Halloween

Here are a few pictures describing this year's Halloween.
We went to an old high school friend's Halloween party. They provided the costumes for everyone. Chris was Rambo Bunny, and I was...well, I'm not quite sure...I had a camouflage witch hat, a dragon tail (which you obviously can't see), and a couple scarves tied in random places. We got to do each other's makeup. Chris got a little excited about painting my face black!

Sam was a pioneer for Halloween. We bought this hat in Nauvoo back in May--now it's almost too small for his 85th percentile head!

Trick or Treat!

Happy Anniversary!

While I was on my mission, I made a list of characteristics that I needed in a future eternal companion based on my interactions and relationships with guys I dated and mission companions. Here is what I came up with:

• Returned missionary
• Strong testimony
• Temple worthy
• Optimistic
• Appreciates good music
• Doesn't get angry easily
• Listens when I talk
• Loves to laugh--good sense of humor
• Knows how to comfort me when I'm sad
• Expresses clearly his feelings
• Hard worker
• Confident
• Enjoys children
• Allows me to be myself

Three years ago tomorrow I was sealed in the temple for time and all eternity to my best friend--one who had every single characteristic and quality from my list. I snatched up the perfect guy for me who has made me so happy! Happy anniversary!

What I like about teaching junior high students

• They still enjoy coloring pictures.
• They still think cartoons are funny; they actually enjoy watching Beauty and the Beast in French and those silly Telefrancais videos I make them watch.
  
• They enjoy singing silly songs.
• They think it's funny when I act silly and goofy while telling them stories or acting out vocabulary.
• Many of them still want to please their teachers.
• They are beginning to discover who they are. I make sure to be so careful of what I say to my students because even the smallest things can really change their attitude about themselves and their abilities.
  
• They have a lot of crazy drama in their lives: I love to read their notes to friends that they leave on my floor. A lot of them use a lot of curse words, and my favorite part is that sometimes they don't even make sense in the context! I love that "going out" with someone doesn't really mean much and it changes weekly.
  
• They are dealing with a lot of changes in their lives. Puberty can be rough! And to add to that, many are dealing with their parents divorcing and new step-parents. I love the fact that when they enter my classroom, they can feel safe and secure and just enjoy learning.
  
• I love that because French is an elective, it isn't critical that they leave my class speaking French fluently(however, I do hope that they leave my class knowing how to say some things in French). My goal for them is that they leave my classroom with a broader understanding of the world around them and with a curiosity to explore and experience!
• I love that I can share my passion, give a smile and some extra attention to these fun kids whose lives are still so impressionable.
  

Oh, the joys of junior high!

Here are a few examples of what I experience everyday at work:

A boy from my advisory class: "Mrs. Taylor, what does a rectangle look like? Is it the one that looks like a box?"

Me: "Okay class, on section C you can write your answers in English."
A 9th grade girl: "So we have to write it all in French?"
A few members of the class and me: (frustrated sigh)

An 8th grade boy from French I:"Madame Taylor, can I move seats. The boy I sit next to smells bad."

The 15 Month Visit

Sam went to his 15 month visit today. Here are his stats:

Weight: 22 lbs (18th percentile)
Length: 30 1/4 inches (25th percentile)
Head Circumference: 48 1/4 cm (85th percentile)

We are so excited that he is no longer under the 5th percentile! Woot! Go Sam!

A few pictures

Future businessman

We're so glad when Lara comes home. Glad as glad can be!

Welcome home Sis Taylor!

I want to be like Hot Shauna

So I'm going to be a copycat too. I don't usually do things like this, but I thought I'd give it a try. For some of these I had to look back to old journals to see what I was doing. Here I go!

1. Ten years ago: I was a sophomore at BHS. Around this time I had just found out through a friend that a certain boy had a crush on me (I see my own students doing this now: "so-and-so likes you...do you like him? I'll go tell him you like him..." when the two people really involved don't even talk to each other! So funny!) We later went to the Halloween dance together. Another boy who would eventually become my husband was in my AP Euro class and on my ultimate frisbee team. Our team was the best!

