HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

It has been a fun week and we still have our ward trunk or treat tonight. The kids were really excited about carving pumpkins and we finally got them done. Matthew wanted an angry pumpkin and Taylor got a surprised pumpkin (thanks to Glen). Yesterday we went to our favorite trick or treating in Perrysburg. It has been so nice each year to go because it is during the day and just down both sides of one little street. I loved watching Taylor because she was so excited. Last year a friend took Matthew trick or treating because it was right after I got sick so this was Taylor's first real experience trick or treating. She ran and skipped the whole way doing her best to keep up with all of the big kids. She would run right up to the candy bowl or into the store and I could hear her say trick or treat very loudly. Every time she had to lift her candy in the air and say Mommy I got another one, or look Mommy, I got it! She would say that to me right after she got the candy and was usually not even looking at me and facing the wrong direction. She wouldn't stop saying it until she found me in the crowd and had me respond to her. Every piece of candy was just as exciting as the first one. Her bag was getting pretty heavy towards the end and I asked her if I could carry it for her. She said okay but made sure she got it right back to take to the next store. This picture describes her experience very well. She smiled the whole time! You can see how hard her little fingers are gripping her bag trying to keep it from dragging on the ground.

Some of the friends we went with

"I got it Mommy!!!!!"

Before we started we took a picture in front of the library; you can see Taylor already was eating her sucker that she got in the library.

With their friends Ikey and Zebby as Matthew and Taylor call them a lot of the time.

We dug out the pumpkins a few days ago but finally got around to making faces for them Friday morning before Glen left to Georgia. Glen once again is going to miss the ward trunk or treat. I am hoping we can go because Taylor has been coughing like crazy today. This girl has had a cough on and off for what feels like the last two months. It gets better and she can sleep and it gets bad again like right now I am listening to her trying to nap but she can't stop coughing. BLAH!!! Georgia weather sounds really nice right about now!! Hopefully Glen likes his interview their today.

We went to the zoo on Thursday with some friends and had some pretty scary but cute lions around us.

I am not sure what made this lion get sad but I think it is very cute.

Happy Halloween!!

He loves his Daddy!!

Glen just left for his second interview and Matthew bawled; he was so sad. When Glen got back from his two months away we thought we had him back.....we were wrong. 15 more interviews to go after the one today. It is going to be a busy next couple of months but it is all good. We are very happy that Glen has gotten as many interviews as he has and excited to see where we will be going for the next 5-6 years. It seems that all we talk about is different cities and programs and pros and cons of each. We spend a good amount of time booking flights, hotels, and rental cars. I find it quite fun though and I call myself Glen's secretary. He was a little worried about getting all his directions and information together for each interview and preparing for them individually as he has a few weeks with multiple interviews back to back almost. I said please let me do it. I really love to organize and do all that. I used to "play office" when I was young in my Dad's office. I would straighten up his papers and pretend to write notes and different things like that. I know we are being blessed to know what interviews to take and which place is best for us. Glen has also felt like he needed to cancel some of the interviews and I trust his judgement. It will all work out in the end.

TAYLOR'S FUNNY QUOTE OF THE DAY: As Matthew is crying on the floor in our kitchen after Glen left she said "It's okay Matthew, come with me, just relax Matthew, Daddy will be back in two minutes"

This interview isn't that bad at all though. It is in Buffalo New York so he is just driving. He came home for lunch and will be back tomorrow night. For his last interview in New Mexico he was gone 3 full days including Sunday. Good and crazy times!

So good

Here you go Tayna. Love this song!

Things have settled down here a little bit and I still love my children; I just wanted to make that clear after my last post. :) Glen and I both told each other how well they have been these last couple of days. After looking at the picture below how could you not just love these two. We had the most beautiful weather this weekend and it was nice to spend a lot of time outside. I have a video of Matthew and Taylor pretending to be airplanes or whatever they were doing in the picture below. I will try to put it up soon. It has been awhile since I put up any videos. We went to MacQueen's orchard on Saturday and mainly walked around. We let the kids go on a few rides and ate some doughnuts and apple cider or as Taylor says apple spider. She thinks it is pretty funny when she says that.

