Some exciting news!!!

There are two things that I'm very excited to talk about today.

First, as you might be able to tell from our title, I'm very much looking forward to the upcoming arrival of Stephenie Meyer's fourth book from the Twilight series, Breaking Dawn. It is available this Saturday, August 2nd, at midnight. I'm going with some of my other "crazy about Edward" friends for a late night Friday to get the book right at midnight, and I can't wait!!! I've been rereading the first three to mentally prepare myself, so I've been in Edward-land for the past week. I don't know if I can make it these next 6 days! :)

Second, I finally went to the doctor this week and we are pleased to announce that we are expecting our third baby! Unlike Item #1, the entire family is very excited about this news. Abby must have known before us because she decided to tell a few of her friends' moms that her mommy "had a baby in her tummy." After embarrassingly having to correct that mistake, we found out a couple weeks later that we actually were pregnant. Maybe these kids know more than we give them credit for! :) It was a bit of a surprise for us, and a little nervous for me because my Tessa still seems so little. But luckily about a week after we found out, Tessa really started walking, so it made her seem a little older to me anyway. So after finally scheduling a doctor's appointment, I find out I'm officially 10 and 1/2 weeks with a due date of February 17th, 2009. We would love to find out we're having a boy at this point (especially Tyler so he won't be so outnumbered), but of course, we'll be thrilled no matter what gender of baby we're blessed with. We'll definitely keep you posted.

So, you may be wondering how these two pieces of exciting news can actually be together in the same post. Well, read Twilight, and you'll understand... Right Kasia?!? :)

Summer Vacation...Family and Friends

It has been non-stop action for us the last couple weeks. My brother, John, came into town from Las Vegas so our family has been on the go and enjoying every minute of it. Here's John with Abby. Sadly, we didn't take a lot of pictures with John in them. :( But at least we got this one the last day he was here.

After spending the 4th of July weekend here in Anna (sorry no pics), the girls and I went with my parents and John back to WF. We met up with my brother, Paul's family and our close family friends, the Wrights, who were in town for a family reunion. So we had our own little reunion at Chuck E. Cheese.CEC is the best place when you have 16 grandkids and lots of adults who want to actually visit. All the kids had a great time.
Bente and I have been best friends since we were little. Here we are entertaining the kids while our poor husbands had to stay home to work.
We got to feed ducks with Joseph and Melody. But the usual problem occurred - not enough bread and......too many ducks! Luckily they didn't chase us this time like they did last time.And we had another problem this time. We tried getting Tessa to toss the bread to feed the ducks too, but does she do it? No, of course not; why throw it to the ducks when it's perfectly good to eat yourself? At least she still liked seeing the ducks.

One other fun thing we did was go to a bounce house place with Joseph. They loved it. Especially when Uncle John and Cousin Matt came to play too.

They really liked the tall slide. They went down it so fast. It was hard to get a decent picture.

By the end, I even got Abby to raise her hands in the air. "Just like a roller coaster" as she liked to say.

Other fun things we did included seeing fireworks on the fourth, having BBQs, going swimming, playing games, going to see Wall.E, eating out, shopping, and all the other fun family things people like to do. We had lots of fun with Uncle John and with all the family. Thanks for making our summer a bit more exciting!!! And thank you for letting us share our fun stuff with you. We hope your summer has been just as adventuresome.

More Utah Trip Pictures

Besides the wedding in Utah, we did some other fun things with the family. We went to a park where we were able to trek to a small stream. The kids liked to get their feet wet and throw rocks. Here's Abby doing her usual "turn around and pose for the camera" pose.

Tessa really liked the water. She would have gone all the way in if we would have let her.
Grandma Gibbons bought a small pool for her backyard for all the grandkids. They loved it even though the water was freezing. And what's better than swimming and popsicles in the summer?
Of course, when all the grandkids are together, you have to do the family pictures. Here are all the cousins; and with this many young ones, it's a challenge trying to get everyone settled and smiling for the camera. Here's one of our many attempts. At least Tessa's happy... I think we came out with some really cute pictures though. Here's the pose we ended up liking the best. Here's Tessa with two of her cousins, Sara and Julia. I just thought it was a really cute pic.
We had so much fun with all the family in Utah and can't wait to see them again.

Tessa is Walking!!!

So Tessa has been taking random steps usually on her way to falling, but yesterday, she was taking multiple, non-wobbly steps from the middle of the room to the couch. And she did this many times. This was the best video we could get of it even though it's still not the best, but at least you see some steps. She's so big!

Another exciting thing from this weekend was my girl's night out adventure on Friday night. I went with 10 other moms to see Stomp at Fair Park in Dallas. It was so fun, and Stomp was amazing. I finally got to see them in person after all my brothers and parents have already seen them multiple times, I finally don't feel so left out! We girls had a good time and after the concert we went out for appetizers and dessert. Yummy Pizookies from BJ's. Here's our group. Can't wait to do it again sometime.

