Fun, Fun, Fun

Sorry it's been so long since the last post. We've had lots going on. I can hardly believe that it's July already. I fear this summer is just going to fly by. We've been having a blast and there's more to come with lots of company coming into town and fun things planned.

As for what we've been up to so far, the Gig Harbor Maritime parade and Blessing of the Fleet was in early June. Matthew loved getting dressed up as a pirate and going to the parade. It was very long this year- two and a half hours!! The next day it rained cats and dogs for the blessing of the fleet, but it's still one of my favorite events.

We also had the opportunity to rent a beach house for a few days in June. The weather was fabulous and we had some friends join us since it was large enough to sleep ten. We BBQ'd, went fishing and just hung out on the beach playing in the sand with the kids. I got some great pics of Matthew with his "girls"...

He's also had a fair amount of "boy time" lately hanging out with David and Drew from down the street. We all went to the Gig Harbor airport to check out some WW2 planes. The boys had a blast crawling through the different planes and pretending to shoot down the enemy fighters.

We also went out with the Sobba family on their boat to watch an airshow over Commencement Bay on the Fourth of July. It was amazing how close the F-18 and C-17 were.

After the show we went to the neighborhood BBQ. It's amazing the amount of fireworks that happen here since it's all legally sold on the Indian reservations. David and Drew's dad was our pyrotechnics operator this year and put on quite a show. Matthew liked watching the fireworks, but from inside because they were "too noisy". Oh well, better luck next year.

Now we are anticipating the arrival of all of our summer company- Marc and Marcy Mickiewicz; the Gregory family; Grammie and Gramps; and Grandpa and Grandma Taylor. Lots of good times to come yet. Not to mention my big triathlon on Aug 15th- yikes! Well got to run for now. Hope you all are enjoying the summer.

Love,

Scott, Cheryl and Matthew

Visit to the Zoo Today

The Last Bits of May and Birthday Week

I realize this post is a little outdated but.....

Well, much to Matthew's dismay, his birthday celebration has come to a close. He certainly did have a great time despite being ill part of it. We kept the celebration low key on his actual birthday because he was just getting over a cold, but he partied like a rock star with his friends on Saturday.

Cake #2- baseball, his favorite

Auntie Julie and my godson-to-be, Michael

Swimming buddies, Jonas and Ronin, and their mommy

The Kunzl's- minus the two boys who were running around with Matthew

One of the other highlights from his birthday included riding his new bike with his buddies. He also got some other wonderful gifts from friends and family. A few of his favorites included his Lightening McQueen car (from Grammie and Gramps), his new baseball mit and hat (from Grandpa and Grandma Taylor), his new soccer net (from Nana and Grandad) and a really cool ball that changes colors when you throw it (from Godmother Ellen and Godfather Gary) and some goodies from Auntie Lynn.

The crew on their bikes

Nana came for a visit as well, and Matthew shared a little time on the beach playing in the sand with her.

Cake #1- Thomas the Train

One Happy Boy!!!

Tired Boy

Happy 3rd Birthday Matthew!!

Happy Birthday Matthew!! We love you so very much and are blessed and honored to have you in our lives. You are truly our "gift from God" and we are grateful for every fun-filled, crazy day we have together as a family.

Love,

Mom and Dad

Busy Boy

Well, it's been a while since our last post. No major events to report- which is a good thing sometimes. We've just been enjoying the nice weather (finally) and a chance to get outside and replenish the vitamin D stores. Matthew has been very happy because he's always been a big fan of the great outdoors, but now has become quite the fisherman. He's got a mean cast with his Lightening McQueen fishing pole, but has been disappointed that the only thing that he's managed to catch has been our neighbors cat, Maisey. We went to the Fox Island fishing pier the other day and let him go "live" with a hook and some frozen herring. Unfortunately, he seemed to prefer throwing the frozen herring in the water so that they could "go swimming with their friends". So we're really not sure how he's going to do when he gets a live fish on the line (if that ever happens).

We've also discovered that Matthew has a bit of a daredevil side to him. The Puyallup Spring Fair was a few weeks ago and Matthew was thrilled to learn that he was actually tall enough to ride some of the kiddie roller coasters. Most of it we got on video, so I will see if I can post a short clip later. He also loved the bungee/trampoline jumping and the swings. All of which gave his mom some heartburn.

In addition to being very adventurous these days, he's also developed a case of "Matthew do it" syndrome. He has to do (or at least try) everything. Most of the time, not a problem. But things like pour his own milk (from a gallon jug), roll up the hose in the yard or make his bed, well...they need a little improvement. He did ask to make scones the other day and did pretty well working with dough without much help from me.

On a rather sad note, Matthew's swimming teacher, Miss Kim, has found a new job and won't be teaching his class again until summer and then after that is going to retire from Kinderswimmer. She has been Matthew's teacher since he was about 3-4 months old. We're all sad to see her go, but wish her the best in her new endeavors. Well got to run for now and get my rest to keep up with the busy boy. Take care.

