Christmas 2013

The final post of the year! We started our Christmas vacation early by letting the girls open one present each Thursday night after Abby opened her birthday presents. Tyler's family sent us home from Thanksgiving with money for Christmas gifts, so the girls opened the gifts we bought for them from Grandma and Grandpa Gibbons which for the younger girls was a doll from the Frozen movie, which they were hoping to get. Abby got her Just Dance Wii game that she had been wishing for as well. That started out the Christmas break with a bang.

 

We spent half of our two week break in Wichita Falls with my family. We had been making our plans ever since the wedding in November, so we knew there were only about two and a half days that we would all be together with everyone's travel and work schedules. Tyler had a short day on the girls' last day of school (which was also a half day) so we decided to head out to Wichita Falls on Friday and drive straight through. The weather had progressively gotten colder and my family had even had some icy, shut-down-the-city-type days the week or so before. We basically drove through rain the entire 9 hour drive, but we made it a little before midnight that Friday night, the 20th. It was cold most of the time we were in Wichita Falls, but actually a lot warmer than it had been and it got colder again the day we drove home, so we were there the perfect week. We had our family gift exchange and also our annual dollar gift exchange which everyone loves. We played lots of games and even got a family picture after church while everyone was still together.

 

Some of the other fun activities we did while we were there included walking through the Fantasy of Lights, which is at the University. It was cold, but the girls love seeing all the displays. Some of the favorites were the Snow White, Cinderella, and new Buzz Lightyear displays, and always the bubble-making robot.

 

I like driving through the neighborhoods to see all the Christmas decorations. This was a favorite that I kind of got a picture of as we drove past it a second time. Many people go all out with the lights and we enjoyed driving around finding the most decorated yards.

 

We decorated some gingerbread houses this year. Here is Abby's that she made with Tyler's help. I worked on a larger one that the little girls were supposed to help me decorate, but by the time I got it put together, Chloe was the only one patient enough to wait and decorate with me. So she made all the detail decisions and got her picture taken by her masterpiece.

 

I like taking pictures whenever the kids are near Grandma or Grandpa. I caught these two pictures at different times, but thought they were cute. Aubrey's always been Grandpa's girl (she's always climbing all over him), but I liked finding this quiet moment with Grandpa and Abby too.

 

 The grandkids had fun eating treats and playing together. Here they are Christmas Eve in their matching pajamas from Grandma and Grandpa.

 

Christmas morning was fun. The girls loved seeing what Santa brought and finding the empty plate of cookies and milk. We spent all morning unwrapping presents and having the girls wanting each new toy opened so they could play with it right away.

 Nevla and I helped the girls make tye-dye shirts one night, but realized it's not really a kid-friendly project, so we did most of the work ourselves. Since we had taken over the table with our mess, the kids got to eat their dinner in front of the tv - once a table cloth was down to protect the carpet at least. The shirts ended up turning out really cute, but I was sad when I realized I didn't get any pictures the day they all wore them.

Another given when we go to Grandma's is the usual trip to Jump for Joy. Aubrey had been talking about this place for weeks and couldn't wait to go. Tyler had the honors of helping Taryn up and down the big slide, which she loved doing over and over.

Chloe, Tessa, and Aubrey just kept running from one bounce house to the next. They loved every minute they were there.

The girls slept each night in the living room on an air mattress all together. We pulled a name each night for that girl to pick the movie they got to watch when falling asleep. Scott and Nevla and Tyler and I would play games late into the night. One night we found their dog, Shyla, asleep at Aubrey's feet on the mattress. She apparently had given up on us going to bed any earlier. It was pretty cute. I had to take a picture so I could show Aubrey and have her believe me when I told her the dog fell asleep next to her in bed. Taryn had her own bed in our room, but each night she tried staying up late with the "older" girls. This was a cute picture when she snuggled up with Tessa even though the flash was a bit too bright.

 

A new activity for this year was going to see some mini ponies at a lady's house who my mom knew. Abby spent the day at her friend Ella's house, so it was all the other grandkids. They took turns riding the ponies, leading the ponies on walks, and riding the other toys and swings they had in their yard. The ponies were so cute and well-behaved to be around so many hyper kids.

 

Even Taryn took a turn on one of their smallest mini ponies. She seemed to like it as long as Tyler didn't stray too far away from her.

 Their other toys included this tractor swing made out of old tires. I kept staring at it wondering how easy it would be to make one because I kept thinking it would be something Tyler's dad could figure out and have fun trying to make. The kids loved riding it and pushing other people in it too.

 

They also had one of those toy rocking horses, which I think Taryn felt a little safer riding than the actual pony.

Everyones favorite activity had to be dressing up the ponies. They had hats, shoes, headbands, bandannas, and then glitter and hair markers and colored sprays for the hair. The kids could not get enough of it. Aubrey loved the white pony, named Coco, and did most of her decorating on her. She really liked having her wear the tiara.

Taryn couldn't get enough of the glitter. Every time I took one away from her, the next time I'd turn around she had found another color and was dumping that on the nearest pony. Luckily they didn't mind and the lady said it all would just wear off or blow off over the next couple days.

 

 We finally put on some sparkly pink shoes on the smallest of the ponies and I had to take a picture with Tessa since she had on her sparkly pink shoes as well.

 

Everyone had so much fun, it may have to become a regular part of our trip whenever we go out there for the holidays.

 

The final art project we had for the kids was some glitter fabric paint, so everyone painted either an apron, bag, or box. Luckily everything was dry by the time we had to drive home because we were a little worried since we had waited until the last night before starting this project. We got one more picture of all the grandkids with their creations.

 

We were there over a week and had a lot of fun being with everyone. We were lucky that none of the kids got sick, which always seems to happen whenever that many kids and people are together under one roof. Four of the adults ended up getting sick while we were there, but none of the kids and neither Tyler or myself, so we considered ourselves very lucky. On the drive home, we kept wondering if one of our little family would end up with the body aches and chills, but we never did - thank goodness. We had a great time and everyone else seemed to as well (when they weren't sick). We love being with family.

 

We spent the last couple days of 2013 at home with just us. It was nice and as we stayed up late watching movies, and playing games waiting around for midnight on New Year's Eve, I realized it was a lot of fun with it being just us. I decided we needed to have at least one holiday like that to just be home and hang out with our own family. On New Year's Eve, Taryn and Aubrey obviously didn't last too long, but Tessa lasted though the games until just after 11. Abby made it all the way to the new year for the first time. She was very proud of herself for doing that.

 

Overall, it was a great 2013 and we hope 2014 will be just as adventurous and amazing!