Memorial Day Weekend Extravaganza

So many things happened so close together that I finally get to catch up. Abby's last day of school started the weekend of Memorial Day. Since we were moving, we planned one final big family get together with my parents and siblings. The kids were out of school and everyone had off work, so we had all weekend to play. I probably need separate blog entries for all the pictures I took at each of the places we went that weekend, but I'll just give a few highlights for now.

We made plans to attend the Dallas Temple and schedule everything else around that. It was awesome because I don't think all 10 of us (my parents, siblings and spouses) have ever gone to the temple all together before. We took up an entire row and I couldn't help but get emotional looking at my family all together. I loved it!

After the session, Tyler and I took our girls back to the temple grounds to see the temple. Abby had been talking about going to the temple for months. She had even been praying about it, so we walked the temple grounds, took them into the lobby, and took lots of pictures outside. These were a few of my favorites even though it was a bit windy and it messed with the girls' hair a bunch. 

 We decided to go to Legoland Discovery Center which was inside the Grapevine Mills Mall for the kids to have something fun to do. It wasn't as big as we were thinking it would be and the one "ride" where you get to shoot at things was only available to ride once, so we were a little let down. But the kids loved it and would have stayed longer had we let them. There was a huge jungle type gym in the middle for the kids to climb and play. There was a karaoke section, a lego racecar building section, and a 4D movie theater which the kids all ran from one section to another having so much fun.

 We ate dinner at The Magic Time Machine restaurant. I remember as a kid always talking about going with my family, but we never did. So we finally got the chance this weekend. All the waiters and waitresses are dressed up like famous people/characters. And all the tables are decorated differently and you're allowed to walk around and see all the tables and decorations. We took a lot of pictures here. I could probably make an entire scrapbook of just this visit alone. Our waitress was Rapunzel which the girls loved, but every time Belle walked by the girls screamed for her, so we finally stopped her to get a picture.

 We stayed in a hotel near the temple and the kid's had fun playing and finding things to entertain themselves. I caught some of the cousins hiding in one of the closets and thought it turned out to be a really cute picture.

Near our hotel, they had this fancy McDonalds where we stopped for drinks one time while the kids played. I had to take a picture of the girls with Grandpa. They had oversized food items all around the building. It was definitely picture worthy.

On our last day, we went to the Aquarium at Fair Park. The girls really enjoyed seeing all the sea creatures. Some of the favorites were a huge sea turtle, the blind salamander, and the sting rays. Tyler and Uncle John even got to feed the sting rays, which they said was a little scary after the worker told them to make sure to tuck their thumbs in or else the sting rays will think it's food. But they did it perfectly and thought it was pretty amazing.

We got one last picture of our family outside the Aquarium. It was a fun, event-filled weekend where the kids enjoyed being with their cousins and all the family had a great time just being together. We definitely miss being so close to family, but I'm sure each time we all get together we'll have just as much fun as we did on this weekend. 

First Grade Adventures

Finally!! After vacationing and moving, we are finally settled, have internet service, and the computer unpacked. I've had a few blogs in the works for the past month so I'm hoping to finally catch up again. We've had so much going on, I'll try and keep it all separated with the posts.

Abby finished the first grade! I will start with a blog about her adventures as a First Grader at Crockett Elementary. Here's a picture of Abby on her first day of school last September and of the front of her school.

  She loved her teacher Mrs. Bond. Unfortunately, Mrs. Bond was in Italy for like the last two weeks of school and we left town on Abby's last day of school, so I never got a picture of Abby with her teacher. By the time I was serious about collecting pictures for this blog entry, Mrs. Bond was already gone. But Abby has pictures from her yearbook and binder so at least we have record of her teacher somewhere.

