A Quick Health Update & Useless Info to Everyone Except Us

After talking with Drew, B decided to go back & have his cholesterol tested again after fasting. It came back one hundred points lower than the week before:) Although he's not sure if it's all due to fasting or taking the meds for a week or eating perfectly or a combination of the three. Cherie gave him a low cholesterol cookbook as a joke, but it came in very handy to me. I cooked out of it all week. We're waiting to hear what the Dr. thinks about whether to discontinue meds or if the meds work that fast or what. The kids are not too happy with the new menu and Mr. T asked if we were going to have to eat like that FOREVER? B says "Yes, if you want me to live a long time".

This blog is the only journal I've ever kept up on - so I need to record a few things here that we don't want to forget. Taylors are notorious nicknamers and we don't want to forget them, so I'm going to write them down on here.

Aub - Aubi cadabi; stinky sweetie (when she was a toddler)
D - Cadwalader; Dr. Doolittle; Olaf; Master D; Prince Fahad;The Great D Alexander The Great
Ay - Lelu; Tutalewski; Aydie
Ari - Pinky Blondie; Sassy Sue; Peanut; Toot-a-matic; Choo Choo; Scandihoovian or Scanda; Barnacle
Mr. T - Too Tall TT two tone; buddy; scarecrow; noodle boy; Oscar the grinch;

Lelu has her own little language of characters names; Fiffergoblin (could be feathers blowing across the ground or rustling leaves); Bumstoop; LionMore Weirdwig; one-eyed crockernickle; Lemperkin;

The Red Head is On the Roads...

I now have a 3rd driver! I've already sent him to the grocery store for me and to pick up the kids from school. The errands he can run for me are endless.......

But the birthday was about him so I better tell you all about how it was. The kids didn't have school on his birthday, but he got up early (even though he wasn't 16 yet, not until 3:45 pm) and went on his first date to Ihop, thanks Gma & Gpa for the $$ to pay for his date! She drove though.

He has been asking for about 2 years what kind of party he can have for his 16th birthday and I haven't been answering him. I am all too aware of how parties in high school can get overcrowded really quick with the ease of texting and was having nightmares about multitudes of teenagers showing up. SO we decided he and 9 of his closest friends would be picked up by a limo and taken ice skating & out to eat- returning for cake & ice cream. A few more showed up after they got back and they had a great time playing murder in the dark and scaring the girls to death. I listened to screams, music and noise until 11:45 pm when I called it quits. They all had a great time and thought their chaffeur was soo cool. We have no broken furniture and the kids are all really great kids he hangs out with. AND now I have a 3rd driver as we went to the DMV the very next day and got his license. It was a good week.

It sucks to get old!

Happy Birthday to Big B. Just in case turning 46 wasn't bad enough, he got the news from his doctor that his cholesterol is high enough to be on a prescription. He claims everything is downhill now that he has to take a prescription. Those darn genetics. He does everything right to have good heart health. He was so bummed out all he wanted for his birthday was tomato soup & spinach salad. Which I did make for him. I asked him what kind of cake he wanted and he said "whole wheat with no fat or sugar and frosted with wheat germ". Mmmmmm, while that sounds absolutely delicious, I thought we might as well live on the edge if we are just dying anyway. So he got ooey gooey yummy chocolate cake with ice cream.

We did go out to eat last night with some good friends. I found a list of the 10 best restaurants in Salt Lake and have decided we'll try a new one every month. This one was a sushi restaurant (that had an 1 1/2 hour wait), which in case you were wondering is VERY LOW in cholesterol. I've also decided that I really like sushi when I don't know what's in it. Ignorance is Bliss! Another New Year's change, is we are not eating fast food anymore (unless we are on vacation). That should help his health AND it helps us keep our sabbath day Holier since fast food seemed to always be on the menu for Sunday lunch. I even made that decision before the Cholesterol news, I guess I was inspired. (Really, I was just sick of it!)

He gets asked to his first dance!

