A Nature Walk

The other night the weather was beautiful.  There was a touch of chill in the warm spring air. We had finished cleaning up dinner and the outdoors were beckoning me.  I felt driven to play outside.  I gathered those who were willing to join me (Jane and Seth) and we went for a walk along the Jordan River.   

The first stop was at the bridge.  And then played on the playground for a few minutes.

Then it was time for some silly selfies.  

There was a pleasant calm in the air. We only passed a few people the entire night, so it felt like we had the world to ourselves.  We strolled around just playing and observing. Our old house in Draper is behind us in this photo about a mile away.  Seth was too young to remember living there.  But I felt that somehow I was visiting a former part of my life blended in with my current life.   a

Seth and me- pretty son he'll be taller than me!

Jane and me

Seth and Jane

I love this picture of Seth and Jane.  They are good together- such a beautiful thing to watch!  I love how Jane lifted up her foot when she posed for the picture.  I sure love these two wonderful people!

We walked as we watched the sun go down.  As the tips of the mountains were being covered by the night shadow, we walked back to the van and watched the sun sink behind the mountain on our drive home.  We stayed out much later than I had planned.  Bedtime was delayed that night, but it was a magical night- one where we allowed nature to lead us where we needed to be and we were able to just be present in the moment.  

March

Weather here in Utah can be unpredictable.  All winter long Jane wanted to make a snowman and a snow angel.  We only had two snowstorms this winter and the snow wasn't good packing snow to play with (really powdery).  

With nice warm weather to play in at the beginning of March we headed to the park to play!

We had a snowstorm a few days later that produced a good, but wet snow. Jane and I got our snow gear on and went outside to make a snow man and a snow angel.  I almost decided to wait until after lunch to go out, but we went out before and it was a good thing that we didn't wait!  The snow had melted only a few hours after it fell!  Can you see that there is no snow around the snowman in the top corner picture?  That was right after lunch!  

Our snowman was the only snow left in the neighborhood for a few days!  We watched him melt and it was neat to record how much it melted each day.  

Day 2

A few days later we were back at the park!  We went with my sister Denise and her daughter Hailey.  We discovered that the girls were wearing clothes with the same pattern!  (Jane's pants and Hailey's shirt) 

Seth has been off-track from school for the entire month of March.  We have been getting together with a family to do things.  We went on a tour to Mrs. Cavanaugh's Chocolate factory, went to the park, and visited a Lego exhibit at the mall. It has been great to have a family to hang out with during our long breaks!

Seth went swimming with a friend.  They were there for three hours!  I finished one book and nearly finished another book while 'watching' them swim!

March 21st was my 2nd annual Music Recital. I was really excited for it and I'm glad to have this tradition.  I decided to learn a rag time song because I love the music but I've always been intimidated by it.  It took me a while to get it down, but I got it figured out!  I remember learning a part and thinking to myself that I'd never be able to play that series of notes and keep the time right, but after practicing (over and over) it became so easy to do!  I think that working on things and remembering  how difficult it was at the beginning makes performing it really satisfying! 

Daniel has bee super busy with his jobs, but he made time to practice and learn a new song.  I am very proud of him for working on the cello and not being afraid to try things.  I really appreciate his attitude about learning to play the cello.  He knows that he has areas that he can improve in but is willing to showcase what he has learned so far.  He isn't embarrassed to play like a beginner- because he is a beginner!  

At the recital I talked about why I think that performing in a recital is important.  I think that being playing in front of other people helps you to identify where you are in your musical journey. I know that I can play my first recital piece from when I was 8 years old much better now than I did then.  I think that it is fantastic to look back at benchmarks like a recitals and know that I have made improvements in my talent!

I have been working on a house project and my wrists weren't happy with the action they were receiving between the project and the piano practicing.  My right wrist was really bad with tendinitis. Reluctantly, I let my project sit undone for yet another few weeks to let my wrists heal.  I still practiced the piano, but only a few minutes a day. Thankfully I had prepared my piece well in advance so I only had to play it through to keep it fresh. It was rather trying on me to be patient.  

After the recital I was on a high.  I felt great, I had a good performance, and I felt adventurous!

I decided to try making some fish.  I have only eaten salmon one time and that was a few years ago, so I bought some salmon and grilled it!  (One of the reasons I don't cook fish is because I can't handle the smell it leaves in the house. But I realized that if I grill it, the smell is outside!) The dinner was delicious and I'm proud of myself for trying it!  Much to Mark and Paul's dismay I am planning on incorporating more fish into our diets!

Jane had kindergarten orientation this month. She is really excited about going to school.  Perhaps I should have waited to tell her about the orientation until right before we needed to go. She was so excited that the day had arrived that she got ready in record time.  She was quite sad when I told her that we still had 6 hours before it was time to go!  After the orientation we went out for an ice cream cone to celebrate her willingness to be patient all day!

We decided to go out for dinner and Jane had to go put her fancy clothes on to go to the restaurant.  She put on a fancy jacket, a fancy scarf, a fancy necklace and her moon boots!  She loves to get dressed up! That scarf is one that I used when I was a little girl!

