Dodger Dog

 Dodge was born June 26th at 7:41 in the morning, weighing 8lbs 1oz.  The surgery was fine though I get more scared each time.  The doctor informed me that my uterus had seen better days would needed to retire.  This was not shocking news but it has made me really want to enjoy every little newborn cry, moan, stretch, expression and satisfied sigh because I won't get to have it again. And I am loving it.  I love having babies.

 My mom brought the crew in later that day.  They have been waiting for this bay for so long.  We worry about Blake because yes, he is quite babied, and this will change-especially with Dodge being our last.  He seems ok with Dodge for now and is just waiting for him to start crawling because "babies do that".

 So that first night everything went from being fun and holding a cute baby to me breaking down crying and desperate for help.  Every time we have had a baby Ben will always go back home at night and I hand the baby over to the nurses to watch him while I sleep.  It's great.  I sleep undisturbed for four hours, wake to feed the baby and check my vitals, and then the nurse hauls the baby out again and I sink right back into a drug induced coma for another four hours.  I love it.  Well that did not happen this go around.  Ben was with me that night until I changed hospital rooms and then he headed home.  He had to work in the morning and this was our normal routine.  But this hospital didn't have a nursery.  Nor did the nurses watch your kid for you.  All that night I laid there wide awake from every moan, grunt, cry, cough, etc made from Dodge.  There was also a baby next door that cried and cried all night long.  And to top it off the surgery had left me with an incredible upper body pain that even the drugs were not helping.  It was awful.   Even when a nurse came in and I asked could someone please, please watch him for me so I could sleep they said they just didn't do that or have the manpower to do so.

 Finally I broke down and called Ben at 4:30 in the morning to come help.  He got up, got ready for work and then showed up to help.  I couldn't even lift the baby because my arms were in such pain and Ben came to my rescue.  I really feel blessed to have this baby and owe it all to Ben.  He does everything he can to make me happy even if that means adding another human being to our family when he wants to be finished.  Ben is the best.  That next day we made arrangements so that Ben could go to work and we would still have the kids being watched and another person at the hospital to help.

 Who do you call when you need someone to drop everything and just come hang out all day?  My dad.  He got in the car and ha and scotty showed up four hours later to take the kids so my mom could help me at the hospital.  Not only is he here to help babysit but he is also pressure washing my back deck so we can stain it and treat it.  Nice.  He has also pulled through for Blake and found him a Cars blanket, backpack, and 27 cars at the yard sales today.

 So our family is complete.  We came home from the hospital yesterday and have just been enjoying this little baby.  I hope that he stays little for a while because I want to really soak in this newborn stage.  Next week we have family coming in for the blessing.  I love how babies bring people together and also love that I can use it as an excuse for not cooking a huge meal when the family comes.  Someone else will get to cook the huge meal while I snuggle with my little Dodger dog.

Our Backyard

We finally bought a camera that I can take decent pictures with.  I haven't had much to photograph (I will come tomorrow morning!!) so I started with a few things around the house.  I love our house and the backyard was a huge selling point for me.  We have a back deck with this view:

I love the church steeple.  Ben loves the volcano. The other cool thing is that our back room is a wall of windows so we can sit on our couch and see this all day long.  I love it.

I also love the pool:

Ben did not want a pool but I insisted.  He has since come to enjoy it more especially when it is all pretty and blue during lunch time.  The first thing he did when we moved in was get a pool fence in place.  I really like the fence we picked out.

We also have a wrap around deck on the back of the house with planters here and there.  Unfortunately many of the trees that I liked when viewing the house have died due to the house being empty and getting no water for years.  Really sad.  We had to cut down 3 aspens and the maple tree never bloomed.  There is also this dead tree with vines all over it:

We could pull the tree out but I actually like it.  So the dead branch thing will stay and hopefully we can remove the maple tree and get something else planted there next year.  As for the dead branch though I have gotten a few cute pictures of the girls climbing the tree.

Our wrap around porch has been awesome this summer as the kids can ride their bikes, scooters, and flying turtle around for hours.  Blake got his very own gorilla suit today when my Mom showed up.  Never, ever thought I'd own a gorilla suit and that my kid would ride around in it but we do.  He loves it.  When he rides his bike it reminds of the circus bear on Madagascar 3 who happened to be the only plot line I liked from that movie.

Whenever I think about where we live I feel so lucky and am so glad that things all worked out.  I'm excited that this will be our home for years to come and my kids will grow up swimming in the back yard, riding around on the deck and hopefully in a few years our garden will actually have produce for the kids to pick. And I'm glad that we will bring home our newest little baby this our home and this will always be his home and one day he will dress up as a monkey and ride around.

