December, Part 2 - Christmas in Utah

We spent our Christmas in Utah in 2018.  We drove to Utah the day the kids got out of school and stayed in a hotel in Moab, UT. We finished the drive Saturday morning and made it to Grandma's house by lunch. There was snow at Grandma's house so the kids were super excited to start playing in it right away. Taryn, Lucy, and Anson had fun searching for icicles in the back yard. In this first picture you can see the biggest one they found that Taryn is holding. Taryn was super amazed at all the icicles because she had never seen them that big before. Lucy and Taryn loved being Tyler's shoulder angels this trip. They asked for shoulder rides all weekend. I tried telling them one is supposed to be the angel giving good advice and one is supposed to be the devil giving bad advice, but both girls wanted to be angels. Hence, two shoulder angels for Tyler. It was pretty cute.

Before heading to church, we grabbed a couple pictures. Here's one with Grandma and all the grandkids.  Tara just had a baby so they didn't make it out, but there were still plenty of grandkids to go around.

After church, we took our big group pictures while we were still all dressed up. Here's the grandkids with both Grandma and Grandpa.

We did our usual talent show and each child performed something. Taryn did some cup stacking. Aubrey did her gymnastics moves, and Tessa played the piano. Abby sang with her cousins and also sang Glorious with her sisters. I wished we had more room in the van and we could've brought Abby's horn or Tessa's drums. They could have had a lot more talent options if their talent equipment weren't so large. Oh well. It was still a great talent show.

The teenage grandkids put together the nativity. They read the story from the Bible while the rest of the kids acted out the parts. The scenery and costumes were all found and created by the girls as well. It was a great production and we as parents love that we just get to enjoy the final show instead of having to be in charge of putting it together. Thank goodness for creative teenage girls!

We did get a few games in while we were together, which is our favorite part. I grabbed a picture of the adults while playing games in our Christmas jammies.

Seeing Dutchess the horse was also high on my girls' list of going to Grandma's house. She's definitely bigger than when we brought her out there a year ago. It was fun seeing her and how much she's grown.

The three "littles" loved helping Grandpa feed Dutchess. She was even nice enough to let them pet her when she got close enough to the fence.

The older girls stayed cooped up in their basement room all weekend. I finally headed down there to get my own picture of them since we hardly ever saw them. They loved just talking, playing games on their phones, and making up dances and movies while they were together.

I took this picture of the "in-betweens" right before the pinata party. These kids were good about hanging out together. They're the not quite teenagers, but too old to play with the "littles".

Here are some group shots before and after the pinata hitting. The kids were really getting into cheering for each other as they each took a turn hitting the pinata. We always start youngest to oldest, but the pinata is wrapped good enough that everyone gets at least three turns to hit it. They even started blindfolded this time for the first two hits, but then we went another round without the blindfold before they busted it open. It's such a fun tradition.

Here are the matching pajamas that everyone got this year thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Gibbons. We love getting our Christmas pajamas and being able to open them Christmas Eve.

Here's a final picture of everyone on that Sunday before Christmas. I love how even though we see each other maybe twice a year, it doesn't take long for our kids to get right back into the swing of being best friends again. We love our family and loved being able to spend Christmas together.

Merry Christmas from the Gibbons!

2018

December, Part 1 - Concerts, Parties, Abby's Birthday

December flew by to end out the year. The girls were busy with school functions, parties, and activities. I have pictures for each girl, so we'll start with Aubrey. Aubrey loves having her hair done. She usually chooses to braid it after showering so that she can have crimpy hair the next couple days. She also loves to have curly hair when there's enough time to do it. The curls will usually last a couple days in her hair as well. We took a picture of her in front of the Christmas tree on one of her curly hair days. At Fun Fit Friday, I took a lot of picture with Aubrey and her friends. Here she is with Kaitlyn and Riley.

We took some group pictures of the 4th graders as well. Aubrey loves her class and all the kids. They have fun playing together. Aubrey is her class representative this year and she loves making sure that everyone feels included. Her favorite thing to do during recess and PE is gymnastics. 

Taryn had her first grade performance in December. She was very excited to sing her songs. Every time she heard one of the songs on the radio, she'd sing along and let everyone know that this was one of her songs from her performance. She wanted her hair fancy to go with her fancy dress.

I took a few pictures before and after her performance with some of her friends. The first picture is with two boys from her class, Hector and Mason. And after the performance, we took this picture of Taryn with two of her closest friends, Alyssa and Isabella, who were in her class last year; but they have a different teacher this year. 

I loved that another parent put this picture on Facebook because all of my pictures from the actual performance were from the way back, so the pictures are blurry and grainy. Taryn was front row and did a great job singing all of their Christmas songs. 

