.
We had a mellow Halloween. Luke took the kids trick-or-treating in the neighborhood. His mom & Danny met up with them along the way. I stayed back to wait on the plumber and to start cleaning the massive flood in our laundry room. At about 5:15 Halloween night our pipes backed up and flooded the whole 'laundry/storage of crap that doesn't have a home' room. Don't worry, not the sewage pipe. It was the garbage disposal/dish washer/washing machine drain....yuck!
As if I don't already have enough stuff going on right now, I really needed to add this to the list of things that has to get done NOW. The best part was that the plumber people said they would be here in about an hour. That would have been 6:15. He showed up at 8:30. But this seems to be a theme lately. Sunday night when Luke locked our keys in the car at the Bocce Ball place in Livermore, AAA said they would be there in less than 30 minutes. An hour and a half later as we waited out front with Zeke, the driver finally showed up. Mind you our house is only like a 5 minute drive from there.
But I digress. Halloween. The kids had fun and got WAAAAAAY too much candy. Another friend had the suggestion of having them pick out a candy and trading in the rest for a toy. I thought my kids would never go for it. But I asked them about it tonight and they seemed game. So we'll see.....

Zeke & Jake's Dedication

What a fun day. Pastor Steve dedicated both Zeke & jake today. Although as he pointed out, it was more of a day for us parents than for the little guys. It was a day for us to publicy profess how we were dedicated to showing our sons the love of the Lord.
Thank you family & friends for sharing this day with us.

La Cucaracha

Star in Your Own JibJab! It's Free!

Taylor Fever

After 11 years of marriage, Luke FINALLY took me dancing...


Star in Your Own JibJab! It's Free!

SOLD!

An answer to prayer....our houseboat sold today! The irony~ the guy who bought it is moving it to Pleasure Cove at Lake Berryessa. Did I mention that is where our new houseboat is?

Things we need to sell...

We REALLY need to sell 3 big ticket items...Can you help?

First of all we have our houseboat on Lake Camanche. We NEED to sell this. We have already purchased another houseboat with our friends the Kings (who have fronted the money, and are waiting for us to sell our old boat to get paid back- everyone needs friends like this, huh).

You can check out our listing on craigslist by cutting and pasting this link into your browser (by the way if anyone wants to tell me how to post links in the blog that would be great!)
http://sacramento.craigslist.org/boa/438435932.html





We also have 2 beautifully remodeled units in Walnut Creek's Rossmoor retirement community. More info on those to come.

Please tell anyone and everyone you know about these items!!!! If you find a buyer for the either of the Rossmoor units we will give you a referral fee of $500- yes, you read that right! $500!!!!!
If you find a buyer for our houseboat we will give you $200!!!!

Thanks so much for your help!

Creating a blog

Many of you have asked me to show you how to create a blog. All you have to do is go to www.blogger.com/start (sorry you have to cut & paste because I can't figureout how to post a link) and it walks you through the set-up process. It's sooooooo easy.
If you get stuck e-mail me (or post a comment on my blog) and I'll try to help you out.
I would love to see some of you create blogs... Kristy Howell, Christie Cassaro, Mars family, Wood Family, and all you others that have moved away.

Boys will be....

Girls?

Dane & his buddy Augie were being awfully quiet while they played in the bedroom. A few miinutes later they came out (no pun intended) so proud of themselves dressed in pretty purple dress up dresses from big sister's room. This shot will definitely come back to haunt them in their teenage years....

I do not like green eggs & ham....

Ohhhhh, but the Taylor kids do! We were getting pretty irritated that our chickens had not started laying eggs. We were told they would start laying by 4.5 months. This would have been some time in August. Here we've been feeding them, letting them tear up our flower beds, and letting the corner of our yard smell like a farm, all for NOTHING. Then Dane & his friend Augie were playing outside, and they ventured along the side of our house where Luke stores his paint and various other junkyard looking items. Nestled in some wild grass back there were some 25 green eggs! (The Americauna chicks we bought lay green/blue eggs). Apparently the hens aren't wild about the nesting box we made for them in the coop. We decided to get rid of the batch of 25 eggs not knowing which ones were old and which were new. And the very next day we went out to find FOUR more eggs.

