Taryn Turned Two!!

Well, I thought I was going to get caught up but now that the holidays have begun, I'm behind again. But before all those end of the year holidays, I have to start with our Taryn. She turned two on October 14th. It was awesome because her birthday fell on Columbus Day this year so even though the girls had school, Tyler had work off, so he was able to spend the whole day with us on her birthday. We spent most of it shopping for her gifts, but at least we were together and we did eat out for lunch. Here is a picture of Taryn on her actual birthday. This post will be like my other birthday posts - lots of pictures of the birthday girl with some added narrative of things we don't want to forget about our special girl!

 

Taryn still sucks her two fingers, and usually keeps them covered with her other hand. People who see her a lot think it's funny and also know it's a sign that she's tired. When she's really sleepy, she'll use the fingers from the hand that covers her sucking fingers to rub her eye lashes, which I think is super cute. Here's a rare photo of her without the hand covering the fingers.

Probably like all kids her age these days, Taryn is very adept at using electronic devices. I like getting pictures of her, because she still looks so little, and yet she can maneuver around my phone and iPad like she's been doing it forever. This first picture is on my old phone, but she was playing Fruit Ninja like a master so I had to get a picture. I don't keep many games on either device specifically to keep her (and the other girls) from using them ALL the time, but Taryn knows which games/activities are on which device. She looks for my phone and asks for "Wheels on the Bus" because there is an app with that song and she'll listen to it over and over. On the iPad, she always asks for "Minnie Mouse" because she knows how to find the app where she can watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse episodes, or our Disneyland App that has games and videos that she can scroll through.

 

And speaking of Minnie Mouse, she is still in love with all things Minnie. She can spot Minnie and Mickey things in any store before anyone else does. She prefers to watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse over any other show (Special Agent Oso is a close second), and it's the first thing she requests in the morning and the last thing at night. With her birthday so close to Halloween, I knew she had to be Minnie Mouse for Halloween and she would be getting some Minnie Mouse dress-up things for her birthday, so I made her a skirt and crocheted her a hat. She loved them both and wore them multiple times before Halloween.

Her birthday was Minnie Mouse themed, which basically meant the cake since it was just a family thing, but I got Tyler's help with the creating and frosting and I thought it turned out great.

 

Most of her presents were Minnie Mouse items, which was great since she was our first kid who was into Minnie Mouse, so no repeat toys at our house. She loved all her stuff and has luckily been really nice about sharing since the older girls have liked playing with new toys as well.

 A few other things about the two-year-old Taryn:

She has been our pickiest eater by far. She refuses to eat most foods, especially at dinner; and has even gone as far as just getting down from the table and skipping dinner completely. I feel bad when I realize she's going to bed and hadn't eaten anything, but she doesn't complain like she's hungry, so I guess she's fine. She has lots of bread for dinner. She does do better at breakfast and lunch, although she still is picky. The foods I've found that she will eat on a regular basis include oatmeal, eggs and omelets, toast, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, guacamole, and then most snack foods. She of course will eat any dessert or sweet item, but I try to spread those out between the apples, bananas, cucumbers, and avocados she also likes to eat. She also lives on chocolate milk. She requests this about as much as she requests to watch Minnie Mouse. It's been one of the most clear phrases she's been able to say for a long time, so everyone knows she loves chocolate milk. Her by far favorite food though is Cheetos and she asks for these every day. She LOVES them. Here's a picture after a lunch when she ate Cheetos and then wanted to give me a kiss - so kind of her!

Taryn also loves dressing up, acting goofy, and pretty much doing whatever her sisters are doing. She does some awesome dance moves whenever the girls are dancing and will even scream at her sisters if they try dancing at the same time that she is dancing. She is also a great singer. Her favorite tunes to sing include "I don't care, I love it!" and "Heavenly Father, are you really there." You may not understand all the words, but her rhythm and the tune are undeniable. She requests the Rah-rah song in the car which is the BYU fight song and she sings along with Hey Baby too.

 She likes shoes and trying on everyone else's shoes in the family and walking around in them. She's a very good helper and knows where the shoe basket is so she's great at putting shoes away and bringing you your shoes whether you need them or not. Here she is in Abby's cowgirl boots.