Hopscotch

Trying out posting video. It's a little fuzzy because the video was recorded from my phone, but click on the play button above to see Matthew's attempt at hopscotch.

Happy Easter!!

Hey, who's that under my chair??

Hello all and Happy Easter!! We hope that everyone had a blessed Holy Week and Easter. We were fortunate to have time off together for the holiday and really enjoyed ourselves. We hosted a Seder dinner at our home on Tuesday. It seems to grow with each passing year and we were pleased to be able to share the event with 20 people this year. Easter Sunday we spent the morning at church with Matthew and I going to early Mass, the three of us helping to serve donuts after Mass and Scott singing at the later service. Then it was home for Easter dinner.

We decided for forgo pictures with the Easter bunny this year since it took Matthew a little while to warm up to Santa at Christmas. We found a great photographer (as you can see above) who takes Easter pictures with live bunnies. Matthew loved it, so it was a win-win.

More Easter pics.....

I think the Easter glasses look better on daddy

Making Easter cupcakes

Don't let the look on his face fool you, he loved his Easter candy. The day after Easter, the first words out of his mouth after he woke up were "Can I have Easter candy?"

Now that the weather is changing, we able to get outside more. We've had some pretty low tides lately and have gone to the beach and have been able to see crabs, seastars and a couple of eels as well. This is Matthew's beach-exploring attire...

Got to run for now. We hope that you enjoy the pictures.

March 2010- Happy 40th Daddy!!

Well, I can hardly believe that another month has gone by. They sure are passing quickly these days. Easter is only two weeks away and before we know it Matthew will be turning 3! Where does the time go?

It's been a busy month for us with lots of fun things to do. We were able to take Matthew on a special train ride a few weeks ago. He was "Engineer for a Day" at the Tacoma Railway. We all got to ride on a freight engine and see how containers are loaded from the incoming boats onto the freight cars. It was very interesting. Matthew, of course, was just thrilled to be on a train. With all the excitement, he fell asleep about halfway through picking up all of our freight cars. But he still talks about the train with the American flag.

We had a great time celebrating Scott's 40th birthday and stretched the festivities out for about a week. Our first celebration was at the Great Wolf Lodge, a huge indoor water park and hotel. We were able to spend our first day there with one of Matthew's swim buddies, Jonas, and his family. It was also their dad's birthday. The boys (big and small) all had a blast (ok, Brandi and I got to ride a couple of the adult slides too). Matthew ran continuously for two days and finally cried "uncle" on the last day ("up daddy", "all done"). We don't have a lot of pics from the water park because there was very few places where you couldn't get wet. However, you can see below that one of Matthew's favorite things to do there was count- "one, two, three, four, GO"- on his fingers before going down the slide.

We continued with more cake and treats when we got home (which Matthew loved- see below) and Scott and I were able to enjoy and "adult" dinner with friends on the actual day of Scott's birthday.

How did that happen??


Another new development for us is Matthew's love of baseball. He loves to play catch and T-ball. It's very funny to watch. He has a tendency to just whack the heck out of the T-ball stand and sends balls and parts flying everywhere. We still have to work on controlling that swing.

Well that's all the news for now on our end. Life with a toddler is still proving to be very busy, but very entertaining. Hope all is well with everyone and that you all have a wonderful Easter season.

Take care.

January-February 2010

Hey everyone! Sorry it's been so long since our last post. But here it is...
Not much has been new with the Taylors over the past month. My parents came to visit in January for a late Christmas and Grammie's birthday. Matthew had a blast and loved playing cars, trucks and trains with Gramps and having birthday cake for Grammie's birthday. And he didn't argue about having a "second Christmas".
Speaking of the little guy, he's been doing well except for just getting over a whopper of a cold. It is extremely unusual for him to just lay around and do nothing all day, so we weren't really sure what to do with ourselves. He's much better now and continues to work on potty training, as you can see below. And it saddens me greatly, but I think he's also starting to outgrow his naps. I knew this day was coming, but was not looking forward to it.
You will also see the newest (pseudo) member of our family in our montage. Bill, the orange cat, is a stray that showed up on our steps a few months ago. I started feeding him, without thinking of the consequences of course, and he has made himself a permanent fixture on our front porch. He's very sweet, but very mangy. Scott named him "Bill" after the Bill the Cat in the Bloom County cartoon strip. And the two have a striking resemblance.
We made a little road trip a few weeks ago to a cute little Bavarian town called Leavenworth. You can see some of the pics in the montage. It's about 3 hours from us in the Cascade Mountains. We got to see a little snow, have some great German food as well as fantastic chocolate and cheese. A place worth re-visiting.
Well that's all that's new with the Taylors for now. Hope all is well.

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Stay Tuned

New montage and update coming in the next 3-4 days.

Sorry it's so overdue.

