Aubrey Turns 6 and Loves Kindergarten

I'm trying to catch up before the end of the school year. So much has happened over the past three months, I'd better get with it. Aubrey turned 6 on February 10th and has really enjoyed her kindergarten year of school. I'll probably do another post at the end of the school year, but I keep stressing about some of the events I've captured from her kindergarten year that happened last fall, that I don't want to be too late chronologically, so I'll include them in this post. So here's the birthday girl and a look at her kindergarten year thus far.

Because we went on another family vacation the weekend after Aubrey's birthday (see next post), we talked Aubrey out of a birthday party even though we had originally said they can have friend parties on every even birthday. Our vacation was another trip to Legoland and Disneyland, so she was okay with that deal. We did have our good friends, the Kasallis's and the Cain's, over to help celebrate on her actual birthday. Instead of birthday cake this year, Aubrey requested Dad's famous mint brownies with pink frosting instead of his usual green.

 Aubrey opened a few presents from the family, friends, and grandparents. She got some new games, Lego's, clothes, drawing pages, and other toys. She was super excited about the Frozen Lego's she got.

Back in October, the kindergartners took their field trip to a pumpkin patch. I probably should have added this post so it would be included in the 2014 blog book, but I didn't so here it is before it gets any later or forgotten all together. I think it was Aubrey's first time on a big yellow bus and their class sang a song about riding it a couple weeks prior to the big day.

 I was able to chaperon so I followed Aubrey and her friends around the pumpkin patch and all of its activities. Here's Aubrey with some of her classmates: Daisy, Shaelyn, Reagan, Aubrey, and Chloe.

Reagan was Aubrey's buddy since she didn't have a parent there, so these two girls were my charge. They had fun picking out the best pumpkin that they got to take home.

 They had a lot of fun activities that we stayed for like a trike maze and a tower of tires that the kids loved to climb. I finally got Aubrey to stand still long enough for a picture, although I couldn't get her and her friends to ever stop at the same time on the tower for a picture together.

This was my favorite picture spot. We had gone to this same pumpkin patch with Tessa's kindergarten class two years ago, but this was new this time, and pretty awesome. We love Despicable Me and its minions. The wanted poster was the same as last time so I got a picture there too just with Aubrey and Taryn this time.

In February, the 100th day of school occurred. Aubrey had to wear a shirt that had 100 items on it. She picked jewels and decided on the design herself and even helped me glue them on. She also helped me decide on the iron-on letters so that it read "100 days smarter."

Once a month their school has Wellness Walk days where parents are invited to join their kids during their PE time. In February, it was so windy that they had to have PE in the gym. I took some pictures because I realized that I didn't have many pictures of Aubrey and her friends from school. Here's Aubrey with her buddy Sammy, who belongs to the Kasallis family that we hang out with a lot, but he's not in her class at school. I also grabbed a picture of Aubrey with her classmates Chloe and Reagan, two of her closest friends from her class.

The rest of her kindergarten year will be included at the end of the school year, but she's been doing great in school so far. She loves school, her teacher Mrs. Hardwick, and her friends. She's learning quickly and is starting to read on her own now. She's doing awesome at reading. Mrs. Hardwick loves her and says she's an great student and very helpful. She is friends with everyone and says her favorite part of school is hanging out with her friends at PE.

A cute story about Aubrey at the beginning of the school year was when she had only been in school for a week or so, and she was doing homework after school. I was sitting at the table with her and helping her with her homework when she said, "Mom, I wish you were my teacher." I asked "why," thinking that she'd say something about me being a good teacher because I had just helped with her homework, but what she said was, "because I miss you." It made me cry a little because she was my little buddy for so many years, and we hadn't been apart for very long until she started school. It was pretty cute. I love that girl.

Some other fun facts about Aubrey as a six year old: She pretty much has stopped sucking her thumb. She has had one cavity. She loves to dance and record herself doing dance videos. She can drive our little motorized car better than her older sisters. She still has the longest hair and wants "Rapunzel hair." And I allow her to keep her long hair because she complains the least when I brush it, so she must have a pretty hard head. She still loves headbands and all things girly like skirts and dresses. She's a joy in our family and we love her. Happy Birthday Aubrey!

The Beginning of 2015

As we started out a new year, I ended up with a few pictures that are worth posting about before we get to birthdays and more family trips. The first couple pictures are from a photo shoot that we had one Sunday morning after using the hot rollers. We do this so infrequently that when we actually do use them, the girls look so different. Abby had her hair in braids the night before to give her hair the crimped look. These pictures turned out really cute and are the ones I've printed out to have on our mantel for the next year or so because I liked them so much.

My van broke down one week, so Taryn and I had to spend our morning at Pep Boys. Tyler met us to pay the bill and have a quick lunch, but at least Taryn was entertained while we waited by the huge display of "the Pep Boys" that were her exact height.

We went to dinner one weekend with our friends, the Cains. They have three girls. While waiting in line, we took a picture of all 7 girls together. They decided themselves to sit in order from oldest to youngest. We really like hanging out with the Cains and having all the girls play together because they all get along so well. They are great friends.

