A New Home

So our house situation has gotten ridiculous. We have been waiting patiently for our home to close since just after Thanksgiving. We originally thought that we would close on the 10th of December but found out that the bank who owned the home wasn't actually on the title. So we have been waiting the last three weeks for the bank to get their name on the title so that they could actually sell us the home.

Things were looking good the last few days, and we were thinking that it was going to get resolved by the first of the year. Then yesterday I got a phone call from our realtor saying that they had made a huge mistake and had put the wrong bank on the title. We were back to square one. We decided that this house could take another month to close which is crazy, and we aren't willing to keep our family in limbo for that long.

So we found a home in a nice subdivision that we will begin renting on January 1st. I am so excited and finally feel some stability. I am sad that we are not getting into our home that we wanted, but i feel totally relieved that we will have a place to call our own now.

Recovered from Provo Tabernacle Fire

Isn't this picture amazing. The whole picture is black from the fire except for the outline of Christ.

Lewis' Home and The Big Give

So we are staying with my cousin Rhonda and her family here in Meridian. They are amazing and so sweet to let us stay with them until our house closes. Which we still have no idea when that will happen.

The first week we got here it snowed 7 inches which is some sort of record here. They cancelled school and everything. So we went out and got our kids all of their Idaho snow gear. Presleigh went out and played in it with her cousins. I'm not a big fan of the snow anymore but when I was little we lived in Wyoming and spent all winter playing in the snow. I know that my kids are going to love the snow. The snow has completely melted now and the kids are actaully enjoying my cousin's nice big yard and trampoline.

Noah and Jake

Presleigh ready for the big give.

Presleigh stuffing her shirt full of ornaments.

Last week we were able to join in on one of my cousin's family Christmas traditions. They do a Big Give every year and it is something that we will continue on i'm sure. There were three families and we each get 20 dollars and then go out with our individual families for 1.5 hours and think of creative ways to give away our 20 dollars. The max you can give at a time is $5. It was a little tough at first trying to decided on how we were going to give it away but it was so much fun. We did a few things to get rid of our money. My favorite was we went to little caesers pizza and gave a couple in line $5 and told them that we wanted to buy them their pizza. It was so fun watching their face and seeing how surprised and grateful they were. Such a fun way to give a little back to people during the holidays.

This is Noah all bundled up for our night of the Big Give.

Thanksgiving

I uploaded something like 750 pictures from Thanksgiving. We had so much fun. It had been a really long time since we had seen a lot of the Taylor side of our family. We had a delicious dinner Thanksgiving day at the Glissmeyer home. Then we headed up to Salt Lake City for pie, a talent show, and family pictures. There were so many people there that we had to have our after thanksgiving festivites at a ward building. I think I saw Presleigh for like 5 minutes after the program was over. She played with her cousins the whole night. I guess they were playing pretend primary or something like that. So cute. I lost Noah a couple times in the building but then I figured out that he was finding stairs and climbing up and down them. I hope we get to see everyone agian soon.

A week with Juju

So after we packed up the house the kids and I left for Utah, to stay with my sister Julie for the week. It was a crazy week. The weather was totally unpredictable and we were hoping that wayne would be able to join us after a couple days there. But he got snowed in and wasn't able to leave until the day before Thanksgiving. We spent multiple days at the doctors due to me having a sinus infection and my sis having a staph infection. We were pretty much house bound the whole week and miserable. Thanks to uncle Paul who helped out so much with the kiddos and made us some yummy meals. It was so good to be able to spend time with my sister. The kids love her and uncle paul and enjoyed playing and watched quite a few movies.

Juju is due in March with her first little one.

A day at the zoo

Before we moved from Sacramento Wayne and I decided to take a break from packing and instead we took the kids to the zoo. Noah was asleep for half of it, but Presleigh loved every minute of it. She talked about it for quite a while afterwards. My favorite thing that she took from the zoo was "Lions are not nice, but someday they be nice. We hold them like puppies." The way she says it cracks me up. I'm so glad that we decided to take this much needed break.

Joy School Ends

I have been so bad about blogging ever since we found out we were moving. So these next few posts are going to be catch up posts.

One of Presleigh's last days of joy school was at the park. She got to paint and then run around with her friends all over the soccer field.

Presleigh and Kensley twirling on the soccer field.
Presleigh and Isobel Painting. Presleigh loves to paint and color.

Here are some of Presleigh's projects from Joy School.

A crazy month

November was such a quick crazy month. We put an offer in on a town home which was the exciting part of the month. We packed up our house in about 3 days and I drove to Utah with the kids to stay with my sister the week before Thanksgiving. Wayne had to work and then had to wait out a storm but then finally made it to Utah after a 14 hour drive the day before Thanksgiving. We left all of our stuff in the garage of our old house to be loaded up and shipped out to our new home once we close on our new home. . We spent the weekend of Thanksgiving with Wayne's family. We had such a good time. I love when my kids get to enjoy getting to know their cousins. From Utah we moved up to the Boise area, where we are staying with my cousin's family until our house closes. Wayne started work on Monday and is adjusting to his new office.