December 2009- Merry Christmas!

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Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the Taylors! It's hard to believe that another Christmas has come and gone already. I wish that the celebration lasted a while longer. It is one of my favorite times of the year.

Matthew had a wonderful Christmas. He really enjoyed all of the preparations for the holiday and especially loved singing Christmas carols this year. His most memorable performance was singing Jingle Bells at the top of his lungs in the produce dept at Safeway. I wasn't sure whether to have him take it down a notch or not, but everyone appeared to be enjoying his enthusiasm. Some of his pre-Christmas events included the Santa Train and Argosy Christmas cruise. Both of which were a lot for fun for him (and mom and dad). And by the time we got to the third meeting with Santa, Matthew was actually able to let him hold him without crying.

Opening gifts turned into a marathon event for Matthew this year, starting at 8am and continuing until about noon. It was really fun to watch him open a gift and actually play with it for about 20-30 minutes before moving on to the next one. I'm sure this will be the last year that happens.

We enjoyed having Scott's parents here for the holiday and Matthew got some quality Nana and Grandad time. Our friends Jacques and Irina also joined us for Christmas dinner. My mom and dad will arrive this week and I'm sure we will have a re-play of Christmas for them and Matthew.

We hope that 2010 finds everyone well and that you are all blessed in the upcoming year. Take care!

Matthew and Santa

Matthew and Santa have always had a rocky relationship and it looked like this year was going to be no different.

And then he finally warmed up to jolly old St. Nicholas...

November 2009

Well this is going to be a short update and a short montage because we really don't have much to report and didn't take many photos in November. Sometimes no news is good news. I still can't believe that the month is gone and we're only 23 days away from Christmas. You wouldn't know it here by the weather. We've been dry for a few days now. It's a little chilly, but not a cloud in the sky. We had great view of the Olympic Mts., now covered in snow, as well as Mt. Rainier and the Cascades getting progressively whiter too. I was sorry that I didn't have a camera with me today.
We had a lovely Thanksgiving with friends. As you will see, Matthew and Tia are becoming quite the item. When they get together they truly are like two peas in a pod. It's a blast to watch. I sometimes wonder who's having more fun, them or us?
I had a great birthday. My wonderful husband surprised me with dinner at Canlis which has fantastic food and a breathtaking view of Lake Union. And you have to love a date night with no toddlers every once in a while. Thank you honey!!
Matthew is still a constant source of entertainment. His latest accomplishment is sleeping in a big boy bed (it's just a toddler bed, but nonetheless a step up). I love it!! One of my favorite things is being able to sneak in his room just before we go to bed and tuck him in and give him a kiss and a snuggle. A little hard to do over a crib rail. And I love hearing him open his bedroom door in the morning, pitter patter down the hall and then climb into bed with us. What a great thing!
I hope that you all are enjoying this Advent season. Enjoy the show......

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An Interesting Adventure

So, we bought a cow this year. And before you have visions of Bessie tied up in our backyard grazing and making wonderful compost for us- let me just tell you that she's in packages in our freezer now. We had to drive over the Cascade Mountains to just outside of Yakima this week to go and pick up our beef. It's amazing the difference between western and central Washington. It's very green and lush here in the Puget Sound area this time of year and central Washington is desert-like farmland. And it's obvious that the main industry there is agriculture. I found it very refreshing to be in an area where a more simple way of life is the norm. Matthew, of course, was just fascinated by the cows. The exciting part of the trip was the drive back home through the pass. We were a little worried when the snow started falling sideways and the road was a sheet of ice. But when we saw all the semi's pulling over to put chains on their tires, we knew that we were in for an interesting ride. Growing up in Michigan, I'm pretty comfortable driving in winter weather, but that was exciting. But we're home now and had our first steaks tonight and it was worth the drive through the snowy pass. We look forward to heading back over the mountains sometime soon (in better weather) for another visit.

Taylor News for October 2009

Hello all. It's time for the monthly Taylor review. October was a busy month for us. We made a trip back to Michigan for Scott to join some friends walking the Detroit Half Marathon. We also got a chance to visit with lots of family and friends. We thoroughly enjoyed the Michigan fall colors and got to reminisce about our wedding day.
Matthew seemed to really enjoy getting ready for Halloween this year. We made several trips to the pumpkin patch and he really enjoyed getting a chance to carve his very own pumpkin. While I was getting this post ready tonight, though, I realized that we didn't have any pictures of him in his Halloween costume. I guess we got a little busy with all of the festivities on Halloween evening. Matthew really got into the concept of trick or treating this year. Of course He had to examine each piece of candy after it was put into his bag which made for a very long evening.
His newest infatuation these days is the movie Cars. He watches part of it everyday and has his very own Lightening McQueen and Mater. It is very cute to watch him developing his very own sense of humor and watch him laugh at certain parts of the movie. He really is growing up fast.
Well that's all for now. Enjoy the pics....

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