HaPpY BiRthDaY BrOOkiE

Happy birthday (yesterday) to one of the sweetest, most loving nieces in the world. This little girl is so happy, creative, fun, helpful, kind, generous, and wonderful! We hope you had a great day, Sugar Cookie!

Thankful

My last post focused on too many negatives. Although we are still battling sickness and infection in this house, I do have so much to be thankful for.
1. Generally healthy children--when they are sick, I really can see what great kids I have almost every day of my life. They make me smile, laugh, and they love me no matter what I look like.
2. A positive and adoring husband--I realized after my post that so many of my friends have husbands who are gone all day and into some nights. Those women are superheroes. I have a husband who is home, can give Priesthood blessings at a moment's notice, and is so helpful and loving with our kids.
3. Caring friends--I have been surrounded by people who care about us and are willing to help when I ask. I don't know how two of my dear friends knew, but they called me in the past few days. I didn't think I sounded desperate on the phone, but they both listened with more than their ears and offered to bring in dinners. I would have never asked, but I am grateful for their Christ-like service and concern for me and my family. We could have eaten take-out or made sandwiches; I could have even cooked dinner. It was just one more thing to think about that has been draining on my energy and emotions. Their dinners were so delicious. I could never adequately thank you both for you just knowing when I needed you.
4. Doctors and medicine--Four bottles of Motrin, three of Amoxycillin, one of antibiotic eye drops, Sudafed, Triaminic strips...what would I have done? Hopefully after a visit to the doctor today, we're on our way to getting better.

Sickies

Holiday time again. Must mean time for sick Taylor kids. Why is it that we always get sick when a holiday rolls around? We were sick (when I say "we" I mean the kids) for Halloween. Cam was getting better by Thanksgiving last week, but still had 4 rough days. Now Lucy and Cooper have it. We've had two very miserable nights.
Fevers, crying, feeling miserable, no school, not eating, and goopy eyes. At least my body isn't sick. It's tired and my emotions are spread thin, but I'm healthy.
I can't say the same for Shea. He's great on the inside. He gets me through every day by being so positive and helpful. He's amazing. BUT...he's lame. I mean, he can't walk very well. He pulled or tore something in his knee during the second Turkey Bowl last Friday. Since then he's been limping around trying to lead a normal life. Limping is great until it leaves me to carry up three sleeping kids from the car, or to get the mail, or to get a diaper, or to drive anywhere. Wonderful husband + bum knee = wonderful husband who can't really help and feels guilty as I run around like a chicken with no head.
Can you tell I don't have a head right now? Seriously, read this post. R a n d o m.
We will get through this, and things have been worse. I just need some sleep.

Happy Birthday Nana!

Happy birthday (a day late since Sundays are crazy for us) to the most wonderful, loving, supportive, devoted and beautiful mother-in-law in the world! Shea and I are so blessed to have your example and influence in our lives and in the lives of our children. Everyone you meet knows how much you love your kids and grandkids.
You are always fun, smiling, and willing to serve! Thank you for being so wonderful. We hope your day was great.
XoxOxoXOxoXXoxOo

Heather EXPOSED!

Heather was "tagged" a while ago, but never listed her deep, dark, qualities (and some advice for any who wish to hang out with her for more than 5 minutes).

1. Never use the hand towels hanging in the bathroom. They are for looks only.
2. Never splash water or toothpaste/saliva mixture on the bathroom mirror. If you do, quickly find a towel (not the hand towel hanging right by you) and wipe it off.
3. There is only one pillow in the house you should let your greasy head touch. Keep in mind, it may require you to dig through 20 other pillows to find it. No, the throw pillows on the couch are not for your head either.
4. There will be no eating in the kitchen after it has been cleaned.
5. Pee on the toilet rim and on the floor is her favorite, especially if she steps in a cool pool around 2am and the bathroom is filled with the fine odor similar to a public restroom.
6. Never play the card game, "Nerts" with Heather because she will work you over.
7. Never go bowling with Heather because she will work you over.
8. Never play Mario Kart with Heather because she will work you over.
9. Never try to get her to take a bite of a hot dog because you will get worked over.
10. Last but not least, never ever ever miss the opportunity to hang out with Heather. She makes me feel like I am always on vacation in the tropics (which is why I always wear flip-flops). It is impossible to stay mad at her (the only reason you get mad is because you got busted for not cleaning up your toothbrush splatter on the mirror). She loves me and my kids with a pure, Christ-like love. She serves with no thought of recompense and without reservation or judgement. She will make our family eternal and I love her for that (not to mention she is the hottest hottie to ever walk the earth)!

