Christmas Eve

Every once in a while we get ambitious and do something fun, like make a gingerbread house. We dont do it every year, so when the kids saw me pull this one out, of course they were ecstatic! Everyone picked a side and went to work. Naturally, Zack got assigned to do the back of the house and Brylee was able to pour the sprinkles on as a finishing touch. This particular kit (yes I buy the kit...Im not that ambitious!), came with some fondant to mold and sculpt to your creative desires, so that left me doing most of the busy work. Here are the kids trying to take turns and be patient. Almost done...

Brylee is always our taste tester. Cant make a work of art that isnt tasty right?

Christmas Eve arrived and it was time for more decorating. I try to encourage the kids to make cookies containing chocolate for Santa-they must be his favorite...but they insisted on decorating sugar cookies this year.

Zack trimming a tree...

Brylee getting ready to fulfill her job as the taste tester again.

Ryan's finished "Mario" cookie.

If there has to be a picture of me...well here it is.

The finished works of edible art. Next on the list of Taylor Family fun...the Christmas Eve play. This is something we do every year. We thought it would be cute if Brylee and Zack played Mary and Joseph this year. Brylee wasnt thrilled however, with the idea of wearing the cloth on her head. Here she is eating a piece of candy we bribed her with to keep it on. It worked...until the candy was gone, then it came off again. You will have to use your imagination for the part of Mary this year.

We did manage to snap a quick picture of the pair before she ripped it off her head. See...cute right? Ryan assumes the roll of the donkey every year. (;

Angel:Madi

Shepherds:Alissa & Katelin

Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus

The Angel appearing to the shepherds.

Doubling as the wise men.

And for your viewing pleasure...a surprise video that Madi was secretly capturing. I wouldnt have acted this way on camera if I had known. Good thing, because we all get a good laugh out of it. Here I am as King Herod talking to the wise men.

(Be sure to pause the music at the bottom of the blog so you can hear it.)

After the play comes the traditional opening of the Christmas Eve Pajamas. Apparently Brylee was still upset about us making her be Mary, so she refused to smile the rest of the night. She really did like her PJ's, even though she refused to show it. Stubborn girl.

Zack was the only one who actually got to pick out his fabric. Of course it has trains on it. I bought the Thomas shirt for cheap to work as a PJ top.

Alissa got frogs on hers.

Madi got her favorite-monkeys.

And Katelin got a mix of both frogs and monkeys!

I was pretty happy with the way they turned out this year. I think this pattern was much easier than the one I used last year.

I bought my pants, but I think next year I will make those too. Maybe matching???

Ryan prefers wearing his basketball shorts to bed, so I surprised him and Zack with matching BYU shirts. He was okay with that...just a little.

Heres the whole gang in our Christmas PJ's, all ready for Santa to come. A pretty good pic. minus the grumpy Mary.

Good night and Merry Christmas Eve!

Alissa's 1st lost tooth

On the eve of Christmas Eve Eve, Alissa discovered a very loose tooth during her evening teeth brushing. Is that enough eves for you? We tried to get her to wait until Christmas Eve to pull it out...wouldnt it be awesome if the tooth fairy AND Santa came in the same night!? We thought so, but she was afraid the tooth would fall out during her sleep and she would swallow it! (: After so much anticipation, and a long patient wait, Alissa decided having a loose tooth ready to come out, wasnt all she hoped it would be. Nervousness took over and her emotions got the best of her as the waterworks started.

Trying to be brave... It took little effort with a little tug and the tooth came right out. That wasnt so bad, right? There it is! Alissa wasnt ready to look in the mirror yet, but she tried to muster up a smile. It only took a minute or two until she was all smiles.

Proud of her tooth.

It shouldnt be long until the one next to it is ready to come out as well. Today she actually looked in the mirror and said, "I think I look cute!" Im glad that ended well. With Alissa, you never know!

Guess who's 2!

Well, even if Brylee cant quite figure out how to show it, she is in fact the lucky 2 year old. The tricky fingering will come later. This time around we decided to lay back, relax, and let the kids do all the planning. Why didnt we think of that sooner?

Alissa lending a hand in the decorating efforts. The cat really enjoyed the hanging pieces of crepe paper throughout the house. (:

Sometimes you need a little boost from your big sister! Interesting places for crepe paper, but hey...it is a 2 year old party.

Madi's idea.

