Elsie Mae Taylor

Elsie was born April 13, 2015.

 I cant believe she is almost 1 and i haven't written about her. More to come!

Did you miss me??

We moved back to Idaho at the end of April and we love being back! I thought it was time to get everyone up to date on our little family! Let me start from the beginning and give a brief overview of the last 3 years!

In November of 2011 Josh quit his job with Edge Excavation in Logan, Utah and moved up to North Dakota. My dad moved up at the same time. The original job they were doing was driving the same truck just opposite shifts. They would drive the truck 24/7. Because housing was so hard to come by and it was really expensive to live we bought an RV to live in. So when they were off they would go sleep in the RV. That job fell through the owner of the truck didn't have all his paper work in line so my dad and Josh were left to find another job. Josh found a job driving truck with Nabors Well Service and my did found a job in Sydney, MT. Josh got the RV parked in Dickinson, ND. So the beginning of February me and the kids drove up by ourselves. I was 6 months pregnant with Ridge. My mom was scared for us and thought we were crazy to drive 800 miles by ourselves. We lived in our RV in Dickinson, ND for 2 Years. 

By this time were so ready to be out of the RV but housing was way to expensive. (Like $2,500.00 rent for a 3 bedroom house or apartment a month) that was not going to happen. Josh got a job offer from Mitchells. Another trucking company. He would be doing the same thing, making the same amount but would be moving to a town that was farther out of the oil field so it was cheaper. so we moved to Glendive, MT, and found a house right away! It was nice to be in a house. The town was not awesome but we loved the poeple there and we were 100 miles closer to my parents! We lived there for a year but the hours at this job were super crazy and he worked a lot of Sundays. 

We needed a change for our family so we moved back to North Dakota.  We lived in a farm house about 10 miles outside of Dickinson. For some reason this was a hard move for me. I liked Josh's job and hours better but I didn't like the farm house we were in.
In March we sold our little home in Weston, Idaho. Josh and I came down to sign papers. While we were here Josh decided it was time to come back to Idaho. He talked to his old boss here and and he told him they were swamped with work and could hire him back as soon as he could move down. The only problem was I was due to have a baby in 2 weeks and it was not enough time to move in. so we had our baby ( that will have its own post) and moved a week later.
So we live in Idaho now and we love it!! It was kind of crazy to end our North Dakota adventure so suddenly but we love being back!
stay tuned for more detailed posts!!

Spring is here!

It is finally getting warm here! We are loving every moment of it! We are doing well, making lots of progress. But it will still be a while til we will get to go back to Idaho. The kids and I are making some good friends and are finally feeling at home here. It takes a while to get really settled into a new place. I just got called to be the 2nd councelor in the primary presidency. I will love being in primary again.

It seems I've had a lot on my mind lately. I keep feeling like I have so many things I need and should be learning. I have been wanting to learn more about mothering. That I should be teaching my kids alot more about the gospel. I have been wanting to get on a better schedual of scripture study for myself also.

I need to learn all about gardening, canning/perserving foods and about the animals that we hope to raise when we go back to our land and home in idaho.

I want to find and research curriculums for homeschool, incase i decide to homeschool next year.

I have been learning and reading about health. But more then just whats on the surface. Deeper into health. Like why our bodys have so many sicknesses that they shouldn't and haven't had in history. Why all of sudden does everyone have cancer.

I want to get off sugar and refined foods completely and totally change our diets.

I know, I know, a little extreme. But i feel like i need to be making some changes and educating myself on so many things! And going back to the fundamentals of living.

There you have it, thats what is on my mind.  :D



We're still alive!

Hello Family and Friends! Its been awhile. As I have said before, I don't have a computer. That's my excuse!

We hit our one year mark of living in North Dakota on February 9th! We are still living in our RV.  We survived the winter without freezing! We actually stayed really warm. It was a huge blessing! And we like living in the RV most days. Sometimes I have a moment of wanting a real home with bedrooms, doors, and a normal size kitchen! Oh and a big shower! :) But as Dave Ramsey says "live like no one else now so later you can live like no one else". So that's what we are doing, and have high hopes for the future!

Here is an update on each of us:

Josh: Is loving his job, but would love to have his own equipment and doing jobs for himself. But for now he is happy with driving the heavy haul truck! All the bosses and guys he works with really like him!

