Catching Up

I wasn't going to try and catch up after my summer break from blogging, but we did some fun stuff this summer that I want to post about. Rachel and I spent 3 weeks in Utah visiting family and dog sitting Sam while my aunt, uncle, cousins, and my sinfully lucky sister were in Europe (I love Sam, but I think Europe might have been even more fun).

Kisses for Sam!

Her favorite thing that we did in Utah was go to the petting zoo at Thanksgiving point. She was OBSESSED with the pony ride and went on it several times. She really, really liked it in that special way that only little kids can pull off. I wish I could get that excited about a pony ride.
She also really liked the roosters. We stood and watched them for quite some time. My good friend Shannon came with us and was such a good sport about hanging out at a petting zoo for well over an hour.

Who doesn't love running down a ramp?
Sam was very tolerant of Rachel.
I hung out with my aunt Julie and my cousins (the ones not in Europe, obviously) for a lot of the time. Maren was a good friend to Rachel and Rachel talked about them for weeks afterward.
My favorite pic from the trip. Sterling loves being snuggled, and since there was no one there besides Rachel and me he took her snuggles out of desperation.

Just a few pictures from her b-day party. It was Mickey Mouse themed (the banner says happy birthday Rachel, as you can probably guess).


And now on to current times: Almost everyone knows this, but I like to say it anyway. I'm being induced this Tuesday the 17th! What the heck, that's 4 days away! I'm almost a mom again. I'm pretty terrified, but also really excited to not be pregnant anymore and to see what my baby boy looks like.

In Memory of the Best Dog Ever

This post is quite late in coming, but I decided to still do it. A few weeks ago my mom and step dad had to put our 14 year old dog, Carmel, to sleep. 14 years is a great run, especially for a big golden retriever/chocolate lab mix. We got him on my sister's 8th birthday and our house was never the same! I remember opening the door when my parents came home and screaming when I saw that cute little puppy in a cardboard box. We had been asking for a puppy for years and they totally surprised us with him. Our family went through quite a few tough years after we got him, and he helped us through them all. He was always super excited to see us, even if we had only been gone a few minutes. And he was a terrible bed hog. Some nights I would wake up crammed in the very corner of my twin bed and have to spend several minutes trying to get him off of me. He also loved to sit right by me and lick my tears when I had one of my many teenage crying spells. Dogs are the best at making everyone feel loved. I think we humans have a lot to learn from them. We miss you, Carmel!
These are 2 pages out of a scrapbook that my sister made a few years ago. She made copies for my mom and me. As you can tell, we love our dog :)

Mash Up Project

So during Christmas last early I (Matt) read an article about how to create your own song mash ups using a free program called Audacity. I challenged one of Michelle's cousins to a mixing contest and I submitted my final versions on Wednesday. Now, for a limited time only, you can also enjoy the two songs I created (limited to the first 10 downloads only and both files will disappear in 90 days). so here are the download links:

Let September Be

Here is what the judges from American Idol had to say about "Let September Be":

Randy: “You know what I love about you dawg…is that you come out here every week and you bring it dawg. It got a little pitchy there in the middle and I felt like you rushed it a bit at the beginning but you are the man..I love it”

Paula: “That is your style, That's your niche, You look sexy, hot…cool!”

Simon: “Look…I don’t know what you want me to say…it was an indulgent choice and it was one of my least favorite performance{booing from the audience} of the night, sorry!

Train Wreck

Here is what the judges from American Idol had to say about "Train Wreck":

Randy: “Look dawg, this song was all over the place, it was the wrong song choice and I just couldn’t get into it..sorry man.”

Paula: “It’s the colors of your talent that I really love. I want you to know that I've never been drunk. I have never done recreational drugs. Just look at my 20-year career. Tell me someone who is into partying and or doing drugs that could have done that. {takes a sip from her Coke}You’re just a beautiful person.”

Simon: “I never want to hear that song again. I cannot stand it. I'm allergic to it. If your lifeguard duties were as good as your singing, a lot of people would be drowning. I think that you are in trouble this week.”

Let me know what you think!

And now it is time to get caught up...

So here's the deal: One time we were really good at positing to our blog and then something happened (e.g. there was no new cute pictures of Rachel to post). One thing led to another and posting to our blog went the way of flossing our teeth every night and working out several times a week. So without further ado, here are some cute pictures of Rachel with some inferences to what we have been doing for the last several months.

Grandma and Grandpa Taylor came to visit us for a few days in April and we had a fun time time spending time with them. they also let us sneak out for a movie and dinner while they watched Rachel.

Few of you know this but I am actually an aspiring coiffeur and Rachel is a willing test subject. I think I have potential.

On the Saturday before Easter we went to an egg hunt. Of course it was raining like crazy so we hung out in our cars until the rain let up a little. We "hid" the eggs quickly and turned the kids loose. Rachel was a natural hunter and especially loved the shiny ones. I mostly like stealing candy from her (turns out it is as easy as they say it is.)

Here's Rachel putting the toddler moves on Roxie...nice!

Rachel was the cutest flower girl at Michelle's mom's wedding in Washington state. Michelle picked the outfit including the flowers and she was way to cute.

We finally have proof that Rachel is my child. The other day we were making a batch of cookies and I caught Rachel watching them bake in the oven (one of my favorite activities as a small child.)