Matthew and Taylor really want me to let them sleep together. I really wish Taylor was old enough because it sounds so fun to let them camp out in their room in sleeping bags for the night. They still like to pretend and Matthew likes to get in Taylor's crib with her.

I just love this picture because I can just see the love on Matthew's face for his sister. He can be so sweet with her sometimes.

This picture was taken during General Conference. Matthew and Taylor had fun piling things of a certain color on their little trampoline. Here they were finding things the color pink. They went through a lot of colors which meant a lot of stuff all over the floor. It was great though and allowed us to catch some of conference.

Taylor really loves her dolls and I found here here the other day lining them all up on the stairs.

I have quite a few pictures of these kids at different ages jumping into our dirty clothes pile. I don't always have enough laundry to make a huge pile for them to jump into but most of the time I do.

A quick update on Glen: He leaves this Saturday for his first interview! He is busy studying for Step 2 and has a busy couple of months of interviewing ahead of him. We spend a lot of time talking about all of the different cities and programs and I am sure it will only increase as we get closer to making our rank list. January 24th couldn't come faster; I am really excited to know where we will be moving this coming June.

This afternoon/evening was one of those times when you are thinking, "two children is enough" or at the time two is two too many. I'll spare the details but lets just say it involved piles and piles of stuff, lots of poo everywhere, and valuables broken after being thrown down the stairs. Glen got home and after taking many of the kids toys out to garage I took off to do something. First stop Mcdonalds for a double cheeseburger (I know Mcdonalds?, I had a pounding headache and was starving and it is close) Then the next hour or so included listening to rap/hip hop music loudly in the car, going to the library and finding all sorts of fun books and movies for MYSELF, not the kids, getting the new pumpkin pie blizzard, and getting a little fresh fall air. That blizzard was AMAZING!!! I am now feeling much better. Onto a better day tomorrow with my two beautiful kids.

Happy Birthday Taylor Buggy!!!!

Last Sunday was Taylor's 2nd birthday and we had such a fun day or such a fun weekend really. Glen got back Friday night and we went to the zoo on Saturday. It was actually nice having late church on Sunday so we could spend Sunday morning playing with Taylor and opening presents. We sure love our Taylor buggy and can't imagine life without her. She is so sweet and cute and she brings such joy into our home. She is LOUD, strong willed, and a little bossy but so happy, silly and fun. I take for granted how well she can talk because she has been for such a long time but it is so fun to be able to have conversations with her. It also made it nice for Glen while he was gone because he could really talk to her on the phone and she loved it! Taylor loves Matthew even though they definitely have their moments (sometimes their days). They run around together just laughing and I find them in all sorts of places playing pretend.

Taylor did not want to sit in the stroller and kept saying "Dad, I want to sit on your head." She really was so cute with Glen and just did not want to leave him after he got home. Have I said 2 months was a long time?!?! He has been home for a week now and it is so nice having him back and just being home together.

Taylor really liked brushing these goats even though her face doesn't look like it in this picture. There were a few goats that ran away or got a little more aggressive if you tried to touch them and that scared Taylor a little. She kept going back to this goat and would say "this is a nice goat" (because the goat wouldn't move).

Taylor's presents and lots and lots of balloons awaited her in the morning. I added the pink converse just to be artsy I guess; they were not a present.

Taylor got a baby doll from us and Glen grabbed Taylor and told her that she was his baby; she thought that was pretty funny.

While I was in Idaho my Mom made some doll clothes for Taylor's doll and they turned out so cute and fit her doll perfectly. I will have to take a picture of all of them.

The doll is now called Molly and Taylor wants to sleep with her and take her in the car. So cute!

This picture just cracks me up with Taylor's crazy eyes and crooked smile and what is Matthew doing? A. yawning B. yelling C. trying to eat Taylor or D. about ready to sneeze??? I really don't know but Taylor doesn't seem to mind.