2. Five years ago: I had just arrived in France beginning my mission. I was living in Strasbourg with my trainer working in the Schiltigheim ward. The work was slow, but it was there that I had some of my most spiritual experiences. My French wasn't very good, but was improving daily. We spent a lot of time in some neighborhoods we probably shouldn't have been in. I learned a lot of swear words by reading all the graffiti. Besides the low-income banlieu areas, the rest of Strasbourg and surrounding towns were so quaint and beautiful.

3. One year ago: Sam was just two months old and still so tiny. We were preparing to move from the Hadley's home to the Turpin's home. I was going to school full-time preparing for my student teaching. Looking back, I don't know how I survived going to school and taking care of Sam on so little sleep. Twice a week I had classes at the U starting at 7:30am, and I had to leave our house at 5:50 to catch the bus. I was still nursing Sam, so I had to leave about 45 mintues to feed him. Plus get myself ready. Plus get up with Sam at least twice a night before all that. Yikes! I'm sure glad he sleeps through the night now!

4. Yesterday: I tried watching a movie, but Sam pushed some buttons on the remote that messed up the TV, and I don't know how to fix it. We had to take our Jimmy in to get $100 worth of things fixed. Sam also got into one of the kitchen cupboards and found our little jar of old kitchen grease. He dumped it out onto our carpeted kitchen floor (who puts carpet in the kitchen?!). It was so stinky and gross it made me gag and want to throw up. I cleaned it up, but our kitchen still stinks! Anyway, Chris worked 4-11:30am at Great Harvest, and then again from 4-10pm at the Instacare. Oh, and I went to a baby shower for my visiting teaching companion. Oh, and I actually cooked dinner--a real dinner. Very unusual, but hopefully will happen more and more.

5. Five snacks I enjoy: Peach rings, cake batter, cookie dough (for some reason the raw stuff tastes better), French pastries, and ice cream (French vanilla is pretty tasty!)

6. Five things I would do if I suddenly had $100 million dollars: buy a house, set aside money for our kids' college education, buy lots of really cute clothes, travel the world while staying in the nicest hotels and eating at the nicest restaurants, and donate money to family, friends, the church and other charities.

7. Five places I would like to run away to: France, Switzerland, the six states I haven't been to yet, a nice tropical island with no bugs, Africa or China (I want to go to both Africa and China, but that was my fifth place, and I can't decide).

8. Five bad habits I have: using a tissue and then leaving them around the house, or using a tissue and then putting it in my pocket in case I need to wipe it again and then forgetting to take it out before I do the laundry (all the tissue bad habits drive Chris nuts! He thinks it's so gross. I tell him it's just like in the old days when people would carry around hankies in their pockets--he thinks that's gross too!), not liking to shower (I do shower, I just don't like to shower. I know some of you sisters know what I'm saying!), not being as tidy as I would like, nibbling here and there instead of sitting down to eat dinner, and not always exercising like I should.

9. Five things I like doing: being with Chris and Sam, teaching French, giving talks or lessons in church, going to office supply stores, eating yummy foods.

10. Five TV shows I like: The Office, The Simpsons, the news, Gilmore Girls, and any dumb reality show I get sucked into (they are my guilty pleasures).

11. Five things I hate doing: spending money, killing spiders, cooking dinner (I have to be in the right mood to enjoy it--problem is that I'm rarely in that mood), watching all my hair get thinner and thinner as it falls out, and being crafty (again, I have to be in the mood).

12. Five biggest joys at the moment: Spending quality time with Sam and Chris, watching Sam discover the world, getting to know more and more Sam's cute little personality, the 30 minute drive home from West Jordan as I listen to old General Conference talks, and teaching French and watching my students get excited about learning.

Another one bites the dust

Yep, we've killed another one. We have been fish-sitting the last six months or so for Chris' family while they remodel their house. It was just a beta fish, and I don't think anyone really cared about him. I don't even know if he had a name. In any case, we found him dead in his bowl this afternoon. Unlike poor Franklin, we know why the fish died--we often forgot to feed him. I guess we don't do well with living things; we killed a lot of the Hadley's house plants when we lived in Farmington, and we were unsuccessful with our garden. We really want a dog someday, and when that day comes, I promise that I will feed it and walk it and not kill it. Unlike many of the other things we've killed, I actually like dogs, and would take care of it--I promise!