We were very excited to hear that we would be able to close on our home early next week, but then were disappointed when our lender said there were some issues with the title and now we have no idea when we will be able to move into our home. It's been rough being homeless the last couple weeks but hopefully we will be in our own home by Christmas.

Idaho here we come!!!!

I finally have a calm quiet minute to update the blog. Things have been so crazy ever since we found out that Wayne is being transferred to Boise, ID.

A couple years ago while we were finishing up Wayne's Masters Degree we were also applying for jobs all over the country. One of the places that we were most interested in was Boise. We took a quick little trip up to visit and check things out, and we absolutely fell in love with it. We thought for sure that we would end up there. Well we took a job in Richfield and then another job in Sacramento a few months later. We were excited about the government job in Sac because we found out that it was in the same region as Boise and thought that it might be easy to transfer later on. Things were going well here and it was nice to be close to family, but we knew that we did not want to raise our kids here. Wayne found out that the boise office had some openings, so he put in for a transfer a few weeks ago. We found out last week that his transfer was accepted and that we need to be there by the end of this month.

We've been stressing over trying to find a place to live. Do we rent or do we buy? Friday afternoon we decided to pack up and take a quick weekend trip up to Boise to find a home. We spent all day Saturday looking for a place but we couldn't decide. Finally Sunday morning we were able to find a place online. We weren't able to walk through it but we are super excited about it. We put an offer in this morning and are hoping they will accept soon, so that we can be in right after Thanksgiving.

Here is a picture of the kids after our late night of driving, all ready to go house hunting. They were amazing the whole trip.

I have to tell a quick story about the kids, before I forget. So Saturday night we were able to sleep at my cousin's home. She was sweet enough to let us all have one of her boy's bedroom. Wayne and I were extremely tired since we drove through the prior night. We were laying in bed half asleep in the dark when I here Presleigh throw her sippy cup on the floor. Immediately Noah starts asking for a baba. Presleigh gets up and says "I'll give it to him." We hear Noah grab the sippy and start taking a huge drink of water. Presleigh then starts saying "Noah say thank you" while he was still drinking. She said it like three times to him and then says to me "Mommy, Noah not say thank you." I then said "Noah you need to say thank you to sissy." Then Presleigh says "Say thank you!" Right after that we hear noah gasp for air, he had just finished taking a big drink of water and was finally coming up for air. As soon as he catches his breath we then hear a very sweet "daydu (thank you)" from Noah. It was a sweet little moment after a extremely stressful day.

Weekend happenings

Alrighty mother you asked for pictures, so her ya go.

Presleigh is growing up so fast it's crazy. I can't believe how much she knows and her ability to actually have conversations. She loves to tell stories and always does so while bobbing her head (thanks to her dad).

Noah is growing up fast too. He is our Mr. Independent. He has started wanting to feed himself. He actually refuses to eat until you let him have the spoon and bowl. He makes a huge mess, but I'm starting to get over it. I'm sure it's because he watches his sister feed herself. He loves to follow that girl and copy everything she does. He is also talking so much. He calls all food cereal and all circular things balloons. He is starting to notice when he goes potty in his diaper and sometimes will tell us when he has poopoo (thank you cloth diapers). He calls Liz (sister-in-law that lives with us) and Me Mommy, and Darren and Wayne, Daddy. It's got to be a little confusing with all the adults around, but that just means extra love and attention. He also does this silly thing when he gets nervous. I will try to catch it in a picture, but he freezes and stares down at the floor with his eyes to one side looking away from whatever scared him. It's adorable.

These two little ones decided to play with my material. Presleigh called them pillows. They were laying them out on the floor and then laying on them and pretending like they were taking naps. That would have been nice.

Papa came to town last Monday and spent the whole week with us. I have such a great father, he is the best. I love when he comes to visit!! He struggles with Parkinson's Disease which makes it hard for him to move, but he still manages to play with the grandkids,which i'm so grateful for. He shuffles around and plays tag with them, and teases them, and enjoys them. I am so glad that they have gotten to spend some quality time with him. Watching him play with my kids brought back so many fun memories that I have as a kid. He still plays the same games now that he did when I was younger, I love it.

This picture was taken right before we took him to the airport:(

Noah is such a climber. He is constantly getting up on the table and counter.

Presleigh, Noah, and Hadley all playing horsey on Wayne's back. Every night when Wayne gets home from work Presleigh immediately asks to ride a horsey. It's turning in to quite the nightly tradition.

Friday night was our trunk or treat. The kids were pretty much beat by the time we got there, but we had a fun time. Noah and Wayne were Newsies and Presleigh and I were Annie and Miss Hannigan.

Noah spent most of the night on papa's lap

Wayne and Darren trying to win the cupcake eating contest.

Presleigh getting ready to start her cupcake eating contest. She didn't get it and just licked the frosting off instead.

I decided to go ahead and dye my hair since it went with my costume so perfectly!! Just kidding it's a wig. This wig actually helped me realize that my eyebrows are a little too dark for the orange red thing. Maybe a little darker shade would work.