PS-Mallory-Daisy's birthday is June 21st.  Funny how many of our birthdays match!!

Almost Done

Not much has been going on at our house but I realized it had been a while since I updated.  Part of that is because my only camera is the one on my phone which takes lame pictures so I don't have many pictures worth putting up.

I'm about done trying to improve my yard.  I feel like the scriptures when the Lord of the vineyard has pruned, and dung and tried everything he could to produce good fruit and yet it all came to nothing.  I have weeded, planted, and worked to have very little come up from it.  It's a bit sad but it's also our first year and we are learning how to garden right and also realizing our yard has been neglected for so long that it will take even more work and manure to make it produce the way I want it to.  I do have green beans growing, a few watermelon plants made it, and we get a few strawberries here and there.  I bought a flag at a yard sale and love it.  Everyone should fly a flag.  It's so nice.  

I have had a few things come from my yard.

My kids have been loving the pool.  I love the pool.  It looks so pretty and the kids had a great laugh when I tried to jump into a tube but fell right over even though I was trying to not get my hair wet.  Blake likes to jump in, Daisy is fine if she never swims, Kaylee takes to the water like a fish and Heidi wears a cap even when she is swimming for fun (nerd).

We also got a kitty.  Ben saw something running outside across our deck and so the next day we called an exterminator and my sister to bring us a cat.  Her name is Pebbles and we love having her.  Kittens are just fun.  She is technically Kaylee's cat and the kids have completely taken care of her.  I haven't had to feed or water her once.

This summer we are also going TV free.  No TV, no Wii, no movies and for the most part no computer.  I let Heidi and Kaylee work on the computer when the kids are taking their naps but other than that no TV.  I LOVE IT!! They don't ask all day long to watch something.  They don't fight or cry if they didn't get to pick the movie. They aren't arguing over who gets to play Mariokart.  And if they do ask and I say "we aren't watching TV" they don't cry about it.  It's been wonderful.  Instead of watching TV they played school, had a doll sleep over, tied each other up to play prison, read books, played Barbies while listening to classical music (their choice), made up a new game on their bikes, swam, and pretty much have been kids.  I am loving it.

Our Father's Day was pretty relaxing.  We made him a craft (once again another phenomenon that happens when we don't watch TV). We put pictures on jumbo popsicle sticks and then cut them so it is like puzzles.  They kids thought it was hilarious and picked funny pictures. 

And last but not least I am almost done.  39 weeks.  By this time next week we will officially have five kids.  It has been a long, long pregnancy.  My surgery is scheduled for Wednesday morning at 7:30 on the 26th. We are naming him Dodge.  Dodge Hancock Taylor.  I'm excited to see what he looks like.  I'm excited to have a baby again.  I'm excited to get my body back and start running again.  

So that's what we have been up to.  It is a busy summer for us but I love my life.

On a lighter note

Yesterday Kaylee had to give a talk in primary. It was her day to shine and she did!  I'm not sure if this is just a part of Kaylee waiting to come out or if she was so good yesterday because Heidi was sick and whiney but either way she was fun at church.  She wrote the talk all by herself and wouldn't let me see it.  She didn't end up reading her whole talk but it is really cute to read.  I think she may have inherited my dad's panache for spelling.

There is a number im awiting to turn.  The number is eight!  The number is eight becuse I will be bathtised!  When you are bathtised you go all the way under water.  But you cant just jump into a pool. You have to get bathtised in the church with Jeses.  A randumb persen cant just do it for you.  A persen with the Melchezedik preasthood hast to do it for you.  When you get bathtised you haved to go all the way under orelse you haved to do it again.  Of if they say the bathtisable blessing rong you haved to say it over.

My favorite lines were the 'randumb' person and jumping into a pool.  She also was brave and bore her testimony IN SACRAMENT MEETING!!  If you know us Taylors you would know this is a big deal.  Ben does not ever, ever voluntarily go up and bear his testimony.  Something he inherited from his grandma who didn't bear her testimony until she was close to 80.  I figured I had a family that just wouldn't ever get up there but Kaylee went all by herself.  I didn't even have to suggest it or go up with her (no way I'm doing that-if they can't do it alone they aren't doing it).  She waited her turn and was so brave.  I was pretty impressed with her yesterday.