29 years...and holding...really

I had a great birthday weekend thanks to my wonderful husband, thoughtful kids, and sweet family and friends.
I started the celebration Saturday morning with seven friends at Kneaders for breakfast. My good friend Jenna planned and coordinated the whole event. Thank you, Jenna! It was nice to spend time with the girls and eat some yummy French toast! I haven't enjoyed breakfast like that in a long time.
After breakfast I came home and Shea and I cleaned both cars. After watching the BYU game, Shannon came and picked up my boys and took them to watch Boston play his indoor soccer game. Shea and I got ready, dropped Lucy off at Candy and Jerry's, and headed to La Caille for a delicious dinner. I only found out where we were going right before we left. I was holding out hope that Shea had planned something fabulous, and he did not dissapoint! It was a perfect evening with the hottest man on the planet. Thanks, babe!

We enjoyed (and these details are for Jane and Kelly, who enjoy hearing them) vegetable napoleon and French onion soup for appetizers, halibut and lamb with mint jelly for our entrees, and the best dessert I've ever had. We ordered a puffed pastry that was shaken in powdered sugar at our table served with a cream dipping sauce and fresh fruit. The best way to explain it is that it kind of tasted like a home made powdered doughnut. Yum! I was surprised with chocolate dipped strawberries and a cool sparkler candle at my table.
During dinner, Shea surprised me with my gift. I guess it could be my mother's ring since it was a three emeralds and diamond band. It is beautiful! What a sweet husband I have. He knows I LOVE jewelry. He doesn't pretend to know why I always want more of it, but he gets it for me anyway. He is the greatest husband ever.
Sunday the boys woke up super early to wrap my present before Shea left for his 8 a.m. bishopric meeting. Camden wasn't feeling well, but his waking thoughts were of my birthday. Shea had taken them birthday shopping on Friday, and it was all they could do to keep my present a secret. With their own money, they bought me a crown, a princess sash, clip on earrings, and a wand. I was the birthday princess all day.
While opening my present, my good friend, Jerianne sent her kids down with a huge platter of warm sticky buns for breakfast. It was so thoughtful of her, and so loved by all of us! We ate the entire thing yesterday. Thanks, Jerianne! Camden made his bed as a gift, and Cooper made my bed for me! Lucy decided it was too much of a gift for her to actually stay longer than 10 minutes in nursery, so she helped me do sharing time in primary.
After church we went to my mom and dad's for dinner. Ben and Wia, Matt and Marc, Cam and Tiara, and my parents were there. My Grandma Burr had stopped by earlier; my Grandpa Burr brought a gift, and my Grandpa and Grandma DeWolf brought a gift and came to visit. My aunt Lara and her kids are here for Thanksgiving and staying with my aunt Sharon, so they both brought their families over for cake and ice cream. I got phone calls from so many family and friends and so many people remembered me. Thank you for making my 29th birthday special!

my life...

has been filled with Primary responsibilities, meetings, decisions, sharing time planning, the kindergarten Thanksgiving party planning, and everything else in my job description. I love it though. Busyness makes me feel productive.

Happy Birthday Brynn!

Happy Birthday to the cutest, funniest, most loving four-year-old ever! Jane's phone called mine today--I was going to call her to talk to Brynn. When I did talk to Brynn she informed me, "Aunt Heather, today is my birthday. I'm four-years-old."
We have Brynn's present; now we have to make it to the post office to mail it. Cam and Coop keep saying that they're going to give it to Brynn at her birthday party. Um, that may be a little hard since it's 10 hours away in Mesa! The present is coming though, Brynn.
I hope you had a fun day, Brynn E.! We love you!

P.S. My patience has paid off. Ben and Olivia have again joined the blogging world. You can check out what's happening in their lives, or whatever random thoughts Ben has running through his head by clicking on their link.

Halloween

is finally over. Thank heavens. I had a friend murder mystery party that I planned. I helped this year with Shea's Hansen family party, and I was in charge of Cam and Coop's school party. I love this time of year, but I'm tired of parties! We also had our 4th annual Taylor Webb pumpkin carving/dinner event. I'm surprised at how quick and efficient we've become at carving those pumpkins. We had four hollowed out, carved, colored, and glowing in about 30 minutes! Thanks again Webbs!

Starting on the day before Halloween I had two sick kids. Lucy is still a pretty sick little girl. She's been wheezing and coughing and croupy for too many days. Cooper got over his sickness pretty fast. It's so nice that my boys are old enough to tell me when they feel sick, and I can give them medicine to help their symptoms. With babies, it's a different story. Not much choice in medicine and no advanced warning of aches and pains.