My First Day of School

School started today, and it was pretty fun. I'm teaching French 1 & 2 to 8th and 9th graders at Joel P. Jensen Middle School in West Jordan. I teach three French classes, and one advisory period on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday (It's just 20 minutes of reading, helping students with their grades, and playing learning games). My biggest class has 34 students, and my smallest class has around 23 students. I know this was just my first day, and I know I'll have days when I won't feel this way, but I really love teaching! And doing this just part-time, I think, will be so nice! I only have to be there till 11:20ish. Anyway, as promised, here are a few pictures of my classroom.

I just got some more posters and stuff in the mail today, so more will be going up soon. One thing I don't like about my room, however, is that there are no windows. And it's hot. Oh, and one more: I have to use a Mac instead of a PC (sorry to all you Mac users, but I just don't like them!). I guess that's three things I don't like about my room. Oh well.

Anyway, so that's my classroom. I'm sure I'll have some fun junior high student stories to tell shortly!

In Memory of Franklin

As the title of this blog implies, our poor bird Franklin died sometime last night. We don't have any idea what could have caused his death. He seemed to be healthy and happy, but then again, I don't know too much about bird health. I was never too excited about having a pet bird, but Franklin in the short 2 1/2 weeks that we had him had started to grow on me. Every morning when Sam would wake up, we would go say hello to the bird. Sam loved Franklin (except when Franklin first discovered his voice and it scared Sam). Sam would waddle into the room and point at the bird cage with a huge grin. Last night I went in to look at him and he was looking so cute asleep on his little bar (no, he wasn't dead at that point--just sleeping). I was getting almost brave enough to overcome my phobia of birds and actually hold him, but in the end I never did. I'm actually very surprised at how sad I am at his death. In the words of a neighbor-boy, he was a good bird.

Announcing a new addition to the family

We were deciding on going out to eat between two places: Royal India (I love love love their spinach thing I always get) or Paradise Bakery (to which we had a gift card). If money weren't an issue, I would have chosen the former, but I figured that we should probably save our money and go to the bakery instead. The food was alright; I really don't like their soups too much, however, I do love their quiche.

After dinner, we decided to go check out Petco thinking that Sam might enjoy looking at the animals there. So we wondered around for awhile looking at the fish and the reptiles. We hoped their would be puppies, but there weren't any. Then we came to the birds. I don't mind them in cages, but I have this strange fear of them when the fly around; you never know where they're going to land. Anyway, the parakeets were surprisingly cheap, and I made the mistake of saying that I wouldn't mind a bird at that price. Chris got excited and somehow talked me into buying one. He said that Sam needed a pet, and parakeets are pretty easy to take care of.

So we have a new member of the Taylor family. His name is Franklin, and he is really pretty. It was a little scary transferring him from his box to his new cage. I think I scared Sam pretty well with all my screams and jerking around trying to run away from the little guy. Hopefully we'll all get used to each other and I'll get over my strange fear.

So after a free meal, a bird, a birdcage, food, and all the rest, I think it would have been cheaper in the end had we gone to Royal India for dinner.

You are all invited!

Hey everyone. Just a quick note to let you know that we will be celebrating Sam's birthday on Wednesday at 7:30 at our house. There will be cake and icecream. Come if you can!

For those of you who hadn't heard...

Just in case you hadn't all heard, I got a teaching job for next fall! I was starting to get really discouraged and stressed that I hadn't found anything yet. I even started looking at school districts in far away places. They say that teachers are in high demand in Utah, but I don't think they mean French teachers. So I will be teaching at Joel P. Jensen Middle School in West Jordan in the Jordan School District (8105 South 3200 West). It's just part-time for now, but really I think that's all I would've found anywhere at this point seeing that I'm only qualified to teach French. Since I'm just part-time, hopefully I'll be able to take whatever classes are needed in order to become endorsed in other areas. The administration seems really great and they sounded so excited that I accepted the job. I'm excited about it too!

Eeeeek!!

I've been trying to have a more healthy lifestyle. I try to be more active and eat good foods. Well, today, I exercised and then decided to eat some lunch. I pulled out my bag of salad, cut up some tomatoes and cucumbers. Only after I had eaten about three-fourths of my salad did I notice a little intruder: a dead bee! Ew! Yuck! Plegh! Gag! I wanted to throw-up! I know in some cultures eating insects is a delicacy, but not here! Not me! I had to throw the rest of my salad in the garbage. Who knows how many bug parts were unknowingly consumed! Yuck!

