Check it out and vote!

The 2008 Year in Review contest. Everyone who reads this needs to go to heathertaylorphoto.com and vote. My SIL is a great photographer and is having a contest of all the pictures she has taken in 2008. We have some on there, so go check it out and vote.

Grandpa Taylor

Robs Grandpa Taylor passed away on January 15, 2009, and we will surely miss him. Rob and I would usually visit with him and his Aunt every other Sunday. We loved our visits together. Rob loved his Grandma and Grandpa, before we started dating he would visit almost every day after he got off work to get a creamy from Grandma and to visit. I know they looked forward to him coming. It is fun to hear Rob talk about his Grandparents and all the memories he has of them. Grandpa had a sense of humor and always made us smile. Now, Grandma and Grandpa are together again and it made it a little easier to see Grandpa go.

We were able to go over to Grandma and Grandpa's house later after the funeral and take pictures of the inside of the house, everything was just where Grandma and Grandpa left things. I took so many pictures, Rob would pull out a drawer in the kitchen where Grandpa kept some of his tools and have me take a picture, and a picture of Grandma's cookie jar in the corner of the kitchen. Grandpa's canes still leaning up against the counter. It was hard to see everything still there, I was half expecting Grandpa to walk through the door into the family room as we were sitting on the couches in the family room like all the other times we would come to visit. So many good memories are in that house, and we will always cherish them.

Sadly, the only pictures Rob and I have of Grandpa and Grandma are from our Wedding. They are not the greatest pictures, but it is the pictures we have of them and we love them.

Grandma looks worried in this one, it was starting to rain so they took Grandma and Grandpa inside to stay warm.

We love you Grandpa and Grandma!

Dehydrated Bananas and my 1st and 2nd injury of the New Year!

My mother and father-in-law gave us a food dehydrater for Christmas, so I bought some bananas to dry. I cut them all up and put some glaze on them and then stuck them in the dehydrater. I got three trays of bananas.

It took about 12 hours for them to dry, I could have let them dry a little longer, but we were going to bed and they were pretty much done so I unplugged it and let them cool down. In the morning they were stuck pretty good to the trays so we took them off carefully with a fork and put them in a bag.

I filled the sink with HOT water and let them soak. Then I took them out and ran HOT water directly on them and used a scrub brush to scrub the remainder of bananas off. Anyways, I reached into the sink full of water to release the plug and the water was warm, not thinking I put my hand under the HOT running water to rinse my hand off and wouch, oh it hurt. I hurried and turned the water to cold and stuck my hand under.
But, that was not the worst injury, there was actually another. I got my sewing machine out to make some sleeves shorter on a shirt I bought. I got that finished and then Rob asked if I could sew something for him, so in the middle of sewing I reached up to use the backstitch and then reached back down and started pushing the fabric through and somehow the needle got my finger. It happened so fast that it didn't hurt, but it left a hole that went through the top of my fingernail out through my skin on the other side. You can even see the track it left under my skin. Crazy, that has never happened to me before. The top of my finger is just a little tender.
I also broke my sewing machine, something happened when the needle went through my finger, because now the needle gets stuck when it goes down to get the thread from the bobbin. I guess I will have to make a trip downtown to get it fixed. Oh well!
Happy New Year!

Our finished project!

We have been working on our basement and just repainting and putting some beadboard up to make it our own. Robs dad has spent quite a few hours over at our house helping Rob install the bead board. We are grateful for the help. I think it turned out wonderful. This project cost us double what we thought, but it is done and I love it.

Here is a before picture:

After:
I still need to hang some pictures on the walls, but that will come later.

During this project we had an appointment down in Salt Lake, so we took a thursday and friday off work. We spent one night at Robs uncles house and then another night at Robs brother and sister-in=laws house and then our last night at Robs sister and brother-in-laws house. We had such a good time.
We even got some more pictures taken and I will post about those later.
On our first day in Salt Lake we stopped off at the RC Willey in Murray and bought some furniture for our basement. They are leather couches. We got them for a really good deal too, because they were not making this couch anymore so they only had a few left. The color we wanted were already all sold out, so we got a lighter brown which had an orangey tone to them. We bought them hoping they would work with the brown wallcolor. Knowing we had 14 days to try them out and return them if needed. So, when they delivered them, they actually were more of a reddish brown which worked out perfectly, since we have red accents.
We love them!


