Taylor has had a wonderful Christmas. Santa was good to her and her little brother. She got lots of craft things to do and plenty of games to play. She got a horse that she needs to paint and she has been thinking about how she wants to paint the horse. She has enjoyed spending all of her time with her family. Taylor is also enjoying the time away from school. It has allowed her more time with her friends. She has battled with a cold and has done well. It was difficult for her since her lungs were getting congested and she had to continue to have suction done on her airways. Now she his done with that and is looking forward to the rest of her break. She is hoping to go visit her horse and possibly go on a ride for the new year.

Taylor has been doing well since the last blog. She has continued with her diligent physical therapy regiment and continues to stay focused and do well in school. She recently got a "stander" that helps her stand and keeps her body used to the standing position and loosens her muscles in her feet sot that they don't get atrophied. She has been seen on a horse quite a bit since the last blog. She has been riding Lady with Granma Judy at Grandma's ranch. Taylor has enjoyed the many holidays since the last blog. Haloween came and she was a very beautiful princess. during Thanksgiving she was as frustrated as everyone when she assisted in putting together a 500 piece puzzle of the New York skyline that her dad got her during his recent trip. Taylor is looking forward to Christmas. She asked Santa for a Snow Globe the other day during a trip to the mall. She has had some increased freedom now that she has been using her power wheelchair more often. She has been spotted on trips to the mailbox and back during the day.

Sorry that it has been a while since the last update. We greatly appreciate everyone who continues to check the site and send Taylor "well wishes" through the blog. Thank you all.

excitement

Taylor had a busy week last week. On Thursday of week before last, she spent all day picking out halters for her horses and then picking out jewels with which to bling them up. She then went to her local park with several of her close supporters, family members, and spent the rest of the day decorating the halters. It took approximately 6 hours for us to decide shapes, colors and locations to get the jewels installed and the halters turned out perfect. We then had to take them both back to the house and try both halters on Blackie as Lady was out of the area. We took several pictures of Blackie wearing the halters and some pictures of Taylor wearing her masterpieces as well. It was a great day with much accomplished. Then on the following Monday Taylor ventured down to Williams to check out how Lady's halter would look on her. It was beautiful. Taylor had picked a light blue halter for Lady because as most of us are aware Lady has one baby blue eye and the halter was a perfect match. It was all decorated in light colored jewels and looked gorgeous on her. In the meantime, Grandpa showed up and decided Lady needed new shoes so he proceeded to shoe her with Taylor making sure to supervise every moment if the process. Lots of questions and wondering how you can drive nails in her foot and not hurt but Lady didn't jerk her foot away so we decided that it must not hurt! Then, to all of our surprise, when Lady was done getting her new shoes on Taylor decided she wanted to ride. Boy, did she want to ride. We saddled up about noon and rode until about 4 pm. No breaks in between and speeding up the pace every few minutes. We trotted in circles and trotted around the barrels and it was only because her pilot was a little leary that she was held back from loping. Lady is extremely out of shape and a little pregnant so Taylor would let her rest a few minutes every once in a while. Taylor's cousin was here and on another horse with Taylor's Uncle Ryan so that was enough to spark on a friendly competition and the race was on. To the end of the barn and back as fast as we could trot. Taylor was thrilled and her love of her horses was shining through again. Then, two days later she was back for a couple more hours and has plans to make this a regular activity until she has to go back to school. There is a spirit here that just can't be stopped and we wanted you to know how your thoughts and prayers are helping and hope they continue to help her along. She hasn't regained much use yet but with this kind of spirit, we all have to believe that something will make the future even better. Thanks again for all your support and I am going to try to attach some pictures to show just how spunky she remains.

