Catch Up in December including Rock Climbing Adventure

With so many events just in December, I want to try and get them all on the blog quickly, so I can finish up 2012 before it's too late into 2013. So to catch up, I'm going to start with all the non-holiday events that happened in December. That's basically decorating for Christmas and an awesome weekend trip we had rock climbing. We'll start with that. While Tyler flew to Idaho for his Grandma Gibbons' funeral, the girls and I were invited to go rock climbing with our friends from church. They go a lot and found a place just up the mountain from our house. It was a bit chilly, but the kids found rocks to climb and explore while we all took turns rock climbing. I was totally impressed with myself just for hiking the short distance to the rock with Taryn on my back. With no where for her to crawl, Taryn was luckily mostly happy hanging out in the backpack as long as you kept the snacks coming.

 

The kids were even able to take turns if they wanted one. Tessa tried first from my family and she got pretty far for her first time. She was very adventurous and even got a second chance which was the most any one got. She was even trying to climb by herself without any ropes because she was too impatient to wait. Aubrey was content exploring the rocks and following the other little kids around.

 I didn't even think Abby would want to try, and she did keep going back and forth deciding if she really wanted to, but once she decided, she did amazing! She went higher than any of the kids and I was completely amazed at how well she did without even getting scared.

 I also took a turn and got to the very top (I was also very impressed with how well I did for my first time). My friend took pictures of me on her phone, but I don't have any copies yet which is fine - they're all of my backside anyway. It was a thrill and we definitely want to go again.

As for other happenings in December, all the girls helped us decorate the house for Christmas. I liked this picture because even Taryn crawled and climbed her way over to see what was in the big bucket of decorations.

 And speaking of Taryn, she is getting everywhere these days. She still doesn't quite walk on her own, but if there's something to hold on to, she can move quite quickly. She loves to get to the stairs and climb up to the landing which is right above our computer desk and just grab the rails and giggle and scream like she's found a secret hiding place. She is just now (like in January) starting to figure out the correct way to come back down the stairs, so we are constantly finding her on the stairs and following her as she goes up to make sure she's okay. She loves to open the window blinds as she walks along the wall, and even open the entire shutter if she can to check out what's happening outside. The girls thought this reindeer headband was cute on Taryn and she didn't seem to mind it either - for a little while anyway.

 

Finally, the girls had Christmas parties at school on their last day before the break. I was able to stop in to see them for a few minutes and I took this picture of Tessa's entire Kindergarten class. It was pajama day for them, and I was happy to get a complete class photo.

 Abby's birthday was the last Wednesday of school before the break and they had an assembly during their PTA meeting where they handed out awards for the Reflections contest. Abby won first place for the Musical Composition category for an original song she wrote and sang. I was so proud of her. Unfortunately, they spelled our last name wrong so she didn't even get to go home with anything because they kept her plaque to have it fixed. We'll be hearing in the next month or so if her entry goes any further in the competition, but we were so proud of her accomplishment.

Thanksgiving and other November Highlights

The busy time of year is here. As December begins, we are busy Christmas shopping, preparing to travel to Utah, planning Abby's birthday (which includes her Baptism this year), and staying involved with parties, activities, and get togethers for school, work, and friends. Like I said - busy! So here's a recap on our November including our Thanksgiving trip back to Grandma and Grandpa's house.

 

At the girls' school, they had a Career Day and the girls had to make puppets of what they wanted to be when they grew up. Abby chose a chef, and Tessa choose a gymnastics coach. Aubrey had to make a puppet as well. We also got the new Madagascar movie this month. The girls are constantly singing the line from the movie: "Afro circus, afro circus, polkadot, polkadot, polkadot afro." We got the rainbow afro wig with the movie and Taryn let us put it on her one night. Too funny!

The girls also had a Thanksgiving meal at school during lunch time. The younger girls and I went to eat with them. Tessa and the other Kindergarteners got to create their own costumes whether they wanted to be a Pilgrim or a Native American. The room mom took our picture for us. 

 

this is one of my favorite poses for taking pictures. I stood on the bed and got this picture of Tyler with all the girls. The flash was too bright for Taryn, but I liked the picture anyway.

