Gingerbread Houses

Sunday was our annual Taylor gingerbread house contest.  We always have so much fun.  This year we had a Princess Castle, created by Sydney and Tiffany, a Redneck House, created by Matt and Kevin

 (idea inspired by Riley Birch), The Delicate Arch getting smashed by a monster truck,  created by Scott, and a Traditional house, created by Uncle Denny.  I love Christmas time and spending time with

the family!! 

Pumpkin Carving Contest

Matt and his family have an annual halloween carving contest. They take it really pretty seriously (but not as seriously as the Gingerbread House contest). Here are some fun pics from the night. We lost to Matt's dad. Who had a pumpkin shape inspired design (its the one with the thong and tattoo).

Club

I screwed up on the club date! All friends please check the club blog! So sorry!!!

Conference Weekend

Matt and I had a wonderful conference weekend. It was really laid back and for once not totally busy. At the end of the morning session we decided to make crepes, which were AMAZING and we ate way too many of them! Our favorite ones are always with Nutella!

My mom and I had a girl’s night while the boys went to the priesthood session. We went to dinner and we seriously stood in line at rod works for 1 hour and 10 minutes, to get some killer deals, I have to add. They had a girl’s night out sale, and it was good!

On Sunday we went up to conference, for the second session. It was great to be there and feel the amazing spirit. My dad of course could not resist talking back to the protesters, thank goodness he was not mean, but if you know my dad, he could not keep his mouth shut.

My favorite thing about being up at conference was when the congregation sang with the choir, not only were we singing the same song, at the same time, in the same room with The Prophet, but it was so loud and just sounded like a choirs of angles!! We are thankful for the wonderful experience we had. We really had a great weekend.

Baby Victory!

Matt and I are the proud new Aunt and Uncle of baby Victory!! She is so adorable. He dad has been serving our country in Afghanistan, and arrived home last Thursday, his little girl waited for her dad and broke her mom's water Friday night, then came to us Saturday morning (after 15 hours of labor)! We are so happy her dad made it home and everything went well! She is such a cutie!

A Romanitc Anniversary!!

Well, I have to say my husband is absolutely AMAZING! He was in charge of planning our anniversary this year and he did a wonderful job. Our 4 year anniversary was on August 27, (I know this post is a little late). That was Labor day weekend, so I had school off on Monday. Matt told me that I needed to take off Tuesday and Wednesday for our "anniversary get away". I hesitated taking off school so early in the year, but he assured me that it would be worth it.

Saturday morning we set off for Italy!! (Totally worth it)! I could not even believe it!

Our trip started off with me insisting we washed the dogs before we left (because they would be very stinky when we got home), therefore causing us to be running a little late, causing Matt to speed and get a ticket, therefore causing us to miss our flight to Rome! Oops! Instead we ended up taking a flight into Venice and I am so glad! It was very romantic and just so beautiful! We were able to go on a gondola ride and see the magical city on the water! We then took a train down to Rome! Most of you probably don't know, but I teach ancient Rome for Social Studies, so Rome is somewhere I have really been dying to go. It was so neat to see the Coliseum and the old Roman forum. It was crazy to think about how old everything was and how many historical events had happened right where we were standing.

Just like our Paris trip I enjoyed the food again (the food in Europe is really amazing). I started every morning off with a chocolate filled croissant, ate Pizza at least one a day (heck, we were in Italy), amazing pasta on a steet ouside with candles listening to live music, and last but not least a lot of gelatos (even ones with nutella).

It was truly a dream come true! We had an amazing time! (We did miss our travel buddies, the Woolfords!)

Say Eight!

Happy Birthday Matty!! As part of Matt's Birthday presents, he got Brian Regan tickets!! Matt and Riley both LOVE Brian Regan. Kandas and I got the tickets, secretly, for the boys and surprised them at different times. We had so much fun. We laughed so hard. It was a great night.

Paris

Paris, Belguim, and Holland were amazing!! They were even better than I imagained. What beautiful places! Kandas gave a wonderful summary on her blog of everything that we did, so there is really no need for me to repeat it (thanks Kabes). I will just mention a few things. It was so much fun for Matt and me to eat with people from Sister and Elder Birch's missions and see what an impact they had on the over there. You can tell they really changed lives and are really loved. It was fun to experience there culture by eating with them and being in their homes. We would have never had that experience if we just traveled there on our own.


The trip started off great! It was fun to see New York again, I have never been before this summer, and now I have been there 2 times in 2 weeks, I felt a little spoiled. First Class was amazing!! Really amazing, I have had in on domestic flights, but it was nothing like this. It was really fun to watch our friends reactions, when they kept feeding us and waiting on us like royalty. We had such a great time though out the entire trip. We ran the entire time, living on an average of four hours of sleep a night. It was great to see some many beautiful places and meet so many great people. The food was also amazing!! Thanks to the food, I do have a few new "loves" in my life. They include: Nutella, Paul (which I will name one of my children after, it was that good, jk), Kinder, Fries, oh the fries, Pizza, Baguettes, and so much more. I tried to make a list in order of my favorites and I could not even do it.