On a side note: I didnt realize just how dusty the tops of the fan blades could get. I will be cleaning those more often...as dust particles dont act as good confetti.

Taking in all the planning. "For me!? You shouldnt have." Let the celebration start!

Brylee LOVES to color. The problem is, she doesnt limit it to just paper. The couch, walls, books, counter, table, and other completed works of art, have all had the signature of the great sprouting artist stamped on them. Solution: Color Wonder. One of the greatest inventions for children ever made! Now if we can just keep the caps on the markers, they might last long enough to get some good use out of them.

Princess Piggy bank. Yes, that means you have to start saving your money, and STOP eating it!

And what could this be??? Another one of her favorite things...

A book! "Oh, Im going to read it all right now! And then I'll read it again...and again...and again...and then Ill ask you to read it. And then again...and again..." It goes on. You get the idea. She LOVES books. This one in particular is about a duck that says "Tagwack" (Or quack in Brylee language.)

She also got a dress, but I wont show her lack of amusement about it.

Cake Time! It was all smiles until the candle got lit. Then she couldnt get far enough away from the flaming cake of death. Zack ended up blowing it out for her, which he was totally fine with. So nice of him.

Now that its all safe, she will return to partake in the deliciousness.

The party activities continue with some ball pit fun, singing, dancing, and of course...

jumping on the couch. Just look at that smile. Would you stop her?

A perfect ending before getting ready for bed. A good old 4 or 5 readings of Little Tagwack.

Happy Birthday our little Joy.

Without further adiu...

HALLOWEEN!

Pumpkins:

Madi's version of the barfing pumpkin. Yum. If that doesnt make you want pumpkin pie, I dont know what will. Wonder who gave her that idea...???

Katelin's.

Do you see her name? Thats an original. Guess how much of her own carving she did. No really, guess.

Alissa's. She worked hard on carving hers as well. To give her credit, she did poke her own holes in it. Zack's. A striking resemblance, dont you think?
Brylee's. Cute like her.
All together now!
After having to help carve that many pumpkins, we skipped out on doing our own this time.

Costumes:

Madi the vampiress

Katelin, the 50's sock hop diva. Is it just me, or does she look too old in this picture?

Alissa, aka: Tinkerbell

Zack the Train Conductor...complete with Thomas snow boots. (:

"Fairy Princess" Brylee

Yes, we cheaped out on costumes this year. All we had going for us was the ward trunk-or-treat. Tinkerbell has definitely gotten her use from the 3 oldest. Did you recognize it? Zack was thrilled when he saw the train conductor hat, so we just went with it and added the overalls. Brylee is cute as is, so we just added a little wing action. She doesnt know whats going on anyway. Katelin was the lucky one who really got to be what she wanted. We figure that costume will get its use from the younger girls as well. Madison is excited to wear what she was really hoping for...a 50$ costume, next year, but I wont spoil it for her. You'll just have to wait and see!

That about sums it up. Anti-climatic, I know. Halloween was kind of a non-event for us this year. On the upside, Ryan got to have a somewhat normal birthday. Usually it gets thrown in with all the Halloween festivities, but this year, he actually got to celebrate his own day without sharing it with a holiday. Too bad he was sick. Guess thats what happens when you get old. Hehehehe. Love you hun! (:

Pumpkin Heads

We drive past this pumpkin patch every week on the way to church, and have been wanting to go there ever since we moved here. Well, we finally did it! Usually they are really busy and the street is lined with cars, but we went during the day in the beggining of the week and practically had the whole place to ourselves! The lady who owns this place hand paints all the pumkin heads for the characters. The kids loved them all and wanted pictures in front of all of them. Sorry to all the locals who have already been there, done that. Of course the attempt to get a good group picture is always fun. Why does someone always have to be looking away, making a weird face, or just not smiling? I quit after 4 or 5 tries. I need to learn to photoshop better. Anyway, before we left, we stopped over at the petting zoo. There was this one Llama who followed us all the way around. I finally took his picture and then he left. Maybe thats all he wanted? Anyway, we thought it was funny. We really need to go there every year. Heres what we got!

Stitches

11 years with kids and we finally experienced our first set of stitches. We would have bet that it would be Zack who was the one to get all the injuries, but not this time...it was Brylee. And before she is even 2 years old. Am I worried? Slightly. Maybe I am just less paranoid now with 5 kids. I take full responsibility for not seeing it coming. So what happened? Short version...she got cut with a knife. Long version...keep reading.

