Video Request

As all parents who blog about their children, i had to post a video. This is Drew practicing his chant, Rock Chalk Jayhawk, GO KU!!! This video is less than a minute long and I hope you enjoy!! :)

Friends

This past year I have made some very good friends here in Hutchinson. It took quite awhile for that to happen. I moved back to Hutchinson after college about 5 years ago, it was a very hard transition. I guess something about moving back to my hometown made it doubly hard to find people in my stage of life that seemed to have the same values as myself. These friends were worth the wait!

We all have kids about the same age and try to get together a few times a week. It is so much easier being a stay at home mom knowing there is someone down the street going through the same daily struggles you are. It's nice to know there is someone you can call and not be judged. That you aren't a bad mom because you'd really like to drop kick you four year old right out of the backyard!

Below: Ashley, Kenzie and Lily

Anyway, since we have kids all about the same age, the kids are often brought together for playdates. They all seem to get along okay, have a good time playing and manage to not kill each other. But, I often wonder....will they actually be friends when they are older? How will their relationships evolve? Will they one day look at their friends from childhood and think, "i gotta be nice to her. she's my mom's friend's kid." Or will they celebrate having such a long and neat friendship? I guess we'll see!

Picture Pages

Here are a few recent pictures I have snapped of the kiddos. On the far left is Drew and Julianna. He loves her so much! He has said to Mimi (my mom), "That's MY sister!! Give her back to my mommy!" He really caught on right away to what it meant to be a big brother. He is very loving and sweet to her and will whack you one if he thinks you're going to hurt her. As you can see from the picture, he Really. Loves. Julianna. Her eyes are screaming, "HELP!"

In the middle is a picture of Lily and Drew on a recent trip with Grandma (Tom's mom) to the Hutchinson Zoo. They had a great time seeing all the animals and riding the train. This picture was in the reptile building. Lily was very worried that Grandma might get scared of the snakes. She kept telling her, "It's okay Grandma, the snakes are in cages!"

On the far right is sweet baby Julianna in her floppy sun hat. She has to wear one because she barely has a hair on her head! :) She is such an easy baby. She sleeps all night, smiles easily, and loves to suck her thumb! She is a petite little girl, in fact her doctor was concerned because she's only in the 15th percentile for weight. She weighed 11 lbs 12 oz at 4 mths! And that was fully clothed! We go back on Friday to have her weighed again....hopefully she's been packing on the pounds!!

Love,

Taylor

Green Thumbs

I love to garden and I think it's a perfect activity to do with the kids. So, Sunday the girls and I headed to the garden store to pick out some flowers to plant in our pots. Lily was very excited to help out. We picked out begonias for one pot and some leafy non-flowering plants for the other pot. We were very excited to get them home and get our hands dirty with planting.

When we got home we dug right in! Begonias are one of my favorite flowers; however, they require lots of watering and shade. I'm so bad about remembering to water!! This is why Miss Lily gets to be in charge of watering the potted flowers. She is very excited about this and I'm sure she will have no problem remembering that she's in charge!! I'm not so good at posting the pictures yet, so for now, you can see our finished product above!

Trying it Out

So I'm trying out the blogging thing for myself. I'm not much of a writer, but I'm going to do my best. So, here it goes:



We spent the afternoon at the lake today. We met Ann, David and Niki out there to eat lunch and hang out. It was such a good day! Lily is old enough and comfortable enough to play in the water without having a grown up right there with her (don't worry, she was never out of sight, and we were right there, we just didn't have to be in the water this year!). She had a great time swimming and playing with Zoe and Daisy (David and Niki's dogs). The lake water was freezing, but Lily said it wasn't too cold for her....even though her teeth were chattering and her limbs were shaking uncontrollably!

Drew and Julianna were able to take their naps in the new cabin's bedroom. It was so great having children that would sleep out there with out much of a problem. Drew went down after one poopy diaper, switching beds twice, and a couple of drinks. They both slept for almost 2 hours. It was so great because with Drew and Julianna sleeping Tom was able to take the boat out and do some fishing and I was able to lounge on the deck. For those of you who don't understand how exciting this is, we used to have to take Lily for long drives until she fell asleep...and then she would usually just take a 45 minute nap!

In other news, we are finally putting in our new patio!! We moved into this house 3 years ago this past April and since the day we moved in, I have wanted a nice patio out back. It took us awhile...but we're finally getting there! First came the fence, then the play equipment for the kids, and now it's PATIO TIME! Tom is determined to get the stairs done before he has to go back to work tomorrow, which is great because no stairs make it pretty difficult to get in and out of the back door!

Alright, Lily is bound and determined to NOT go to sleep tonight...I better go focus on keeping her in her bed until she passes out!

Love,
Taylor