Thanksgiving 2008

All the great-grandkids at Grandma Taylor's house in Florida eating Thanksgiving dinner!


Great grandkids and Grandma-Anna Kate was not happy about this, and Pearson is trying to escape!

5 kids + 3 days = CHAOS! :-)

little monkeys!

double trouble!

Happy First Birthday Anna Kate!

Anna Kate with her two Papa's!

The family

She LOVED the icing!

Well, I know it's very late, but here are a few pictures from Anna Kate's birthday party. We had a great time celebrating her special day with family and friends. Aunt Linsey and cousin Caroline rode up with BG and Papa to be here for AK's special day. We had so much fun playing with everyone and Anna Kate was so sweet throughout the whole party!

Happy Halloween

The Taylor clan and the Dickson clan


Mickey and Minnie Mouse

Minnie

Mickey

Anna Kate's first Halloween at home-last year we were in the hospital on Halloween!

Fall Festival at Trace's School

hayride with daddy and classmates


bounce house (i think this was the hit of the festival-trace didn't want to get off of it!)

go fish!

bean bag toss

I'm a scarecrow!

Trace's preschool had a fall festival for all the classes on the Thursday before Halloween. Trace enjoyed hanging out with his classmates and playing the games, hayride, and bounce house. Daddy came along to

"The Beat"

Trace has long had an affection for a dancing skeleton that lives at Didi and Papa's house in Kingstree. Whenever we visit, he runs through the door and goes straight for the beat. We found a similar one at Walgreens the other day. Now, Anna Kate has also grown to love "the beat" as Trace likes to call it. Who would have thought that a dancing skeleton singing "livin' la vida loca" would be such a hit! Go figure!

And not to leave anyone out...

Anna Kate at 11 months!

Here's Anna Kate talking to her boyfriend, Ian!

Bye Bye Crib!

Trace waking up from his nap in his boat bed!


Trace's sailboat-themed room!
The toddler boad bed has been over in the corner of the room since his Didi and Papa gave it to him for his bday in March! Trace wasn't ready to let go of the crib yet, so we didn't push it. One day we were hanging pictures in his room, and Trace just out and said, "I wanna sleep in my boat bed." Gerrick and I went along with it, and last night (Oct. 8) he slept in his bed all night! Yeah Trace! This is a picture of Trace in the room before we moved the crib out. What a big boy!

Trace's first Carolina game of the 2008 season

Trace with Jax and Brayden

#1 (in our hearts at least!)

Touchdown Gamecocks!

Go Underdogs!

Trace with my dad

Touchdown Gamecocks!

By chance I just happened to catch this on camera! Perfect timing for the touchdown-too bad the camera ran out of memory and didn't get to see Trace continue to celebrate and cheer! So cute!

Getting ready for Summer Olympics 2020!

Trace is a regular acrobat-jumping and climbing on everything. He loves to jump off of daddy's chair, so lately we've been teaching him to stretch at the end of each jump. I guess you could call it his intro to gymnastics. However, when the video camera came out, all Trace wanted to do was jump then run over to watch it on the camera! So funny!

Our little gymnast-he finally learned the stretch after each trick!

Cocky!

Trace shaking hands with Cocky-still not wanting to get to close, though!

Anna Kate's first picture with Cocky (which I'm sure will be followed by many more!)

Trace was so excited when we ran into Cocky and the cheerleaders at Chick Fil A! Cocky kept going down to the road to wave at cars getting them to come in to Chick Fil A-so Trace kept wanting to go down there with him! He kept saying "I wanna wave at the cars by Cocky!" Needless to say, he didn't eat many nuggets due to all the distractions and had a major melt-down when it was time to leave! We're just glad he's not afraid of Cocky anymore...after a few minutes of warming up to him, he didn't want to leave his side!

Anna Kate's crawling!!!

crawling at 10 months

I'm a big girl now!

This is my preferred trick!

my "yoga pose" or tepee stance as we like to call it

New Discoveries and Muscadines...

Trace eating muscadine grapes for the first time!


Looks like he takes after his mommy. I love this time of year when muscadines are in season. I used to say when I was a little girl that "God gave me muscadines for my birthday because they are always in season in September!!!" I can make myself sick from eating so many! Trace really loved his first experience tasting them.

He is enjoying learning so much lately. He is so curious about the world around him and it is so fun to teach him new things each day. Today, it was learning how to squeeze open a muscadine by finding the "hole" (where the grape was attached to the vine). Yesterday, it was teaching him at the stop light about red means stop and green means go. Now, when we drive to a stop light he says "mommy you can go" or "mommy stop!!!" I'm really loving these days of feeding his curious mind!

Trace's first day of Preschool!!!

So proud to carry his backpack and lunch box that he helped mommy pack!!!


We've been talking about it for a few weeks now...Trace's first day of his "new school." We didn't want to confuse him with the school he went to last year, so I borrowed this idea from my friend Megan to call it "new school." I'm glad to say the first day was a success! I have to tell you that when I arrived to pick him up, all the other kids were sitting nicely listening to a story. What was my child doing you might ask??? Turning flips across the floor! Hopefully we'll get better throughout the course of the year!!!

End of Summer 2008

Trace helping Daddy lay sod!

Grad school friends...Lisa, Jana, and Megan...we had our annual grad school friend gathering and it was at our house this year. My how we have multiplied!!! 4 adults and 8 kids...whew!

trying to take this picture required patience...

I had to post this picture b/c it was the source of great frustration throughout the morning. Trace's John Deere train is every child's favorite toy that visits our house. It is hard for Trace to share as you can see, but this is good practice for him!!! Here Jack and Trace and deciding who's turn it is to ride!:-)

Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing...

Here are the third and fourth stanzas of this classic hymn:
(Be sure and read the story that follows.)

Come, Thou fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I'm fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love.

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I'm constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here's my heart, Lord take and seal it
Seal it for Thy courts above.


*This song was written by Robert Robinson in 1758. My pastor told the story this morning of how this man, after writing many hymns, fell away from God. One day he heard a lady humming the tune to this song. She was humming the fourth stanza: "Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love." When she asked him if he had heard the song, Robert Robinson broke into tears in telling her that he had written the words to this hymn.

Our pastor's message was to say that we should never feel that we are exempt from falling into a deep path of sin. We ALL must use the spiritual tools we are given to bind us against Satan's attacks.

Coincidentally, I heard the hymn again this afternoon on WMHK while driving in the car. It was by a contemporary christian artist...now after hearing the story in church, the song takes on a deeper, greater meaning to me.

107.5 "The Show" broadcasting from Taylor's Quality Landscape Supply!

We had so much fun tonight at Gerrick's business! He decided to get "The Show" broadcasted live from Taylor's. We had several friends come by and show their support as well as customers taking advantage of the discounts! Trace absolutely loved having all his friends stop by to play on the playsets!