Taylor Family Update!

Oh hey! Here I am, remember me? That girl who used to blog at least twice a week, now it's like twice a year... Eek! I am not at a computer everyday anymore so that contributes to my fail. Anyway, last time I wrote we were starting summer... SUMMER! Now we are getting things ready for our Christmas break. Since it's easier for me to blog about each member of our family I'll categorize it that way yeah?!

Brycen:
This love of mine has impressed me. He's always been a hard worker, but since we've lived in Spokane he's achieved more then anything we've ever expected. Summer was HARD. That's an understatement. He worked TWO jobs, which were on opposite sides of Spokane. So he left at 8:00 in the morning and he would wake me up at 12:30 a.m. as he was crawling into bed. Seriously, he worked so hard for his internship, and to support his family and other obligations. I'm so proud of him, and looking back at it I don't know how we did it. I gained a firm testimony of tithing, faith, and relying on the spirit for guidance! He saw Addlee every morning for about 30 minutes or so... and he missed a lot of our fun in the sun we had. That's why during the weekends we soaked up as much of the summer as we could. Today he finished up his third semester at WSU, that means he has just one more semester left! He also has had a couple of interviews for fellowships after grad school so fingers crossed one works out. I feel at peace though that we will be taken care of. Sacrifice brings forth blessings right?! He still has a job, and goes to school, so he's still gone a lot but at least he now works during the day and can be home at night with us! He carries a heavy burden, and I'm so grateful for everything he does for us! He's amazing!

Savanna:
The summer was hard, I was alone a LOT! I was without a car for a month so I was pretty much confined to only walking to get around. It made me get out and get to know people in the ward, and I'm certain that's why I was called to the Young Women's. It has helped me grow so much. It also lets me serve, especially when I was feeling so alone. I have grown to love the youth and also the women I serve with. They are all amazing! In the summer Addlee and I would go swimming a lot, and in July they finished the Target right across the street from us, just so you know, there's nothing wrong with wandering around Target for hours! HA! I also started teaching piano lessons, and that was fun too! I got to spend a month in August in Parma and it was so much fun, we went swimming a lot and got to finally see Mariah come home from her mission, and meet baby Quincy! It was nice to spend time with my family!

Addlee:
This little firecracker is the light of our lives. She turned one in October and she also started walking a little before her birthday, so she hasn't stopped "running" since. I have enjoyed watching her grow. She has a funny little personality, and curly long hair for days. She's even started talking. Her favorite thing to say is "hi dad" and "bye dad"... but everyone is Dad so... She also loves the show Bubble Guppies, and can even say "bubble"... She loves to follow me around everywhere, and anything I clean she uncleans, ha! I've been teaching her the animals and sounds and she picks up really quick! She loves her cousins, and most little kids in general. She thinks she's a lot bigger than she really is, but it's fun to see her interact with everyone. She can even sit and fold her arms, and loves to wrestle with her dad. Oh and steal the iPad, and pretend to know what she's doing. Don't worry though, she has decided to throw fits when she doesn't get her way (and so it begins). She's so funny, and everyone just adores her!

So that's the run down on everyone, obviously we had a LOT of events towards the end of summer and then Thanksgiving etc... so hopefully I try to remember everything!

 Playing with Reece in the backyard!

 Exploring the trampoline in Parma

 We got to go to Rigby for a couple of days to see Brycen's cousin Kelsie get married. We rode the 4-wheeler a lot and LOVED it!

 Taylor and Abram cousins!

 In August my family had a family reunion in Park City, and one day we got to go to the temple in Salt Lake. I had never been and it was even more amazing then I imagined!

Bridal Veil Falls outside of Provo

 Eating her smash cake!

 Welcome home Sister Blaylock! We all missed her so much!

 Visiting my beautiful sisters in Rexburg, and of course we had to eat at Millhallow!

 On our way to Seattle this fall for my cousin's wedding we stopped by the dairy to see the kids!

 Brycen and Addlee trick-or-treating, she got so much candy! And she was a cute little Batgirl!

 Getting ready to go play outside in the cold, I bought her coat big so she could wear it next winter too, needless to say it's huge on her, so funny!

