We got a camera!

We got ourselves a fancy new camera that can even do videos. Too bad we didn't have it in time for Rusty and Ryan's awesome band concerts. We did get some cute pictures of other stuff, though.

The Halloween Party:

Pumpkin Carving: (See? Ryan is still a part of the family)

Our Piano! (Thank you so much, Denise!)

 Xander continues to be Xander:

Someday, I'll get the other film developed and I'll learn how to post videos. Happy Halloween everyone!

Fall Break

This week was the school break formerly known as UEA weekend. We had planned a trip to Vegas, but since we are going next month for Thanksgiving, we decided to stay home this time. On Thursday we went to visit Grandma and Grandpa Taylor. It was nice. They have the Halloween decorations up. We had a good visit. Grandma said that sometimes when she's awake at night, she runs through the list of all her great-grandchildren to see if she can remember all their names. I can totally see myself doing that someday.

Friday we went to the Hogle Zoo. It was so fun, and way better than going in the blazing heat of summer. I love the zoo. The baby elephant and giraffe were soooo cute. It was fun to watch Xander get excited about the animals. When we got home, Ryan had some friends over for the beginning of a Lord of the Rings marathon. We watched the Fellowship of the Ring. I always love that. We ate popcorn and candy and pizza. Mmmm. It was a good day.

Saturday, Tracy and I went to the temple in the morning, and Ryan and Rusty went to do baptisms for the dead in the afternoon. Half our family at the temple! Yeah! Ryan went to his friend's house for the conclusion of the LOTR marathon, and Rusty went to a friend's house to watch The Incredible Hulk. The rest of us didn't do much, but that's okay.

Sunday, I was glad to be home to go to my awesome ward. The choir sang. Tracy is the director. I think we sounded pretty good. I enjoyed the Sacrament Meeting talks and the lessons in Sunday school and Relief Society. It has been a peaceful and relaxing afternoon, especially after a two and a half hour nap. (I needed that!)

Earlier this week, I experienced total parental dental failure, but I don't want to talk about it. If you haven't been on the new Family Search site, I highly recommend it. It's not available everywhere yet, but if you can, you should check it out. It's amazing. I don't think they could make family history any easier! It was pretty cool. (Thanks to David for the link on facebook.)

This week we have two band concerts to look forward to, the Taylor Family Halloween party, and the primary program on Sunday.

Long Overdue Update

We've had a lot of blog worthy events lately, but I haven't blogged about them because first of all, I thought I'd wait and post about all of them at once instead of individual posts because I'm lazy like that. Secondly, our camera broke (nice, passive, no-blame sentence), so I don't have any pictures to post. We have taken pictures on a disposable camera and our old 35mm camera (how quaint and old fashioned), so we'll hopefully get that film developed in the next two or three years. (J/K. I hope.)

Anyhow-- Rusty's soccer team won the city league championship! Woohoo! Way to go! They were an awesome team. Rusty played goalie and forward and was great in each position.

Finlay turned nine on the 2nd. He got a blue MP3 player for his birthday. He listens to it a lot. We ordered pizza and had cake and ice cream on his birthday. Homemade cookie dough ice cream with actual homemade cookie dough. I love my ice cream maker. Yesterday (the 10th), we had his party. (We waited a week because of Conference.) We took him and some friends to see Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. So funny! The kids had a good time.

Ryan went to Homecoming that night. Wow. I can't believe he's that old! He took Ashley Rawle. They both looked so cute. They had a group of five couples and ate dinner at one boy's house, took pictures in the park, went to the dance, and went over to another boy's house to play games. Since it's Utah law that one cannot drive passengers until after you've had your license for six months, I drove Ryan and his friend Dallin and their dates, and Tracy drove them home when they were done (almost midnight). Anyway, I think everyone had a great time, and hopefully we'll have some pictures sometime.

Today was Xander's 2nd birthday. Awww. My baby is two! How time does fly. After witnessing the whole birthday ritual several times in the past month, Xander was absolutely thrilled that it was his turn today. I wish you could have seen his big smile when we sang him "Happy Birthday" and brought out his presents. He got two wooden puzzles, the kind that have knobs on the pieces, and a wooden cube with five different activities on it (a bead maze, shape sorters, clock face, etc.). He totally loved them and played with them all afternoon. After dinner, we had cake and ice cream. We sang "Happy Birthday" again and set the cake in front of him. Right on cue, without any prompting, he leaned forward and carefully blew out each candle on the cake. Words cannot convey the cuteness of that moment. He was delighted. We're so grateful to have him in our family. He's quite a little firecracker.

Okay, I think that's all. Someday I hope to have pictures to post again.