Tales from the Taylors: December

December always starts of with the 4Life Christmas party. The first week of December the General Managers from all over the world come to Salt Lake to strategize for the upcoming year. I love being able to see GM's that we have become friends with over the years.

Manoj from India

We normally sit with Debbie and Norman but this year they were in Puerto Rico. Unfortunately no on else sat with us. Daniel and I had the whole table to ourselves. The good thing is we could eat all the other plates of food and we also got to take home the center piece!

The 4Life spouse/guest gift

Daniel got a hat like this and a Patagonia Nano Puff jacket

She was so proud of herself for decorating her tree

He's now able to feed himself with a spoon!! He's growing up...

More soap bubbles-she really really likes this activity and I do too! It keeps her entertained for quite awhile.

Nursery Picture

The first Sunday after the GM's have gone home we watch Disney's A Christmas Carol and snuggle in our Christmas quilt.

We eat some popcorn too!

This little boy looked so handsome that day at church

Our neighborhood does a charity drive rather than gifts for each other. We meet at Brooke Franco's house to eat treats and drink hot chocolate. We donate gift cards for families in our neighborhood that are in need. We decided to all wear the hats Daniel brought us from Peru

This little one dropped her hot chocolate 2 times!! But she sure looked cute

To get outside and still stay somewhat warm, V and I sat in the back of the van and just chatted and watched the flocks of birds fly from tree to tree.

Preschool Gingerbread man

When you don't have a coat yet for your little boy, he gets to wear his sister's old coat.

He was thrilled to be able to walk outside on the crunchy grass. The last time he was outside he stayed on the patio and before that he was a crawler. So he loved running all over the backyard.

These two love dropping rocks down into the window well

He was pretty happy to have the beanie on his head

Our Annual Book Club Christmas party. Rather than exchange books we decided to exchange a favorite item of ours that was close to $10.

We decided we needed a picture of all the favorite things so we could remember all the cool things that were our favorites. So even if we didn't go home with that item, we had ideas for other gifts.

The babbling book club 2015

Aly, Aubrey, Kelli, Kathleen, Mauri (due Jan. 26th)

Me, Clarissa

We were missing Natalie Prestwich and Tiffany Tucker-both home with newborn girls

Variah spilled her Raspberry Cream Soda on the counter

We didn't have anymore so I told her to slurp it up. HAHA

We were lucky and got to visit the Beauty and the Beast dr. room for Everett's 15 month check up

It was chilly in the room and he wanted to be moving so I made Everett a toga out of his car seat blanket

Second Sunday dinner at the Taylor's house. The day before was the Taylor christmas party. Everett and I weren't able to go because Everett was diagnosed with Bronchitis the day before at his dr. appointment. He was put on some antibiotics after his appointment so we were able to go to the dinner since he wasn't contagious after 24 hrs on the medicine. We were sad that we missed the party at Spencer and Tiffany's house. Daniel said it was a lot of fun. We got some nice gifts from Debbie and Norman.

It snowed a ton on the 14th of December

We were able to build a snowman with all of the snow and Variah decided to name him Harold

She pretended to take pictures of him and then she would walk up to him and show him the pictures that she had taken. It was so cute. One of the times she was about to take a picture but then she paused and said, "oh, you have to go potty? okay, I'll wait" haha my little Variah!

She was a bit upset he didn't have arms, so I got some branches from my neighbor's tree. I realized my mistake when I put the branches in and she pretended to dance with him. Of course! How could I over look that?!

I found a recipe for cinnamon caramels! I dipped some of them in chocolate and they were fantastic!

We had rice for dinner and Everett got one stuck on his nose. It made us laugh to see it dangling from his nose.

While I was folding laundry Everett put Variah's skirt on his head and was walking around. He thought he was pretty funny!

Harold got lower and lower to the ground each day

He got super close to the ground and then one final day he toppled over

He can sign "more" "milk" "banana" "food" and "water"

Variah and her friend Sam Hall. Sam's sister had a seizure and I happened to be by his house when the ambulance and firetruck got there. I was able to pick up Sam so his mom could take his sister to the hospital and get her checked out. We got to play with Sam all day long. Variah had such a fun time with him at our house.

Supposedly Sam calls her "my Variah" and makes his dad include her in all their bedtime stories!

As part of the 4Life Christmas gift Daniel was given 2 tickets to a private showing of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Since Norman works there too, he was given 2 tickets for him and Camille. He also was given 2 more for Ashley and Tyson. The seats were assigned but the people who assigned the seats put us all together. It was awesome. Daniel really liked it because he was able to eat our popcorn AND Ashley's popcorn. Silly boy! The movie was fantastic and totally reminded me of the Star Wars movies I grew up watching.

I always love the Sunday before Christmas for the Christmas song program during Sacrament Meeting and the Christmas outfits. These two looked so darn cute in their outfits! Everett kept wanting to run away, so I had them hold hands and I'm so glad I did because it looked so cute.

My beautiful Variah

For every one serious cute smile I usually get 10 silly faces....

She just cracks me up with that personality of hers!!!

This boy is just the cutest ever!

This is his innocent face

In order to get the kids to smile Daniel makes some silly noises

So the best about these next few pictures is little Variah's facial expressions-again one cute smile for every 10 silly expressions (I didn't include all of them)