2nd Chance Prom, Mother's Day and Anniversary

It's 2nd Chance Prom time again! It's always fun to go to this every year. We get a bit sad if we're unable to go some years. It's just fun to dress up and have a fun night out with dinner and dancing. We don't get to do that very often. We went with some good friends of ours and had a terrific time eating at Garcia's and then dancing the night away. I like seeing what dresses the ladies wear. Some go all out and wear actual big prom dresses. Most wear church type dresses and some wear just pants. There were some pretty sa-weet dancers this year too! I'm a people watcher so this is a great event for me! And I love to go dancing with my hunkie sweetheart too!

The next weekend was not only Mother's Day, but it was also our 12th anniversary! So it was a great weekend for me especially! Mike kind of got the short end of the stick this year, having to share with me and all, but we still had a great weekend together. Friday night we got a babysitter and went to a wedding reception for one of my young women. Then we went to dinner at Billman's. (prime rib=yummy!) and then on to the Extreme Ballroom recital. We have a nephew, a niece, and many friends' kids that dance to the Extreme! It's always an awesome show and I'm still trying to convince my older 2 kids to try ballroom dancing... Maybe next year!

Then Saturday morning we had a nice jog around the river with the older kids on their bikes and the youngers in the double jogger. It was chilly, but sunny at least. Then we got to check out the Farmers Market downtown. I've never been to the one here and it was kind of fun to check out all the "granola" type things going on around our city! Ha Ha! Then we got some gourmet cupcakes from Love at First Bite. We got an assortment which included a bacon cupcake! I couldn't believe it, but it had actual bacon on it! It had maple frosting on the top so it tasted like pancakes and bacon with maple syrup. It was actually pretty tasty!!

Then the hubby surprised me with a pedicure with one of my besties, Rose. We went to Austin Kade Academy which is a beauty school here in town. They do an "ok" job, and it was cheaper than going to the Vietnamese place! And they turned out pretty cute: red with black zebra stripes. Rowr!!

Then we met up with our hubbies and our good friend Chris and went to dinner at Blue Hashi. We had yummy, yummy sushi and tempura. Mmmmm! There's nothing better than good food and good friends to share it with! Then it was off to see Limitless at the Paramount. It was a pretty good movie. I wouldn't see it again, but it was very intriguing...Then we had to finish off the evening with some fro-yo at Orange Leaf. Yum-o!

The next day was Mother's Day. It was a great day with food made for me and presents all over the place! My kids made little pictures for me and made breakfast: pancakes, eggs, ham, and OJ. Here are some of the pics the kids made. They are turned in my pictures folder, but for some reason they're not turned here. Sorry! Don't get a kink in your neck trying to look at them!

This one is from Jacob that he made at church:
Ethan's gift he made at school. It says "I'll try to be more responsible". He's always losing his things or forgetting to do stuff, so this is a great present from him!
And another little note from Ethan. It says "Dear Mom, You are the best mother I ever have (probably the only mom I'll ever have) Love your favorite child Ethan. " I laughed so hard!

Asia made a beautiful butterfly and bird for me:
Our babysitters had the younger 2 make little cards for me. Here's Jacob's:
And here's Mia's:
And another one from Mia:
And one last one from Jacob:
Oh, and I got a new ring for our anniversary:

Phew! I think that's it! What a crazy, busy, fun, relaxing, needed weekend!

Easter 2011

The Easter Bunny made his regular appearance on the Friday night before Easter Sunday. So Saturday morning the kids woke up to see their Easter baskets filled with all sorts of fun stuff! The kids let us sleep in until 8 and then we all crept downstairs to see what surprises were hiding for us. The Easter Bunny loves to bring eggs filled with money and candy. He also likes to fill the baskets with books and fun outside things to get us excited about warmer weather... He didn't bring any new Easter outfits this year since the kids already had a bunch of dresses and ties. Maybe next year.


Then we were all able to go to McCowin Park for a local Easter egg hunt. It was separated into age groups, so Ethan and Asia went with their dad, Jacob went with Mariko who was visiting for the weekend, and I had Mia. Mia was so scared at first and didn't know what to do. She started looking around at the other kids and then there was no stopping her!

It was so cute watching the little 1 and 2 year-olds picking the eggs up! What was even more funny was the parents yelling at their toddler to get as many eggs as they could and finally just picking them up themselves! Yikes! What some parents will do just to get a little egg filled with cheap candy... Just sad! We had fun anyway!
Then on Sunday we had a lovely Easter program at church, followed by a super yummy dinner at the in-laws'; ham and funeral potatoes. Yum-o! Then my mother and father-in-law had an Easter egg hunt in their backyard. Each grandkid had their own specific egg color to find. Even the adults has some special eggs for them. Everyone had a great time!

Checking out the loot:

I finally found one!!
I think Ethan was one of the first ones finished:
Mia had the most fun I think!

Fun times! I'm especially grateful for the sacrifice of our Savior at this time of year, and for the wonderful example He is to me. I'm so thankful for the Plan of Salvation and for our Eternal Family! We are just beginning... :)

Fun Stuff!