And our ducks have started laying too! We have gotten 3 eggs from them in the last 3 days. I cracked one of each open, and they are beautiful inside. The yolk is a bright yellow, and the other part (I guess I should find out what it's called) is oh-so clear. The kids wanted me to hard boil them, so I did, and they gobbled them right up! Yum! If you want to try some FRESH eggs, let me know and I'll save you some.

Who does Zeke take after?

Some of you may know that Dane had his heart set on naming the baby "Big Mountain" for like 7 months. Then, just a couple months before he was born Grandma Buzzy showed him the 80's movie "ET", and he decided the baby should be named ET. We were really considering the name Ezekiel, so this was very fitting - Ezekiel Taylor~ ET. Well, as you know we didn't name him Ezekiel, however Dane DOES still call him ET occasionally. Well one day when I was taking pictures of Zeke I thought to myself, he DOES sort of look like ET.












Those were his early days. Now that's he's put on the pounds he has a new resemblence....




Do you see it? Kind of freaky to think I birthed a baby John Goodman.

Zeke's First Haircut

Yes, at 2.5 months Zeke had his first haircut. He obviously can't sit up on his own, but he does good at holding his head up, although it's still a bit wobbly. He holds the record for the youngest haircut at Juan's Barber Shop in Castro Valley.
He did pretty good until the end when he got a little fussy.

Dane's First Day of Preschool

All I can say is,
boy does Miss Christina have her hands full :)

Chubba Wubba

Bird Update

Forgot to tell y'all that we ended up with a rooster in the batch. How did we find out? Cock-a-doodle-dooooooo! at 5:00am :) So off to the Terpstra Ranch he went. And good riddance. That left us with 3 hens, that have yet to earn their keep. No eggs as of yet. They should start laying any day now....so hopefully we'll have farm fresh eggs here at Taylor Trash soon.
The ducks are getting HUGE, and ruining our yard. They dig up our lawn and flower beds looking for bugs or worms. So I don't know how much longer the ducks will be here.

Saving the Earth, one diaper at a time

In an effort to do my part in preserving God's beautiful green Earth, I'm cloth diapering Zeke. You say, diaper pins and dunking in toilets? Oh contrair mon frere. Cloth diapering has come along way. Beautiful fabrics with snaps or velcro are oh-so popular in the CD cult, I mean following :) It is so easy to do, and no more yucky chemicals against baby's skin. Well, almost none. I do use disposables when we will be gone for a long outing or weekend. Kind of like our parents did. Disposables have their place just as paper plates do. You wouldn't use paper plates for all your meals every day right? So wasteful. Same with diapers.
Every CD I put on Zeke is one less disposable in the landfill.

G starts Kindergarten

Genevieve started Kindergarten at Valley View Elementary school last week. She was so excited about starting school she had been counting down the days for about 20 days. She is really enjoying being a "big girl".

More lake fun!

Some boys never grow up...

Our 3 Munchkins

Mmmmm....hungry?

My newest hobby is making felt food. Luke thinks this is hilarious, and great all at the same time. For me, it's a little creative outlet that I can do at night when the kids are in bed. I get the satisfaction of completing a project or two a night, and it's relaxing to me. I love the process of not using patterns, just picking up some scissors and going to town. So here are my masterpieces...

What you are seeing: cantaloupe, s'more, marshmellow, cupcake, donut, carrot, strawberry, pancakes, tomato, & egg. The bacon is MIA.
Next on my list are ice cream cones, peas (in a pod), & watermelon slices. Stay tuned... :)
(Now this is a reason to bookmark this blog if you haven't already)!

Twaine Hart & Murphys

We spent the weekend in Twain Hart with Luke's family at their cabin. It was a good time for the cousins to play. Pinecrest Lake was beautiful as usual, and the kiddos enjoyed a round of Pee Wee golf. Luke and I took a drive to Murphys on Friday the 10th as it was our 11 year anniversary. 11 years and 3 kids....wow I feel old...

In Murphys we saw this truck parked on Main St so we had to take a picture of Zeke with it...

Our Handsome Boy...

Dane Luke - 3 years old.





Dane will be starting school this fall at Shining Light Preschool. He will be going two mornings a week. He is oh-so excited. Whenever we drove past the school Dane used to proclaim "there's sissy's school!" Now, he shouts "there's MY school!"
I think he will enjoy it, and since Dane has only one volume (loud) I will enjoy the 5 hours a week of relative quiet. :)