Gingerbread houses...

I love our Taylor family 'gingerbread making' night.  Good thing it's not a contest. ha

my kids love doing this every year with their cousins and Aunt Holli makes all the

 houses by scratch!  she's pretty amazing!

we had plenty of candy to choose from and ivy loved making her house with her daddy! 

if i wasn't already busy planning birthday parties {i have 3 this month} 

addressing christmas cards {on their way} 

sewing 13 superhero capes {that post will come later} 

i would have totally done this for the gingerbread invite.... so stinkin cute!

 look how into it she was... love her!

i wish i was paying attention to Hayes more... i think he ate more candy 

than was on his house!  He has been bouncing off the walls all night. haha

later tonight we were all in tears laughing so hard while Hayes and Boston 

busted out their own version to "dad's rap" with dance moves and all. 

ok so Mya {i mean judd}is the winner.. just look at her house!!  

snow candy

we make "snow candy" when there is fresh snow...

When Boston was in 3rd grade,  his teacher sent the kids home with a recipe to 

make it and it really is good.

  

{we also put a bunch of snow in a big bowl and pour it in the snow, 

this is just how Boston likes to do it.}

"Snow Candy"

1 cup butter

1 cup brown sugar

5 T water

1 tsp vanilla

boil until firm ball stage

go drizzle it in the fresh snow...

Happy Thanksgiving!

We loved Thanksgiving Break!  

no school and we get to play with cousins and friends and watch lots of football!

  We were supposed to have a huge snowstorm coming this way... but it never showed. 

 just the cold came without snow!

We went to see "Tangled" in 3D on wednesday night and we LOVED it!!

 it is so darling and we can't wait to go see it again.

Thursday morning the boys decided to go indoors and play basketball instead of the

 annual "turkey bowl" football game. They claimed it was too cold this year! ha

We ate Thanksgiving dinner with Cory's Parents & the Hansen's this year at the farm. 

 It was so awesome! 

Grandma Hansens famous stuffing in all it's glory!  

I love how all the Aunts all cook just like their mom, it makes for Tons of delicious food.

Aunt Cheer decorated the tables so cute and i loved her Candy Corn centerpiece.  SO Cute!

after dinner we browsed through the ads like a madman, while the boys went to play basketball.

 thanks to sheraka i have a good start to Christmas! 

{She was going to be in line anyway~wink}

after dinner and a nap... we headed to Nana's house it was her birthday on Thanksgiving!

happy birthday nana!

my kids love to wear their 3D glasses after they watch a 3D movie... and hayes 

literally did not take them off the whole day! 

 he is such a cute little goofball!

papa with the twins

just a few of cory's cousins... look at all these teenagers!! 

aren't they gorgeous??!

 EsDee/Hayes/ivy/hailee

the turkey got the best of ivy...

 Happy birthday to Nana & Mike!

we needed Crew Curry in this pic.  all these Thanksgiving babies this year!

I have loved looking back through my blog!  

I've been blogging since 2006, how cool is that??!! 

loved checking out our last few thanksgivings, here, here and more here & here!

my heart is full...

of gratitude.

 of love.

 of thanksgiving.

i feel so blessed to have such an amazing family!  I struggled for years trying to have

 another baby, and never imagined i'd have so much beautiful chaos surrounding me.

  I love it!  

There is nothing better than when my kids all snuggle up with us in our bed to watch a movie
 or the sound of out of control giggling when we are all together. 

I'm so lucky to have such an awesome husband & wonderful father to my kids,
he works so hard to give us 'The Good Life'...

He has made me one happy momma.

so grateful for friends and family who bear each others burdens and truly are always there
 when you need them.  for laughter, fun and for making many fabulous memories. 

grateful for my health and beautiful surroundings that i get to enjoy on a daily basis!  I love the
feeling of peace and accomplishment that come when i run outside and see all
the beauty that surrounds me.

grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ & my Faith which brings me MUCH comfort
and Joy...true joy!

~count your many blessings

Life is beautiful...

I'm actually so excited to be getting a huge snow storm coming our way.  

We are not going out of town now because of the dangerous weather conditions and are 

planning on hanging out with lots of family and enjoying lounging around watching movies 

and making all sorts of goodies.   

hope you all have a fabulous Thanksgiving!

muah!!