Here are just some random shots I just took off of my camera. This was a cute one. Ethan was playing his DS and Jacob came and sat next to him and starting watching him play. Then he gently put his hand on his back and just left it there. So sweet! Jacob's my sweet boy. And, yes, they both needed haircuts!

A rare, hot sunny day in April. The kids wanted to eat their snack outside on the picnic table. I made peanut butter and banana sandwiches in cute little heart shapes:

Yummy!
Then it snowed the next week! Gaaaah! We made the most of it and made one last snowman, hopefully...!
And it was fun to jump on the tramp with all of that heavy snow on it:

Another Tooth Missing and Crazy Hair Day!

There have been some very exciting things going on in the Taylor household lately. First, we went to the orthodontist with Asia and Ethan last month because they will both need braces eventually. Asia has lost more teeth than Ethan already, so Ethan had to work extra hard to get the rest of his 8 front teeth out. He had one more tooth to go and it was starting to get loose. We wiggled it and wiggled it and it wouldn't budge. Then one night I tried to yank it and he had a royal freak out! So I said we would have to go to the dentist to have it pulled. He had that happen before with his 2 front bottom teeth and it was not a very nice experience. He remembered that, so the next night as he was lying in bed, he started working on that tooth and he pulled it out all by himself! He said it didn't even hurt and it actually surprised him a little! So here's the tooth. He decided to put it in a little bowl of water and leave it on the counter this time. (That made it especially easy for the tooth fairy!) ;) He got to have 4 whole quarters for being so brave and pulling his own tooth out!
We also had Spirit Week at the school a few weeks ago. I only got a picture of Crazy Hair Day. They had crazy sock day, pajama day, backwards day, and school spirit day. It's always a fun week for the kids and I was able to go to muffins with mom with them on one of the days. That's always a special treat in more ways than one!

Here's Asia. She's so particular with her hair lately and only likes to do it herself. She let me make it a little crazy for her today though. It was pretty fun to do!

And Ethan always likes to go all out for this day:
AWESOME!!! :)

Spring Break 2011

Our usual trip to Las Vegas for spring break had to be cancelled this year due to scheduling conflicts. Mike had to do the final weigh-in for his clients that were participating in the Ultimate Loser competition right in the middle of spring break, so we had to postpone until next year. We were able to go to Salt Lake again for a little long weekend break, however. My parents were also able to come with us with was a special treat. We stayed at the Hampton Inn kind of in West Valley or something like that! It was a little west and south of Downtown. It had a nice hot breakfast and a nice pool and hot tub. We were able to go to the zoo for a day. It was nasty weather again, but cleared up a bit so we could spend the day outside at the zoo. Our favorite was the giraffes. They were licking the walls and trying to eat our shoes! Crazy giraffes!
Mia thought they were pretty funny and wanted to feed them her apple:
Jacob's a little excited about the giraffes:
And of course we had to ride the carousel:

Here's the whole gang outside Hogle Zoo. What a good-lookin' bunch!
We went and visited Temple Square as well. Jacob thought being in space was so cool when we went to see the Christus statue.
We got to visit the Discovery Museum again. We bought a 6 month membership because we knew we would be coming back and it was cheaper that way. Here's Mia, shopping at the store again. It's her favorite thing to do, just like her momma!

And Asia at the checkout:
We had a great time spending the weekend together as a family. We were also able to visit the D.U.P. museum which the kids actually loved. They had a little scavenger hunt for them to do there and it was fun to go through every artifact and learn a little bit more about our pioneer heritage. After the zoo we checked out This is the Place and read about the first pioneers that settled the Salt Lake Valley. It was so amazing to see see what the pioneers had to go through and how hard everything must've been for them. What a great sacrifice to believe in something so strong and to not let anything get in the way of your beliefs. I hope to be able to develop such a strong testimony to not let anything destroy it! I'm working on it! :)

St. Pattrick's Day and Wrestling

We celebrated St. Patrick's Day with our traditional green scrambled eggs and pancakes and the wearing of the green shirts. The kids think it's funny to wear something not ALL green so when someone goes to pinch them, they can point to a little speck of green on their shirt and trick them! Silly kids! I remember doing that too, though. I would paint my nails green, or wear green underwear or something tricky like that!

Mia was pretty excited about her green pancake, but she wouldn't eat it all because it was green!

Ethan decided to start wrestling again this year. He took 3 years off because we started him when he was about 5 and that was a little young for him. There are some 5 year-olds that totally get the whole take-down, wrestle to the ground concept, but Ethan just didn't. So, this year he was totally psyched about the whole wrestling thing and couldn't wait to pin someone down to the mat. He had practice twice a week and a meet every Saturday and sometimes Thursday nights. The first 2 meets he was pretty pumped and was able to place in the top 3 in his weight category. But it just went downhill from there. He got beat pretty bad a couple of times and decided that wrestling just wasn't for him! His confidence was just not there anymore! It's frustrating because I know he could be awesome, but he just has to believe he can do it! I guess I need some lessons on how to teach him to have confidence and to want to work hard for something instead of giving up at the first sign of defeat... I'll work on that one!

Here he is trying to roll a kid over and pin him:

And one of the medals he earned at a Rigby meet. He also earned a whole dollar for winning a match:
I guess it's back to the drawing board to find something that Ethan is interested in. Anyone have any suggestions...?