The biggest news for Abby during her 1st grade year was that she lost her very first tooth! She said she was the last person in her entire class to lose a tooth, so she was so excited to show me as soon as it was gone. She said she twisted it in the bathroom during school and it popped it. She went to the nurse who put it into a little tooth necklace to carry it until she went home. She had written a letter to the tooth fairy about week earlier when we first noticed it was loose to find out what she could do to get it to fall out sooner. The tooth fairy wrote her back with ideas of what she could try to help move it along. Abby was so excited to finally reach this milestone.

Abby's PTA program was titled, "The Cheese Stands Alone." I thought she would have volunteered for a singing part, but she and her two best friends all decided to be Swiss cheese together, so here she is in costume before the play and a shot of the entire first grade. (Abby is three rows up, second from the left.) From watching the video we took of her program, I found out that Abby knew every single kid's name in the first grade. There were four first grade classes and she knew everyone by name. I was impressed! I asked if everyone knew everyone else and she said no. I asked if everyone knew her and she said yes. That's right - my little social butterfly.

During the year, Crockett had a fundraiser and if you sold so many tickets, you could have a limo ride to a pizza lunch. With the help of mom and dad, both grandparents, and aunts and uncles, Abby succeeded in earning the limo ride. She was super excited. Here she is at the pizza place with the limo behind her. She's telling me to "hurry up" and take the picture.

A funny story to go along with this was when Abby called Grandma and Grandpa Gibbons to see if they wanted to buy some of the raffle tickets. Grandma said she'd buy some which was awesome, but Abby, our saleman, than followed up with "and how many would Grandpa like to buy?" The other part of the fundraiser story is, the grand prize of the entire fundraiser, which was an iPad 2, was won by a ticket that Abby sold! Unfortunately it wasn't for mom or dad. It was for Uncle Scott. I was shocked when I got a call from Abby's principal telling me Scott had won the grand prize. The rest of the family had a good time complaining that it was unfair that we hadn't won it ourselves, but in the end, we were all happy that someone from the family had won the grand prize.

To celebrate Earth Day, the first graders had their field trip to see the movie Chimpanzee. Then they had lunch in the park. The younger girls and I met up with Abby and her classmates at the park to play. I finally got some pictures of Abby with her friends.

 

 Near the end of the school year, they had a family fun day, or field day. The younger girls and I went to see and support Abby. They played games outside like ring toss, relay races, horseshoes, and ladder golf. They also went inside for popcorn and cake and heard a story by one of the first grade teachers. This is the only picture I have of Abby's first grade class all together. 

 During the last week of school, I was able to attend the first grade award assembly. Each class stood up in a line and as their name was called for an award, they would take a step forward. I was able to catch a picture of Abby stepping forward for one award while I was filming the entire thing with my other hand, so I was very proud of myself for multitasking.

Abby's awards included A Honor Roll, Cool Conduct, and AR participant. (Abby was a little confused why she didn't get the fourth award which was A-B Honor Roll, but it didn't take us long to explain that her award of A Honor Roll was the best you could get.) As an AR participant, which stands for Accelerated Reader, Abby read multiple books and then would take a test on each one. After so many tests, you could earn a t-shirt. Abby was one of the first kids from her class to earn her t-shirt and she had hers by Christmas. She is an avid reader now, and will read anything that she sees, whether it's books, road signs, or mom's texts (which she gets in trouble for).

And here is a final picture of Abby with two of her friends on the day of her awards ceremony. The one of the left, Haylee, was her closest friend in the first grade.

Spring is Here, Summer is Near

I have recently been preparing the blog to print into books, so I've been aware of what I want to make sure gets included in our family journal. I realized that I really wanted some of the following pictures included, so I've combined them into a post since they all happened in the Spring.

During our Spring Break my Grandma Jeanne came to visit. She is the girls' Great-grandma Solheim and Aubrey's middle name is Jeanne after her, so I made sure to get a picture of just Aubrey with her namesake.

Grandma Solheim watched the girls for me a couple times and hung out with us a few days. She tells the best stories and she loved playing with the girls. She caught butterflies with Tessa and Aubrey on their Elefun game, cheered on Abby as she worked on her cart wheels, and even danced with all of us on the Wii. We had a great time!