 At the pumpkin patch with Tajia and Parker

 General Conference weekend. We loved hanging out with the kids!

 I turned 30! WHAT?! So to celebrate we ate sushi of course!

 

 We took a Christmas cruise on Lake Coeur d'Alene... it was so fun!

 She fell asleep like this when I was food shopping at Winco two weeks ago... I couldn't believe it!

 Hay rides!

 A couple weeks ago Tajia got baptized. We were so glad we got to be there!

 These two sleep like this on a regular basis, I sure do love them!

 We missed the Schmidt's all summer long, so the first thing we did when they came back was go to the fair! The best part was seeing Brycen get hypnotized... and dance like MC Hammer!

 On our way to Rigby for Thanksgiving!

 The 4th of July at our ward breakfast!

 My little pumpkin turned 1!

 Family pictures!

Playing in Liberty Lake! 

Splashing with dad at our neighborhood pool, it was so much fun!

Those are just some of the pictures of the past 6 months, I have too many holy cow! Mostly I'm grateful to look back at all the fun times we have and all the memories we got to make! In a couple of weeks my baby sister Maddie is leaving for a mission in Thailand! So it will be a while before we are all together again,.. This Christmas will be extra special because a new grand baby is set to arrive (any day now) too! I love it and our expanding family and adventures we have. Merry Christmas from this special girl:

And the rest of our family too. How blessed we truly are!! 

Summer in Spokane (so far)...

I've started and stopped this blog post way too many times! It seems just as I start to get on a roll a baby wants my attention or I get side tracked! (As a type this my laptop beeps at me to be plugged in, so I have to stop and find that cord, haha) Anyway, the summer is already half over, what the heck?! I mean it's the beginning of July so it's early summer but still, June is gone, holy moly.  So good news first, Brycen got an internship out at Lincoln Hospital at Davenport (which is about 45 minutes outside of Spokane), so here we are spending the lovely summer here. So far it has been great, even though Addlee and I never really see him, because he works at his internship during the day and works at his other billing job at night. Bless his soul for being an amazing husband and wanting to support his family. I know it's hard and it is a lot of driving, but we are making it work. I am grateful for his willingness to work so hard. I don't think we have ever prayed as hard as we have this summer. I know some day we will look back at this time in our life and see all the miracles and blessings that have been handed to us, it's just hard to see them all when you are in the thick of it. We are blessed to have an amazing support system, and of course the gospel. It seems when all hope is gone, something turns up and it works out for that week. So you just keep plugging along and thanking God for one more day!

We are blessed to have our baby Addlee. She is growing like a weed, and she has started to develop her little personality. She's started crawling, and pulling herself to stand. She's a really happy baby and loves to laugh. I'm excited to spend the summer in the water with her! She is at that stage where she doesn't like strangers, and she cries when Brycen leaves for work. It is sad but cute too. It really freaked me out when I went to get her from her nap and found this:

So cute though. In May my parents and baby sister Maddie came up to visit. It was a cold weekend, darnit, but we still had fun, we went to Coeur d'Alene to see the lake. We didn't spend much time there since it was freezing, but B and I have plans to go and swim this summer sometime! We also got to go to Parma for Memorial Day weekend and that was fun too as always, I'm so excited to see my new niece (who is due to arrive any day now), we got to see my Aunt Sabrina and Uncle Rick who I lived with in Orlando, and it was so good to see them! Brycen had never met them, so it was super fun. On the way home we decided to drive through Riggins and up Highway 95. It was a beautiful drive, I sure love Idaho! We even stopped in Pullman so we could look at WSU! Brycen felt his Cougar pride, haha!

A couple weeks ago our friends the Nielsen's were moving to Seattle area and needed some help, so we said we would help them move and go see my Uncle Matt. It was a great weekend, we helped them move in, spent time with our family, had some amazing food, were tourists for a day, and Brycen got to see his Red Sox play at Safeco Field. He was pretty excited to see them finally, one day we will see them at Fenway! On our way home we stopped to see Tajia and Parker. They are so big too, and loving summer. We got to spend a couple hours, and B played some baseball with them but we had to leave so B could get to work. We will have to go back soon! Now we have so many people to visit!