We apolagize for not updating the site more regularly. Life has continued to go on and Taylor has been staying busy. She has been doing well. Taylor continues to worship the sun and has a great summer tan going now. Taylor reluctantly is going to summer school. She has some ground to make up in reading and math. The math has been a challenge due to the fact that she can't use her fingers to count like the other kids. All in all she does very well. She has been spending more time in her electric power chair. She is getting used to the chair and is starting to master it. She is only using it around the house and has not braved using it in public yet. Taylor took another trip on her favorite horse Blackie the other day with her dad on Father's Day. It was a great present. She sat on him and road Blackie around the pasture. Taylor has been able to beat the heat this summer by going to the movies, most recently "Kung Fu Panda", she has also been making crafts for her friends. Her favorite thing to make is necklacies.

Taylor has been doing well lately. She is going to school and doing great with her school work. Her allergies have calmed a little and she has had less trouble breathing lately.

Recently she got to go back stage and meet Taylor Swift at her concert in Sacramento. She had so much fun and is now one of Taylor Swift's biggest fans. Her brother says that Taylor Swift is his new girlfriend.

Taylor is still working hard on the bike every morning and is using her strong will to continue to try to get better.

Taylor has had a rough couple of weeks. She had some difficulty breathing. She has started to do breathing treatments again and has spent a lot of time on the ventilator. Taylor missed many days of school and was fortunate that Easter break fell during this inconvenience so that she did not miss to much school. Her breathing is getting better. She is still doing breathing treatments however she started to go back to school this week after Easter break.

She had a great Easter. She found more eggs than her brother which she did not let him forget. She got out and enjoyed the beautiful weekend.

Her birthday is Sunday. She will be turning 7. She has asked to go to Chuck E Cheese. She also wants to go to see the new movie "Horton".

She still talks about going to see Taylor Swift in April. She has even got her brother singing most of Taylor's songs.

Taylor has continued to stay busy. She has had a couple of days of skipping school as she wasn't feeling real well. She had the beginnings of a cold so took a day or two to shake it off and will head back to school on Monday. She continues to keep a very positive attitude as always. The other day her brother decided that he would be a ghost so he threw a blanket over his head and proceeded to make ghostly sounds. He was quite the spook and we enjoyed his antics but he soon moved on to other things. Taylor felt inspired to then be the ghost. We threw the blanket over her head and chair and rolled up behind him and made a big ghostly howl that definitely got his attention. She continues to make the small things fun. She got to go see princesses on Ice at Arco Arena. She really enjoyed the show and she met up with some friends there as well. Her friend's mom was kind enough to take some really great pictures of the princesses skating as well as pictures of Taylor with her family and Taylor with her friends and put them all into a really great scrapbook for happy reminders of her day. She really enjoyed getting to see the pictures. Thank you all again for your thoughts and prayers as Taylor works toward progress with every day.

Taylor has had a good week. Being the sun worshiper that she is she is really liking the sunshine this week. She has a bad case of "spring fever". Taylor is about two weeks from going back to see the doctors to get an update on how she is progressing with her breating. Her bedroom got a new paint job and she has opted to go with a princess motiefe in the room. She also liked the "Cars" movie decor in her brothers room but thought that the princesses was more her speed. Her Taylor Swift calendar is front and center in her room. She received a care package from Taylor with a calender, shirts and her signature leather "love" bracelet. She asked that the bracelet be put on her chair. She is still very excited about the opportunity to meet Taylor Swift when she comes to Sacramento in April.

A lot has happened since Taylor's last blog. Taylor went to visit her doctor in Sacramento and got a check up. They continue to be impressed with how well she is doing. She is breathing strong and looking good. Last weekend she had a great time at Disney's princesses on ice. She enjoyed all of the princesses however she said Arial was her favorite. Taylor got a kick out of watching her little brother hit baseballs from his pitching machine. She also got a tremendous surprise on Wednesday night when she got a special call from country music star Taylor Swift. Although she was a little shy and speechless she was very excited by the call and felt very honored. Taylor is a huge Taylor Swift fan. Her favorite song is "Teardrops on My Guitar".