I think I was as excited as he was, maybe even more. Emilie called me and asked if she could come decorate his room to ask him to go to Sweetheart dance Feb 7th. I let them in with D's bed looking like he slept in it which is basically like a tornado hitting. They covered his walls with stars and his floor with starbursts (which just so happens to be the twins favorite candy). We brainstormed ideas to answer her and came up with filling her car up with the same stars and some of the starbursts all with "yes" written on them. Her mom helped D get into her car in the garage (she's a few months older). Lelu had a great time helping him write all those yes's. The twins teeth have now rotted out of their mouth and are wearing dentures due to the remaining starbursts.;)

I think this is such a fun time for him being able to actually go on dates and drive.He has such a great group of friends to hang out with too.

Baptism of Barton Wyatt

Papa John and some of his crew. 4 of the kids and 9 of the grandkids. Wyatt's baptism didn't disappoint in reminding us of the basic principles of our beliefs. He was so excited and eager to listen to Big B & his other papa John give their talks. B did an awesome job especially since that is not in his comfort zone. It was worth the effort to be down there for this special occasion. I was impressed to see how many people came out to support his day. The whole relief society room was filled up just for him. This got the twins quite excited about their baptisms this year. D will be old enough to baptize one of them. He pointed that out to us and asked if he could baptize Mr. T. It was a very special day to spend with the ones we love.

Our Many Adventures in California!

Brett & Helen hosted us all for dinner Saturday night. The kids were having the time of their lives frightening everyone with a "scary video" on D's ipod. It was nice to visit & catch up with the Taylors. We just don't get to CA as a family as much anymore.

We went to the Hollywood walk of fame. (I'd never been there before) There are all kinds of people dressed as characters around. We saw "Marley & Me" in Mann's Chinese theatre. In pure Hollywood form, there was an altercation between a woman in the theatre with a man that decided to go ahead and take a cell phone call - in his totally normal voice. He got thrown out, but not without swearing (quite femmy too) walking back & forth in the aisle behind us. Lelu is cured from wanting to live in CA.

My little shell obsessed blondie.

Mr. T was the only one who braved getting himself wet and very sandy! It was quite chilly there on the beach. Lelu barely touched the water.

This is always our tradition straight from the airport. Mmmmmm, B has been eating here since the first year we were married. It was in his sales territory.

It's NOT spelled with a Y! Silly D.....

Even though this was Christmas eve 2008. I had to write about it because I found it so funny. This is D's cute "friend" who made a CD for him and brought it over to him for a Christmas gift. She even wrote and sang a couple of her own songs - She is quite talented and just so darn cute! Anyway, D came up with making this plaquard for her in her favorite colors - with music - laughter - friendship (she's always giggling and has the nicest friends too). So I printed it out with my vinyl machine (D painted the board). I put the words onto the board as D critiqued that I had torn a corner of the M. He wrapped it and then we went and delivered it. She acted very excited and told D she "just loved it". The next morning I'm out doing last minute errands and I get this frantic call from him "MOM, WE SPELLED HER NAME WRONG!" And he knew how to spell it, it's spelled correctly in his cell phone. Somehow he missed it - and she didn't say anything and wasn't planning to say anything. And then he dreamed about it being wrong. Needless to say - her parents also got quite a laugh out of it and took photos and videotaped his explanation too. He'd also called Emilie frantic "I misspelled your name! I am so sorry!" (I hadn't asked him how to spell it, but when I showed him the words he didn't say anything.... that's my disclaimer.)

It was a Very White Christmas Day

(I got a new camera for x-mas - this is the only photo I took because the battery had to charge for 14 hours, but there's the nativity scene on my piano. What says Christmas more than that?)

Let me paint you a picture because I was honestly too frightened to grab a camera.

