County Fair for Genevieve & Aunt Lisa's birthday

Since we had Genevieve's birthday party early, we still wanted to do something fun on her "actual" birthday which was sunday June 24th. If you didn't know, she shares her birthday with her Aunt Lisa (Luke's sister).
So we met Luke's mom & Danny, and Lisa, Brian & Baby Jake at the fair. Crazy at 38 weeks? Actually it wasn't so bad since the weather was beautiful (meaning not too hot), and there were enough adults to help so that I could take little breaks and sit down. By the end I was definitely tired of the pressure to talk to strangers about my belly at every corner. Luke was amazed at how many people stared and had comments for me. But it has become the norm to me (as I'm sure most of you who have been pregnant remember how it is at the end). The only thing that really surprised me were how many people who seriously asked me if I was having twins. Or the jokesters that asked "how many are in there?" I mean, I know I'm big, but I've never felt the need to talk to strangers about their pregnancies, other than the casual "when are you do" if I happened to be standing next to someone in line for something.
Anyhow, the fair was fun, the kids had a BLAST, and we spent a small fortune.










Later that night (being last night) we actually thought "this is it". At about 1:30am I started having painful contractions right on top of each other - like 2 minutes apart. I was in a panic because it came on so fast, and I knew I couldn't get into the car like that. My worst fear of not making it to the hospital was happening. Fortunately, they subsided after about 10+ minutes. I didn't sleep well after that, thinking they were surely going to start up again at any moment. It was a TOO REAL reminder of what labor feels like, and to be honest I'm a bit of a nervous wreck now. I wish I hadn't had that little glimpse as to what to expect again.

But here I am 24 hours later at 1:00am and nothing so far. What am I doing up you ask? Well, nights scare me at this point. Starting labor during the day doesn't seem as scary for some reason. But in the eery quiet of the night, knowing everyone else is asleep is unsettling to me. So here I am blogging :)

Happy Fathers Day Luke!

We started off the morning with a breakfast fit for a king!




Then we spent the afternoon at Shadowcliffs lake along with 10,000 other people!

37 weeks and getting bigger?

At 37 wks 5 days I had yet another OB appt. I am measuring 41 weeks! What the heck?????

Princess Genevieve Celebrates "5"

We decided to have her party 2 weeks early "just in case" Zambouie decides to come early. An intimate gathering of princesses & princes gathered at the Taylor Castle to decorate wands, have sword fights, and "Slay the Dragon" (pinata). Aunt Lisa made an AMAZING princess cake for the event, and Genevieve had a great time.

36+ weeks

So I had a Dr appointment today and was told I am still measuring over 2 weeks early (or bigger) so I will be having another ultrasound in the next couple of days to make sure I don't have a ginormous baby brewing in there. I did find out that I am dilated 2 cm and am 50% effaced, which really means nothing in terms of WHEN the baby will come. After the appointment however, I started having a lot of low crampy contractions, and it kind of freaked me out. I was able to take a couple hour nap and relax the rest of the evening, and things seemed to have calmed down for now. But it was definitely a reality check that it will be happening soon. Yikes.

Silly Putty Head

This is what happens when you take silly putty to bed with you.



A lot of tears, screaming, coaxing, bribing, internet searching, baby oil, cooking oil spray, rubbing alcohol, conditioner, and about 2 hours of time to get out.




Parents, don't let this stuff into your house.

Another plug...

Our new Grad Sign. This one is a girl, we will also be offering a boy. And coming soon our bear will have the ability to be a grad bear complete with cap and diploma - perfect for Preschool & Kindergarten graduations.

Shameless Plug

I made a new "accessory" for our bear signs for Special Deliveries - a bouquet of flowers. I used it for Teacher Appreciation Day at Genevieve's preschool. The flowers can be customized to say anything you want - Happy Mother's Day, Get Well Soon, Thank You, Go to Prom with Me, We're Proud of You, etc.
Have you seen our new website?
<------ Under "Links" on the left of this blog page
We're still in the tweaking phase, but it's looking great. Thank you Noah!

Taylor Farm is growing...

Luke called me on his way home from Sacramento, and this is how the conversation went.