I am not going to write anymore. When I get home from vacations, I just love to look at the pictures, I think they tell the story. Just watch the slide show and you will see all of our adventures. I would like to thank our travel buddies for the most amazing trip. Kandas thanks for organizing everything, leading us around, and just being the fun ,cute girl you are. Birchy thanks for the best fries in the world and for some of the funniest moments on the trip. Ri thanks for falling behind the crowd with me, therefore leaving plenty of opportunity to discuss Paul and all of the other yummy foods. Matty thank for being the best Hubby I could ever ask for and treating far better than I deserve. Thank you for working so hard to provide these experiences for me, and thanks for loving to fly, so the experiences are a lot cheaper. I love you Matt and I love you travel buddies. I would like to end with one final word "Charlie". It is a good story ask any of us about it.

P.S. Soldes rocked!!

Washington D.C.

When we were in New York we realized that Washington D.C. is really close, and it is a place we both really wanted to visit. We were regretting not planning our trip better. We could have done both when we were back there. We came home for a few days and thought, why not? We are young, no kids, this is a great time to do spur of the moment things. We flew back out to D.C. for two days. It was incredible. The history there is so neat.

Matt's favorite place (of course) was the Smithsonian, Air & Space Museum.

New York City!!

Summer started and I decided that we needed to begin vacationing. I have never been to New York and I decided that was just not right! I talked to Matt and we decided to take a quick trip to New York. It was a lot fun!
Brooklyn Bridge





The only thing Matt wanted to do in New York was go to the top of the Empire State building. I could believe how high we were.

Lady Liberty has a twin!!!

Two Tiffany's in One City!!


The one I am pointing to is the Tiffany's from Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Run, Matty Run!!

Party in Time Square!!

IT'S DAVID COOK!!!

Not really, it is my brother Nick. People keep telling him that he looks like David Cook, from American Idol. I can totally see it. These pictures don't really show how much he really does. Not only do they look alike, they have very similar mannerisms, it creeps me out a little. A little crazy!?!? Can you see it?

Matt Won!!! The stump is gone!

Matt finally got the stump out. It was a difficult little bugger! I must let you know why this was an extra difficult task. The nice, sweet lady that lived in our house before us (do you sense sarcasm, you should), decided to plant a tree on top of the power, gas, and phone lines. When the tree grew it roots wrapped all around the cords. If he was just to yank the stump out all of the lines and cords would go with it. Not the best plan. Matt used his muscles and dug that stump out. He worked so hard. Thanks babe!

The tree is WINNING!!!

Matt, Nick, my dad, and Matt's Grandpa cannot get the tree out!! It is totally winning, and the boys are not too happy about it! They get creative on trying to remove the stump.

What should we do?










Maybe..................










No, what if we...................










It is still there, still winning!!!

The YARD!!

Matt has been working so hard on the yard! He is really getting into it. Thank goodness for Grandpa and all of his toys! At our house in the last week we have had a backhoe three different times and a little, old, orange, tractor from the 50's, twice. My brother, Nick, has been a huge help, I guess he knows in a few years he will needing the favor returned. I took a few pictures because I thought that my working boys were rather adorable. We are still not done, so there will probably be a few more pictures as the process continues!

Grandpa, Dad, Matt, Kev (trouble, really!!)

"Hel-en-a" lot of fun!

Alright I know the title is a stretch but I tried to make it work. It is spring break this week and it is "crazy"!!!! Not really, it should be right, most 23 year olds would be partying in Florida or something! I did leave the state, I went flying with Matt on his trip. He was overnighting in Helena, Montana. For a capital city there was nothing there, I mean nothing. It was like the size of Salem, nothing against Salem, but it is not the capital of Utah! So the highlight of our trip was eating at this cute little grill and getting a basket of fries, I mean a basket, and I LOVE fries!! We also went and saw Leatherheads, which was pretty good. It was fun to just have nothing to do and hang out with each other!

My cute friends!!

Well, this is going to be a bit of a corny blog, but I wanted to tell all of my friends what cute moms they are. I have been hanging out with a few of them and watching them do the "mom" thing, and they are all such great little mommies. I am totally impressed. You can see how much they love their little ones when they look at them and talk about them. Well enough of me rambling on about this, but I am so happy for all of them and impressed on what naturally good and sweet mommies they are!!!

Cast your vote now!

So, inspired from some of Tiff's friends, I too, am looking for a new hair style. Tiff likes number 3 (because of the American Idol kid), but I vote for 4 (something about looking like 1000 volts just went through you seems interesting).

So Tiff has wanted me to post something on the blog for a while. So this is what she got. I think she was hoping for a little more content. But thats what happens when she doesn't give me enough direction.

Thanks Kandas and Whitnee for the inspiration for this post.