For the last 14 years we've lived here, B with the help of D, and now Mr. T, has been shoveling snow. No snowblower for him because it is "good exercise". With the storms we've had lately and last year, I thought it was high time to get one. I hid the big machine in the laundry room under towels. (B never goes in there, esp when it looks like every towel in the house is dirty). I got up around 6:00 and pretended to go out and get a drink of water, but I dragged it into the family room. He was impressed with my sneakiness! So after breakfast, he, D and Mr. T went out with their new snow clearing equipment (D & T got their very own shovels too). Let's just say, the wind was blowing hard and the wrong direction while B was trying to snowblow and he came roaring into the kitchen COVERED in snow, with red eyes (picture the abomidable snowman from Rudolph) saying he doesn't like the snowblower. (this is when I wished I pulled out my camera) I think he figured it out & he didn't take it back, but me, Michelle & Aub got quite the laugh at his expense.

I printed copies of my blog for each of the kids. It's the closest thing I'm going to get as a journal/scrapbook for a while. It was fun for me to go back and reread. I'm not sure how much they liked it.

Later we went to Grandma's house for dinner. Thanks to Roma & Mom! Michelle T. got me this fun game of cards, called Tabletalk, that has all these good questions to get good conversations started. We had a lot of fun with a lot of new topics and didn't even really give much attention to "He Who Must Not Be Named", except giving him that new nickname. If you want to know who that is - send an e-mail to me, Becca or Dad (we liked it the most). Did you know that Roma would love to go into space? I didn't and I wouldn't!

I'm going to keep my christmas music up on here for a little while longer, hope there's no diehards reading that have something against it!

Our Version of The Polar Express

For our Christmas Eve tradition we build a train out of graham crackers & candy. That way, we can be sure that the kids are properly sugared up before bed! And this year was a doozy, as you can see by Ari's needing to be held for the photo. D surpassed his previous year's skill in building a half pipe for lego snowboarder. Mr. T didn't want to build a train car, so he built the train station, that you can't see behind D's half pipe. This year we also had more cars built because even Mom, Roma & Michelle built one. Dad was the hold out, as we have yet to get him to join the fun. One of these years maybe?

B & I were in bed by 11:00! That is quite a record for us, and then we had to wake up the kids at 7, because Aub needed to be to work at 10:30. (Benedryl is the antidote for sugar high, in case you were wondering)

Ward Santa Breakfast

Friday night, my friend Connie had tickets & invited me up to go to the Savior of the World at the Conference center theatre. The weather was horrid! So we took trax up there, went to dinner & were totally spiritually uplifted by this beautiful program. I need to take my kids to something like this. It was very much testimony reminding. I hope they do something in Primary today with the Nativity.

Yesterday morning, our ward had their like 25th annual Santa breakfast with a guy who lives to be Santa every year for this. Ari went & sat with Santa and when he asked her what she wanted for Christmas, she said "I want to pull your beard off!" He was a very good sport and just laughed. This after doing a little play for me & B, with Lelu & Mr. T about Santa putting her on the naughty list and she grabbed Lelu's shirt (who was playing Santa) and pulled her close to her face saying in her sassiest voice "Listen you old fat man, if you put me on the naughty list, I'm going to hurt you!" What do you do as a parent with that? You laugh or you cry......and we laughed until we cried. Merry Christmas to everyone!

The Twins Politically Correct Program

I can't even say it was a Christmas program. Because it was a Hanuka, Kwanzaa, Ramadaan, & Diwaili (sp?) and then Christmas program. I've never even heard of Diwaili, have you? And the most I caught was something about a monkey demon who killed an evil king and stole the evil or maybe she was good, I couldn't tell, queen. Huh? That's what we thought. And they never put the twins by each other, so I have to videotape going back and forth. I need a better camera, don't I?

I Love Thanksgiving!

I wish I had more photos of Thanksgiving.
I just didn't think to pull out my camera enough. We were so happy to host this year with Jeff & Christina, Landon & Wyatt with Michelle T too.

The day before is my favorite because I start listening to Christmas music while baking pies & rolls. Is there anything better than yummy smells with good music? Someday I think they'll add smells to movie experiences - come to think of it - that's one of the things I do love about the movies is the smell of popcorn! Lelu informed me that was one of the traditions she will continue when she's a mom (there aren't too many because she will do everything so much better than me, so I'll take what I can get) - BUT Ari WILL NOT! She will only start to listen to Christmas music when it is December 1st. And she was quite adamant about it too.

