Walking In The Truth: January 2008

Luke's First Sentence!

Did you catch it? THAT'S COLD! He was shivering & his lips were turning purple. Why do kids think it's fun to be freezing? (On the blog there was a precious video of Luke standing at the outside faucet near the beach, and he was just in his diaper. He very clearly says his first little sentence, and Nana and Mommy were witnesses! So cute!)

What a bunch of beach bums...

What a perfect beach day this was! The kids had a total blast. It was warm enough for shorts, but chilly enough to need long sleeves. I assumed they'd probably end up all wet, and I was right. Nothing beats a day at the beach with Nana & Papa.

Luke was fascinated with the bubbles that surfaced when the little beach critters burrowed into the sand.

Kallie & Seth had so much fun with these ropes they found on the beach. Sometimes it's the simple things...

Bye-bye beach. See ya in the summer...

Santa's a-comin' !!!!

Christmas Eve Pajama Party!!!!

Every year my mom makes ALL OF US matching pajamas to wear on Christmas Eve. Just in case you can't picture what that would look like, here's a blast-from-the-past...

Okay, so this year she decided that was WAY too many pairs of pajama pants to sew, so every family was responsible for their own matching pajamas. And here's the end result...

We also began a new tradition this year ... we all participated in the THE FIRST ANNUAL TAYLOR CHRISTMAS EVE VARIETY SHOW! Every family had to perform, and let me tell you, we're not competetive AT ALL....nope, not at all!!

ACT I: Mom & Dad performed "The Bunny Hop" (to the actual Bunny Hop song, of course.) They did more laughing than hopping, I think. The judges decided that they will definitely need to step up their game next year, although they definitely scored high with bravery points alone. I mean, seriously, do you KNOW my dad? They pulled the kids up on "stage" to hop with them halfway through the song. This did not go over well with Hannah. I think it's because Papa was shaking her insides out. And Kallie never pulled the hat off of her eyes.

ACT II: Our family "adapted" a tooth fairy skit we saw some girls do at church. (Yes, that's my real hair. If you ask really nice I'll do your hair for you like that...)It ended up being pretty funny. The reactions from the audience speak for themselves. I would post the video here, but I don't want something like that getting loose online (or among the youth group)!

ACT III: Brian & Mary read an original poem. I would post it here but Mary would kill me. It definitely won the award for creativity & cleverness (is that a word?). They had us cracking up.

ACT IV: Travis & Stephanie wowed us with some black magic. We weren't sure where they were going with it for a while, but in the end they definitely had our attention. I finally caved and looked up the solution on google. I think this is totally fair...I mean, come on, would a REAL magician use a trick that's on the internet? I think not.

Merry Christmas!

Papa retires!

While we were home for Christmas, my dad retired from about 31 years, I think, of working for the postal service! We decided to surprise him after church on Sunday with a limo that picked us up from Amelia Island and drove us to St. Augustine! My mom pretended that Mary forgot to put the Sunday roast in the oven, so while we were all "stressing" over what in the world we were going to eat for dinner (Papa was even stressing a bit...okay, alot) the limo pulled up in front of the house!

Here's Luke (a.k.a. The Crayola Walrus) at the restaurant...

We went to the coolest playground ever! If you're ever at Barnacle Bill's in St. Augustine be sure to check out the giant playground across the street. It was the best one we'd ever been to.

Looking back at all these pictures I think our newlyweds had more fun than the kids! Actually, they were SO good at helping with my kids & the kids loved the attention. They're going to make great parents someday.