A COUPLE NEW THINGS AT OUR HOUSE

Just wanted to share a couple new things from our house this week!


Scott replaced the faucet in the upstairs bathroom with this sweet set...after the first replacement leaked in two places and we took it back to the store.  We like this one a lot.  The faucet swivels...and we think that may be handy sometime?

 

 Our next excitement was a very big bird landing in the tree at the start of preschool on Thursday.

I took the best photos I could and in looking at our bird books and online we believe it is a NORTHERN HARRIER, in the hawk family.

It is very broad in the shoulders with a much smaller head, turned looking to the left in this shot...

...and turned looking to the right in this one.

When it landed, I thought I saw flashes of red from underneath and was expecting some type of vulture...but possibly it was carrying some little animal it had caught?


Anyways, it was beautiful to watch and stayed a really long time.
We are loving how big our honeylocust tree got while we served our mission and how close it brings birds to us!

Quickie Year in Review Cheryl Taylor 2014

Check out this little 40 second review that Google put together with some of my photos from this year...it has been a GREAT YEAR full of missionaries, family and preschoolers!  What a great combination!
CLICK ON THIS LINE TO SEE VIDEO 
NOT ON THE PHOTO BELOW!!!

You click on the line...then click on the little thumbnail on my picassa web page.  The CORRECT version has music playing and shows a bunch of photo collages.  Let me know if it works for you!
LOVE YOU!  Cheryl

AMANDA'S RECEPTION

 PLEASE CLICK ON THIS LINE TO SEE ALL PHOTOS OF THIS EVENT!  YOU CAN COPY AND SAVE THEM FROM THE PICASA WEB ALBUM I CREATED



 I hope to post about Amanda's sealing...but I have no pictures from that, so if anyone has some, send them to me through Google plus or Dropbox or something.  I want to get them all added to this web album for everyone to have access to.


ANYWAYS,  Here are the helpers for setting up for Amanda and Jimmy's reception!

Vicky ( I missed getting a photo of Lizzie, I am so sorry!)

Cody

Mackenzie

Jimmy

Mike

Breanna

Dad and Jordan

Scott

and Susan.

We had most of the prep work done and ready to set up...Bre helped me for weeks!!!  And Susan jumped right in and came over every day after she got here to help too!

And it all turned out just LOVELY!

When Amanda flew out several weeks ago, all the ideas just flowed, and with her and Mackenzie, we went out and pulled together a plan in one day!  Then we pulled together the details over the next 3 weeks.  It was awesome!

LeAnn was THE MASTER of the cake!  She could totally do this professionally, but if she is like me...we only do these things for people we REALLY LOVE!!!!








Here is what made this event the most special for us! 

FAMILY!!!

 Google does this funny thing when it senses a sequence of photos...so enjoy these three funny family picture taking photo collages!

 And then, go to the link at the top of the page to see the REAL photos that you will want to save for your memories!

This photo says it all...the happiness of the event is evident!
The crowning event of the day was inside the temple when this couple was sealed for eternity.
It was an honor to be there with them and we are so grateful for EVERY member of our family and for WHO THEY ARE! 

CONGRATULATIONS AMANDA AND JIMMY!
WE LOVE YOU!

NEW YEAR'S EVE 2014

 New Years Eve brought us a pretty special gift...a visit from Austin, Laura, Brooklyn and Evan!!

I brought up a box of somebodies old dolls from downstairs for Brooklyn to play with and we brought up a bunch of Braden and Austin's Legos. 

 This inspired some Baby Play Time where Brooklyn was the baby and Mommy was...well, Mommy!

 New Year's Eve, we really had not planned anything, but ended up with a fun party at our house...well, fun for us at least!

We played games and made the traditional crowns...traditional since last year when Brooklyn visited us on the Mission and we made crowns!

She had a monopoly on the sparkly jewels!

 But we all did a great job of making New Years Crowns!

 It was SO FUN to have Jordan with us!  We wish he lived closer so we could get together more often...well, he is closer now that he is in Denver...but I am thinking more like Orem?

The King of New Year's Fun!!!

And the totally happy New Year's baby!

 We just LOVE our family...all of them!

Any chance to get together, we want to be there.

We were so glad Amanda and Jimmy ended up close to all of us for their sealing!  Great excuse for a mini family reunion.

 After the SLC partygoers left, Austin put together his Christmas gift to himself...a Lego StarWars Fighter jet!!

On New Years Day, Brooklyn was up and ready to cook...decked out in her crown, and look at her choice of jewelry...one from my room and one from the baby toy bag.

She was a great French toast helper!

HAPPY NEW YEARS EVERYBODY!!

CHRISTMAS DAY 2014

 We awoke Christmas morning not to the sound of sugarplums dancing, but to sirens in the neighborhood blaring....


Just a block north of us the trucks were all parked.

 And in the cul-de-sac just north of us, this was the view...a shed completely destroyed and tons of smoke everywhere.

Scott and I enjoyed the funny joke that WE BOTH BOUGHT THE SAME SNOW SHOVEL.

I had bought him a shovel for Christmas, so when he announced two days before Christmas that he was going to pick up a shovel on the way home from work, I got out the shovel from Braden's room and placed it in the entryway with a big bow on it SO HE WOULD BE SURE TO SEE IT WHEN HE LEFT FOR WORK THE NEXT MORNING.

Well, the next day, he came home from work with a shovel in hand...and yes, the gift shovel was still in the entryway, he had walked right past it!

We really took our time on Christmas morning.
We had to admire our jammies for a while...

...and then we decided the day was just too beautiful to not get out on a walk!








One of my favorite photos was of Bre being a photographer.

 She took some stunning photos of the snow and interesting textures.

 We found some apple trees with fruit still clinging on in the snow.

Beautiful!

 

 And this one could be our Christmas card next year. 

Back at home we finally got around to opening gifts.  It is really not our focus.  But we enjoyed it and loved getting things for each other.

We had to laugh at Scotts method of disposing of the wrapping paper and tissue...each one was a shot across the room!

  Our afternoon was spent at the MTC as the missionaries got to make calls home this year over the computer, not skype, but computer dialed calls through their portals.

We met in the hall, a Sister going to our mission in Phoenix!  It was fun to reassure her that she was going to the best mission in the world!

Here we are visiting with our missionaries from our branch after their calls.

This is how it looked with them making the calls...they had headsets on and all were talking at the same time.

It was a sweet experience though.  We then went and picked up Breanna back at home and then went up to Dad's for a wonderful dinner and time with family.