Me: I am staying busy with kids and daily chores. I am still trying to make it to the gym a couple times a week. And trying to make it through winter, and looking forward to spring and summer! I have attempted a few simple sewing projects lately and I'm excited to try a few more. Sorry I don't have pictures!

Garrett: is loving Kindergarten! He is learning lots and is really smart. I get to go help in his class once a week. We both really enjoy this. I love knowing the kids in the class, and knowing how he behaves. I like seeing how his teacher teaches and does things in the class. Plus I miss him during the day and it gives us something to look forward to, to break up the week.

Leah: is a great little helper! She's like a little mother, taking care of the babies and pretending. She is always inviting me 'over to her house'. And always giving orders to the other kids.  

Brock: is a sweet little 2 year old....most of the time. He is small for his age and has a small sweet voice that melts your heart. not to mention his big blue eyes! And he is a little goof ball that keeps us laughing!

Ridge: is happy most of the time. He had slept through the night for the first 6 months but the last couple months he has been waking up multiple times in the night. we have got to work on that. He is 9 months now and is crawling all over the place. He has been standing up to the furniture for a couple months now but isn't showing any other signs of early walking. He is growing like crazy. He and Brock are sharing some of their clothes. Shirts mostly, but it won't be long before they are the same. I wouldn't be surprised if Ridge outgrows Brock! :)

Well that is the update with us. we don't have much news! I will try to do better about writing about the fun things we do!

HAPPY SPRING!

Videos...

These are great videos for a sunday afternoon or for family home evening!

Family Pictures!! ... YEA!

In September after Wyatt got home from his mission we got our family pictures taken!We had Melanie Gunnell,  a friend of mine do them for us! It was the first time we had had them professionally taken, and we couldn't be happier with how they turned out!! (thanks melanie!) I didn't post them in any order, I just put them up! Enjoy...  

Our little family! (probably my favorite of us)

This one is of EVERYBODY...so far

My siblings!

The original family :)

All the cute cute cousins! 

The girlies...

....and the boys

Daddy and his little princess

Our latest happenings....

We are still alive! I know I say it every post, but its hard to update because I don't have my computer. Thats my excuse!
We are doing great. We took a trip back home to Idaho! It was so nice to be home and to be with family! We played a lot with cousins and had tons of fun with them!!
The other exciting thing, and the main reason for going home, was that WYATT came HOME!!! He has been in Brazil for 2 years on his mission! We were all so SO excited to see him. we only had a week together before we had to part ways! He will be working here in Montana, while trying to figure out which school he wants to go to! During that week together we all (those in the family who are endowed) went to the temple together! we also took all the kids to the Brigham city temple open house! It was a great experience! We also got family pictures, and i think they turned out really cute! i will post them when i get them! We stayed for Wyatt's homecoming talk, which he did a fantastic job on. And then we had to head home because Josh had to be to work on Monday.
It was so fun to be back home and we can't wait to move back. But for now we are happy and loving life here in North Dakota!
stay tuned for Pictures....hopefully soon! (it will probably be conference weekend when i have a computer to use to put them on!

FAMILY!!!

 We were so excited to have the Taylors come for a visit. We didn't have a lot of time with them this trip. But the couple of days we had were really run. Because we didn't have a lot of room in our RV we spent a lot of time at the park. But i was busy visiting that i didn't get any pictures.

Grandpa Taylor Meeting Ridge!

This picture was taken a week or two ago but it was the first time Grandma Holliday met Ridge

 I don't know why i didn't take more pictures. I didn't get any of Grandma Taylor or Grandpa Holliday. Weird. But I did get one of Aunt Katie:

Austin being such a cute cousin helper with Ridge! He loved holding the baby!

For fathers day all the grand kids made this shirt for grandpa. it says 'worlds best grandpa, hands down' so we put all the grand kids hand prints on it! I think he liked it.

James and Trish got to stay for a couple days after the blessing. Sadly Josh had to work and didn't get the play the next couple days. We had planned to go to Mt. Rushmore. We originally thought it was going to take 3 hours to drive there from here. After mapquesting it we figured it would be more like 5 hours and that didn't sound fun. especially because Taylors have a 12 hour drive ahead of them, the day or two after. So we settled for the Zoo an hour and a half away.  It was a good time. Here are a few fun pictures!                    

Brock loved to climb on the rails and wouldn't get down!

Garrett and Josh watching the animals from the wall.

For some reason Garrett has a love of birds. Eagles and falcons mostly. this is a cute picture of him being as big as a bird.

The eagles Garrett loved to watch.