 

 As we drove to Grandma and Grandpa's for Thanksgiving, Tyler promised the girls we would stay in a hotel with an indoor pool. However, we were only able to find a hotel with a heated pool. We figured it wouldn't be warm enough to swim in the November weather, but it was and they talked us into letting them swim before we headed off on the second leg of the journey. We had to wait for a bit while the pool was cleaned so we used the towels because outside the heated pool, it got a bit chilly.

We had to use my phone to entertain Taryn while we waited, and it helped that Tyler entertained us as well.

 

We loved being with all our family for Thanksgiving. We ate food, played games, did a gift exchange, did crafts, and just hung out. The weather was awesome and we spent a lot of time outside playing frisbee. Tessa found this tree to climb in the church lawn. We also had to take family pictures since it was before John and McKaye's wedding since we had taking any. I really liked this one with the girls and Chloe before leaving the house.

 

Each family wore a different color. We picked yellow so we had to go buy something for Taryn, so I had to take a picture of her in her new outfit. She's such a doll! And I caught this cute one of Aubrey with Rebecca at the Falls which was where we took our pictures.

 

And here's one of the shots of our family.

 

And one with everyone.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Halloween...Finally

Here it is half way through November and I'm finally getting Halloween pictures posted. I figured with Thanksgiving and traveling coming up, I'd better not get too far behind, so here it is...

 

The girls had a fall festival at their school mid-October and they had really cute displays set up perfect for picture backdrops. I couldn't get Taryn to look at me though because she was trying to figure out the scratchy stuff I sat her on.

 

We went to the pumpkin patch with Tessa's Kindergarten class for their field trip and it was so much fun. There will be more pictures of this when I go over her Kindergarten year, but I wanted to at least add this one in an October post.

 

 During Conference weekend, we decorated our house for Halloween. The Dollar Store decorations from last year made a reappearance and we actually found a large spider this year to include in the web in the front yard. The blow-up spider we had from last year just wasn't cutting it for scary decorations that the girls were looking for.

 

 During Family Night we carved pumpkins, and I was so happy to just do regular jack-o-lantern faces this year. It was so much easier and faster than using the kits and stencils. The girls were able to help more and seriously we were done so fast. It was a lot of fun. It's definitely the way to go when you have kids helping. 

 

And here are the costumes for this year: Aubrey went as Rapunzel. She had the only handmade costume this year and it was a good thing because it was pretty involved. I refused to pay the thirty bucks to buy a cheap looking costume from the store when I knew I could make one that would look way better, but after buying all the material and accessories to do this dress, it cost a bit more, but I thought it looked a lot better too. Luckily Aubrey loved it and still wears it regularly and there's always Taryn in a couple years so I figured the dress will get its use. Too bad when we actually went trick-or-treating around the neighborhood, Aubrey refused to wear the hair, which was one of my favorite parts of the costume!

 

Abby went as a cowgirl and was happy with the outfit especially after she got her very first pair of cowboy boots, which she proceeded to wear to school about three times a week leading up to Halloween. I figured we've lived in Texas long enough, I guess we're pretty much Texans now that we own cowboy boots. Abby was also excited to find out that a couple of her friends from church were also dressing up as either cowgirls or Indian princesses, so that was fun for her. Tessa dressed up as a butterfly fairy this year. She was happy digging through the dress up box to create her costume. We got new leggings to keep her warm, so she was happy with something purchased, and we tried to find an antennae headband to complete the look, but ran out of time. With her cute face, I figured she could pull off any costume and look adorable.

 

With this being Taryn's first Halloween where we could actually dress her (she was about two weeks old last year), she had to wear the infamous monkey suit. Abby's babysitter from California made this costume for Abby's first Halloween and we've used it for every girl's first Halloween since. Unfortunately, Taryn had been under the weather due to her teeth coming in and it was already pretty warm weather, so the full suit didn't last longer than the first 10 minutes or so of the ward trunk or treat party. But she at least kept the head piece on through the trick-or-treating, which is the best part of the costume anyway. 

