2nd Annual Memorial Weekend Family Get Together

So after two years, can you consider something an Annual get together? I don't know, but I do know that for the second year in a row, we have gotten together with my parents and all my siblings for the weekend over Memorial Day. This year, we all met at my brother Scott's house down in San Antonio. It was so much fun, although some of the plans we meticulously spent weeks trying to plan had to change spur of the moment because of all the downpours that occurred while we were there. But we made it work and everyone had a great time. Hopefully you like more pictures than words, because there will be a ton that go with this post so here it goes:

 

We arrived in town on Friday night, which happened to be the 24th - my birthday. So I got to pick where to eat for dinner and I chose Mimi's Cafe. I hadn't been to one of those since we lived in California, so I was excited for something different. I got a picture of all the grandkids together after dinner that I thought it was super cute.

 

After eating, we decided to walk around the Bass Pro Shop which was next door to the restaurant. I love those stores! They have such fun picture spots. So of course, I took a ton of pictures. The kids thought the man hanging upside down was really funny.

We loved walking around inside the store where we could see all the stuffed animals and also the live fish. I love Aubrey's pose in this picture. She was doing this for multiple shots.

I love telling the kids to act scared in front of some of the bigger animals. Here, in front of the fighting elk and the mountain lions they gave some pretty convincing faces.

 

 I was finally able to get Taryn in one picture with all the cousins.

 Abby kept requesting to have her picture taken in front of things. I loved her faces. She's such an actress!

 Tessa and Aubrey howled to the moon like this carved wolf.

 

There was a waterfall and walkway outside the store as well, so we took pictures there too. This is one of my all time favorites of me and Tyler. A perfect picture to mark my 33rd birthday!

 

These ones of me and the girls turned out really cute too. Too bad I couldn't get Tyler to stick around longer to be in more pictures. I was lucky I got the one with him and me.

A visit to the San Antonio Zoo was on our itinerary, but then it started to rain...and it didn't stop. We finally decided to give it a try, but when we got there we found out they had closed because of flooding. This was the park area across from the entrance to the zoo where you could see the tops of picnic tables and trash cans, but everything else was under water. It was crazy. Grandma and Grandpa even had a hard time meeting us there because they kept getting detoured because of flooded streets in the downtown area.

Instead of the zoo, we ended up walking the mall and the Riverwalk. We were worried that it would be crazy busy because it was Memorial Weekend, but it wasn't too bad. We stopped for a few pictures along the way and at the end. I let the girls give me a funny face to keep them happy.

 

We got one picture of the entire family. It was taken on my new phone (which was a birthday present) and the picture quality was awesome.

We spent an evening at the Incredible Pizza Company where we ate a buffet dinner and played games that included arcade games, kiddie rides, and some bigger attractions like mini-golf, go karts, and mini-bowling. We spent a lot of our time with the girls in the kiddie ride section. 

 

Even Taryn took her turn on the rides and loved them.

 

We ended up at the zoo the following day and only got rained out for the first couple minutes we were there. Afterwards, the weather was great and we had a fun time checking out all the animals. We found these huge blocks outside a kid's discovery area, so I had to get pictures of the girls by them.

  

 There was a little beach area with a small stream that you could wade in, but with all the rain, we were watered out, but the girls still wanted to play in the sand.

 

Luckily, the cooler weather made it easier to take pictures on the metal animals throughout the zoo. Most had signs near them warning that they might be hot due to the sunshine, but we had no problems. Uncle John didn't mind being in our pictures either.

 Aubrey had to have her picture in front of her favorite animal - the flamingo! I decided to get all three cousins together. These girls are each 6 months apart, and it was fun to see them playing and interacting together.

 

Here's the closest picture I was able to get of everyone. It's missing half of my family (who were in the gift shop) and Nevla, but I couldn't let the opportunity slip by when this many people were sitting together.

 

The time spent at Scott and Nevla's house was also planned in advance and there wasn't a minute wasted. They were awesome hosts who planned Minute to Win It games (which were a ton of fun and all on my video camera instead of this camera), buckets of fun activities for each kid with things like puzzles, coloring books, and crafts, a cookie bar where the kids were able to form and decorate their own cookies, and of course games, the wii, and movies.

 

Their house also backs up to a huge field that's full of cows, goats, and horses, and they feed them occasionally. So the kids had a blast seeing all the animals up close and getting up the courage to feed them with their own hands.

Even Taryn liked to see all the animals, as long as they didn't get too close to her.

 

 We had such a fun time and really hope it truly becomes an annual thing for every year. We love getting together with our family!