After stuffing ourselves, we headed over to Mom & Dad's to stuff ourselves more with pie, etc. Everyone was a good sport as I reminisced about my afternoon with Chris. Ahhhhhh, sighhhhhhh. Thanks for letting me!

On Saturday we went up to the shack and spent the night. There was exactly 1/2 inch of snow on the shaded road across the meadow from us & Landon, Wyatt, Lelu & the twins decided to sled on it with Uncle Jeff chasing them down the hill every so often when they went out of control. It was truly sledding on the mud! Christina & I stayed close to the fire reading & watching them sporadically. B & Jeff fixed us a yummy steak & everything sandwich dinner. Then we played "Settlers of Cataan". After 20 years, I saw a very backstabbing side to Jeff that I didn't know existed, it was quite shocking to me! I still haven't recovered from it;0.

Even after that shocking turn of events, I would still love to have them come up here every year. I will just be very suspicious of every move Jeff makes in board games in the future.

Cooler than ANYTHING I ever could Have even Dreamed Up!

I wasn't going to blog about this, but it's so huge for me, it would be ridiculous not to put this in.

He really gave Lelu a Piano Lesson for 1/2 hour. He taught her to play the beginning of Clocks. He was SO nice and friendly. We spent an hour and 45 minutes all together touring backstage with his assistant who is also SO nice. We got to go into their dressing room & talk to the other guys (I know I am the LAMEST at taking photos & only got autographs from them) Every member of their crew is British and have been with them from almost the beginning.

And then the concert was AWESOME! Of course! I was in the 3rd row next to the side of the stage and during the second to last song he was over there and made eye contact with me and we both smiled at each other. B says "Did you see that, he looked right at us and smiled?". We were kind of in the aisle and B was standing behind me. That was the absolute icing on the cake. I could add a negative comment on here about how much I hate how I look - but I won't because the experience of it all was as positive as it could have been regardless of how I look! And don't I have the absolute greatest husband ever to have supported me in this dream (I think he's okay with it, because Chris looks an awful lot like B when he was younger, sorry Aub!)

Lelu's Trip With Mom & Dad

For the past couple years Lelu has been begging to accompany B to one of his Conventions. The problem is that she's in school and it has to be one I go to, because B is really too busy to entertain her. This year she convinced B. I admit I am very selfish about my trips with him, so I wasn't very happy. In my defense, I feel like a lot of the time we are just ships passing in the night with all the work & kids that take up our attention - so these trips are our reconnect trips so that in 11 years we don't look at each other and say "Who are you? and Why are we together now that the kids are gone?" But I did get the Cancun trip, so I didn't put the cabash on the idea. Now, however, we have to take a kid with us for the next 3 trips to make it fair to D & the twins!

We went to Clearwater FL. The weather was perfect. Lelu & I drove a couple hours to Universal Studios. We just went to Disneyland back in Feb. So I thought we'd do something different. It really was fun taking just one child who is old enough to ride everything. I have become somewhat of a chicken and we made a pact to ride that huge roller coaster & did it. I did close my eyes the whole time, which was probably worse! Being the middle child and the most easy going, Lelu tends to get lost in the crowd. I was really glad we took her and for B "she made a great booth babe".

Just a few observations about FL: They are the most courteous drivers. Lelu perfected her British accent by talking to so many British tourists. It really seemed like there were more of them than Americans. I can see why old people flock there for the winter - the weather was perfect.

More Reports.......

This is one of the downsides to having twins - double the same homework assignments! In order to save myself from saving these things, I have to take pictures and post them so that they will not dig them out of the trash to sit in their rooms and rot. These were country reports about basic needs - food, shelter, clothing etc different from our country. Ari picked Madagascar because of her excitement to see the new movie. She didn't quite understand why the photos don't look like the animated movie.

