White Sands National Monument

Our fun family adventures continue this new year with our weekend trip to New Mexico over President's Day Weekend. We went with some friends to White Sands National Monument which is only about an hour and a half away from us. It is known for the acres and acres of super soft white sand dunes. And people go there to sled down them - like an awesome sandy beach without the water. We'd heard about White Sands right after we moved here, and we've been looking forward to going; and it was well worth the trip.

 

The weather was beautiful. When we stopped at the visitors center at the entrance to the park, it was quite windy, but once we drove to the dunes, it was awesome. We hear it gets super hot in the summer so going when we did was one of the best times. The sand was a little chilly on your feet, but only if they sunk down too much, but everyone had so much fun. We tried a few stops and had the dads go out and find the perfect spot by testing the hills.

Once we found that perfect spot, the kids couldn't wait to try it out.

 The little kids could really fly down the hills and they had fun racing, trying new lanes, and even sliding/running down without a sled.

We also brought sand toys which kept the youngest kids busy digging and building. (We did take Taryn down the hill in the sled with one of us multiple times and she loved it too!)

 

 We even had some burying to do.

 

After we had our share of sledding, we took a quick trek on a boardwalk that had information about the park and its vegetation. I even caught Tyler to get a picture of us together. We definitely want to go back.

 



Aubrey Turns Four!!

I realized as the weeks went by in January that I hardly ever have any pictures for the month of January and for the last couple years, my first blog entry is from Aubrey's birthday which is in February, and the same has happened again this year. Oh well. It's a great event to lead off our year. Being Aubrey's fourth birthday, we actually had a party this year since Abby and Tessa both had their first birthday party (with friends) at age 4. Here's a picture of Aubrey just before her birthday. It shows her personality the best I think. Her favorite colors are pink and purple and she almost always wears this pink headband with her own additional accessories. And I love how she picked out her socks specifically mismatching them so they'd "go with her outfit" which was purple and pink. Love her! The second picture is Aubrey on her actual birthday with all her family gifts. She has like three outfits (dresses) that she would wear every day if she could and two of those were new outfits she got for her birthday to give her a few choices. This purple dress was one of those - a gift from Grandma Gibbons who let us have a shopping spree for clothes. It is now her favorite dress. Her tights were from Grandma Black.

 

Aubrey's actual birthday was on Sunday this year, so the night before we celebrated with just the family by playing at Chuck E. Cheese, shopping for clothes, and eating at Aubrey's favorite restaurant - IHOP. See - this is from a different day than the picture taken above, but she's wearing the same pink and purple outfit with the headband! :)

On Sunday, Aubrey got to wear her new dress to church, got sung to in Primary (she's now a Sunbeam!), got candy from the Bishop, and opened her presents from the family. She even let me do her hair with a heart braid, which I thought turned out really cute.



Aubrey is part of a Joy School pre-school, and it just happened that I was teaching the week of her birthday so we just extended the pre-school time, invited a few extra friends, and started her party. We played games, had lunch, opened presents, ate cake and ice cream, and just let them play which they loved. They all seemed to have a great time and Aubrey was ecstatic with all her gifts which included things like a new monkey tent (our tiger tent was thrown out a couple months ago), a Tinkerbell book, a Dora plate, and a ruffle skirt to name a few. Being so close to Valentine's we used a heart and pink theme. It was perfect!

 

Now a few final comments on Aubrey at age 4:

She would not say she was four until after her birthday party with friends even though it was two days after her actual birthday.

She still sucks her thumb even though she said once she turned four she'd "be a big girl" and would stop.

She requests to watch "her shows" almost all day long which include shows like Sofia the Princess, Jake and the Neverland Pirates, and Doc McStuffins.

She loves to fall asleep in Mom and Dad's bed watching "her shows" and even after transferring her to her own bed, some time during the night she ends up back in bed with us. (Lucky mom and dad!) :)

She loves to play the wii and be either Daisy or Peach.

She still hates pants. It's only dresses or skirts for her. We're lucky to get leggings on her if it's cold.

She loves her friends and her sisters. She's very social and loves to play. She's a great big sister and loves to have Taryn around her no matter what she's doing.

We love our Aubrey!

 

And one last picture of all four girls on Aubrey's birthday. They are all growing up too fast!

 

Happy Birthday Aubrey!!

Christmas in Utah

The final post for 2012! We had a wonderful Christmas with the Gibbons Family in Utah. It was short, but fun. The usual winter sicknesses passed around, but the festivities and annual traditions were still as to be expected. We had a blast!