And Garrett climbing on the rail too. They are there for them to climb on right?

Aunt Trish and Brock are buds. I tend to pawn my kids off to everyone else, when i have helpers!

More climbing!

Me and brock in the birds nest. he is the only one that would get in the nest with me!

We sure had a fun time with Taylors here. And are grateful the were able to come see us and give our family support! we know they sacrificed alot to come! and we had a great time!! And we can't wait til we see them again in September. 

Blessing Ridge

The Taylor Family needed to meet baby Ridge. So we planned for them to come see him.  The RV park that we live in has a few tent sites that they all stayed at. Convenient, right?  I felt bad having them all stay in tents but we didn't have any other options.  Because they wanted to come visit and see the baby we planned it so Josh could bless him at the same time. Here are a few pictures right after church. (weird setting i know. on a picnic table in an RV park. We look like we went camping to bless the baby.)

Picture Overload

 Trisha, my sister in law came to help me when the baby came! She is leaving us and going back to her family tomorrow morning. So before she leaves we thought we would have her take some family pictures for us. so here are a couple of our favorites!(don't mind Leah's headband, she insisted)

 So cute. i don't know if they are dancing or just hugging!?

 He is such a stud!

 Because we are living in North Dakota, oil country, we thought it would be fitting to get a family picture by a pump jack! :)

 Trish hangin with Brock!  They got to be good friends. Really all my kids had some good bonding with Trish!

My Dad came out one day to see the baby and the other kids! It was a fun visit!

Brock LOVES the baby. he is always asking to hold the baby, or bringing him a diaper or giving kisses!

A few more pictures from the Hospital!

Trisha brought up her laptop for me to be able to put these pictures on. I don't have a way to upload pictures so I will not be able to put pictures on for a while, but I will do an update on how we are doing soon!
Just FYI, Ridge is an awesome baby. He is sleeping 3 or 4 hour stretches at night...so nice! The kids are in heaven, as am I!

He is HERE!!!

Proud to announce the arrival of:   RIDGE CARTER TAYLOR!!!
He finally decided to come. Ridge ended up being 6 days late! The little stink! :) On Wednesday about half way through the day I got thinking that I hadn't felt the baby move much that day and that was a little worrisome. So I told Josh I thought we should go in and check the heart beat.
We got to the labor and delivery floor about 6:30 pm. Wednesday night.  They said he seemed to be doing fine and of course he started moving like crazy. After a while they came to check on him and me and said I was having really regular contractions so they might just keep me there. Well I had been having good contractions for a couple days by that point. I guess I didn't think they were hard or consistent enough.
I was dilated to a 4. At 9:00 pm they told me I was staying. I just labored and rested for a couple hours. I got the epidural at 11:30 or so and just kept laboring.  I was dilated to a 8 at this point.
Ridge didn't want to come down. He wasn't really progressing. And the Dr started talking about just having a c-section. But I wasn't giving up that easy! They turned off the epidural at about 2am and said it was almost time to push. At 2:30am. I started pushing and the epidural had wore off just enough that I could feel enough to be effective in my pushing but I wasn't in much pain. And at 2:59 he was born!

 

Now he is one BIG boy! He weighed in at a whopping 10 lbs. 8 oz.! can you believe it?? He is so big! I look at him and can't get over how big he is! I have good size babies but not that big. My biggest was Leah who weighed 8lbs 3oz! That's a big jump!

They had silly hats they kept putting one him.
The proud momma:

 The kids came that next morning! They were so excited and all wanted to hold him. It took Brock a few minutes to understand what was going on. Garrett and Leah had a turn holding him and once it was Brock's turn he wasn't giving him up. He sat in the chair for a good 10 or 15 minutes and wouldn't let anyone hold him or take him from him. he was loving the baby. Thats all he could say was 'babee'!

Later in the day today we went and got Garrett and had him come hang out with us in the room because they were so sad to leave and we played games with him and he got more turns holding the baby. We then switched and had Leah come back to the hospital and hang out for a while too. I think they liked that one on one time.
We are planning to go home tomorrow morning! We are excited to be home! One good thing about him being so big is having him be nice and sturdy for his Brothers and Sister to love on!
Oh and a HUGE thank you to my sister in law who has come up to help me with the baby and chores. She came up a week ago and has been so good to hang out and wait with me to have this baby! Now that he is here I can be on the mend and hopefully feel good soon!! Although I already feel GREAT!