JA Biztown @ Discovery Gateway

i can't even explain how amazingly adorable this field trip was! 

Boston's whole 5th grade team have been planning and preparing for this event for 2 months. 

 Learning all about economics, running businesses, writing checks, and interviewing 

for their positions and jobs.  It was a priviledge for our

 school to have this opportunity.  It's for 5th and 8th grade students and 

our school got a grant just for "Biztown!" 

Such a great experience.

Some of the companies the kids had to run were...

Best Buy

Questar

Rocky Mountain power

merit medical

deseret news {they did interviews & even printed a newspaper}

first security bank

larry h. miller

Zions bank

JA Restaurant

Smiths Marketplace

and many many more.

Boston was the CEO of the JA{Junior Achievement} Restaurant.  He had employees,

 had to sign payroll checks from the CFO and many other tasks. I think he liked using

 the cash register and getting drinks and treats for the kids.~wink

I volunteered for the day and was over the "Best Buy" dept.  We stocked everyone's stores with real food {smith's marketplace} flashlights, beanies, newpapers, etc.  The CFO sent out bills and and invoices for the companies and we enjoyed watching these kids do EVERYTHING to run a business.  

I think they loved working on computers and printing out invoices & writing checks!

The kids got there at 9am and had their checkbooks and Debit cards ready to go! 

 They swore in the Mayor and got paychecks.  Once they went and cashed

 their paychecks they were off to their businesses to work.  

They all had breaks at different times and shopped at different vendors.

It would be an understatement to explain how much these kids loved doing their jobs.

 Boston in the background running his restaurant.  He was LOVING this job!!

 There were flat screens in all the vendors and around the city so you could see the interviews from 

Deseret news.  We even did commercials for our company's.

Here is Boston telling everyone to come and eat at his restaurant.

 Boston with his employees at JA Restaurant

The Mayor gave him a certificate for

"Citizen of the Day"

The Whole "5th" grade class

This elevator is ginormous!  The kids loved arriving in this and also leaving in it...

end of the season "Football party"

we ended the season with a BANG!  Awesome party at "Santa Monica Pizza" with the

 players and their parents.  We watched a killer DVD of the boys and the coach handed out 

trophy's and said something about each boy.  He was an amazing coach!  

We really had an awesome group of boys.

 One of the team moms blew up an awesome pic of each of the boys.

 Another mom made a sweet DVD of the whole season, with awesome plays 

and music in the background. 

 These boys got spoiled!

Boston with his buddy Tanner.

He has met some awesome friends during this football season.

I was in charge of the Coaches gifts.  I remembered seeing these awesome caramel apples 

at Rocky mountain chocolate factory but specially made for BYU and i asked 

if they would do it for our Lonepeak team. 

 I think they turned out pretty cute.

It's beginning to look alot like Christmas...

...at the Taylor home.

this year we decided to start a new tradition. 

my Idea. {sigh}

i thought my kids would Love to have the experience of cutting down our own tree and having

 a real tree this year.

we were so excited.

  I even went with some friends a couple weeks prior at 5am and stood in line 

until they opened at 8am to get a permit!

they only issue 1000 a day for 2 days!

 on saturday we went with the curry's up into the "Uintah's" to find the perfect tree.

after a few hours, and some cold, starving kids {and mom's} we 

finally just chopped whatever tree looked good enough! haha

it was taking WAY too long but,

we did it!  

Then ate at a yummy burger stop in Heber and off to decorate {early} for Christmas.

when we got in the car and were heading home, Boston said "i never want to do that again!" haha 

We think next year we will make a snowmobile trip out of it and do some sledding as well, 

there was SO much snow!!

So now today as i'm writing this post, i loved it.

It was all worth it!

 Once we got home, we pulled out the Christmas bins, turned on the Christmas music

 and started the hot cocoa!

I love this time of year.

one year the elves brought these personalized books for my kids.  This is still one of their favorite books to read this time of year, and the giggling makes it all worth it.

~ one of my favorite things about decorating for christmas is the train.

my kids absolutely love putting the train together and putting all the nativity characters in the caboose.