Our ward Christmas party was held on December 16th. They did a theme of Christmas in Nauvoo. The primary performed a musical number, so I took a picture of them singing.
We got to decorate our own cookies for dessert, and there were shops like in Nauvoo for the kids to visit. They wrote letters to the missionaries at the post office, made butter at the bakery, and made tin ornaments at the blacksmith shop. It was a really fun party.
Our 17th wedding anniversary was on December 15th. To post on Facebook, I decided to recreate one of our pictures from when we were dating. We were laughing so hard, and everyone thought it was funny like we did. So many years have gone by, but our happiness and fun have remained. I love this guy!
For Christmas this year, we drove down to San Antonio to be together with my family. The girls were so excited to see their cousins. Here's Taryn with the newest baby cousin, Daniel. And this is Haley, who was officially adopted by Scott and Nevla just last week. We're so excited to have her officially and legally a part of the family. She's so cute.
Tyler's buddy is always Nadia. Nadia adores both Abby and Tyler. When we got to San Antonio, Tyler was eating a snack at their table, and Nadia was still in her high chair next to him at the table and she just put her head in her hand and stared lovingly up at Tyler until he noticed. It was so cute. Here's Tyler holding Nadia and Daniel. And then Tessa got a picture with Nadia too while they were playing together with new Christmas presents.
Aubrey's always a good helper, and loves playing with the babies. The flash of the camera was a little too bright for Haley, but I thought it was still a cute picture. Nadia is still slow to smile, but with Tyler, she's always ready to grin for the camera. This was right before we left to drive home and she didn't want Tyler to leave.
We took some family pictures while we were all together. There's a park and fountain right outside their neighborhood so we wandered around there looking for the best picture spots. We tried the fountain first, but the sun was too bright. I did get this one of the girls while we decided on the next spot to try. The park and trees were the next best option that provided some shade from the direct sunlight and I got this picture of my girls. Even though Taryn was done with pictures at this point, we got a quick half smile from her and I love Aubrey's eager smile. This is currently my background picture on my phone because I love it so much.
We took some individual pictures of the girls and there was this perfect v-shaped tree where we ended up taking our favorite shots.
I love the sun shining behind Taryn and the pretty green leaves and branches that the sun lit up in all the backgrounds. I love my beautiful girls.
We took a few other random fun pictures so here are my favorites. We tried the throwing leaves one again and included Chloe with the girls. It's cute, but so hard to see their faces clearly when just using a phone to take that kind of picture.
Here's one of my all time favorite pictures of the girls. I love the closeness and how you can see all their eyes and their beautiful smiles.
We took family pictures and I had poses already planned that I wanted to try.
I saw another family picture with a pose like this one and really wanted to do it with my family. We didn't get the best angle to see everyone, but I really liked the idea. The girls thought it was fun too, so their smiles are definitely genuine in this picture. It's Tyler surrounded by all his girls.
This was the best picture that McKaye took on her good camera and edited for us. I really do like the generic poses where you can see everyone's face clearly. I love my family.
Here are some family pictures of each of the families. They all look so good! John and McKaye, and then my parents.
Paul and Melody and family. Only missing Matt, Taylor, and Mollie. And then Scott and Nevla and their quickly growing family.
And one final picture with everyone. Just missing Matt's family, but otherwise the entire Black Family.
The girls enjoyed playing games together. Their favorite game was one they played on the tv through an app on the phones, but they loved being together.
Grandma and grandpa bought matching Christmas pajamas for all the grandkids except Abby and Joseph who are now too big. So Mom and I made pajama bottoms for all the adults and the bigger grandkids. And we ended up with enough material to make extra bottoms for most of the grandkids too. Here's the picture I took of all the grandkids together.
We didn't get any pictures of everyone in their matching pj bottoms like we wanted, but I at least got a picture of my family in the pajamas we made. I was very proud of my mom and myself. I thought the pj bottoms turned out really cute. They even had a pocket which we figured was a must so we had somewhere to put our phones. The girls were supposed to be all red and the boys were all blue, but with the extra material, we split up the colors for the grandkids. That way at least my family picture was a bit more even between the reds and blues.
While playing the app game on people's phones, Abby and I decided to take some silly pictures on Tyler's phone and change his screensaver. Abby was the expert and made sure our picture was just right before switching it to Tyler's background. Don't you think he'd love seeing this picture every time he opened his phone? Well, he didn't really, but he kept it on there for a day or two before changing it back.
We ended out the year 2017 at our home playing games by ourselves, which is how I like it. I made sugar cookies and decided to do each of the girls' names and the numbers 2018 for them to decorate and eat. So we grabbed some pictures after they finished decorating before they dug in. Here are Aubrey's and Taryn's.
Abby and Tessa had fun decorating their names and numbers too. It was our way to ring in the new year.
We took a selfie game picture to send to Tyler's family who was mostly together for their New Years Eve festivities. I think all the girls made it to midnight this time, just long enough to drink the sparkling cider and then hit their pillows.
We had a great 2017 year and are excited for the new year and what all it has to bring.
No comments:
Post a Comment