Countdown to Christmas

26 and 27 days til Christmas...

Yes, we like to get started early! This year, we decided to have the kids make homemade gifts for each other. Brylee sanding and painting away on Katelins gift. Reveal later...

Zack chose Brylee's name this year.

And Katelin traded to get Madi's name. She was really excited to make her this dry erase calendar for their room.

Didnt get pictures of the other homemade gifts in the making, but you will see the finished products.

24 days til Christmas...

Our ward also wasted no time getting things kicked off this year. December 1st we had our annual Christmas breakfast get together and visit from Santa. Its so great that our ward has connections to the big man. Zack had no reservations climbing up on his lap to tell him that he wanted a remote control robot this year. The candy cane was just a plus.

Alissa is at the curious age when she starts to question Santa's true identity. She asked me several times this year if I thought Santa was real. I really wanted to scream...NO! But knowing the sensitivity of the nature of the subject....and her personality, I hesitantly gave the text book answer of responding with a question to her question..."What do you think?" and "It doesnt matter what I think" and the corny "follow your heart" line. Im really quite pathetic. I cant wait until the whole Santa thing is out of the bag with all the kids! I just dont want to be the one to break it to this kid...she will probably hate us for lying to her and threaten to move to Australia. For now at least she is happy with playing along, even if this guy isnt all that authentic, and seems vaguely familiar.

Although Brylee is coming out of her shell a bit, there is still no way she was going to climb on the big fat, bearded strangers lap. Someone really needs to teach her not to take candy from strangers though...she had no problems with that.

Katelin found out the Santa secret last year, but she was still happy to play along unlike her big sister who is officially too cool for that silly kid stuff.

 18 days til Christmas...

As promised, here are the gingerbread train pictures from Brylees birthday.

There is no such thing as too much candy decoration with this one.

And this was the 3 older kids side, almost complete...before the dog jumped up and ate half of it.

And Zack and Brylees half...again, pre-slobber.

1 day til Christmas...
Shout out to our friend for bringing us some sugar cookie cutouts, frosting and sprinkles so the kids could decorate them themselves. I was so relieved because we had been given so many sweets from neighbors and friends, that I was sugared out. Didnt feel like we needed to make another batch for Santa when we had plenty lying around the house already, but the kids wanted to help make Santa's batch. This little kit fulfilled their need to help and I didnt have to lift a finger to make them! Okay, well I did make a little bit more frosting for more color, but still...Love it!

Ta da!

And following with the Christmas Eve tradition we give you the Taylor House Theatre...

This year we have the shepherds, played by Madison...

Zack and Alissa. Shepherd Dog...Jovi.

Slightly over-zealous angel, Mom...

Dad again makes an appearance as the donkey, and Katelin as Mary.

Dad and Zack make a double appearance as wise men, and back by popular demand...Mom as King Herod (not pictured).

And another appearance by Dad as Joseph! Hes just that good.

 Brylee chose to be a critic.

Before bed, Zack took two of his sisters with him to help sprinkle the reindeer food on the ground.



And then it was time to get into our PJ's. Of course that always comes in Christmas Eve present form. Even Jovi got some sleep wear...poor puppy. (:





All ready for Santa...

Even Alissa's baby got matching PJ's.

Oh, and cant forget the cookies and letters for the bearded man.

Now off to bed in hopes that St. Nick soon will appear!

What they've been waiting for

Ive noticed the number of my blog posts have gone down over the years. I just dont want to bore people with the same ol stuff, but Ryan expressed his concern and reiterated my concern in my last post...that the kids arent going to have any memories aside from staring at a screen all day unless I post more on the blog. Wow...pressure! Since I have been scrap-booking less often then blogging, I knew I had to act. I dont want our kids to be memory-less! So this one is for them...

Friday night we finally got the big snowstorm we've (the kids) have been waiting all season for. It has been So un-Wisconsin like this season with lots of warmer temps and hardly any snow. When it did snow, it was light and fluffy and didnt hold together well enough for a snowman and it would be melted by the next day. This time though there were huge wet flakes, and they just kept coming! So when Ryan went out to shovel at 7:30 at night he came rushing back in to tell us to look outside and check out the gigantic snowball that he rolled 'in under 15 seconds'. The kids knew it was close to bedtime and we all just looked at each other for a while, until I caved into their big puppy eyes and said "So what if its dark and snowy outside and its bedtime. Its not a school night. Let the neighbors think were crazy...they probably already do anyway...lets go make a snowman!" ( See kids, Im a nice parent. Take note.) Of course I was thinking if it only took Ryan 15 seconds to make one huge ball, then it wont take long for the kids to get their snowman building in. We can still make it to bed sorta on time. But by the time I got everyone bundled up (which is my absolute favorite part about snow) and headed outside, our snowman had turned into individual snowmen! Lo what I beheld...