 

The ward trunk or treat and chili cookoff was a blast. There were so many people who came. The girls made out with way too much candy and they loved seeing everyone else's costumes.

 I was even able to grab a picture of a bunch of the girls in our ward in the back of my friend's truck as they checked out their goodies. 

 

Unfortunately, this was the last night we had Tyler with us for a couple days as he came home from this activity not feeling very well. He was under the weather for the next two days, then finally stayed home from work when it wasn't getting any better and went into the doctor only to find out that he had strep. Luckily, after two shots and some antibiotics, he finally started to feel better again. Sadly, he missed out on Halloween night and trick-or-treating around the neighborhood completely.

 

The girls and I went around with a neighbor and some other families we ran into from the ward, so we still had fun and loaded up their goodie baskets to overflowing. Aubrey even found this adult princess that she immediately ran up to and wanted to hold her hand. The lady was really nice and let me take a picture of them. Aubrey was sad I think that she couldn't continue with her new princess buddy, but she waved goodbye and was just so excited that she was able to meet a "real live princess!"

The girls were a little sad that we didn't get home early enough to continue handing out candy to people coming to our house (it was a school night), so after talking to some other friends I'm wondering if we shouldn't just bag the trick-or-treating next year, stay home, order pizza, and just pass out candy. We get plenty of candy at other activities and the kids really love passing out candy. It's an idea anyway. So our Halloween (and other October activities) were a fun way to start out the end of year holidays. We're looking forward to plenty more fun times with our ward family and friends and with our actual families as we travel and celebrate the upcoming holidays.

Taryn Turned One!!

 So before the month is over and completely overtaken by Halloween, I figured I'd better get a post up from Taryn's birthday. Taryn turned one on October 14th. It was Sunday so she was dressed up anyway. Unfortunately we were running late for church so I didn't get pictures until after church which is why her hair (first pig tail ever) was already flying away. Here's the birthday girl:

 

Taryn is now very agile. She pulls herself up on almost anything and will walk around as long as there's something to hold on to. Her favorite activity is trying to make it to the stairs. She has to climb up one step to get to our front entry way and then she hangs out at the stairs, not figuring out yet thankfully how to get up the narrow steps when she's used to having lots of room to pull herself up. I've caught her a few times maybe one step up, but we usually take her back away from the entry way whenever we find her at the bottom of the stairs.

 

Taryn's birthday meal happened to also be Aubrey's favorite meal - a turkey dinner. Stuffing is Aubrey's favorite food and with that, mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes Taryn was loving everything even when it was headed up her nose. 

 

A heart-shaped personal-sized cake was her celebration dessert. She had Abby help her blow out the candle, but she didn't let anyone help her devour the cake. I think I even threw a portion of the cake away, because after her huge dinner and over half of the cake, I was afraid she would get sick if she ate too much more of the sweets.

 

 A day or so after her birthday, I found our "1st birthday" hat, which I think I have a picture of each girl wearing since we've had it since Abby turned one. Too bad Taryn wouldn't keep it on though. Every picture I had was blurry from the hat moving off her head faster than I could take the picture. This was the best one I could get and it did not stay on very long.

 I also have some 5x7 pictures of each of the girls when they turned one with a pretend birthday cake. Abby and Tessa both had real photos from a studio, but poor Aubrey and Taryn had to deal with homemade pretend cakes and a photo shoot by mom. Here are some of my favorites of Taryn's photo shoot:

 Near the end I was trying to take a few shots that were similar in appearance and pose to her sisters' pictures, but once that candle was in reach it wasn't long before it was being ripped off. Finally I just took pictures while she held the candle, and I caught this one right before she stuffed the whole thing in her mouth. We were pretty much done with the photo shoot by this point. Luckily I already had some cute ones and these just made me laugh after going through them on the computer.

 Even being the fourth girl, Taryn has made her place and will not be forgotten. She jabbers constantly and can scream to be heard over her sisters if needs be. She loves to be entertained by her sisters and she has the best laugh/giggle anytime someone gets close to her belly or neck. She's happy and adorable and we love her so much.

Happy Birthday Taryn!!