Luke: I almost called you to ask you something, but I was pretty confident I knew the answer, so I went ahead with it.
Me: Oh no, what did you do?
Luke: I got the kids ducks.
Me: Ducks!?!
Luke: Shhhhh...Don't tell them, I want it to be a surprise
Me: You're kidding right?
Luke: Nope.
Me: Like big ducks? or babies?
Luke: Babies, like 2 week olds. They can live in the coop with the chickens. The guy at the farm supply store said the ducks can just live with our chickens and it's no big deal. Did you know that ducks can't swim until they're like 6 months old? So they would just sink in a pond. But they do drink lot's of water, way more than the chickens, so I got more water feeders.
Me: Don't ducks poop a lot? The kids get chicken poop on their feet everyday as it is. Is our backyard going to have duck poop everywhere?
Luke: I don't know. Probably. We can keep them confined in the dog-run, that was out intentions with the chickens.
Me: We can hardly keep the chickens out of our house, let alone inside the dogrun.
Luke: I thought the kids would like them.
Me: Um okay, but I wish you would have called, because I don't think you knew what my answer would have been :)

Whoo-hoo 2 posts in one day! Hope I don't get burn out...

Just feeling like I need to do a pregnancy post. So I am 29 weeks pregnant, and already getting the "so any day now" comments from strangers everywhere I go. So annoying. To tell the truth I've been getting them for a couple weeks now, and it's depressing to answer back "actually I still have 3 months to go". But when God creates you with a nonexistent torso, where else is the baby supposed to go, but - out.
For those that haven't heard we broke our own Taylor tradition of "being surprsied" and found out we are having another BOY. But don't hold your breath on the name. If we told you that, the anticlimatic phone call would be just that - anticlimatic. To tell the truth, WE don't know the name yet. And knowing us, we won't until the baby is born. But I will give you a little teaser and tell you that we are considering a Kenyan name! My sister-in-law has lovingly nick-named the little guy Zambouie. I promise there will be no tongue-clicking needed for the pronunciation :) Dane has named the baby Big Mountain, which you would think was a reference to my ever-growing belly. But he actually came up with it long before I was even showing. Lot's of people seem to think we should incorporate this name into the middle name, but considering I didn't have enough American Indian in me to get any sort of college scholarship or financial aid (yes, I really did look into this!), it seems weird. Unless of course we were hippies. And if you know Luke, we can't be associated with anything even remotely hippyish. He is even careful who he tells about converting his deisel truck to run on recycled vegetable oil (shhhhhh).
My due date is July 8th. I went into labor 8 days early with the other two, so we'll see..... Late would actually be nice, so as to be further from Genevieve's June 24th birthday.
To answer the never-ending "how are you feeling" question... I feel, well....pregnant. Heartburn, sleepless nights, rolling in and out of bed and off the couch, etc. My biggest complaint is that the baby has an affection for going under my rib cage, especially when I lay down. So I'm trying to sleep sitting up - way fun.
Okay, that's it for now. If you made it this far, I'm impressed.

Wow, this blog is smokin'

It's been about 7 months since my first and only blog post. I think I was pregnant but didn't know it yet. That explains the lost 7 months - the haze or is it daze I have been in. Where does one start? Do I take you back a few months to all the fun cute stuff we've done? Or just start from today? How about Easter. That sounds like a good starting point.


So we decided the kids needed chickens. So Luke built a small chicken coop in the backyard, as the kids watched. We let them takes guesses as to what he was building. Anything from space shuttle, to boat, to swimming pool was guessed.


Then on Easter morning we brought out the baby chicks we had been hiding in our garage. What a surprise! To Dane at least. Genevieve found them a few days before Easter, so I made up some elaborate story about them being a surprise birthday present for their great grandpa and how NOBODY could know. She did a fine job of keeping the secret.
G ended up being a little scared of the chicks, whereas we nick-named Dane the "Chick Whisperer".

We tried teaching him the "proper" way to handle the chicks (you know, since Luke and I are seasoned chick holders), and Dane just picked 'em up and started carrying them around, like he had always done it. He seems to have the right touch with them as they are really comfortable in his hands. He even has one that follows him around the house. Or should I say "followed", they are banished from the house as of the last few days. They are getting big enough where their poops are getting too big and gross to be in the house anymore.

We're doin it too...

Creating a blog that is. I've been so horrible about sending out recent pics of the kids - and they change so quickly. Hopefully this will help with that.