Taylor had a great weekend. She and some of her classmates from school had a Valentines party. She had a great time. She has a big week in store for her. She has a doctor visit in Sacramento where the doctors will check her for any progress and see how she is doing. Her family thinks she is doing very well. She is looking great and having a good time. This week she rubbed her chin raw on her ventilator hose one night so for now she has a sore that she is taking care of. She said that she had an itch and needed to scratch it. This week she also plans to go to Princesses on Ice in Sacramento. She is going to do a lot of traveling this week. Thanks for checking in.

As I mentioned in the last update, Taylor made the trip to Red Bluff to watch her Uncle Cody in his high school rodeo. What I forgot to mention was how COLD it was. We watched for a while and then when there was an event Uncle Cody wasn't in, we snuck out to the horse trailer and got in the living quarters where the heater was cranked up pretty high. Just when we were about to get thawed out, Uncle Ryan and Aunt Mindy and their friend Chris showed up. They had been skiing at Mt Shasta and had decided to bring a pickup bed load of snow home with them. Tanner right away was up for a snowball fight. Taylor had to make sure she didn't miss any of the action. So back out in the cold we went and she watched Tanner get snowballs smashed on his head and dribbled down his jeans. He got in some pretty good shots of his own. She got a little nervous when people tried to use her as a shield when Tanner was on the attack. She laughed alot at all the antics. It just added to a funfilled day. She is still working hard to keep her breathing improving. The nurses say it is remarkable that she doesn't need breathing treatments so we are all hopeful that this is a good sign. As we said before, we will know more after her next doctor visit. Thank you again for your thoughts and prayers. We appreciate every one!!!!!

Taylor has a good time this month. She enjoyed the break from school, however she is glad to be back with her friends and Malinda who accompanies her to her classes. She is doing very well. Last weekend she got to go and watch her uncle at the high school rodeo in Red Bluff. She really enjoyed it and stayed much longer than she originally expected. Then on Monday she went shopping with her mom and had a girls shopping day. She continues to stay active on her bike and work to get better. She goes for another doctor's visit in February and hopefully we will see continued progress in the recovery of her ability to work her diaphram on her own.

Taylor had a busy Christmas break. She of course enjoyed decorating her family tree and all the presents, both hers and watching everyone else get theirs. She made a long trip to Redding to watch her Uncle Cody play in a basketball tournament. She arrived just as his game ended but was excited to hang around and watch the following game which was a game played by two girl teams. She enjoyed comparing the height of the girls that were playing in comparison to her uncle's height. He is pretty tall but some of those girls made him look kind of small. She stayed through the whole next game and part of the following game to make for a very full day. She went to a craft class the next day. Her creation had to be "fired" so she wasn't able to pick it up for a week so she was patiently waiting for that. She is getting much more adventuresome every day. She is wanting to be more involved and out doing more things all the time. Her lungs seem to be staying a little cleaner which makes her feel much more comfortable to be more active. She stood (was helped to stand) next to her Uncle Cody so she could look at herself and Cody in the mirror to see how TALL she is getting. She comes way up there on Uncle Cody and makes sure he is aware of that. She has also been working really hard on strengthening her neck muscles. She can actually go in her wheelchair without the headrest on it now as she has developed her neck muscles quite a bit. She got some really neat stuff for Christmas. She got a hair coloring set and a beading set. She really wanted to color hair but since there was no power that day and therefore no water to wash our hair with we opted for stringing some beads instead. She picked out some great colors and shapes and created herself a beautiful ring. She also watched everyone play with her brother's batting machine ducking every time the ball was hit. Really used those neck muscles one more time. NO balls came in our direction but it seems to be an inherited automatic reflex when we hear a ball hit! She had a very fun two weeks and is anxious to get back to school to share her stories. As always, her attitude and positive approach to every day makes every one around her rise to a better level. Happy New Year to you all and as always, Thank you for all your support.