Matthew and His Friend Tia

This is Matthew with his friend Tia, who is the daughter of Scott's friend Steve. It's been pretty entertaining to watch the two of them together. The first time they met, Matthew kept pulling Tia's hair. I'm sure he was puzzled by someone his size who actually had hair : )
These were taken on our last outting with them. I love the second picture. It almost looks like Matthew is saying "Hey that's my toy- don't touch". I guess we'll have to work on the concept of sharing a little bit.

Wardrobe Help

Matthew and Cleo helping pick out PJ's for the night

Matthew's Grandparents

Now that we have good pictures of all the grandparents, we thought you'd like to see them with the boy wonder....

Grammy and Grandpa Hamernik

Nana and Grandad Towne

Grandy and Grandpa Taylor

A Lovely Day in Gig Harbor Today

Bath Time with Daddy

Ok, Scott may kill me for putting these on the blog, but I couldn't resist!!!

There's no nudity involved and how cute are these two?

Seahawks 12th Baby

GO SEAHAWKS!!!!

Gratitude Campaign for the Troops‏

Our friend Gary sent this to us. Please check it out...

http://www.gratitudecampaign.org/fullmovie.php

PS- It looks like it was filmed in our very own SeaTac airport.

My Future's So Bright, I Got To Wear Shades

I only have time to post these two pics...

What a ham!!

It's Official

Just wanted to do a quick post to let you all know that Matthew's adoption was finalized on December 19th. The agency in Michigan just got the papers late last week (the court sends them in batches). Needless to say, we are thrilled. God has blessed us greatly.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, Who's the Cutest Baby of All

Scott took these great shots of Matthew after he discovered a mirror on our closet. He really had a good time trying to figure out who that other baby was in the mirror.

We are continuing to enjoy the final days of Christmas. Matthew is having a ball playing with all his new toys. I think some days he doesn't know where to begin. Scott returned to work yesterday, but has a two week stretch off after this coming week of work. We're all looking forward to that. Other than that, it's life per usual at Casa Taylor.

We've heard from our friends in Kenya (via a text to a mutual friend). It sounds like things are getting worse and they had to cancel their reception, although they are hoping to be married on Saturday. I can't even begin to imagine what they are going thru.

Well I hope everyone is enjoying the new year. Take care.

Quick Update

For all of you that know our friends Joseph and Beatrice, I just received an email from Beatrice and they are safe. They had traveled to Kenya for their wedding this Saturday. With all of the recent unrest in the country, we had been very worried about their safety. But they are safe and planning to go ahead with the wedding. Please keep them in your prayers.

Happy New Years!!

May the new year bring you new joys, new blessings and new beginnings.

May God bless you and your family in 2008!

Love,

Scott, Cheryl and Matthew

A White Christmas in Gig Harbor

We had a little snow for Christmas in Gig Harbor (an event that doesn't happen all that often). So it was nice to see some of the white stuff to add to the holiday spirit. Matthew really enjoyed his first Christmas and was spoiled like crazy by many of our family and friends. I don't think Scott and I will need to buy any toys for the next few years ; )

More later....

Cheryl

Merry Christmas!!

Matthew's First Visit with Santa

As you can see, Matthew really enjoyed his first visit with Santa- NOT!! Actually it wasn't that bad. He calmed down when mom and dad sat with him. So we got some great pictures of the three of us that was totally unplanned (my hair was a mess because it was pouring out that day).


Sorry I haven't been able to write much with our posts these days, but our life has been pretty busy. Matthew has now learned how to crawl, pull himself up on things and crawl up the stairs. So my day is pretty much spent following him around making sure he doesn't kill himself (we've had little time to throughly baby-proof as well). I've also had a few unexpected things pop up that have really thrown a wrench into my holiday preparation this year. But I had a great insight the other day in the grocery store. I was turning over a bunch of things in my mind and really stressing out about them. I started my shopping and picked up a bottle of Tums that Matthew decided he wanted to play with. He began shaking them and laughing hysterically. Then it dawned on me, all the stuff that I had been stressing about really doesn't matter. All that matter is keeping this little guy and my family happy. Thus begins the education of mom and dad by Matthew.


So as I mentioned, Matthew is definately getting more mobile. He's also discovered the joy of making raspberries and all kinds of sounds as well. He's starting to do all kinds of new things. After his afternoon nap the other day, and he had pulled himself up in his crib, pulled his mobile down and taken all the sailboats off and half of them were on the ground by the time I got to him. Completely harmless, but very entertaining. He's also found that he can pursue the cats now. Caesar is pretty quick and just runs from him. Cleo on the other hand has been a champ with him and lets him pull her tail and grab fist-fulls of fur from her and only whines a little bit. We're working on the concept of "gentle" now. She still loves Matthew to death though. He had fallen asleep on my lap the other day and she jumped on my lap to join him and nudged herself under his arm.

She loves her Matthew!

Well I've got to run for now. I am taking a neighbor to the airport and picking up my parents while I'm there.

Take care and Happy Advent!

Scott, Cheryl and Matthew

Childproof Drawer

My mom sent me this. Now if we could only get Cleo and Caesar to do the job.

A Boy and His Binky (and Binky, and Binky)

Yes, the boy has three binkies. What started out as an attempt to keep Matthew happy at bedtime has turned into an interesting routine for him. Matthew has about 2-3 binkies in his crib at any given time so that if he wakes up during the night he can usually feel around and find one to soothe himself back to sleep. The funny thing is that now he likes to have all of them around him when he sleeps. I went to check on him one night shortly after I put him to bed and he was feeling around his crib to gather all of his binkies together. Very cute!!
PS- The white one isn't jabbing him in the eye even though it looks like it is.

What? Looks Straight to Us.

Starring Matthew as St. Nicholas

Check This Out!!!

Okay- For a hilarious site that little Ms. Gracie Brill put together, click on http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1131841080

You will laugh out loud...
Matthew was "dancing" with his grandmother and grandfather today!

Then he danced with Mom and Dad...
http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1131931550