We went to the zoo as a family in January and finally, after 2 years, got to see the sea lion show. There famous sea lion died right after we moved here, so their show was cancelled while they trained the new sea lions. It was finally reopened and we made it to a show. I like this selfie family picture mainly because of Tessa's grumpy face and the fact that we got all 6 of us in the shot. The girls found this bridge near the old zoo entrance and had to have a picture. I like the picture so much that it's now my backgroundon my phone.

We had a freak snow storm in the middle of January, but it started after the sun rose, so school was not cancelled. I took this first picture as the girls were getting ready for school. They took 5 minutes to play before their carpool ride showed up to take them to school. As the day continued on however, the snow did not stop - it just got worse!  So by lunch time, the school was calling it a day early, so we had to pick up kids early which was a mad house because the roads were horrible, and the schedules were so off from a regular school day. It was nice though to come home a tad early and spend the rest of the afternoon playing in the snow. Abby and I built this snow animal (we decided it looked more like an animal than a man) in our front yard. It's kind of funny building snowmen from a yard full of rocks. They stick in the rolling snow and are a lot more noticeable than blades of grass. This was my kind of snow however. It was here for two days, long enough for us to play and enjoy it, and then it was gone. I love winters in Texas!

Tyler's always good about making treats. He's become the dessert chef in our home. His signature dish is brownies (from scratch!) with mint frosting. The girls request them often. I like catching pictures of any of the girls hanging out with their daddy. This particular time it was Taryn giving dad a helpful hand in the kitchen.

Christmas 2014 in Utah

We finished off our year of 2014 with celebrating Christmas with family in Utah. We ended our family vacation with the drive up to Grandma and Grandpa's house. We love getting together there because everyone comes and we are all together in Grandma's house and are able to visit, play games, eat food, relax, and let the kids play. 

The roads were nice and clear as we drove, no snow surprisingly, but it did snow Christmas morning so we had a white Christmas which the kids loved. My girls had to get out and play at least until they got too cold, which didn't take very long.

Aubrey enjoyed playing with my phone and spent one afternoon having a photo shoot of everything in Grandma's house with the help of her two assistants, Taryn and Lucy. I had to delete a lot of pictures that were so close up of whatever she was shooting, that you couldn't even tell what it was. Here were some of my favorites of her helpers.

Everyone got matching pajamas to open on Christmas Eve again this year and they all looked so cute in their stripes. Even the Moms had stripey pajamas. The Dads had shirts that said they were on the naughty list this year which was pretty funny.

Christmas morning is always fun with everyone together. Santa always comes through and gets everyone what they asked for. Here are my girls with their Santa gifts - tablets for Abby and Tessa, a LeapPad for Aubrey, and a cash register for Taryn.

We did the traditional pinata with each of the grandkids getting a turn to hit it starting from the youngest. Here are some shots of our girls taking their turns. We of course have to divide the candy out later to make sure everyone gets their fair share.

 

The grandkids also put on the nativity with the older kids in charge of putting it all together. Tyler seems to always get cast as the donkey. And here are two of my angels. I pretty much love Taryn's pose. We always have a lot of angels with all the girls we have.

We also had our annual talent show. Everyone does something and this year my girls were prepared in advance. They had been practicing their numbers weeks before we left on our trip. Taryn and I did a duet of Jingle bells. I sang the verses and she sang the chorus. It was cute, but since I was in it, no picture. Aubrey sang Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Tessa sang a song also. She sang All I Want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth which was awesome because she had the missing teeth for it. Abby performed multiple times. She played Silent Night on the piano while singing it in Japanese. She also did a duet on the piano with Anna that they prepared a couple days before Christmas and she did a singing duet with Sara that I think they prepared the day of the talent show.

 

The exciting event of the weekend was going ice skating. My girls had never been before but were excited to try. They were definitely frustrated at first, but with the help of the little pushers and sometimes from Grandpa and Mom and Dad, they were getting the hang of it by the end and said it was fun. Tyler, who is not a skater, was also a little nervous about going but he picked it up quickly and was great at helping push the little ones around. Taryn thought it was awesome because she just hooked her feet under the pusher, held on by her arms and just took a ride-no work required for her!

 I thought it was a lot of fun except for the scabs we ended up with above our ankles from the boots rubbing against our legs. Abby, Tessa, and I had it the worst and getting it wet in the shower was like torture. I felt really bad because I gave Tessa a hard time who wouldn't shower because she said it hurt, but I didn't realize how painful it really was until the next morning when I took my own shower. I had to apologize to her because she was right - the water on it really hurt!

Since we spent quite a bit of time at the rink, the kids were getting creative and really finding ways to skate and have fun. They all said they'd go back and do it again, painful legs and all!

 We drove home after the Christmas break and spent the rest of the school break at home as a family. We did New Years on our own and had fun playing with our new toys from Christmas and playing games and eating appetizer foods all day and night until the New Year came. I also got a New Year's Eve present - a new phone after my old one decided to take a swim in our freezing cold pool. I was not happy about it, but luckily I was up for an upgrade so it didn't cost to much. I have learned to leave my phone inside the house when I clean the pool now. Lesson learned!

Abby made it to the new year again and Tessa was super close. She asked for some of the bubbly drink about 15 minutes to midnight so she could try it and then fell asleep missing the New Year by like 10 minutes. We had a great 2014 year and can't wait to see what the year 2015 will bring.