The Taylor Family

Saturday, March 31, 2012

Welcome Jacob Aaron Taylor!!

Matthew has a little brother!! We are thrilled to announce the birth of Jacob Aaron Taylor, born Sunday, March 25th at 2:41pm. He was 6#15oz and 20 and 3/4 inches long. He is a wonderfully mellow baby so far and seems to be able to keep up with the busy pace of the Taylor household. As for us...well, needless to say, it's been a crazy week. It is amazing how one phone call can change your entire world. Last week our social worker, Liane, asked us to meet with a birth mother who was interested in our story. We made plans to meet with her this past Wednesday. On Sunday, I got a call from Liane and the first thing she said was "hi, remember me?". I knew something was up. She said this little baby had other plans than the ones we had made and was being born as we spoke. So I tried to call Scott who was already at church because he had to rehearse to sing for Mass that day. I tried to call again and again and again and again (he found his phone later with 8 missed calls, all about 2 minutes apart, from me). I wasn't able to get a hold of him, but made arrangements for Matthew to stay with our neighbors later that day and headed to Mass.
After Mass (and after I gave him a hard time about not carrying his phone), Scott and I headed to the hospital to meet the birth mom. We had a great interaction with them and she gave us the "green light". So we were able to stay in the hospital with the baby Sunday night in the special care nesting room. We continued to spend time with his birth mother and birth grandmother over the next day and really enjoyed our time with them. We have really come to know and love this family and are so glad that they are now a part of ours.
After we said our goodbye's on Monday. Scott and I headed home to pick up Matthew and our car seat. We stopped at Target on the way to the hospital to pick up diapers, bottles and formula. We had NOTHING ready for this baby. And since then, we've been winging it (and loving it!).

Here's a few more pics...

First Meeting

Even though we are sleep deprived and busy, I think we're still on a bit of an emotional high. Our friends keep offering to take Matthew for play dates so that we can get some rest, but we really feel great at this point. I keep telling them all to check back with us in a week or two though.

Matthew is taking the news of being dethroned as the only child pretty well. He really isn't interested in holding Jacob, but loves to help make bottles and stock up the diapers. I managed to get some cute pics of his and Jacob's hands and feet together the other night.

The Two Taylor Brothers

It has really been amazing how blessed we are with these two boys. And on top of it all, we have awesome friends that have been there with all kinds of help. Especially our good friends, the Sobba family. They took Matthew overnight on a moments notice and kept us feed, Jacob clothed and all of us sane. Many, many thanks to them.

Well I should go for now and get some sleep while I can. I've ended with a couple of Easter pics of our boys : )

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Snow 2012 (part deux)

I guess that we (or should I say Matthew?) missed the white stuff a little bit, because we took a trip last week to Mt. Rainier for a little play time in the snow. Matthew loves, loves, loves the snow. That's all he could talk about the whole way there (Is it snowing yet?, How much snow is there going to be?, When are we going to be there?). Fortunately, Mt. Rainier was able to deliver and boy did they!! We could only get as far as Longmire because the road to Paradise was closed due to high snowfalls and avalanche danger. So we went snowshoeing on some of the trails at Longmire and just played around for a while. Matthew's favorite thing to do was to race mommy while pushing her and getting pushed into the snowbanks (I know the video clip makes it look very one-sided, but believe me it was 50-50).
We stayed in a cabin just at the entrance of the park in Ashford. It was a little rustic and Scott had to brush up on his fire starting skills. He managed to figure it out quite well and by the time we were ready for bed, we all had to go to bed in our underware because we were roasting. Matthew also found a game checkers while we were there and throughly loved beating his mommy (with the help of daddy) and now wants to play all of the time at home. He also learned how to play "Chinese chickens" (a.k.a Chinese checkers). However, by his rules he gets to make 8-10 moves at a time.
Here's the pics....

First time snowshoeing

We thought about storming the gate, but decided against it.

Not sure what that look is about.

The pictures really don't do the scenery justice. I'm so amazed at the beauty of this part of the country. We are very lucky to be living here and look forward to many more adventures to come.

Monday, February 20, 2012

February 2012

I thought I post a few pics and some news of the Taylor Feb 2012 happenings. One of the biggest events in our house the past few weeks was the arrival of the plague with Superbowl Sunday. Matthew started vomiting and had diarrhea on Sunday and kept on going until Friday. It was very impressive. He made one trip to the ER and was possibly working on a second when he finally turned the corner. I have never seen him so sick. He and I both lost 5 pounds each. Me, mostly because I couldn't stomach the thought of eating after cleaning the mess up. This pic pretty much sums up our week...

We were worried he was going to miss hockey the week after he recovered. It was going to be a big day because he finally got to play with the mites in between periods of the Bremerton Warriors game. He was soooo excited and I was petrified that I was going to have to tell him that he couldn't play. Thank God he rallied. He was so happy to be back on the ice and playing in front of a crowd.

Pics from practice before...

Pics from the big game...

The other highlight of the past few weeks was the superhero birthday party that Matthew was invited to by his dear friend Jonas. We debated for a while whether or not to come up with a costume and we compromised and I made him a Batman cape. I was pleased with how it turned out, but thought it was really cool to see it flapping in the breeze and Matthew rode the rope swing at the party. He loves it and I almost have him convinced to be Batman for Halloween (yippee- over half of the costume done already).

Well that's all for now from Casa de la Taylor. More updates to follow....

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Snowmageddon 2012

Here's a few pics from the big snowstorm a few weeks ago. We don't get the white stuff too often here and it shows. Schools were closed most of the week and pretty much everything came to a stand still. Then to add insult to injury we had an ice storm the next day. And high winds the day after that. When all was said and done, we survived and are none the worse for the wear.

Before.... (ok, maybe a year or two before, but it is a "before" shot).

After....

Matthew was out in the snow for about three or four hours the first day. Loved it!!

Trying to get Granddad.

Nana and Granddad were here for the big event. Although I think that they could have done without the snow and yucky weather, we all had a great time.