Taryn at 18 Months

I organize my pictures by month and the month of April has like 10 pictures in it. That's how busy we were during the month of April. And the few pictures I had were from my phone. I had taken zero pictures on my camera all month long. Crazy! So I decided my blog for "April" would be an entry about Taryn who turned 18 months in the middle of April. We've been reading back in our published blog books when the older girls were around Taryn's age now and how they look similar and knew similar words, and it's been fun to remember the girls when they were this little. So, I'm excited to post and be able to remember forever all the fun things about Taryn when she was only 18 months old.

 

Taryn loves to play at parks. We go at least once a week, and she quickly found out how to climb up the steps and find the nearest slide. As long as you can reach to hold her hand, she'll come down any slide. She still gets nervous at the top of the playgrounds with all those holes in the floor, so she's more likely to crawl than walk along the bridges and long stretches of the playground. 

 

I always love doing pigtails once their hair is long enough, and Taryn was no exception.
A fun story about Taryn at this age was that for awhile she called both me and Tyler "Mommy." Whenever Tyler would walk in the door or room where she was, she'd yell out "Mommy!" and he'd try and correct her and say "Daddy," but she just kept calling him Mommy. I started to realize that when she wanted me, she would say Mommy with a whiny voice because she wanted or needed something. And when she said Mommy with a happy, laughing voice, she wanted Daddy because she was so excited to see him. I think that made Tyler feel better until she finally started to call him "Dadda."

 

 Taryn is definitely my pickiest eater. After a winter of colds, sicknesses, and teeth, she became picky about what she ate. We thought after it warmed up and she got back to her full health, her appetite would come back, but it never really did. She ate instant oatmeal for a couple weeks straight at least two if not three meals a day. We figured at least it was healthier than some other foods she could have chosen to only eat. She likes to use a fork or spoon when eating, but you have to poke the food for her, so she sits there and either hits you with the utensil or makes little squaks until you help her with the next bite.

 

Taryn loves to say cheese for the camera, but I have a lot of pictures of her reaching out like this because she always wants to hold the camera herself, or see the picture of herself. She always points and says "baby" whenever she sees herself in the picture.
 

 Taryn's a happy baby. You can see lots of her teeth in this shot. She has the top and bottom four in the middle, and four molars, but none of the sharp incisors yet. Her grin, giggle, laugh, whatever is very infectious.

This was the only picture I had of Taryn on her actual 18 month birthday. And it's the first picture I took in the new home. This is a little seat behind the master tub, which all the kids love. Taryn has even started finding her way up there whenever she's taking a tub, so she sits up there naked and covered in bubbles until Tyler or I have to put our foot in the bath to reach across and bring her back down.

Taryn still loves to follow her sisters around and do whatever they are doing. Luckily, they don't mind having the baby sister tag along. She's perfectly clear when she calls for Abby, but it sounds very similar to Aubrey, so constantly through the day you can hear Taryn calling "Aaaabeee" throughout the house. Or else she asks "Aaabee?" and we have to tell her Abby is at school. She can and will say Tessa if Tessa is around, but we finally decided we think "Abby" stands for any and all of the three girls.

This was Taryn's picture the Sunday she started Nursery. She looked so grown up before leaving for church, but then looked so tiny next to all the bigger, older nursery kids. She cried when we left her, enough that they had to bring her back to us. I was teaching the music in Primary so they had to take her to Tyler who was teaching his class. But once I took her back into nursery and she saw that they had snacks, she decided to stay and she's been fine going ever since. She gets a little sad when we leave, but quickly perks up and plays and has fun the rest of the time.

 This is probably my  most recent picture of Taryn, taken only a couple weeks ago. She fell right next to the piano and scraped her forheard right between the eyes. I think it ended up looking worse than it was. It was more of a carpet burn look than a goose egg, so she must have just slid along the edge rather than hitting it right on. I took this picture so I could send it to Tyler at work.

Some of our favorite words that she says are cracker (her first word), cookie, Rella (Cinderella - just like Abby used to say), Belle, Ariel (both taught to her by Aubrey), Mimi Mimi Mouse (Minnie Mouse which she says all the time meaning she wants to watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse), oatmeal, and milk - both she requests throughout the day. What also is cute is how whenever you figure out what she is saying and repeat it back to her to see if it's right, she'll say "yeah" while giggling. It's hilarious. My least favorite thing she has learned is how she says no. It's high pitched with a long stress on the "n" before squeaking out the rest of it. And she does it a lot especially when it's something she really doesn't want to do. "Let's go upstairs Taryn and get our jammies on." "Nnnnnno!" Cute, but naughty. :)

She still sucks her two fingers and covers it competely up with her other hand. Everyone knows this is her tell-tell sign that she's tired and it's how she falls asleep. She loves to give kisses to anyone and everyone and it's always accompanied with a loud "mmaaa" sound. She gives great hugs and will even pat your back when she lays on your shoulder. She likes to sing and dance whenever she hears music. She wags her fingers, or shakes her bum or shoulders to the beat of the music. So cute!