These are the pictures I took while they were performing. If I looked just right between the arms of other parents, I could get a perfect view of Taryn. And I liked this second picture because of the First Grade sign. 

Tessa had to enter the Science Fair this year and decided on a project dealing with magnets and temperature. We took pictures while she ran her experiment and then got a picture the night before the whole board was due. She enjoyed running the trials and putting the board together, but she did not like researching and writing the paper. She also didn't like that her results were not what she expected. We were happy when it was all over; but she did it all on her own, so she was proud of her work.

Here's Tessa with her friend Seki who sang in the Fine Arts concert. This concert included the choirs, orchestra, and honor band. Tessa and I went to support both Seki and Abby who performed with the band. Tessa was sad because the beginner band had not had a concert yet, but her time was coming. 

Right before the Christmas break, the band finally had their Christmas concert where all the bands performed. Tessa's loving the percussion section and she loves that her grandpa comes to help in her class almost every day too. She's the only girl in the percussion for beginning band, but she's one of the best players. She played bells on all of the songs at their concert and did a great job. 

As I looked for a picture of Abby and Tessa together, I realized I didn't have any from the past year, so I made the girls take a picture together. When they were little, almost every picture was of them together, so I was sad it had been so long. I love these girls. My middle-schoolers. 

As usual, Abby was the busiest during the month of December. She had two concerts, the Fine Arts concert with the orchestra and choirs and also the Band Christmas concert. Here's the band and a close up of Abby during their Fine Arts concert.

And here's the only picture I got from their Christmas concert. She's still first chair and this is when they had all the students who made All-Region band stand up. 

Abby's club volleyball season had it's big start in December as well. The weekend before their first tournament, they had a team-building party that we hosted at our house. The girls came over after practice and made pizzas and had a spa night. 

We did some team building activities like the human knot and they got Christmas gifts. They had fun relaxing and hanging out. They also enjoyed taking pictures. This was one of their favorite team pictures.

The next weekend was their first official tournament. Here are the girls before they started to play and while they were on the court. It ended up being a two-day tournament this year, so Abby only got to play during their pool play on Saturday. The team went on to get first place in the silver bracket on Sunday. It was a great start to their season. 

Before the Christmas break, the girls also had a Secret Santa gift exchange. These girls really get along and just have fun whenever they're together. We're excited to see how the season goes. 

Abby's 8th grade volleyball team had one last hurrah on the last day of school before the Christmas break. It's tradition for the 8th grade team to play the Hornedo staff in a volleyball game every year. I caught the very end of the game. They ended up losing the first set to the staff, but they won the second set. There wasn't enough time for the third set, so it was probably better to just end it by saying they each won one. They had fun playing and Abby enjoyed being with that team one last time. 

Abby turned 14 on December 19th. She received a ton of gifts and treats from friends at school. Her friend, Emily from volleyball, secretly decorated Abby's room while we took her out to dinner and shopping. She came home that night to find this. Emily had set it up with me, so Abby had no idea that she'd find this. She was super excited and loved it. She even slept on the futon in the other girls' room for a couple of nights because she didn't want to disturb the decorations. 

For her birthday, her number one wish list item was a phone. We kept telling her that she probably wouldn't get one, so she was definitely shocked when she opened up her gifts and saw that she did get a phone. It was probably the best reveal and reaction you would expect. She just kept looking back and forth at Tyler and the phone with her mouth wide open. She loves it. 

Abby requested a German chocolate cake using my Grandma Jeanne's recipe. She also was quick to remind me how she didn't get a cake last year, so I'd better not jip her this year, so I made her the cake she requested. I can't quite believe I have a 14-year-old. She's so grown up, but I love how we're friends and we can talk about anything. She's a good big sister and great help whenever we need her. We love this girl. Happy birthday Abby! 

Here are a few last things from December before our Christmas travels. I was asked to play with the wind symphony again this season. And I was asked to play in every concert. Our first concert is always in December and is our Christmas concert. The older girls came to my concert while the younger girls stayed home with Dad who had a campout with his scouts in the backyard. But I loved that we were able to get a closeup picture of the horn section. I really enjoy being able to continue playing my French horn. We have a lot of fun. 

The young women in our ward had a Christmas activity to see the lights downtown. It was cold by fun. Abby ends up missing most Wednesday night activities because of volleyball practice, but I was able to go since my calling has me working with the Beehives. We have a great group of girls and wonderful leaders. 

Our ward Christmas party was a pajama party with Santa Claus this year. Abby decided her matching pajamas didn't fit anymore, but we did get this picture of the girls with Santa. I helped with the decorations and everyone had a great time as we had a breakfast for dinner with Santa Claus. I thought this picture turned out really cute. It was a great way to get into the Christmas spirit as the girls finished up school and got ready for the Christmas break.