Tara and Andrew Wedding

We just returned from our week trip to Utah for Tyler's sister's wedding. Tara and Andrew were married on June 13th in Salt Lake and they looked so happy.

Here's the happy couple.

Tara had a beautiful dress. Abby and I called her the princess all weekend.
Here are some pictures of Abby and her cousins as we waited for Tara and Andrew to come out of the temple.

We had the luncheon on Temple Square at the Lion House, so I snapped a couple pictures of the girls while we waited. Here they are in front of the fountain that's by the Church Office Building.

And here they are with the temple in the background.

Here's Abby with Tara at the reception.
And here's Tessa with Tara.
All the nieces were in these adorable pink dresses. Some with yellow sashes, some with green.
Here's one of my favorite pictures. Tara with all the little girls. 8 from our side and 3 from Andrew's side.

And some of you may already know that Tyler's dad makes rings, so now that Tara's married, the family ring collection is complete. Here are all 5 rings that he has made for the women in the Gibbons' family. Quite an accomplishment and family keepsake don't you think? We love it!

There's plenty more pictures from our trip, so stay posted for more in the near future. We had a great time and wish Tara and Andrew all the best!

Randomness before our trip

So we're leaving for Utah tomorrow for Tyler's sister's wedding. I figure we'll come back with lots of cool pictures to share, so I thought I'd better empty my camera before we go. Nothing too exciting, but some random pictures I thought you might enjoy.

First, I've been doing some experimenting on Abby's hair since it's so long and pretty. You've seen a picture of her with krimps, but here it is after a night sleeping in foam rollers. Can you say curly fro? Do you think Abby likes it? After the day went on, and the curls fell a little, it looked a lot more like I was hoping it would. Too bad I didn't take a picture at that point. I think I'll have to find some big rollers before we try this again.

I finished a skirt for Abby in only a few hours. It turned out pretty cute. I know this shirt's not the best match, but for staying home all day, it works. (Just don't tell Tyler. He's the fashion police for our household.)

During one of our yummy BBQs with Tyler's new grill, we had beans, which Tessa enjoyed. If you were to look closely in this picture, you can see one bean right next to her left nostril. What you didn't get to see what about three seconds after this picture was taken when the bean rolled down her lip and into her mouth. Mmm delicious was what Tessa thought while the rest of us died laughing.

Here's another picture of Tessa saying "cheese" for the camera. Another thing you may not be able to spot in this picture is her first tooth! That's right. One finally showed up on the bottom last weekend. And yes, she's 14 1/2 months and she finally got her first tooth.

Finally, I have to show you Abby's art work. She loves to paint and so we hang her latest drawings in her room. While painting her last masterpiece, we had the following conversation:

Abby: I'm going to paint this for Aunt Tara for her wedding.


Me: Oh really? What a great idea.


Abby: And this one can be for Grandma Gibbons.


Me: I think they'll love your drawings.


Abby: Yea, and you can put them on our blog.


Me: (not completely understanding) Did you just say "on our blog"?!?


Abby: Yes, our blog, on the puter. (computer)


Me: (Smiling to myself, trying not to laugh) Yes, we sure can.

So here they are...

Do we have an artist in our family or what?!? :)

Happy Birthday to Me!!

So, last Saturday was my birthday. It was a great day. It started with a surprise visit from our friends, the Gustavesons, who sang Happy Birthday to me on their way out of town. Then, when Tyler got home from work, he had a birthday cake and lots of presents. I suppose I should start with the day before. We went shopping for my big present, a dining room table, which we purchased, had help from my brother picking up, and Tyler had put together by 12:30 am the morning of my birthday. Here it is with my cake and presents. It has two self-storing leaves that can make it large enough for 10 people. I love it!!! Here are the other presents I got from Tyler and the girls. Yes, you do see a lot of Stephenie Meyer books. The Twilight Series books (vampire books as Abby calls them) were what I asked for. Her new book, The Host, was a surprise that Iwasn't expecting, but was so excited to get. And a board game which we've already broken out and played. It was a great birthday.
The chocolate cake was very yummy. The girls thought so too.

We finished out my birthday with a little date for me and Tyler. We went to Dave and Busters for dinner and games while our friends, the Brodericks, watched the girls. It was a lot of fun. Thank you Dave and DeLaine for making us go out by ourselves! :)

And finally, not dealing with my birthday at all, here is Tyler's early Father's Day present:

We'll be out of town on Father's Day and who can pass up an amazing Memorial Day sale? So we got it early. Too bad it took Tyler awile to put it together, so we haven't been able to test it out yet, but I see (and smell) some yummy BBQing in our near future. :)