They were all so excited to have their very own. Even Brylee got into the action and started putting snowballs together. I contributed by helping Jovi feel included with her own replica. Of course, she wouldnt pose for the picture because she likes to be difficult. She stayed out the whole time with us because she has separation anxiety. She might have been freezing for all we know.
The snowdog only lasted about 5 minutes, until Katelin stepped on it. Sigh...I tried.

Brylee was so happy about her creation. She worked very hard on it.

An hour later, we had a complete snow family.

From left to right, let me introduce...

Dora, Freezy, Mama, Baby and Shiver

First thing Saturday morning the kids checked on their snowman and made some minor additions. Look at how nice, white and untouched the neighbors yard looks compared to ours. Dogs'll do that to a yard. We should call them poop-men. No, really its just mud....mostly.

So there ya have it kids. Another Wisconsin snow memory. Maybe we should shake things up next time. Of course today was the day it got up to like 62 degrees and "in the sun they melted, melted, melted, small, small...gone!" Zack suggested earlier in the day that we call Santa and have them moved to North Pole with him so they wouldnt melt, but shoot....I lost his number!

The Great Blizzard of 2011

I wasnt going to post about this since I already published tons of pictures on facebook, but for those of you who dont have a facebook account (ahem...Julie), I guess this can be for you. Besides everyone else was posting about it, and I felt left out. Ryan did remind as well that the blog has taken over as my journal, so I guess for those of you who are sick of hearing about all our snow, than you can just bypass it and leave it for my own personal records.

Anyway, to the point!

It just happened to be on groundhog day, that all of us in southeastern Wisconsin awoke to find ourselves buried in mounds of snow. Sorry Mr.Groundhog...you wont be seeing your shadow this year! Its okay, they warned us it was coming and had already informed us that school would be cancelled and work closed down due to the impending storm. Imagine how disappointed we would have been if there werent feet of snow on the ground in the morning. We were all very excited as if Santa had come and ran to every window to see where the biggest snow drift was. The high winds made it much more interesting and it reminded me of the mountains in Utah...not size, but shape. I wanted to own a shrink ray at that moment and get on some ski's and ski down the huge snow drifts! Upon a second inspection of the windows, we saw this truck stuck in front of our house. I dont know where he was trying to go, or why he thought his truck could make it through the un-plowed 3 ft of snow on the road, but he didnt get very far.

Our kind neighbors helped shovel them out while we just watched and laughed. Ryan did start to get ready to go help, (we arent totally heartless) but by the time he was ready, they were already moving again...backwards the way they had come.

After the snow had stopped, it was time to dig out. Here's Zack in front of the drift that was against our garage door.
Ryan doing a blackflop.

The view from the front of the house. See Zack poking his head up over the top, trying to figure out how to get over it?

There he is. "Help!"

The play area...destined to be turned into a huge snow fort. Check out the fence...the snow is all the way to the top. Awesome!

My poor apple tree, or the top of it at least.

Im guessing the mail wont be delivered today?

Finally, a path cleared. Zack is much happier to be free!

We found the sidewalk!All done, well...except for the road. The plow finally made it by later that day and left us with another 3 ft long and 4-5 ft deep mound to clear. It was kinda cool to have all the neighbors out at the same time, clearing snow, and helping each other. Thanks to our neighbor...the nice one again...who plowed our sidewalk in the front of the house for us. (: Actually, all of our neighbors are very nice.

In the meantime-

We made the most of the hill in our backyard. Ryan is usually the one who gets to do this, but he was stuck working from home, so I got to go out and play!

Katelin Madi

Me and Alissa. We won the contest for going the farthest distance down the hill. Walking back up was a challenge since it was so steep and deep.

Next up...tunnels!

You cant tell from these pictures, but this tunnel was actually about 5 ft long.

My snow buddies:

Caves:
And a little art work to make the fort more homey.

I actually had a lot of fun out there. It reminded me of when I was a kid. Plus, now I know, if I ever get buried in the snow, I have experience in tunneling out of it. Of course, one of the best parts of playing in the snow is coming in to drink hot chocolate! I think it was well deserved this day. The kids ended up getting the next day off of school as well. Unfortunately, the temps dropped down into the negatives, so the kids didnt get as much play time. They did go out for a bit and came in with really rosy cheeks. Thats okay, more hot chocolate! The next day we were given an optional school day. I opted to let them go. No sense in denying them a quality education right? It was all totally for their benefit...really.

Funny thing: its snowing again right now. (: