Merry Christmas!

All was quiet and peaceful around here . . .











. . . until Christmas morning! The animal children were seriously really excited this morning. It was so funny. Big Spike was trying to open everyone's presents, and he was especially excited about his own.







The animal children pooled all of their money and bought us a hand-held carpet cleaner so we can clean up all of their messes!





Greg's and my main present to each other was going to the World Series back in October, but Santa still brought us some nice things. Here I am with my awesome Jimmer Fredette signed basketball card.



And here is Greg with one of his presents--a t-shirt to wear when he is playing Call of Duty on the xbox. We also received some really nice money and presents from our parents and family--thank you everyone!!!



As you can see, opening presents (and chasing wrapping paper balls around the house) wore everyone out! It was nice that Christmas was on a Sunday so that we could go to church this afternoon and remember the real reason for the season. It has been a Merry Christmas here, and we hope it has been for all of you as well!

Christmas Eve Nostalgia

Today I have been feeling very nostalgic about Christmas when I was younger. I suppose it's because I especially miss my family a lot at this time of year. I found this fun picture of one of the famous Taylor family Christmas pageants. It looks like Dad is Joseph, I'm Mary, Sarah and our friend Virpi from Finland were wisemen, and our friend Tanja, also from Finland, was the shepherd. We did this pageant each Christmas Eve for many years. Other favorite Christmas Eve traditions included going for drives to see Christmas lights, telling stories and drinking hot chocolate, and setting out cookies and a note for Santa. Christmas morning was always very exciting. Sarah and I were usually the first to wake up. We would run to the kitchen to see if Santa had eaten his cookies and left a note for us. Then we would wake Mom and Dad up. Dad would then go downstairs to wake Lindy and Richard up, and to make sure that Santa had indeed made his stop at our house. Then we would all line up at the top of the stairs, and Dad would lead the way down to the family room where we would open presents. I remember always being so excited about the gifts that I gave and received, but it's funny--I don't remember what most of those gifts were. I do remember so many things about our fun Christmas traditions and all of the things we did together as a family. While it was the gifts that made Christmas exciting, it was being together as a family that made Christmas memorable. I love and miss all of you! Merry Christmas!

Happy Birthday, Sid!

I'm sorry to be a day late with this post, but yesterday was my sweet niece Sidney's birthday--Happy Birthday, Sid! This cute picture of Sid is from our family trip to Nauvoo in 2008. She has always been such a cute little girl! I remember the day she was born--she came a little early, and she was so tiny. But she is growing up fast! When I was home in Utah last December, I got to attend Sid's party because my airplane was delayed by a snowstorm--that's one time I didn't mind being delayed. I hope she had a great gingerbread party yesterday and that this is a wonderful year ahead!

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Today is Mom's Birthday! I wish I could be there to celebrate with her and Dad, but I suppose it's best that I'm not, since I have a cold. I have the BEST mom in the whole world! She is a really great person and has taught me so much. She and I have also had some REALLY fun adventures together! In fact, I think it would be hard to find two people who have had more fun than Mom and me :-) And I bet that Mom's favorite birthday present is having Dad home from the hospital! His surgery went well; although he didn't feel very well after it was all over. Hopefully he can recover very quickly. They ended up having to remove part of his intestine, but we'll pray that it will heal quickly. So I hope that Dad gets feeling better and Mom has a Happy Birthday! I love you both very much!!

The Latest News

Well, there have been some pretty big things in the news for the last couple of days. First of all, Rod Blagojevich was sentenced to 14 years in prison for all of the illegal stuff he did while he was governor! It's nice to finally see some justice. I was looking back at my blog posts from 2008 when they were going to close the state historic sites. I was SO upset about everything. One thing I said was, "I hope that someday Governor Blagojevich has to answer to Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln, and a whole bunch of other people for his actions." It's nice to finally see him have to answer for what he did as governor.

And, today we received the sad news that our favorite baseball player, Albert Pujols, will be leaving the St. Louis Cardinals and heading to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. I feel kind of like I did when Karl Malone left the Utah Jazz for the Los Angeles Lakers--funny that Los Angeles is always involved. Oh well, they offered him more money for a longer period of time than anyone else. But really, I don't think he's hurting for money! But anyway, I've always kind of liked the Angels because their AAA team is the Salt Lake Bees, and the Orem Owlz are also an affiliate of the Angels. At least he didn't go to some team like the New York Yankees or the Milwaukee Brewers! But it will be a big loss for the Cardinals. At least we still have David Freese!

Unfortunately my dad has to have more surgery tomorrow :-( He's been having digestive problems for a while now, so they're going to go in and see if they can find and fix the problem. Hopefully the surgery will help him be able to eat without getting sick! Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers tomorrow. I think he's getting pretty tired of having surgeries.