  I love having pictures of Tyler with the girls. 

 This is what Tyler usually sees when we Skype with him on the computer each night - the girls all squished together on the couch.

 Taryn has reached a lot of milestones this spring. She started sitting up on her own, rolling around all over the floor, and eating solid foods. The highchair picture is of her first feeding which was right after Easter. We still use cusions around her when she sits up because she will face plant if she gets too excited and leans too far to one side or the other.

 We have spent lots of time outside as the weather warms up. We joined Abby during her field trip (post to come soon) and the girls enjoyed the playground very much. The hard part was getting them to stand still long enough for me to take a picture. 

The summer is near because we are already swimming. The pool at Grandma's house is now open and even though the water is pretty cold, the girls do not care. The weather has even been hot enough a couple of days that we have all swam together, but the girls would swim every day no matter what if they could. 

  On one of those hot days we decided to let Taryn have her first experience with the pool. The water temperature was a bit too cold still for her to enjoy it, but she didn't seem to mind sitting on the step for at least a few pictures. I'm sure she'll be a total water baby by the end of the summer.

Hopefully I've included all the pictures I wanted for our blog book. There will definitely be more coming as Abby finishes another year of school and we prepare to move across the state and start a new adventure in a new area and home.

Easter Time

Our Easter this year was a little different. We decorated eggs the week before Easter during Conference weekend. The girls chose a glitter dye kit this year, so each egg had tons of glitter which would immediately transfer to your hands whenever you cracked the egg to eat it. In this picture, the girls are pointing at their own dyed eggs.

 We dyed eggs early because on the actual Easter weekend, we traveled to El Paso to look for houses since that's where it looks like we'll be moving at the end of the school year. The Easter Bunny had to find our hotel to deliver the girls' baskets. The night before Easter morning Aubrey and Tyler spent some time in urgent care for what we found out to be hand, foot, mouth virus. Luckily, she was nearing the end of the uncomfortable stage and was able to mostly enjoy her Easter morning and basket. The huge Tangled stickers she got from the doctor also helped.

 Tessa enjoyed staying some nights in Grandma and Grandpa's hotel room. She also really liked the El Paso zoo, which they got to visit while Tyler and I spent the day with the realtor looking at houses.

 Abby loved the fact that our hotel had a pool. We swam twice, but the water was freezing. She found friends to swim with and didn't mind the cold, so she had to be forced out both times when the other girls were shivering too much to justify staying outside.

 We did not get to go to church Easter Sunday since we were driving home and Tyler was flying back, so the girls wore their Easter dresses the week after Easter.

 Grandma and Grandpa Gibbons bought the girls matching dresses and they were waiting for us in the mail when we got home from our trip. The girls looked adorable.

 And I think our family is pretty cute too.

We enjoyed spreading our Easter over three weekends and just being together.

Tessa Turned Five!!

Tessa turned 5 on March 24th. Luckily, it was on a Saturday so we got to celebrate with Daddy, and he let Tessa call the shots all day long.

 Her first choice was Chuck E. Cheese. After playing games and earning tickets, her choice of prize was this:

There was an Easter egg hunt in town, and the girls talked Tyler into taking them to it. They divided the hunts by age, so I stayed with Abby and Tessa while Tyler went with Aubrey.

There were some eggs with special prizes and aubrey found one that was for an inflatable flower. I liked how I got all 4 girls in this picture.

Tessa opened her gift from Grandma and Grandpa Gibbons and was extremely excited: her very own American Girl doll! The doll's name is McKenna and she's a gymnast which was perfect for our Tessa. 

Tessa with her haul of presents at the family birthday party. 

Every birthday, I've tried to make Tessa a creative cake. This year I wanted creative, yet simple. The girls are into rainbows right now, and we found this idea online. It worked beautifully especially because it was close to Easter and jelly beans were easy to find. 

Happy Birthday to our Tessa!!