We had an Easter party at my parent's house.  The night before, Jane asked me if we could get her a new dress to wear to the party.  I had been looking at dresses at Costco but didn't get one because she didn't really need one.   However, the next morning we went and picked one out!  She was so thrilled to be buying a fancy dress!  We bought tights with pink flowers, a new headband with a flower on it and some new shoes.  She was on cloud nine!  She was dressed and ready to go to the party before anyone else! It was pretty fun shopping with Jane!

Jane and her Aunt Wendy

January and February

Yay!  I'm finishing my update! Two posts in one day!  Phew!

January
I made a quilt out of the scraps from Madeleine's quilt.  I absolutely love this quilt- it is one of my favorites so far!  I'm learning to abandon my need for symmetry and embrace balance. This is working for me! I named this one Pick Up Sticks

Front

Back

 Daniel turned 42 this year!  We had a small party for him and presented him with a new set of peshtemal towels (because on The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy they have towels and since 42 is the answer to the question of life, the universe and everything I felt that it was a good year for towels!)

 For Christmas I gave Daniel the complete set of Calvin and Hobbes comics.  I found this tiger and thought that it was a nice companion gift to the books.  Daniel loved this tiger. He put it on our bed and he slept with it.  Jane was afraid that Seth would steal it, so she would hide it in our closet and Daniel would pull it out for bed.  Each morning she would come in and hide it from Seth.  Then one day it wasn't in the closet- it was in Jane's bed!  She stole the tiger and loves it like it is her own!

Jane and I try to go to the library for story time every week.  Because of getting sick, our consistency hasn't been stellar, but Jane enjoys going and is handling the transitions and being around other children much better now than she was in the fall. The Herriman library has a great program and I'm glad that she enjoys going!

I tried to get her into a preschool class but the ones that I was willing to pay for didn't have openings mid-year.  Some places are $175 a month for 2-3 days a week preschool.  I just refuse pay that.  I felt that she needed the discipline that would come from going to school. I realize now that she will learn it quickly enough in kindergarten.  I decided to change my efforts with learning at home and we have made some great advancements. If I do 'preschool' and I am her teacher she doesn't like it, but if I pull out a fun craft or project she will love working on it. That's okay- I'm happy to keep it all relaxed right now anyhow!  

 Jane started dance class with her little friend Hailey.  She was really excited to go to dance class.  But she really struggled with being there.  We are making progress and hopefully she will adapt to learning in new environments.  I'm just excited that she is in dance class because that means that she has finally gotten her potty training ordeal figured out for the most part.  Encopresis has not been a fun thing to deal with.  We are on the road to recovery, so I'm happy about that!

Seth was chosen to do a fun run for Riverton City to celebrate their 150th birthday.  He ran a short course and then we went to the high school to light a birthday cake and watch a fireworks show.  It was a great evening with Seth! (He was disappointed that he didn't get number 42 though!)

 Daniel and I celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary this month. We don't do anything big for our anniversary, but we did go out to dinner.
Jane wanted to get married too, so I made her a little veil out of purple fabric and she spent the day as a purple bride!

February

We had a girl's night out with my sisters and mom. We had a few games that we played at a mall.  It was fun to spend time together.

 Daniel and I went out for dinner on Valentines night.  It was a bit of an impromptu event as we usually don't go out because we don't like all of the crowds and Mark had an all day TKD event that didn't get over until early evening.  I was having a rough day and I didn't have anything ready for dinner, so we picked up some pizza for the kids and went to Thai Basil for dinner.  It wasn't crowded!  We were even "daring" and tried sushi!  We had a veggie roll and an Alaskan roll.  I really liked it!  I'm even looking into making sushi at home because I have actually craved it several times since!

Seth had his cousin over to play one day and when I was driving Nathan home, I looked back and saw them like this.  I had to pull over and take a picture!

 Little Jane has had a rough month.  She was sick with a cold- she had laryngitis and a bad "cough-es".  We had a party planned with Madeleine and her grand-daughter, but had to cancel.  Rats!  It had been a few days since Jane had eaten anything, so I had her make the candy necklace that we were going to make at the party.  I figured that she would probably eat some of it and that was good!  She ate the large marshmallows and they made quite a mess!  I went to wipe her nose and the tissue stuck to her face and I had to peel it off in little pieces!  She recovered from that cold in time to get sick with the flu a few days later.

Even though she was super sick she sure is beautiful! We didn't even do her hair that day!

I was getting ready to go to the store when Jane was sick and she really wanted to go with me.  I told her that she couldn't come with me.  She was upset, but understood.  A few minutes later she brought this doll to me and said "Mom, Ariel isn't sick. Can she come with you?" So, I took Ariel shopping with me!

Mark and his friend Ryan spend a lot of time together here at the house.  Several times Mark has either used up all of his computer time or lost computer privileges so they will ask if there is anything they can do to earn come computer time.  Usually I will have a pile of dishes that need to be washed and they are willing to do it!  Whoo hoo!  

 Jane has renamed Hobbes.  His/her name is now Elsa.  She goes a lot of places with us lately!

