What's New in 2008

I can't believe another year has passed and it's 2008!  The kids went back to school this morning, and Jared and Noah and I are gearing up for more structure to our homeschool day.  That's not to say we haven't been busy during break--on the contrary.  Chris and the boys have been working especially hard to fix up our house.  It's so nice not to have white walls!  Finally, after living here for over 6 years now, I figured out what colors I wanted to paint the walls --buying new couches helped with that decision.

They also finished work on the fort they've been working on since August, and they have had so much fun working on it and now playing in it.  Noah, Jared, and John slept out in it the first night after it was finished, and had a blast.  Jared commented to me yesterday that it is his thinking place.  We all need one of

those, don't we?

  

Christmas

It's hard to believe another Christmas has come and gone. We had a wonderful day with family and hopefully the true meaning didn't escape us amongst all the trappings and toys. I really love having everyone home and we've all been enjoying being together. Brooke and Dallin especially are savoring every moment away from the world of academia for a little while, although Brooke has been writing essays for various college scholarships. I can't believe she's only got one more Christmas with us before she heads off to college! It seems as though time has sped up these last few years. Before long we'll have more teenaged kids than not. Weird!

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!