Family Pictures!

We finally got it done again--back in November, actually! At least I'm finally getting around to posting them! Maybe before long, I'll use them as our photos on our main blog page! Here's a few of our pics. If there's anything you would absolutely LOVE to have, let me know, & I can send you a full sized pic in an email, or make a print & snail-mail it. :o)

Taylor's WALKING!!!!

Ok...so it's been a while. We've gone from seven months old & two teeth, to ten months old & six teeth (& one more just starting to poke through, so seven, right?) with no updates. Sorry! I'm hoping this will get me going again. It's actually being done by request--Mark's at work (busy season) & wants to see his family every once in a while--he especially wants to see moments like this! If it means we have to do it by blogging, then so be it!

So, Taylor's walking...Just a few steps. Here's a couple videos from this evening.

This one was just kinda sweet...not the greatest steps, but such a fun reaction from the kids.

This one shows the Champ in action. :oD

We're so pleased! If you count, that was seven steps before she put her hands on Mikey! Wahoo!

Or should I say, "Oh, no!"

Just one more video--this shows Taylor's little personality. She's so fun!

That's all for now!

Joy

P.s. Yes, I'm planning on updating everything between Thanksgiving & Valentines, but this was quite important and took precedence! Have a great day!

Silly Girls

Addie & Taylor LOVE to play together (at least most of the time!), and have been quite silly! I couldn't let these pics get lost on our hard-drive & not be enjoyed at least a little!

Taylor at dinner. She likes to feed herself. I'm not as much a fan as she is.

Playing with the 'kids' broom....
Cheesers.

That was funny!!!

Taylor's been pulling herself up ....this is an exciting development! Yay, Taylor! Oh, yeah....She's just turned 9 months old!!!

A new favorite past-time....going for rides in the dish-pan. :o)Yeah, it's that good. :o)

I love my sweet, silly little girls!

Christmas Bowling Party w/ Cambridge Financial

Thanks to Grandpa Harker & the company he works for, we have been privileged to enjoy bowling, lunch, karaoke, & visiting with Santa every year. This year was lots of fun! Here's a few pictures:

Cute Kelli...waiting for her ball to come back. Kelli, Addie, & Mikey
Kelli & Mark, bowling at the same time....believe it or not, Mark's bowl was actually a strike! Mikey trying to encourage Addie to "do a little dance" after she bowls--hoping for a strike! She actually did start dancing after a while & had fun with it! Of course, that came after quite a few "are you kidding me?" looks. ;oDMikey....please hit the pins, please hit the pins.....

The pins didn't get hit. Sadly, Mikey looked like that for much of the afternoon. Poor guy! It wouldn't have been so bad if Kelli hadn't been so lucky with her bowls... KARAOKE!!!

Here's Mark & his Dad, Martin taking their turn with the mike.... Martin was actually at the microphone all afternoon, as he orchestrated the whole event...

Here's me taking a turn. Cute baby, huh?

Mikey, Kelli & Addie took a turn singing "Jingle Bells".... it started out with just Kelli, but then they all jumped in to help her out. I think they did pretty well for their first Karaoke moment! They're all holding up the prizes they got for singing.

HERE COMES SANTA CLAUS!!!

We LOVE this part of the party the best! The kids really look forward to it every year... Here's Addie with Santa. She asked for a Hannah Montana bike (we're not big fans of Hannah Montana), so Santa also suggested that My Little Ponies were pretty fun...or perhaps some dolls... Guess what she got...

Such a cutie! She thinks Santa is being funny. :o) Kelli with Santa.... She asked for a bike.

Here's Taylor's turn... not so happy. :o( Typical baby! Things were much better once she got a candy cane in her hands!

Mikey did pretty well, too. He gave Santa quite the list of possibilities this year...but thankfully didn't just hand over a list like he did the year before. He's gotten a lot braver since he figured out the little secret every kids eventually learns...

Well, that's it! We had lots of fun... Thanks for the great party, Grandpa Harker! You do a great job with it!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

We're feeling the Christmas spirit here in the Harker home. We decided to do a few fun Christmas-sy things as a family, like visiting the Festival of Trees to start the season. Thankyou, Grandma Harker for the tickets, for the idea, for sharing such sweet treats, for basically orchestrating the whole outing...we had fun!!!

Caught me with caramel corn in my mouth... Joy & TaylorMikey, Grandma Harker, Kelli, & AddieKelli, Mikey, Addie, Grandma, Taylor & MeThat Gingerbread Castle was absolutely amazing!

We also made our annual Christmas countdown...each kid gets to have their own string of treats! They cut one off each night, until they eat the last one on Christmas eve! I'm terrible at keeping track of who has eaten what, but the kids are great at it. :o) I guess they want to make sure they don't miss a day of sweets!

We filled them with shortbread cookies, chocolate bells in green & red foil, white chocolate-dipped pretzels, and of course, christmas jelly-orange slices. Tradition!!! I remember those orange slices in my stocking as a kid!

Mark & I put a more grown-up treat in ours...almond roca! Taylor's is completely different from everyone elses...she has freeze-dried yogurt bits, arrowroot cookies, banana cookies, & baby fruit snacks. It's quite a bit of food for a little girl just learning to self-feed!

Here's to a great Countdown to Christmas!

Sweet's Candy Factory Tour

While the kids were off track, we went to the Sweet's Candy Factory with a few neighbor friends for a tour. Just walking through the factory's front doors gave me a sugar high! Boy, it smelled good! Chocolate, cinnamon bears, & hot taffy!

We didn't take many pictures, since you can't take any during the tour, but here are the ones we took at the beginning and the end...

The first part of the "tour" was a video that showed the history of the Sweet's Candy business. They showed how they started out & how they make the candy there in the factory.

Here the boys are waiting for the video to begin:

Here's the girls:

The tour was lots of fun--we saw where the sweets were all stored, how they send their sugar & other ingredients throughout the factory using pipes (imagine a pipe of dark chocolate, sending chocolate whooshing to the room where they coat raspberry jelly sticks!)...we even got to see how the taffy was made, rolled, & wrapped. We got to eat warm taffy samples!

At the end of the tour, they encourage you to visit their store on site, where all the candy is fresh, fresh, fresh. We brought home some taffy, & some jelly raspberries & blackberries that look like gumdrops--I think they called them black & reds. Sooo good. :o) The kids went home with complementary packages of taffy, hairnets, & sugar highs. :o)

Such a fun afternoon! And I'm happy to report that no one was shrunk, dropped down a garbage-chute, sucked up into the chocolate pipes, or turned into a great big blueberry. Success!

Taylor has a Tongue

And she loves to use it! It's her new fascination lately, so I thought I'd post a few pictures of her sticking it out for the world to see. :o)

It was also a day for wearing red & cowboy hats. :o)

She certainly makes us laugh! Hope she made you laugh, too!

Taylor's first Trim!

Well, as you can see, Taylor's hair was getting a bit wispy & long in the front. Poor girl had too much hair in her eyes! The worst part was when she'd brush it out of her eyes at dinner-time....messy baby hands and long hair don't mix. :o) So we decided to give our little 7 1/2 month-old's bangs a trim!

Here's the "before" shot:And another before:
And another! She's just too cute to not add a bunch of pics!



Now time for the "After" shot.
Here's how the cut turned out:


I think she'd just precious!


One thing is for sure....no more headbands worn at dinner time!


Congratulations, Taylor! You're a big girl now!