We love our Taryn!!



Let's Catch Up - Back to March - Spring Break and A Birthday.

Where have we been?!? Well, the past two months have been a whirl wind of packing, moving, living in hotels, moving again, and unpacking, with Spring Break and a birthday in between. I'll try to catch everything up and figured I'd better just go month to month since it's been over two since our last post.

So the highlights of March would have to be Spring Break Adventures and Tessa's birthday. We were supposed to be moving into our new house (same neighborhood, just buying instead of renting) on March 1st, but we had a fiasco trying to finalize paperwork and loan stuff, and it was pushed all the way into April. We were out of our rental house by the end of March, but luckily the girls still had a fun break from school during the week of Spring Break. My mom flew out the weekend before Spring Break started because, again, we thought we'd be moving that weekend into the new house; but no such luck, so she just hung out and played with us instead. We went to a kid's festival in downtown El Paso while she was here and met our friends there too. Lots of vendors, food, music, and free activities, so we couldn't pass it up. After taking a nature walk, the kids got free t-shirts and ice cream. We took pictures by these monster trucks.

 

Tessa even fit in the tire! They made rainbows in test tubes, and while walking through the Museum of Art, we stopped for a demonstration of African musical instruments where the girls got to help make music. Grandpa Black would have been proud!

 During Spring Break we took a trip to the zoo. The girls had been once already when we first came to El Paso looking for houses a year ago, but it was my first time. We went with our friends again and had a great time. The sea lions were some of our favorites. They kept swimming right by the window and entertaining all the kids.

 There were some different learning stations that we stopped at. Tessa really liked the wolf and had to have a picture by it. Aubrey had to have a picture of her sitting on the bench with the bear.

 We took a lot of pictures by the merry-go-round with this tiger and the elephant (to the left), but the kids were a little sad that they couldn't ride the merry-go-round because the moms didn't want to pay the extra fee. Taryn stayed in her stroller for all the picture stops, but she loved seeing the animals. We also saw an exhibit where the animals painted the pictures. It was pretty cool. Paintings done by all kinds of animals - elephants, monkeys, snakes, sea lions, etc.

 Tyler even took a day off during Spring Break to play with the girls. No pictures though. We just went to a park, shopped, and ate out. Our final day during the week was spent at an indoor splash park. The girls really liked the warm water. Taryn was totally happy in the water, but she wanted me to hold her, not Abby, so she was not happy that I was trying to take pictures instead of holding her.

 

I don't get many pictures of Tyler with the girls, so I always like to add them whenever I have them. Here's Tyler snuggling with Aubrey and Taryn.

 

 Finally, the other big event in March was Tessa's birthday! She turned 6 on the 24th. She was supposed to have a birthday party with friends, but we talked her into waiting until we were in the new house, thinking she'd be able to have a swim party and everything. However, with all our holdups, we were still in the rental house for her birthday and in the middle of packing up and trying to figure out what we were going to do for the next couple weeks. So her birthday, unfortunately, wasn't as grand as we were planning it to be, but we had a fun family day filled with her presents, her favorite foods, and a new treat.

 

 Her birthday fell on a Sunday, so we let her open all her gifts before church. She got things like a Figit (just like Aubrey's but a new color), a Lego Friends car, a whole book created for her by Abby, and a cake ball maker to name a few.

 

 We attempted the cake balls for the first time and although they were not professional looking by any means, the girls had fun helping and they still tasted very yummy. I decided after the fact that her birthday theme this year could have been "balls" because besides the cake balls, we also ate meatballs for her birthday meal because that is one of her favorite foods.

 

Tessa dressed her doll up to match her for church, so I had to take a picture because she already looks so much like her doll, that the matching dresses just put it right over the top in cuteness.

 

A few other things about Tessa for her birthday update is that she is an awesome reader. She's almost finished with her Kindergarten year, and she is doing great in school. She has lots of friends, and everyone (teachers, parents, other kids) always comment about how cute and funny and sweet Tessa is. She rides a bike and scooters with ease, and loves to follow Abby around and do whatever she is doing. She's great with Taryn and can make her laugh easier than anyone else. She's very independent (still!). She picks out her own clothes and likes to make all decisions herself. She still hates to have her hair brushed and will never let me do it. I'm lucky if she'll even wear a headband. However, she's a joy in our family and we love her so much!

Happy Birthday Tessa!!