So I had a little issue uploading our christmas card to blogger so this is just the picture and text without all the fancy shmancy stuff. But you get the idea. Anyway, I haven't posted in forever and have lots to catch up on but I wanted to post this up to let you all know we are still alive and well and enjoying this holiday season. We hope you all are enjoying it as well! Merry Christmas to all and a Happy New Year too!

May your holidays be brighter than his!

This past year has brought many miracles into our lives and we are truly grateful to our Savior for the blessings we have received. Here is a little update on what we’ve been up to:

Aaron graduated from BYU this last August and hopes to be licensed as a family therapist in the near future. Currently he continues to work for Cyprus Credit Union where he’s been for the past Nine years. In our ward he’s been called to serve in the Bishopric which has been a challenging and rewarding opportunity.
Krista continues to work once a week at the BYU Salt Lake Center and really enjoys it. It’s nice to have people to converse with besides an 18 month old who is constantly jabbering, often incoherently. She was recently called to serve in the Young Women’s presidency in the ward and continues to serve as primary pianist as well. We both really love our ward and are grateful for the opportunities to serve.
Casen turned One this year in June, started walking in August and can say quite a few words and a few phrases. He’s currently obsessed with planes, balls, and gogs (dogs) and has become quite the helper. He loves to help me vacuum, put away laundry, set the table and help us say prayers. It has been so fun to watch him grow and develop. He makes me laugh on a daily basis and I’m glad to have him as my full-time buddy.

We hope things have been well for you and your families. Have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Love,
The Taylors

Aaron's Graduation

So this is a little late but I figured better late than never. It's such great news that I couldn't not post it! Aaron graduated August 12, 2011 from BYU with a Bachelor's in Family Science. It was a great day!! He wasn't actually planning to walk but I really wanted him to and I'm glad he did because it was fun to see and a great way to celebrate the end of his schooling- so far. Eventually he will go on to get his Master's degree but we are taking a bit of a break from school for him. (YAY!) I apologize for the poor quality of the photos and video. My camera was having issues focusing so some of the pics are kinda blurry.

With Aaron's parents
With my parentsFREEDOM!!!!!!!!!!

I just have to put a little personal note in here to tell my hubby how proud I am of him. The last 2 years he has been in school consistently without much of a break. I can't imagine the effort and diligence it must take to be in school full time and work full time not to mention a church calling and family life all to juggle. You've done a great job and I am so happy for you to be done with this degree!! Thanks for all your hard work. Casen and I are so grateful for the sacrifices you have made for our family. We love you!

Labor Day Weekend

We didn't have anything big planned for Labor Day weekend and then Casen got sick on Saturday so we figured we would just hang out around the house. But surprisingly by Monday he seemed to be feeling much better and Aaron's dad has a season pass to the Hogle Zoo so we decided to go with him and our nephews. Casen was pretty fascinated by the animals. He "ooohed" a lot which is his "wow that's so cool" sound he makes when he really likes something. Our camera died halfway through so I'll post what pics we did get.

Momma and baby elephant. They were really fun to watch!The closest thing we could get to Casen smiling. All three boys. I love the different expressions and the fact that Casen isn't even looking. But at least we got them all together.Bald EagleAaron the serious speedster
Us with the giraffesThanks for a great day at the zoo Grandpa Taylor!!

So on saturday I was lucky enough to be able to go see Aaron (and Casen) participate in a 5k run set up in memory of a girl Aaron used to work with who was killed in a car crash about a year ago. Casen rode in the stroller so I guess you could say he completed his first 5k at 15 months! What an athletic child we have on our hands! Here is his excitement before the race

Here are some pics of the guys warming up for the runAnd then at the last second I decided to join them and as an added bonus I lived through it! I've never liked running or even jogging for that matter and all my experiences with it have been horrible but this has inspired me to think that maybe, perhaps, sometime in the future I could run a 5k. We mostly speed walked this one, but we did run a few times and I was able to get to a point in my running where I thought, wow, if running felt like this all the time I could see how people would want to do it. So it was a good experience. And then at the end they handed out free frozen yogurt from tcby. Yeah, weird that they handed out yogurt after a run....but I definitely wasn't complaining. So here's our first ever finished family 5k picture!!

fun stuff from the summer

Casen and I went to the Gateway fountain and he LOVED the water. He was so sad when we had to go. Although you can’t tell from this picture, he really did have fun. And he got a balloon, which he loved. He is obsessed with balloons!Sharing chili with mom
And dad...
and you!

He was on couch arrest this day:


First Haircut...finally! Before:
After:

Please note the uber long hair in the front. We could never spike it cuz it was so long. I love his hair now but the hair cut definitely makes him look older. As you can see in the pic below:

thoughts and trains and stuff...okay just train of thoughts

So I have other things to post about but those are sitting on my computer at home and I am at work so I'll post this now and those things later. I just was sitting here thinking about the beauty of books on cd and how I just put a few on hold at the library today and how great it will be to have those to listen to as I'm cleaning and such at home. For some reason it's really hard for me to always be motivated to do my "chores" and not just sit down and play with Casen all day. Weird, I know. So lately I've been listening to talks, music, or dare I confess, watching movies on the laptop (Don't tell Aaron, he thinks I'm not that lazy). haha just kidding. he already knows. Anyway this whole train of thought got me to thinking about how we are moving so I was picturing all my cleaning being done in our new apt. And THEN I pictured myself doing laundry in our new apt. because I will be doing it IN our new apt. Yes, I said IN meaning that we are now the proud owners of our very own washer and dryer which by the way, we paid cash for!!! YAHOO!!! This is a slight step up from our current washer/dryer situation because we have them here at the apt. but they are upstairs and across the back porch in a separate room which I'm still extremely grateful to have. But I'm more grateful that they are in our apt. Ask me later if I feel that way because I have a feeling I won't love the noise. But right now I'm lovin' the idea. Our other piece of excitement is that we also paid cash for a portable dishwasher because this new place doesn't have one. After we decided we already wanted the apt. Aaron reminded me that this place doesn't have one and I pretty much wanted to cry. I realize that people get by without dishwashers and we actually didn't have one in our first apt. But that's why I wanted to cry when I thought about us not having one because I know what it's like for us: we struggle keeping up on them regularly so I ended up spending hours a day making up for it. This was before we had Casen. I just couldn't wrap my mind around the idea of keeping up on dishes and Casen. (Secretly I'm sure it's possible and you do what you've got to do but I'm glad I don't have to do that). So we will have a dishwasher, with a counter top that doesn't look ghetto! :) Anyway, that was my train of thought as I was sitting at work today...

Camping

This last weekend we went camping for the first time as a family with our ward. It was really fun! I would love to do it again. Although it's much more work when you do it on your own. We didn't have to bring any of the food except a dish to share so it was an easy trip for us! Casen was in absolute heaven with the dirt and rocks and since we just let him explore he came back to us pretty dirty. Here are some pics of the evidence:







Apparently he would have been just fine sleeping under the stars instead of our tent



And here's our family pic--evidence that we did go camping!

This little post is part of a long post I'm working on getting to you. But since blogger is being so freakin' stupid I'll be posting it later.