Aunt Tara created some games for the kids and one was a ball toss into a snowman cutout. Tessa had to have Grandma's help. They also played Christmas Bingo.


Everyone got to help cut out sugar cookies and then decorate them. That made for a lot of cookies that were left out for Santa.

The annual talent show was a big hit like always. Every grandkid participated which I thought was cool. Abby had prepared a song to sing, but we didn't practice how she needed to be seen, so she was hiding behind the iPad which was her accompaniment. She still did a great job. Tessa decided last minute to play her rendition of "Joy to the World" which she figured out on her own that starting at the highest note on the piano she can play the first full line of the song. As my shy one, I was very impressed that she did it without getting scared. And she even did it a second time when Aunt Lora missed recording it the first time.

Aubrey, who had just woken up from a nap after being sick all evening even decided to participate by singing Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer. She had to sit on my lap and we asked everyone to join us, but she sang it too and it was great. Here's the picture I took of Aubrey while she napped. We thought it was so cute how she cupped her face with her hands.

Freddie made an appearance during the talent show as he's a crowd favorite. Uncle Tim dresses up with a wig and teeth and sings some hilarious songs. We even got a Christmas gift of a full cd of Freddie's songs. It's seriously hilarious.

There's always a pinata and this year it was a snowman. Everyone takes a turn hitting it, youngest to oldest. I think it went around twice before Andrew (the oldest grandkid at 13) pounded it open.

Abby self-appointed herself in charge of the Nativity this year. She and her cousins made sure everyone had a part that wanted one and took care of all the costumes. They even got Tyler to be the donkey to carry Mary. With all the girls in the family, we always have lots of angels. They all performed beautifully.

Everyone gets to open their new pjs Christmas Eve. I love how Grandma and Grandpa can finding matching pajamas when the sizes range from like 6 months to size 10. It was awesome! This is my favorite picture of the entire trip. Everyone is smiling and looking adorable.


And we finally took some time Christmas Day to play in the snow. Here's a couple of them playing and making snow angels outside the house.

I had to get a picture of Taryn with her cousin Anson. They're just over two months apart, but both were holding on and cruising along everything. Poor Anson found the stairs and took a tumble so he had a nice little Rudolph nose from a carpet burn just in time for Christmas. I love how they have the same color eyes. Every time I'd see Anson I'd think "he's just a boy version of my Taryn." Little cuties!

Abby's Birthday and Baptism

Even though Christmas separated Abby's birthday and her baptism, I decided to post them together since they were only a couple weeks apart. Abby was allowed to invite 8 girls to a birthday party that we had the weekend before her actual birthday. She planned the entire event herself. She decided on the time, the games, the movie, the food, and the invitations which she made mostly herself. Seven of the 8 girls were able to come, so we had a great time. Abby wanted to sing as one of her activities, so I thought it'd be cute to record the girls singing and make cds for them to take home. It took longer than I thought, but we were able to do it and even put a cover on the cd with a picture of all the girls. It was a lot of fun.

Abby's birthday fell on a Wednesday this year, but it happened to be the school's Wellness Walk Wednesday where parents are encouraged to come walk with their children during their PE class, so the younger girls and I got to see Abby at school on her birthday and have lunch with her. She showed off her mad hoola hooping skills, which she's very into these days.

 

Abby was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on December 29th. We are so proud of her and her decision. We were able to combine the day with a friend, Kai Mesarch, and they were both baptized the same day. (The Mesarch family is the ones who took us rock climbing.) We had pictures of the kids taken together to make invites to send to friends in the ward and neighborhood. I worked all night long to finish making Abby's dress so she could wear it for the pictures. It turned out beautifully if I do say so myself.

We took a lot of pictures the day of the baptism, but I completely forgot to have one taken of our entire family. Oh well, I was just glad to get the pictures I did, and Abby was so happy and excited.

 

Both sets of grandparents were able to be there. They sang a musical number with members of Kai's family too and Grandma Gibbons gave a prayer and Grandpa Black gave one of the talks. 

 

 

Abby had lots of friends from the ward and school come and support her, which was awesome. She even had her best friend from Kindergarten, Ella Kramer, there who was visiting from Wichita Falls the same weekend.

 

And I had to get a picture of Abby's new CTR ring. Her Grandpa Gibbons made it for her and she's been looking forward to getting it for a long time. When we were in Utah for Christmas, one of the first questions she asked Grandpa was "are you working on my ring Grandpa." He made one for Grandma and has since been making replicas for each grandchild for when they get baptized.

 Having an 8-year-old sure makes us feel a little old, but Abby is definitely a joy in our family. She's an incredible helper and big sister and we love her so much!

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.