My little sister Mariah will be home off her mission in a month, a MONTH! I miss her so much, and I can't wait. We are all counting down the days until she's home, her mission I think has changed our entire family because she's been through a great deal while serving.

Another blessing is that we finally sold our Volvo! Wahoo!! It was sad to say goodbye but not really, I'm all for not having a car payment! Thanks to my amazing parents they are letting us borrow their truck until we can get something to replace it. Tender mercy for sure! Don't worry we still have Pearl and she's a champ!

Anyway, I cannot believe it is time for the 4th of July already, I love love love this holiday, and even though we are in a new city for it, I'm sure we can still find some good fun! You know my new motto, being grateful no matter what situation is, and you know what, it actually works!! Now for some pictures of our adventures, crazy how time is flying by!

We got Addlee her 6 month old pictures, haha this one just made me giggle!

We went to Wicked, just as amazing the 2nd time and B loved it too!

Look at those goof balls, here is my family on the tram overlooking the Spokane Falls

Goodbye Volvo!

Hyrum and Gracie, pretty much twins...

Go Cougs!

Enjoying the warm weather!

Crawling around at Matt and Mary's, so much more room than our tiny apartment!

Seeing Tajia and Parker! 

This is Addlee and she loves to climb, especially all over me!

Enjoying the fine things in life!

Go Red Sox

Safeco Field

First time at the Pool, she seriously loved it, already a little fish!

The Waiting Game

Well here we are, the school year is almost over and here we sit... waiting... Waiting to see where we will be in the summer because B doesn't have an internship yet. Can I just say I loathe the waiting game? Especially coming from someone who has to plan out the next 10 years of her life. It just never really works out that way all the time. My faith has been tested a LOT lately... I don't know how we are going to live this summer, where we are going to live even, so yeah you can say I'm just a little worried. Worry I also loathe that word. I read somewhere that Satan loves to make people worry, because then that takes the control away from God. Control, another awesome word... haha! My baby has taught me a lot about control. Right now she's totally in control of my life, she dictates when I sleep, eat, and even run errands. I love her though. Whoa I'm getting way off track, all my jumbled thoughts coming out of my head.
B started his new job a couple of weeks ago and we are so grateful that he has that at least. Even though it's a night job, and it makes me feel like I'm a single mom, we would be homeless without it. I told him that when Addlee is a teenager and complaining about how "hard" her life is, he can tell her what he had to go through while getting his Masters. B works so hard, so we are most grateful for those weekends!
Addlee is growing into a spunky precious little girl. At 6 months old she has 2 little teeth. She weighs 17 pounds and is in the 75th percentile for weight and 98 percentile for height. So she's tall and chunky haha! She rolls everywhere, and eats pretty good. She has a little voice that is so cute, and she's overall a happy baby. We just got her 6 month old pictures done and she's a cutie. I cannot wait for the summer, so we can play outside and in the water!
Easter was so fun, I made a ham for the first time and it turned out great! We went over to our friend's house for an Easter egg hunt, dinner, and a bonfire. Addlee hasn't been outside much since she's been born because it hasn't been exactly warm. So she wasn't exactly thrilled to be outside in the woods (who can blame her really), so she was content to sit on my lap the ENTIRE day.
Oh and my other big news, I just got called to be 1st counselor in the Young Women's, so maybe that's why we are supposed to stay here this summer? We only have 10 girls in our ward, so nothing like Parma. I am excited though, I love the youth!
OK now that this is officially a random post here are some updated pictures of our life!

So B and I got to go out on our first date post baby last weekend (I know crazy right?) We only have a short window since my baby refuses to drink out of a bottle, so we just had dinner...

At the restaurant where we ate you can write on the table, so my husband asked me to marry him again, haha! Then we wrote down all the significant dates of our lives together... Bless!

We bought this dress the day we found out we were having a girl. It finally fits our little girl! Spunky little thing!

I was painting my nails, and Addlee's toenails and apparently I still had wet nails because I got some on her nails!

Chillin'... these two are crazy!

I love how happy she is! Well unless she's tired!

Addlee's Easter Dress, I love having a little girl to dress up!

Doesn't quite know what to do around a campfire!

Our Easter crew!

Drinking out of a water bottle, sort of...