New Addition to the Family

That's right folks, we finally purchased a second car. I shouldn't say we, because Matt did all the research and shopping (thanks Matt!). It is a 2006 black Corolla, very small and cute (and manly, of course). We haven't taken a picture yet, but I'm sure you can all visualize it. I came home from my walk to the mall on Tuesday and was surprised to see our Taurus in the lot. "What is Matt doing home?" was the first thought that came to my mind. "Oh, wait, that's my car now!! Wahoo!!". Anyway, I'm feeling nearly drunk with freedom. The whole world is open to me now. Or at least all of the parks in the area :) Thank you, Matt, for being so supportive and letting us do this!
On an entirely unrelated note, here is a picture of Rachel in an outfit that my grandparents brought back from Switzerland for me when I was a baby nearly 25 years ago. I'm so glad my mom was good about saving stuff like this. Rachel was doing weird things with her mouth the whole time, this was the best of the bunch!

Valentine's Day and Weekends

I do still have one trip post to do, but I thought I would take a little break and blog about the past two weekends. We had a great Valentine's Day. We made and delivered cinnamon rolls to some friends in the morning. Then we went to the baptism of a man who has been investigating the church for at least 2 years. It was so exciting to see him finally baptized! Afterward we went to Red Robin (every other family with kids in the Fairfax area had the same idea) before dropping Rachel off at a friend's house. Then we went and did sealings at the temple. How romantic is that? We haven't done sealings in several years, so we thought it was about time. All in all it was a busy and really fun day. I love Valentine's day. I like just about any holiday, actually.

A "self-portrait" we took at Nate's wedding. We try these all the time and this is one of the few that actually turned out. Trust me, we usually look a lot worse.

Rachel's Valentine outfit that I am super obsessed with. I found it at Macy's on clearance and I love it!

Another cute Rachel outfit (think how much money we would have saved if we had a boy instead?) that Jen got her in Utah. I LOVE little girl dresses. Thanks Jen! She is smiling because she loves feeling the wind when we go outside. Don't worry, I put a coat on her after I took the picture.

Last weekend I took Rachel to the park and had one of those rare moments when I realized why it is so worth it being a mom. Rachel and I (and Matt, by association) had made it through a rough week, so it was great to escape to the park when the weather finally warmed up. It was a perfect day and unseasonably warm. I took this picture after we rounded the corner and Rachel first saw we were at the park. She was so happy! Don't you wish we could all become uncontrollably happy just from a trip to the park? Sadly, our sense of enthusiasm is one of the things we lose when we grow up :( Rachel isn't grown up yet, though, and she was giggling from all the excitement. We played for an hour or so and went home to a hot meal in the oven. Does it get any better than that?

And now, a drum roll please: My favorite picture from our trip to Utah. We're at Cafe Rio (my favorite restaurant ever) and Jen sweetly offered to share with Rachel since she did not appreciate my spicy sauce. I got to eat baby free for once!

I love these girls!

I'm trying to hurry!

There have been some complaints that I am blogging too slowly through our vacation pics. Well, there's only been one complaint, but since only about 5 people read this blog then 20% of the readers aren't satisfied. So I'm going to wrap up Portland and Seattle all in one blog, with lots of pics and very few words! Here goes:

Rachel had a lot of fun playing with my cousins. Emma in particular was very diligent about playing with her and keeping her safe on the stairs.

Rachel learned the word "pull" when my Dad taught her to play tug of war with Remi. I think Remi played easy on her, because she won occasionally.

Snow!

Rachel loved giving my very old doggy (14 years this month!) kisses. He was a little confused when she went for his face, so she quickly learned to kiss his side. Carmel tolerated that very patiently, considering that she did it about 50 times a day.
Someone gave these glasses to my mom as a joke and Rachel loved them.
My cousin Lucas, almost 3 years old. I got him that shirt for Christmas. :)

That was pretty fast, right? Now I only have the Utah portion to go and then I'm all caught up!

Home Sweet Home

We were in Portland for about a week, starting on the 26th of December. It's funny how each time we go back it feels a little bit less like home. To me at least, I shouldn't speak for Matt. I still love the Northwest and really enjoy visiting. We stayed with Matt's family first for a few days.
Rachel loves her uncle Justin! He is 17 and so cute with his little nieces. He was a good sport about letting Rachel kiss him repeatedly.


My niece Olivia (Matt's sister's baby) is not quite 2 and a half. She is really cute and has the funniest personality. She loves me (I'm not sure why, I only see her twice a year) and called me "Mishaw" for the first part of the visit. Whenever I would try and get her to say the L sound she would tell me, "Mishaw is a hard word to say". She had it figured out by the end of the trip. I could tell about a zillion cute stories about her, but I realize I only think they are cute since she is related to me. So I will spare you. Let me just say that I'm kind of excited for Rachel to get older. Toddlers say so many funny things. One last funny thing: She breaks into song at random times (and she's only 2!). My favorite example is when we were at the temple visitor's center in Salt Lake (much later in our trip) and she was walking beside me hold my hand. Out of nowhere she starting singing, "There's a little black snake, swimming in the water. A little black snake, doing what he outta..." Where did that come from?? Then after finishing that song she started in on the song the vultures sing in Jungle Book (her favorite movie): "We are friends, we are friends, etc." Ok, I'll stop telling stories now.
We played a lot of guitar hero. Rachel LOVES watching guitar hero and gets pretty frantic between songs (More, more!!). She and Olivia are observing guitar hero from the highly fought over "manager's chair".
What vacation would be complete without a trip to Ikea? Rachel was pretty sleepy by the end.

Christmas and a little bit of our trip

We've been on vacation for many weeks, so here is the first of several holiday posts:

Rachel in her pretty Christmas dress. It has a matching jacket, but we couldn't get a good picture of her with it on. Pictures are a lot harder when they can walk!

Her new ponies needed some kisses. We had a fun time opening presents this year since she actually got excited for her toys.

We left for Portland the day after Christmas. Matt's mom got Rachel and her cousin Olivia matching dresses. I love matching dresses (right Jen?)!! They looked super cute, even though they wouldn't sit still and look happy for a picture.