Building Memories and Remembering

The month of November has positively flown by! I can't believe Thanksgiving is over and the rush of Christmas has begun. We've not started our holiday decorating, but the boys have been busy building a fort in the back yard. And really, what better way to start the season than spending time together building something--that experience in itself will hold a lot of good memories..not to mention the good times they'll remember spending in the finished building. To me, that's what the holidays are all about--remembering. Remembering family and friends, remembering good times, and most of all remembering the reason for the season--the birth of a baby destined to become the most important person ever to walk the face of the earth. What a wonderful time of year this is!

Happy Halloween!

Here are the Taylor kids (plus a friend) in their costumes--can you tell what everyone is? We've got a hobo, Dr. Phil, a three-hole-punched paper, Robin Hood (Kevin, the friend), a dementor (from Harry Potter), and a ninja. The kids had a fun time trick-or-treating (yes, even the high school kids!), and we had fun scaring people who came to our door with fog, a strobe light, a scary looking guy, jack-o-lanterns, and a fortune telling head in a glass ball. And believe it or not, they didn't go into candy overload! They all had fun bartering and trading favorite candies around, and now they're set for candy until Christmas!

Homeschool Adventures

We went to the Discovery Science Center in Orange County recently and had a great time! Jared and Noah learned about mummies, weather, and dinosaurs the day we visited, and that didn't begin to cover all the other exhibits they have. We got a family membership, so we'll definitely be going back again. Oh, and Noah had a great time scaling the climbing wall from one side to the other--it's pretty tricky, but he's pretty strong and doesn't give up. The hole in the back yard is also getting a lot deeper, little by little. We have the easy up over it so that on hot days, some digging can still get done. I wonder what we'll do with all the rocks we're digging up? Hmmmm. . . . .

The Last 6 Weeks. . .

Sorry it has been so long since the last post. The last month and a half has just flown by, as we've all been busy with life. Brooke's been to the homecoming dance, Dallin's been marching every day of the week except Thursday and Sunday, John's been playing tenor sax instead of alto in jazz band and concert band, Chris has been learning guitar so he can then pass on his knowlege to the guitar class he has this year, and Staci, Jared, and Noah have been having a blast seeing some cool buildings in downtown LA. We also had our family picture (see to the right under our profile) taken by our favorite photographer who is so patient with all of us. It was quite an amusing experience not only taking our family picture, but individual shots and "just kid" shots. The funniest was probably the "just mom and dad" pictures, though, because Chris was really making Staci laugh!! Life is good.