Once while we were shopping, we picked up a bag of salad and found an alive bee flying around inside the bag. If this is how it's going to be, maybe I won't be buying bagged salad anymore!

The 9 Month Visit

So we had the 9 month doctor visit yesterday. Here are the stats:

Weight: 15 lbs. 0 oz.
Length: 26 in.
Head circumference: 45 cm.

For his weight and his length he is under the 5th percentile and his head is in the 45th percentile (these percentages are still adjusted for him being born a little prematurely). The doctor said that he's growing and developing just fine, and she said that his gums on top are a little swollen. His third tooth should be coming soon.

Oh yeah, some other exciting news is that he finally figured out how to crawl foward! Last Wednesday it finally clicked! Now he's completely mobile!

Tired Baby = Free Food!

Last night we were at the Gateway getting new glasses for Chris (he's been going blind for over a year now...we thought it was about time to get some new ones). While we waited for them to finish, we headed over to Biaggi's to get some dinner. Neither of us had ever been there, so we thought we'd try it out. We ordered our food, and waited and waited. I didn't mind too much; I was just enjoying being together. By the time they brought our food out, Sam was getting really tired and fussy. So after just a couple bites of our food, we asked for boxes to take home. They felt really bad that it took so long, so they gave us our meal free! I'm glad we decided to order appetizers! We figured we got close to $30 worth of food. I was very impressed with them and will definitely go back again sometime.

My hard work is starting to pay off!

Chris has been so wonderful and supportive as I have worked on finishing college. He has worked so many long hours so many days of the week just so I could become a college graduate--a promiseI made to my mission president and to myself. It hasn't been easy; in fact, it feels like I have been running a marathon for the past bunch of years trying to get all my credits in. Throughout my entire pregnancy, I took a total of 47 credits. And then again with a wee baby keeping me sleep-deprived I somehow continued taking classes, and have even been able to successfully do my student-teaching. I've tried to think of my schooling like my job, even though I don't get paid. I have always hoped that somewhere down the road all my hard work would pay off. Well, because of my hard work and good grades, I was invited to submit a valedictory speech for the U's commencement ceremonies. I will find out in a few weeks if I am among the top ten finalists. How cool would that be to talk at my graduation?! And then today I just found out that I was selected to receive the Kennecott Scholarship which is a cash award of $2,500 from the U's Department of Teaching and Learning! I am so happy that I was blessed with the strength and endurance to finish school and that I am able to contribute in a small way to our family's finances. I applied for four other scholarships from which I am still waiting to hear back. Anyway, it's all very exciting and strange to be graduating. It's weird to be looking for an a real job. Hopefully the Mustangs will have me?? We'll see...

Crafting

The other day I went into Michael's craft store to buy some stuff for my classroom, and the scariest thing happened: I had the desire to craft! Yikes! I am so anti-crafting because for one, I'm not very cutesie, and two, it stresses me out to make so many decisions. But while I was in the store for those few minutes, all of my excuses went away, and I thought that it could actually be really fun to create something. Maybe when we have older kids and I'm not so busy with school I'll try to do crafty things with them. I think it's in my blood, but it's really hesitant to come out.

I Love Office Supply Stores!!

Can I just tell you how much I love going into office supply stores! I went into Office Max yesterday to buy some big envelopes, and wanted to buy the whole store. With so many boxes, binders, paper, dividers, tape, and other such organizational items, it gets me so excited to organize anything and everything. Lately, I've been thinking about creating a teaching portfolio, and it's silly how happy it makes me to think about putting it together in a new three-ring binder with colored divider tabs and plastic protector sheets...sigh. Maybe that will be my post-student teaching project in April.

He's getting so big!

So Sam has been hitting some major milestones the past couple weeks. At his last weight check, he weighed in at 14 lbs. 5 oz, if I remember right. He can wear some of his 6-9 month clothes; however, most of them still swamp him. February 12th he rolled over for the first time from his back to his belly. He is now mobile and rolls all over the place. Let the baby-proofing begin! He is eating a variety of veggies: peas, carrotts, squash, and soon sweat potatoes. And as of the beginning of this week, his first tooth has finally popped out! And it's sharp too, so everyone beware! What a fun age!