I look gross in this picture but I had to add one of Taylor's cake. It was my first time making a fondant cake and it was far from perfect. I tried to copy a picture but in our time crunch before church I was just happy it turned out okay. The colors were supposed to be a little different and I can't place polka dots very well but it was fun. Fondant is nasty though; we all picked it off except for Taylor. She kept asking for all the polka dots...blah!!! Happy Birthday baby girl; we love you!

We made it!!!!

We are all home now and it is so nice. Since I have been a horrible blogger I guess some of you wouldn't even know we left. Glen was gone all of August and September doing rotations in different cities for school (Madison Wisconsin and Kansas City Kansas). He came home for a day after three weeks of being gone. I spent 3 weeks in Malta visiting my family and Glen got back to Toledo on Friday night. I just kept saying I can't believe your really here. It is so fun to have him back....2 months was a long time. The kids were so excited when Glen walked into there room Saturday morning after they woke up. Taylor said DADDDDDYYYYY, very loudly and would not let go of him for a long time. Overall it went pretty good being alone but I sure was happy to be able to spend a few weeks with family. The kids had so much fun playing with cousins and I loved having people to talk with all day. We first visited my sister Jenny in Richfield Utah for a few days and then spent most of our time in Malta with my parents and also spent a lot of time over at my brothers house with my sister in law Tayna and all of their kids. We ended our trip by going to Boise for a Time Out for Women conference and got to see my brother Nolan and my his wife Ashley and their kids. It was such a fun trip but it is always so hard to leave. We were ready to go though because we were so excited to see Glen. I will post about our weekend and Taylor's birthday soon.

My Mom, Ashley's sister Raeanne, Ashley, and Tayna

My Dad telling the kids stories from his mission to Africa about all the animals. I remember him telling me these stories when I was little.
Matthew loves to cook and help. Here he is helping make bread.

A really fun playground in Burley

This was the first time I ever tried curling Taylor's hair

The kids helping my Mom pick up tumbleweeds all over their lawn

My Mom is amazing and came up with a really cute family night lesson so fast complete with props and a treasure hunt.

Taylor loves corn and ate a couple of them this night

Taylor helping to water the flowers. They really loved helping my Mom; all of her jobs were so much funner than the jobs you can do at our house.

My mom reading the kids a story before they went to bed. They both did so good sleeping there. Matthew slept in one day until 9!!! They are both back to waking up before 7 now that we are home.

My Mom and I found my snorkeling stuff and Glen is borroing my brother Jonathan's for a trip sometime next spring hopefully!! These two cute kids are not coming with us!!!!

These four kid spent a LOT of time together and we miss them a lot. They had a lot of fun.

We cooked hot dogs and roasted marshmallows a couple of times in the trees by my parents lawn. Matthew was in heaven and wanted to do it a lot. We also had pizza parties while watching the BYU football games a couple of times that Matthew thought was so fun too. Poor BYU

This was in Richfield while visiting my sister. We had a fun time shopping and were shocked by how well the kids did for hours. I was really shocked because Taylor is the worst shopper ever.

We were in this scrapbook store forever and luckily they had a toy area for the kids. The store had the cutest ribbon and I now have a lot of bows to make for Taylor.

We went swimming at a natural hot spring that they made into 3 nice pools that were all different tempuratures. It is in this little town called Almo about 30-40 mintues away from my parents house. Kids from here went to my school.

Christophe, Taylor, Jill, and Brandon

Such good cousins

We went kyaching at my parents house on the river and you can find some spots where it is really shallow to get out and walk around.

I thought it was funny that my Mom wanted a picture of us at the grocery store so i had to put this one on here. This fancy cart didn't cost money like it does at my grocery store in Toledo. Jill, Mom, Jenny

Taylor, Matthew, Savannah

I feel bad I didn't get pictures with all of the cousins or Nolan and Ashley. Getting to spend so much time with my family was great and I love it so much since we don't get to see them very often.