Mr. T picked Greenland and he & B built this partial igloo with sugar cubes. It was Mr. T's idea! The snow are marshmellows. They were due on their birthday so I went to the school for their presentation and then ate lunch with them. They thought that was really fun and so did I.

IT'S THEIR GOLDEN BIRTHDAY THIS YEAR!

Here's Ari & her BFF Hailey. We took them all to see Madagascar 2 & then out for pizza & back to our house for cake! Hailey isn't in Ari's class this year and when we went to see their class lists, it was the END OF THE WORLD! They're both really tiny & petite, but Hailey is really shy and quiet and Ari is full of spunk & fire. (I have no idea who she takes after!) She still loves all the baby stuff, ponies and cupcakes!

Mr. T is really into pirates. He loves everything about them- esp the skulls - which I hate! But they are everywhere! I even saw one on a newborn onesie, YUCK. We found this really cool pirate ship in Cancun for him. It has cannon's and everything on it. I can accept the one little flag on top with a skull. This is his BFF Caden with him who also LOVES pirates.

7 years old on the 7th! And this is how I found them when I went to wake them up. I wonder how long they'll still want to sleep next to each other. It's so cute, it makes me want to cry.

Halloween 2008

Mr. T was a frightening "Werewolf" with "Little Red Riding Hood" played by Ari. D found his roots as a "Leprechaun". Check out the cool jacket found at the D.I. for $3 bucks - What a find!

Lelu and BFF Morgan were "Bat Girl" & "Poison Ivy"

Morgan is already overly tall and she's got on her mom's high heels making Lelu look like a really small "batgirl".

"The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe" Closes

D was the white stag, who comes leaping out onto the stage at the beginning of the play and near the end of the play. I didn't get a photo with his horns - but let me just say: the boy can leap! It's really hilarious to see him sort of Irish dance leap about the stage.

D was also part of the witch's army. I have to admit I hated to see him tie up and taunt Aslan. I know it's a play - but it bothered me. The story always makes me emotional anyway. Lelu was part of Aslan's followers as a cute little fox. The kid who played Edmund has quite the crush on Lelu. He kept calling D "his future brother in law". He asked D when Lelu turns 16 so he can take her to homecoming. But around her he was quite shy. They had a great time doing this play. Mom & Roma went with me the last night too. The kids were kind of embarassed because their parts were pretty small - but they've got to start somewhere & I think they should be proud.

I left my camera there and it took me until today to get it back! Thank heavens I did. I'd be sad to not have these photos.

Locks of Love Haircut

Can you see the 3 blond braids next to her? - those are all hers. I think she inherited my hair thickness.

Lelu & I had been talking about cutting her hair & then this salon I go to had a "Locks of Love" day. She got a free haircut & they took off about 8 inches of hair to donate to making wigs for breast cancer victims. They told me that it takes about 8 ponytails to make one wig. They got 3 ponytails from Lelu's head. She looks really cute & she felt really great about it. Now Ari is bugging me to cut hers too. Stay tuned.....

A Trip to Body World

Last week over fall break I took the kids to see this exhibit. If you haven't heard of it. It is all human cadavers that have been "plasticized". Meaning: this scientist came up with a way to inject cells with plastic that preserves bodies in a way that they can be set up into all kinds of positions. It was SO COOL. You aren't allowed to take photos inside of there - so I got these off the internet. If you aren't squeamish - I highly recommend going to this if it comes to your area.

D is a typical teenager and thought it was cool until his next text message came in. Lelu was much less squeamish than I expected. She liked the babies the best. They have embryos on up to 30 week fetuses. Mr. T thought it was the world's coolest thing to see. Ari was quite bothered by how dark it was in there, the sound of a beating heart, the peeled dead animals, and thought it was more like a haunted house than anything and couldn't wait to get out of there. Until she found a plastic model (no human tissue) of the our insides that was a puzzle and then she liked that. They were all very interested in seeing a skeleton that I could show them all of the bones Aub had broken. I said I wanted to go back by myself to spend more time looking and reading everything about it and Mr. T said "Please mom, get me out of school to go with you, I want to go again too." And no one has had any nighmares either!