We've also started painting the basement! We spent the whole day painting the main family room. We'll finish tomorrow with Shea's office. Thanks, Candy, for taking such good care of Lucy so Shea and I could be productive! We love you!

Happy Birthday, Jane!

Happy Birthday, Jane! You are one of the most wonderful mothers I know. Your kids are lucky to have you! You are a loving wife, an amazing cook, a great organizer, a party planner extraordinaire, a skilled shopper, a talented photographer, a fun sister, and a good friend. Thanks for setting such a great example for me! I love you and hope you had a wonderful day...in Mexico!

Happy Birthday, Shannon!

Happy birthday to a wonderful friend and sister-in-law! Thanks for being a great example of a supportive wife, a loving mom, a good friend, and a super fun aunt for my kiddos! You're the best!

Come on people!

You all asked for more New York details. I sit for what seemed like hours to type it all for you to enjoy, and I get no thanks?! Is anyone out there? (Except for Ash and Brookie! Thanks girlies)


More New York details, my crazy day, and the Hansen Halloween party which I co-planned to follow....if you're lucky.

New York...in more detail

Now that life has settled down a little, I need to give more New York details.
We left Wednesday morning and had a good flight to Newark. Thanks to my stellar planning, we got in right at rush hour. Jane had booked transportation to the hotel for all of us in a sweet 12 passenger van. We tried to get any tourist info out of our driver, but I think he thought we were lame. He wouldn't really answer any questions, and we ended up with no "insider info."
We checked in at the Sheraton Manhattan at 51st and 7th Ave. Our hotel location was ideal--thanks again to Jane and Todd. We dropped off our luggage, threw on dresses and walked to the temple. We ended up walking farther than we had planned in our heels, but it was exciting to be in the city and to see our surroundings.
After our temple session, we went to Patsy's for a mozzarella and basil pizza. We also had a delicious appetizer of fried eggplant and zucchini with a yummy yogurt sauce and a great salad. I think that was my favorite meal. Maybe I was just starving.


After dinner we went to Serendipity for dessert. You know, the place in the movie by the same name? It was fun to be there, but a little overrated. We shared hot fudge/peanut butter sundaes and frozen hot chocolate. Me, not the chocolate lover, enjoyed a few sweet bites and I was done. We would have shared less, but the restaurant had an $8.50 per person minimum. I thought that was pretty lame. We ended up wasting lots of dessert.
The next day Shannon and I couldn't wait to get started. We walked a few blocks away and saw the Today show people, snapped photos in Rockefeller Center toured St. Patrick's cathedral, and waited patiently for Saks to open. After a few minutes in Saks, the other girls called and were ready to go. We made our way down to Canal St. for some wheeling and dealing. We saw men crawling under tablecloths to get pant sizes; we had a kid trying to sell us Juicy suits without being caught by the police; and we had 864 women trying to show us pictures of purses.

After that, we walked into SoHo for lunch at Ed's Lobster Bar. The rest of the afternoon was eating, window shopping at the paper store, H&M, Ann Taylor Loft, and Prada. We took some secret photos of the handsome door boy at Prada.


We stopped on our way home for a quick slice of pizza, changed our clothes, and went to Wicked. I love Wicked! Our Elphaba was the one who did the workshop and originated the role, so she was amazing. We laughed and loved the entire show. I had seen it in San Francisco two years ago, but the Broadway cast was better. I can't say enough how much I love musical theatre--and now Broadway theatre!
After the show we went for dessert at Lindy's. I enjoyed a butter pound cake vanilla ice cream caramel sauce dessert. I was compensating for my after-Broadway depression.
Phew! I might have to write about the other two days in a little while....I can't imagine how tired you must be just reading this!

New York, New York!

What a fun and memorable trip. I agree with Kelly. There is no way to tell all the stories and to do each of them justice on the blog. You'll have to take my word that we laughed until our bodies hurt, walked until we couldn't take another step, shopped until our cash ran out, ate until we felt sick, and visited every site we could squeeze into our four day trip. We took every kind of transportation and mastered it--or so we thought until Jane got her head and arm stuck in the subway door. We strengthened our relationships and loved every second together--except when we had to wake up Candace and Kelly at 6:30 a.m. the last morning. I think they weren't feeling the love after only 4 hours of sleep. :)
Here are a few pictures of our trip.

the past 48 hours...

dentist for me and Shea
Gardner Village with the kids and mom to see the witches. It was so fun! We also had lunch at Zupas. It was a fun outing for the last day of Fall Break.
dinner and a movie at Ben and Olivia's.
housecleaning
laundry
folding laundry
more cleaning
packing
Costco
dessert at Coldstone with Shea and the kids
bathtime
more laundry
finish packing
blog a quick note
bed--I hope sometime in the next 2 hours!

