Our Life in the Yellow Brick House

According to the other blogs I follow, I'm a little late posting after the holidays. Thanks for showing me up ladies! Kyle and I had great Christmas Eve/Christmas/post Christmas celebrations. It all started on Friday afternoon when Kyle got off work. (Have I mentioned lately how happy I am that he has his new job! He usually has to work the entire day on Christmas Eve, so I was really excited when he got off at noon.) At about 1:30, we headed to Mulvane, KS, after our quick Walmart trip turned into a 30 min. ordeal. Never go there on Christmas Eve. There are simply too many last minute shoppers! Kyle's brother and sister-in-law live in Mulvane and we were so glad to see them. It's been a while since we've made the trip to their house. That night, we had Christmas Eve dinner with a few of their friends. I had never met them before, but they were so kind and hospitable. They really made us feel at home and fed us WELL! It was a very yummy dinner and I tried mint tea for t...

I came to the realization this week that the college student version of me would be very disappointed if she knew she was going to turn into the present day version of me. It seems that after graduating, I have lost the ability to organize my life outside of work. When I was in college I was always on the go, classes every day and activities every evening. Now, I'm a boring old person who works Monday through Friday, cooks dinner in the evening and cleans on the weekend. By and large, I have less commitments now, which has made me a little lazy. One area that I've been particularly lax in is photography. For the first time, I let my camera's memory card fill up. I know that's no big deal, but it had never happened to me before and I fear it's like my car's gas light. I went years without knowing it had one and then once I pushed it to the limit once, it happened again about every other time I filled up. My camera holds over 500 pictures and I have photos on it f...

It's my first lunchtime blog! I know, you are looking at the time stamp and wondering, "who eats lunch at 2 p.m.?" The answer is me, the wife of a car salesman. I wait and wait only to have him cancel on me for another appointment. I can't complain, though, because at least I get a little break at lunch unlike my wonderful, hard working husband. In the past few weeks, Kyle and I have had more fun together than we have in a long time. Since getting married, we haven't done a very good job of taking time to focus on us. Sure, we spend a lot of time together, but we are always distracted by life and rarely go out unless another couple invites us or there is a special occasion. We are trying to be better about this, though, and so last weekend Kyle took me on a date. We went to Kingfisher to eat at El Charro and see Kingfisher in Lights, something that my family always did together growing up. Sure, it's a longer drive from Stillwater than it was from Hennessey, b...

This week has been moving week at work, and as I write this, I am sitting in my new office! I'm loving it so far, but one thing I didn't love is the process it took getting here. As I packed up my old office, I realized just how much stuff I have. It's amazing the difference a year makes! A lot of it I don't even need anymore, but there is a comfort in having it there. When I was going through it, I went to throw things away and a little voice inside my head kept saying "but what if you ever need it." True, I like to be prepared and am not a fan of waste. However, chances are that if I ever need 80% of my clutter, I either won't remember where it is or the very fact that I have it in the first place. This will cause me to buy more stuff and then store the left overs for someday. It's a vicious cycle. All week long I'd been trying to quiet the voice in my head and then, like a sign from God, it happened. I was pulling out of my garage a few minutes ...

I was raised to respect Thanksgiving, and by respect, I mean no Christmas celebrations until after Thanksgiving is over. Hobby Lobby might start celebrating on Nov. 1 (or even before), but not the Taylor family. This makes me look forward to Thanksgiving even more because it means it’s about time to put up all the Christmas decorations, start listening to Christmas music and wrapping gifts! SO much fun! This year was especially fun for two reasons. 1. Kyle and I got a new tree! We picked out our new tree on our anniversary trip (aka – the weekend we spent money like crazy!). We found it at Garden Ridge, thanks to a tip from Blair. They had a ton of trees there. In fact, there were so many choices that it was a little overwhelming. In the store, none of them looked that large, but when we got it home, it barely fit. It took a little furniture moving and tweaking, but now it fits just fine. Kyle helped me put it all together and then so graciously let me do the fluffing while he watched!...

There’s just too much to share from last week, so I’m splitting it up in 2 parts. As I mentioned before, Kyle and I are extremely lucky to have wonderful families, and this year, we had THREE Thanksgivings! All that food is a little overwhelming, but we love seeing everyone and spending some quality time with family. However, even with all the togetherness, there was always someone missing. As we get older, life takes us in so many different directions that it’s hard to stay connected. It’s part of growing up and even though sometimes I secretly wish we were all 12 again, there’s no going back. I am thankful that our families are multiplying and moving on, taking advantage of new opportunities and spreading their wings. We may not have seen all the siblings and cousins, but that doesn’t mean we weren’t thinking about each and every one of them over the holiday weekend. So, happy Thanksgiving to all those who had to miss out on the big family gatherings. We haven’t forgotten about...

I wanted to get one more blog in before I’m stuffing my face with turkey and noodles and napping! I know noodles aren’t part of a traditional Thanksgiving, but they are for us. In fact, all 3 of our Thanksgiving celebrations are going to include them. Yummy! :) As you know, Nov. 8 was our second anniversary. Although we celebrated on the actual day, we wanted to do a little something more, so we planned a weekend trip to Oklahoma City. It was great to spend some quality time together and actually have one weekend away from our day-to-day routine. It was fabulous and even though we were there for less than 24 hours, we managed to: get lost wondering around Bricktown, eat a 22 oz. steak (Kyle ate it while I watched in horror. That thing was huge!), take a carriage ride, break our bathroom sink, buy a Christmas tree, get my wedding ring cleaned (it’s so sparkly now!), shop for a new mattress, watch parasurfing on Lake Hefner, complete 90 percent of our Christmas shopping and meet up with ...