I was rinsing dishes and loading the dishwasher. Brylee, being as helpful as she is...pushed over a stool to the sink and climbed up for the assist. Nothing harmful was going on at the time. She was being content just filling up a container with water and dumping it out repeatedly. After a slight slip of the stool, I decided the situation was no longer safe, and got her down. Something a good parent would do. Of course this enraged her, and she got right back up. I only had a couple more things to do, so I just allowed it. Bad parent. The stool slipped again. I barely caught her before she hit her head on the edge of the sink. I got her down a second time, and this time she was even more enraged. She was screaming and crying uncontrollably. I just thought she was really ticked with me, so I ignored it. I put the last thing in the dishwasher which just happened to be a large serrated bread knife.
Then I heard Katelin say, "Mom, what happened? Brylee is bleeding!"
I looked back at her and saw blood dripping from her hand.
"Did she cut it when she slipped?", I wondered.
I scooped her up and rinsed it off. Then I saw the source of the blood...a deep cut on her thumb. At that moment I realized...I was holding that huge serrated knife when she slipped. I must have cut her when I tried to catch her! It kept bleeding more and more. Even after I put a band-aid on it. It looked pretty deep so I called Ryan to tell him what happened and to hurry home in case I had to take her in to get it checked out. Unfortunately, he was being held up at work and couldnt leave yet. I decided at that point, that it wasnt that bad, but Ryan insisted I get it checked out after hearing me describe it. It was almost closing time for the pediatrician, and I didnt want to pay a hefty ER fee, just in case it was nothing. Bad parent again. So I went back and forth on whether to take her in. I finally decided to leave it to the pediatrician to decide. I called and talked to the nurse. Our doctor was gone for the day, but she got me in with another one in an hour.
By that time, Ryan would be close to home, so I left the girls in charge of themselves. Zack insisted on coming with me. Sarcastic, yea! After the inspection from the doctor, she decided it would need stitches, mostly because of the location. It was right over a joint, and she didnt feel it would heal when Brylee was constantly moving it. So she referred us over to the insta-care. Better than an ER fee. Its good to know they do stitches there, for future reference.
After explaining for at least the 4th time, how my 1 year old got cut with a knife without trying to sound like they needed to send the child protective services to my house, she was prepped for stitches. She was really very happy up to this point. I had to lay her down on the table and hold her down while the doctor injected her thumb with the numbing agent. I was doing pretty well, considering it was my fault she was injured and my baby was screaming in fear and pain...that is, until the nurse started tearing up! Thats right, the nurse! She just kept saying, "I cant believe he's making us do this" (referring to the doctor). Hello!? Who else is supposed to do it? And then she would go on about how cute she was, and poor baby! Doesnt help when Im trying to keep it together!
So another long wait after the injection and the nurse returned. She cleaned the cut with like a gallon of water. Just squirted it right into the cut. Brylee was still screaming, and the nurse commented on how she really shouldnt be feeling this. Brylee kept saying "owie!" so I wondered if it was really numb yet, or she was just saying that because she didnt know what else to say about it at the moment.

Heres how it looked after the cleaning. Not so bad right? It really was deep, but check out the location.

Another long wait and trying to keep the cut clean, and the doctor came back in. Time to hold her down again. Sorry baby. The second he inserted the needle she screamed bloody murder. I told him "Thats not numb!" He was surprised that it wasnt numb after the shot but after messing with it a little more, he was convinced. In came another shot. I think that one did the trick. 3 stitches and 3 feet of gauze later, she was finally done. Her happiness continued and she was back to her normal self, running around the pharmacy like crazy for the next 20 minutes. Total hospital time: 2 hours, 15 minutes. Not bad, for the hospital, but it felt like 5. So thats the long story. I tried to get a picture of her hand all wrapped up, but she was being silly and didnt want a picture taken.

Heres the best ones I got.

They had to wrap it so much so she wouldnt be able to move it. She actually got used to it really quickly and didnt try to mess with it too much. But she looked like she broke her whole hand! No hiding that parent neglect.

11 days later and the stitches came out. Hopefully it wont leave a scar. I think that 11 days may have turned her left handed though. Im hoping for ambidextrous! That would mean something really cool came out of it!

All better!