See you all next week! I'm off to enjoy NYC with my mother- and sisters-in-law!

Rainy days and Sundays

Don't always get me down. My attitude is better about Sundays. I make up my mind that they are going to be great, and they are. I actually like a rainy day every so often. It means I get to listen to the kids and their friends play upstairs in the playroom. Lucy also gets to hang out with them, and she's in heaven! She just putters around the room playing with toys and trying to be close to her brothers. It's very rewarding to have such happy, darling kids!
This week has been fun. Having the kids out of school is nice for a change. I like being with them, and they like the freedom of playing and doing whatever suits their fancy. Thursday we went to the Children's Discovery Museum at the Gateway in Salt Lake. Shannon brought her three kiddos, and Candy came with us. It was so nice to have her there to help with the six kids! The boys are so easy when they're with Boston. Lucy loved playing with all the toys and the kid-size city. It was fun to spend a couple of hours there. We ate lunch at Red Rock, which was delicious. After our expedition the boys went to sleep over at Boston's. They worship him. Cam said to me, "Mom, bring our stuff, but you don't have to bring jammies. We always wear Boston's stripey ones." They love to wear his jammies and they all sleep together in the guest bed.
I picked them up the next morning at Boston's gymnastics class. Since then, they have been begging to start gymnastics. They would love it; I just have to get around to getting them enrolled.
Yesterday we hung out at home. The boys played all day with their neighbor friends, Taryn and Little Shea. We have to call her Little Shea so Shea doesn't get confused! He's never had to share a name with anyone before.
Last night, Candace babysat the kids while Shea and I went out for a nice dinner at Tepanyaki. It was delicious--and we loved the leftovers for lunch today.
Now we're getting ready to go furniture looking. No buying until the basement is done, but I want to have an idea of what's available locally so I can know if I need to order online.
I'm getting so excited for our girls' trip to NYC next week! Four more sleeps until I'm enjoying laughing, talking, shopping, walking, and eating with six of my favorite people! (And all girls too!) I've waited for these kinds of things for a very long time:)
Tomorrow is the Taylor FHE at Cory and Shannon's. We always love spending Sunday evenings with our families. We have the best families ever! The conversation is entertaining, the food is delicious, and the kids have a blast!

Worrying in vain...

Seems I didn't have to be too patient. The city inspector left here at about 2:45 today. At 4:00, three men showed up to hang drywall. I'm sure with the amount of noise caused by power tools down there, they will have it all hung before they leave tonight. Amazing!

Back to Work

Just this week has it been nice to be home and finally normal around here. The routine has been reestablished, and we are happy and healthy.
I came back to the demands of helping the PTA feed the teachers, attending parent teacher conference, going with the boys on their Fall field trip to Canyon Glen park, finding a costume and going to a 30th birthday party for a friend, attending Saturday morning Conference with Shea, and finding willing babysitters for all of it! I felt so guilty to leave my kids for various reasons when I'd only just gotten back. Life marches on, however. It doesn't care if your kids need and want you, your house is demanding attention, and the laundry is piling up.
With that said, hopefully we'll find some time to do some fun family activities while the kids are out of school at the end of this week.
The inspector is finally here for the basement. No work was done all last week while we waited for the four-way to be completed. The drywall was delivered yesterday, and I'm anxious for things to get moving down there again. All in good time I tell myself.
I loved Conference. Being in the Conference Center and hearing the Choir was amazing. The tv just doesn't do the organ and the lower tones any justice. It was special to be there when President Eyring's and Elder Cook's names were presented for a sustaining vote. It was touching to see the men seated on both sides of those two men reach over and offer encouraging words and pats on the back and arms.
Today I get to help in the boys' class. They were excited knowing I would be there with their friends to help everyone with their "journal writing." It should be interesting since some of the kids can't write. I'm hoping it makes a difference to my kids--that's my job.
I hope you're having a wonderful day.

Autumn in New England

Yes, I'm home. Yes, I had a wonderful time. Yes, the kids had a lot of fun with Shea. Yes, he is the most amazing husband ever. Yes, being a full time mom is a lot of work!