Christmas Celebrations

Our holiday break started with TWO snow days! We spent our snow days baking and preparing for lots of traveling! It was so relaxing.




Tate even helped Mommy with the cookies!

 

On Saturday, we headed to Des Moines for the BIG Taylor family Christmas! We stayed in a hotel with the whole gang. What a fun group! We swam, played games, and ate lots of food. Jean Ann came up with some crazy games and everyone loved them. Just like I told Grandma Janis, I am so thankful to be part of such a great family. They are very special people.

Our little Taylor Fam!

All the grandkids and great grandkids!

Tate, Daddy, Katie, and Brittlyn

The games involved golfing...

kazoos...

bubble blowing....and More! :)

After a great time with the Taylor's, we came home on Sunday to have our own little Christmas. We opened our gifts...just the three of us! It was just what we needed before traveling again.

 

 

Play Dough!

 

On Monday (Christmas Eve), we got up and headed for Emmetsburg to my parents! My brother was already there. Poor Uncle Marc had the flu, and we didn't get to see much of him. We went to mass that evening and had our annual meal of steak and crab legs!! Yum! We opened gifts and had so much fun playing with all our new toys! Tate was spoiled of course. Blair and I also got some nice gifts! :)

 

One of Buddy's favorite gifts-- A drill

 

Tate with Papa and Grandma before church

 

On Christmas day, we woke up to Santa's gifts! WOW! Tate got a new drum set and a basketball hoop! What a lucky boy! He loved both items and played with them all day.

Thankfully, Marc was better and Uncle David and Aunt Denise and Uncle Charles and my cousin Quinton came for a yummy ham dinner. We had fun visiting..and eating! :)

 

Then....Christmas night took a turn...THE FLU...it hit us! I got sick at 11:00 p.m. and was sick all through the night. At 3:00 a.m. Tater woke up sick too. It was a miserable few hours, but luckily Tate was better by the morning. Poor Blair! He hasn't gotten sick, but he got to take care of us! We even woke up my parents too! It was a rough night. My poor mom had lots of laundry to do!!

 

So, besides the short lived flu we had a fabulous Christmas! We are so blessed with amazing families! Thank you to everyone!!

Tomorrow we head to Creston to our final Christmas. We will enjoy time at Papa and Grandma Taylor's and open gifts!



 

 

 

SANTA!

Just like last year, we had a visit from Santa. Tate didn't know what to think about him, but then soon warmed up. The Santa tradition is very special to me! The very same "Santa" visited Marc and me when we were little. Honestly, I have so many memories! So, we LOVE you Santa!

We are getting so excited for Christmas around here. Tate continues to remind us about the true meaning of Christmas, and brings so much joy to us.

Christmas #1

We celebrated our first Christmas this weekend with Jean Ann's side of the family in St. Joe, Missouri. We had a nice time visiting and enjoyed a great fried chicken lunch. We even had a little baby shower for Ashlei. She's expecting a baby girl in March! The kids had a lot of fun, and of course received some very nice gifts! Thank you everyone!

The kiddos and Aunt Maagie!

 

Aunt Susan and Ashlei gave Tate a motorcycle, or as he calls it a tatamo. haha! He's hardly put it down since he opened it!

 

And a helicopter from Jim and Diana and cars and an adorable pillow from Aunt Maagie!

 

Ash got lots of pink! :)

 

Two minutes in the car! Tired boy!

 

 

 

Thank you everyone for a fun visit! 

Best time of the year!

Last night we captured a couple of cute pictures of Taterbean in his Christmas pjs from Grandma Jean Ann. I just had to post them to share how stinkin cute he looked!

 

And this one cracks me up...of course his pants are too big, so he walked around hiking them up all evening! haha! 

Christmas Tree

Today we spent some time putting up our Christmas tree! Tate loved it! He was pretty animated-taking breaks to read books, wrapping up all the ornaments in tissue paper, and referring to the bulbs as 'apples' and 'balls'! ha!
He's so funny.

I love this time of the year and the weather was beautiful today. Tate and I played outside for a long time this morning while Blair worked on homework. 
Yesterday, after having lunch with Ryan, Janelle, and the kids, we did a little shopping with my parents. They came down to Des Moines to celebrate my mom's birthday and to get some Christmas shopping done. Tate even got to swim with Papa and Grandma at the hotel!