We also made it to Tai Pan Trading, after a while Rob got tired and found a chair to sit while I roamed and brought things back to the table next to him. He was such a good sport. I was able to find a lot of things for our new cabinet we bought for our front room. Everything fit so well.


We came home Sunday night, we had such a good weekend. Thanks to everyone for letting us come visit.

Christmas Day

We slept over at my parents house Christmas Eve, and everyone decided we would get up around 7:00a.m., so 6:00 Rob and I wake up because we are freezing cold. So I turn the thermostat up and put two extra blankets on and we fall back asleep. At 7:00a.m. there is still no one up so we fall asleep again. Finally at 7:40 I get up and put my contacts in and go downstairs where my parents are up and my grandpa, I ask them where the party is. There reply was "You tell me," so I have a sweet roll while we wait for everyone to show there faces.
Here is Robert and I in all our glory first thing in the morning, so excited. I wish I had a camera to show everyone Robs Christmas happy dance. He was so excited. I was just excited to spend Christmas with family this year.

Usually my youngest brother and sister are the ones trying to get everyone up, and my brother actually took a shower before he came down. So once everyone was awake we all went back upstairs and welcomed Christmas. We all have to enter at the same time to see the Christmas tree and all the gifts. First, we head to our stockings, and see what goodies Santa brought us.

Then we have to guess our number on our gifts. We have to have a reason why we chose the number, then after everyone knows there number we pass out the gifts.

This year we took turns opening gifts. We would open one and then the next person and so on, I liked doing it this way because then we were able to see what everyone got and there reaction. It took a lot longer though than it usually does.
Here is my sister and brother in law, they got this cool bouncy ball that had glitter inside.

My sister with a card game she got.

Here is my grandpa that stayed the night, one thing he got was 8 full size Hershey bars.

Here is my dad opening the gloves we gave him.

We had my brothers name for Christmas this year so we checked his list and got him this brown belt he wanted.
(sorry, can't see it very well)

This is my youngest brother, he got this cool blanket with a sheeps face on it, he had to go around the room and have everyone feel how soft it was. You will notice his green blanket from last year draped around him.

And here is my youngest sister opening some of her gifts.

My parents dog Buster even got a new toy for Christmas.

All of my brothers and sisters went in together and got my mom this big Christus statue, she was so excited.

We were done opening gifts at about 10:00. We headed home to get ready so we could head over to Robs parents house for more festivities. I did not bring my camera so I don't have any pictures, but we had fun visiting and opening more gifts.
Before we left to go over we hurried and opened our gifts, we got some new furniture this year for our basement that we got a few weeks ago. I will post more pictures of that later. I did get a whole bunch of presents from the kids on the bus that we haul around. I also got the movie "The Ultimate Gift" and two pairs of pj's. They are so comfy.
Rob got "Stargate" on Blueray and some other very nice gifts.


A few years back, quite a few actually, I asked for "The Book of Mormon for Latter-day Saint Families," I never did get it and I forgot that I wanted it until I opened one of the packages to Rob and I from my grandpa A. And there is was, my grandpa is moving in with one of his sons and his wife and so he is giving a lot of his things to family. I guess my mom got this and then gave it to us. So, my grandpa didn't even know he gave this to us until we opened it Christmas morning. It will mean so much more to me now, knowing it used to be my grandparents.

We had such a great Christmas, and we loved spending time with family.

Happy Christmas Eve!!

As I was getting ready for the day today I started to see the sun peeking through the blinds and I looked outside and saw blue sky's with those few clouds around. The crisp snow just glowing from the morning sun. We have not seen the sun in a few days from all the snow we have been getting. Perfect weather for Christmas Eve, I love crisp snow covered mornings like these, it just makes me smile.