This is just a little artwork by Jane.  I love it!  It is Dora and Boots!It is so good to see  her feeling better!  She has spent a lot of time on the couch just watching movies. 

 Oh ya, in January we got a new van.  We bought a KIA Sedona.  We also bought new phones (our phones were 5 years old and the features in the van wouldn't work on our phones!) This is a picture that we took when we were trying to figure out some feature of the phone camera.

 Mark got a job this month as a custodian at his school.  He works after school for about an hour every day.  I'm proud of him for pursuing  this opportunity!

Right now I'm only 1/3 of a way through a project that I thought would be done by now and I have a quilt that was ready to quilt weeks ago. I'm glad that I have the luxury to let these things wait while I nurse the family and myself.  I am experiencing some digestive issues so I'm in the middle of figuring out what adjustments I need to make to my diet.  It is already restricted and I'm afraid that I'm going to have to give up a few more things.  Right now I think that I'll be following a strict FODMAPS diet to get things under control.  Ey yie yie, it is difficult to not eat the standard American diet sometimes.

Okay, I'm caught up now!  Happy March!

Happy New Year! - er, um, I mean Happy March?!

I've had a lot of the crazies happening.  It seems like just as soon as I get myself out of an emotional funk that I get physically sick, my kids get sick or have super trying days or things are super busy or better put- life just happens. This ol' blog has been pushed to the back burner so many times in the last few months.  I'm not to happy about that- I think that recording what my family does and things that go on is a great thing to do and I love looking through back posts.  Today I am not feeling well, Daniel is sick and taking a nap, Jane is (finally) feeling better after a long two weeks of a few different ailments.  I realized that this is my life right now, so I decided to pull up my big girl panties, sort through some pictures and post for my first time this year.  Seriously though, how is it March already?!

Daniel said that instead of calling this blog "The Taylor Times" I should rename it "The Taylor Behind the Times"!

I really do want to catch up on our family events, so here we go:

December
We did our annual 24 days countdown to Christmas.  It was a bit different this year as we didn't do something every night because the nights that we have Tae Kwon Do are pretty busy.  Mark, Daniel and Seth are taking Tae Kwon Do. Mark will be earning his black belt in May, Daniel will earn his at the end of this year and Seth just started in November.

I had to be upfront with the boys as to which activities were optional and which ones I really wanted them to participate in.  They aren't finding making paper snowflakes or having hot cocoa by the fireplace as exciting as it is for the younger ones and I don't want to stop doing something just because the teenagers don't want to do it.  It was tough for me to accept that, but it made the family events more special.

One of the biggest projects that I did for Christmas was a set of memory quilts for my sisters and mom.  My sister Kim helped me and I'm so glad that I let her onto my secret because it took a lot of time to put these together.  We got together at least once a week from the end of September to the end of November.  In November we got together 2-3 times a week.  We figured that we spent about 125+ hours on this project!  It was amazing to spend time with Kim and chat while cutting/sewing/ironing/quilting. 117 unique fabrics in the quilts from Kim's, my Mom's, my Grandma Willes', and my own fabric stash.

The finished quilts

Debbie's

Denise's

Kim's

Kim made these amazing quilt labels

Mom's

After such a big quilting project I was ready for a smaller one, so I made this little snowman wall quilt.  I used fabrics from my stash- I'm really trying to make a dent in my fabric!

  This semester in school Mark took a ballroom dancing class.  He had a great time and his performance was quite fun to watch!

 Seth started playing the saxophone in the school band this year.  His first couple of weeks of practice were difficult but once we discovered that his saxophone was broken and got it fixed, it has sounded great!  He has practice two times a week at 7:30 in the morning.  He doesn't ever complain about going or practicing!

Jane thought that the band was too loud!

Madeleine came over and we made gingerbread cookies together. 

 This winter has been very different.  It just hasn't snowed and it has been really warm.  One of our activities for the countdown was to play in the snow.  Jane was so disappointed that she couldn't make snow angels, so we pulled out the sidewalk chalk and made snowmen and snow angels!  This picture was taken on December 8th.  It was close to 60 degrees outside- I didn't even need a jacket until the sun went down!

My sister Denise and I went with our girls to a local production of the Nutcracker.  We had a fun time dressing up and hanging out together!

For the past two years Mark has been in California for Christmas. Paul joined him last year.  So this year we finally had everyone together again!  This was the best picture I managed to get of our family this year.  

 Daniel's sister Deborah came up from Arizona for Christmas so we got together with her and some other siblings and went swimming.  (Did you know that Daniel and I both have a sister named Debbie?  Both were born in 1980 and both are twins.  To keep them apart Deborah or Debb is Daniel's sister and my sister is Debbie. They both live in Arizona too!) It was great to visit with Debb and see her little guy Jaxon.

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Jane and Jaxon gave each other hugs that would knock them down.  This picture was taken mere seconds before they were both on the floor!

Mark, John, Daniel, Nathan

I'm afraid that this is getting rather long.  I'll finish January and February in a separate post soon (I hope!)