Thanksgiving

I don't know why it's been so long since I've written on the blog, but I decided that it was time tonight.

We had a great Thanksgiving break, spending lots of time with both sides of our family (minus my brother and Amanda).
We have so many things to be thankful for! I truly love this time of the year.

My parents came to our house and I cooked (with the help of my lovely mother, of course)! The food turned out great, the gravy and dressing always makes me nervous!
Tate loved all the playing. I caught a few cute moments with him and my parents. It's these little moments that I love-

Reading the Black Friday ads with Papa.
 They were just having their own conversation- all about trucks, cars, and tractors of couse! :)

Enjoying a little Cool Whip off Grandma's pie! MMM! :)

 





On Thursday evening, my mom, Emma, and I did a little shopping. It was so fun! I just loved watching all the people. We had some good laughs.

On Friday, Mom, Dad, Tate, and I did even a little more shopping while Blair went to the ISU game. I decided it was too chilly for me, and I enjoyed the game from the sofa!

On Saturday, we headed to meet up with the Taylor clan for a little celebrating! We ALL went to Grandma and Grandpa's for dinner. Tate had a blast playing with all his cousins! We then spent the rest of the time at Mike and Jean Ann's!



I'm so excited for this holiday season! Christmas cards are ordered, nativity is up, house is partially decorated. Now it's time to get our tree! I can't wait!

Thanks for reading! :)

Pumpkin Carving

Tonight we carved a pumpkin, and after looking at my pictures I noticed a very funny progression of the event.

In the beginning, Tate was excited. We took the top off and he was interested to see what it looked like inside.

"What's inside here?"

"Gross!"

He started losing interest and ran off to get a book. I think he just wanted to let Daddy do all the work.

"Just let me know when you're finished, Daddy."

 

 

And of course he took all the credit! Haha!

"Look what I did!"

 

 

 

 

 



Orchard and more

Before our little run-in with the stomach flu, we've been enjoying this fall weather.

We went to the Center Grove Ochard. What a fun place. Tate loved it!

 



 

He loves all the leaves! Went spent the day on Sunday cleaning up the yard and Tate jumped in every pile we made!



 

Fall

We have this cool place behind our house that has an old one-room school house and some other old buildings. We thought we'd take Tate over there tonight and see if we could get some great 'fall' photos. Well he wasn't very into posing, but I still think we got some cute ones. Besides, these just captured the 'True Tate'. Enjoy.

 

Daddy and Tate (Notice the little diaper butt..hehe)

What's a good picture without a little dirt. Afterall, dirt makes him cuter! 

Sweet Boy!

 



Family Visit

This past weekend we went to Creston to hang out with some family. We got some great family pictures!

Aunt Maagie and Jim and Diana made it up to Creston for the day from St. Joseph, MO. Also, Grandma Ann and Grandma Janis were there too. Papa Dick wasn't feeling well, but we sure missed him. We had a nice time visiting with everyone.

 Aunt Maagie and the kiddos- Cora, Tate, and Kayson.

The Taylor Fam!

 

I just had to put this one on here! This is Cora May! Isn't she just adorable! She is so precious and Aunt Tina just couldn't get enough of her yesterday. Blair always says I'm a Cora Hog! :) hehe...

 

 

 

 

Now this is a little delayed, but last weekend we went to the Siemers side and I just haven't posted the pictures we took. We spent Saturday and Sunday there and just "vegged". :)

 

Grandma and Papa Siemers with Tater (and his tractor of course).

 

Typical Sunday-- Daddy and Tate in their Bronco gear!



Weekend

We had another great weekend! Saturday we tailgated and then went to half of the ISU game. It was a 7 p.m. game, and we decided at half time that we'd get Buddy home for bed. He couldn't have been any better. He watched the game the whole time, and loved that we sat right behind Western Illinois' band. He was perfectly content on Dad's shoulders taking it all in. :)

This morning we played in our PJs until it was time for to get ready for church. I caught some cute 'moments'...


Sweet

Giving Lovins

 



Helpful

He emptied the wipes from the diaper bag and decided to scrub the kitchen floor

 

Silly

No pants, but stylin with his beads

 

Just before church I decided that it was time for some pictures. We couldn't do a family shot so we decided to do one with Daddy and then one with Mama. 

Stylin' Boys!

 

Mama's Boy!

May you have a wonderful week!
We are loving ALL the signs of fall! :)