I took these on my way to pick up some last minute gifts, don't worry, there was no cars around and I was driving really slow. Such a gorgeous morning.


My grandpa A. was able to come down on Sunday and will be with us until this Friday, my grandma and grandpa would always come to our house on Christmas Eve and we would have Christmas Eve dinner with them and also with my Aunt and her kids. Ever since I can remember we have done this.
There has been a few years where they have missed, and with my grandma passing away at the beginning of this year, it is nice to have my grandpa here to celebrate the holidays with us. We sat around the table tonight and just talked, laughed, and had a good time.

I am not a huge fan of Egg Nog (why I only have a little in my glass), but you cannot have Christmas Eve dinner without it. The only way to drink it is to mix it with Sprite or 7-up, gives it a little fiz and doesn't make it as strong.

This is my brother and sister having a good ol time before dinner started.

Rob was starting to get tired so he rested on the couch before we ate. He is wearing his Ghostbusters shirt that he loves, our brother-in-law got it for him a while back. I bet you can't guess what it says on the back of the shirt?
"Who you gonna call?"


We decided we would make two snow forts tomorrow morning and have a snowball fight before we get ready for the day. We have never done this before and so we will see how it goes. I think I am going to freeze because I don't have any snow pants or boots, so I might end early.
Well, we are getting ready to read the Christmas Story and then play games and do whatever before we go to bed.
We wish everyone a wonderful Christmas Eve and Christmas, and hope everyone is safe and well. And never forget the real meaning we celebrate Christmas, it is more than just gifts, it is the wonderful birth of our Saviour Jesus Christ. Never forget that.
We love you all.

Pretzel Salad

For one of our family Christmas parties this year we were asked to bring a fruit salad, so I decided to bring my moms yummy pretzel salad. It is so good and everyone seems to love it. I decided I would post in online so everyone could enjoy the yummy goodness. It works all year round. We have it at about every family get together.

Pretzel Salad
Bottom Layer:
2 cups crushed pretzels
1/2 cup melted butter
3 T. sugar
Mix well and press evenly into a 9 x 13 pan. Bake at 400 degrees for 5 min.
Cool completely.


Middle Layer:
1 - 8 oz. cream cheese
1 - 15 oz. can crushed pineapple, drained
1 cup powdered sugar
1 - 8 oz. Cool Whip
Mix cheese and powdered sugar well. Add pineapple and mix well. Add Cool Whip and fold together. Spread over cooled crust.


Top Layer:
1 large pkg. raspberry jello dissolved in 1 1/2 cup boiling water. Add 1 1/2 cup cold water and 1 pkg. frozen raspberries. Stir well and refrigerate just until jello begins to thicken. Pour over the cream cheese layer and refrigerate until set.

The jello should look like the consistency of egg yokes before you pour onto the cream cheese layer.

Serves 24.

SNOW for Christmas!!

Well, we got our first big snowfall of the season last week, and we got another 6" this weekend. I have been meaning to post this for a while and now today is Monday and we are supposed to get another 4-8" of snow. And the best part about it is I don't have to shovel snow this year. I shoveled all the snow last year with the help of neighbors and my parents, who I am so grateful for. This year Rob bought this beauty a day before the first snowstorm we got. Yeah!!

He has used it a few times already and it is so nice, we get the driveway cleared a lot faster. It seems pretty easy to use. I am just excited we will have snow for Christmas.

Family Pictures

The day before Thanksgiving my sister in law Heather (www.heathertaylorphoto.com)took some pictures of my family. The most recent family pictures have been from Weddings, so it was time for a new one. She did an awesome job. I love them all and am having a hard time choosing which ones to have printed.

Besides this picture of Rob and I, we also went down over this last weekend and had more pictures taken, so I am going to have a lot to choose from.

And this one of my sisters is probably my favorite, I love the head shot of all of us.

And here is my cute mom and dad. So exciting to have new updated pictures to hang on my walls.

Thanks Heather, they turned out simply wonderful!