Here's a rant

I've about had it today.  Not with with my kids, or husband or the weather or even the pregnancy.  I've had it with OLD people.  Seriously.  I've had so many old people related runs in today.  It started at 8:30 this morning when I was at Walmart (I know, my first mistake).  There were these two older ladies shopping together but they were both driving the electric shopping carts together, down the same aisle, side by side.  Nobody could get around them!  And so I would go down the aisle, get what I need, turn around and go back out the way I came and go to the next aisle only to be met with them again.  I even tried skipping a few aisles to throw them off but oh no.  There they were.  Beep, beep, beep, beep in reverse.  I was nice though.  I smiled and decided just to get the heck out of Walmart.
Then I go to check out and sure enough, classic Walmart style there are only two open lanes, four carts backed up at each one, and the checkers are at least 70.  I feel bad for these employees.  I do.  I hold Walmart accountable for ruining the economy and forcing these people who should be at home watching the Price is Right are instead having to pull the early shift on a Saturday.  So a new check out opens.  It is Bob.  I'm going to 75-80 on his age.  And I go in first.  A line quickly forms behind me and I am in front of a chubbier lady of about 65-70.  Well I realize that, 'Oh crud I got the wrong thing!'  I tell Bob I will be right back and I run, RUN, 9 months pregnant run, to the back of the store and get what I need and race back.  Turns out that whole time I was gone Bob was just waiting for me to return and did not continue checking of to which the old lady behind me had scoffed and said "Oh Great!"  Now in this instance I figure it was just my karma working against me.  I had been annoyed at the old ladies and now and old lady was annoyed with me.  I deserved it.  I wasn't vocal about my annoyance so maybe that lady shouldn't have been but either way I felt it was somewhat my just desserts.
This is all by 9:00 in the morning and I've had three run-ins.
Well I didn't head back out into the geriatric world that is Medford, Oregon until 1:00.  We had a soccer game, then brought Ben his lunch at work, and then we had to do some shopping.  I had to go by myself with all my kids in the heat of the afternoon.  We went to Lowes.  No real problem there except that it was Lowes and I never feel like I can find what I need there.  But Lowes was next to Costco and we all wanted a Costco ice cream.
My kids and I head over to Costco, only buy bread and iceberg lettuce.  When looking for a line they are outrageously long and this old couple in front of us blocked the whole pathway to the checkouts while they tried to figure out the best line to get in.  Once again and another old couple holding me up but I didn't care.  They were really old and I actually thought that they were what Ben and I would look  like one day when we would try to shop at Costco on a Saturday and can't move quickly.  We buy our stuff, eat our ice cream and by this point I'm pretty pleased with my kids for being so good after sitting in the hot sun all afternoon and not having naps.  We head out to the car which is parked in Timbuktu.  Heidi is carrying the lettuce, Kaylee is carrying the bread and I am holding both Daisy and Blake by the hand.  I'm in front with the kids trailing behind.  At this point Kaylee asked if we could listen to Disney songs on the way home and try to guess them.  I agreed and Daisy began to ask me what song was it that says, 'a place I never knew' and I figure out it is Aladdin, sing a bit, Daisy starts singing with me.  Cute, right?  I thought so and from behind I see this car pulling up and the lady has her window down.  She was saying something to me but I didn't understand right at first so I assume that she must be coming up to say how cute Daisy was singing Disney in the parking lot with me because I really did think we were that cute in that moment that everyone else must have seen it too.  Once again pride goes before the fall because I realize she is NOT telling me I have cute kids but is yelling at me to get my kids out of the middle of the road so she can drive by!!  Seriously?!?!?!  I look behind and Kaylee and Heidi are as close to the cars as they could get and I'm as close to the cars as I could get so we weren't in the middle.  She was driving a boat of a car, at a Costco on a Saturday and is yelling at me because I have two small kids whose hands I'm holding to keep them from running in the middle of the road!!  Man I am done with old people.  I wanted to tell her what I really thought but in the back of my head I always have to be polite on the off chance that the person may be a potential patient of Ben's and you don't want them thinking their Optometrist has a rude wife and quit going to them.  So I said sorry, then said grouch when I knew she was out of earshot, and then when it was time to cross over to the further parking lot section with all my kids in front of that same lady's car I told the kids to take their time :)  I hope she gets her karma later today and has something happen to where she feels slightly stupid and hopefully will realize it was because she was so rude to big, fat, pregnant lady who was doing her best.
Not all old people are bad.  Ben's grandma is one of the nicest people you will ever meet.  She may not always use the politically correct labels for ethnic groups but that only makes you like her more!  All in all I am done with old people today.  I'm not heading out to anymore shopping places until after 8:00 when they, and my kids, will be in bed.

PS-while typing this Kaylee asked if I was really going to send it to anyone and said I better not put it on facebook because that old lady may see it and call the police on me.  I don't know what's worse.  That she believes old people are that mean now or that she knows it's not a new thing for someone to call the cops on me.