 

She follows Aubrey everywhere and they love doing things together. Here are some cute pictures of them gardening after they found the few roses that bloomed in our backyard this year. And wearing some masks that Tessa had made. Taryn's pretty funny about getting the girls' attention. She loves to get them to follow her around too by telling them to "meer" which means Come here. You can constantly hear her saying things like "Tessa, meer. Meer, Tessa" until she finally gets them to follow. She'll pull on your hand too while saying it until you go where she wants. She a determined little girl.

 

She loves to "cheese" for the camera, and as long as you show her the picture right away, she will happily smile for you as much as you want. Getting her to stand still long enough for a non-blurry picture is a different matter however. Here are some of my favorite "cheeses."

 She loves babies and I caught her one day giving kisses to these baby pictures in Tessa's baby book. It was so cute! She'd talk to them too. "Hi, baby!" Adorable.

 

As a fourth child, she's very good at entertaining herself. She loves to find the books (which I keep on low shelves specifically for this purpose) and will sit down and read them herself. She found this pile of library books one day and I was able to catch a picture while she was reading. One of her new hideouts is below our tall chairs. She takes whatever toy she's playing with at the time and climbs in and hangs out under there for awhile. She's even talked her older sisters into coming under to play with her.

Taryn loves parks, playing, and definitely the swings. She has fun with her friends and basically just doing whatever everyone else is doing. She's social and happy and just fun to watch when she's playing. 

We love our Taryn and are so happy she's a part of our family. We've loved the first two years and can't wait to see what else she has in store for us in the years to come.

A Last Minute Trip to Wichita Falls

As the summer was quickly coming to a close, we ended up with a letter that talked about Abby's award ceremony for the Reflections Contest. The State Level Awards Ceremony was going to be held the beginning of August in Dallas. Since we have family so close, we decided to take a week and head out there so Abby could go and we could visit family. At this point in time, Tyler had started having Fridays off because of the government furlough. We were a little nervous about him missing hours and pay, but we decided at least it was during the summer when the girls were home and also on Friday giving us a number of long weekends in a row. Tyler drove us out to Wichita Falls where we hung out with the family on the weekend. The cousins played, we ate a lot, and played a lot of games, and had a good time. And when do we go to Wichita Falls and not end up at Chuck E. Cheese? Never! We celebrated Rebecca's 4th birthday while we were all together.

 

The Award Ceremony was on Sunday, August 4th. We left the three younger girls with Grandma and Grandpa and Tyler, Abby, and I drove down to Dallas. As we drove, I kept thinking about how it was probably the first time just the three of us were getting to do something together since Tessa was born. I told Abby to enjoy it since she doesn't usually get her mom AND dad all to herself for that long of a time period. We went straight to the assembly hall where the awards were being held. We attempted to look for a snack to eat, but did not find anything besides some questionable street carts, and we didn't have too much time to venture very far on foot. We did find these very large "B" and "G" signs which I guess are found around the Dallas area these days?? I have seen other peoples' pictures with them, so we decided to get one with Abby in them too.

 

We received her award and took pictures with the PTA backdrop before the ceremony began.

 

We found out as we were entering the hall that she had to sit with the other winners, so here she is with the other music composition category winners.

 

As Tyler and I found our seats, and as we waited for everyone else to arrive, we were treated with a slide show of the photography and drawing entry winners, while the music composition entry winners were piped through the sound system. So about every 10 minutes, Abby's song that she wrote and sang came over the loud speaker and Tyler and I would just smile. We were so proud of Abby and all her hard work.

 

As the ceremony began, each of the kids was taken up on stage to receive a medal for the level of award they won at the state level. I've written it before I think, but Abby received an Award of Excellence, which sounded like the second highest award. The only award that was higher was the Overall Award of Excellence, and those entries went on to be judged at the national level. For Abby's first participation, we were super excited for her. And she loved the fact that she got a "gold" medal.

 

This is a picture of all the Music Composition kids who won a medal at the state level. Abby had a great time, was not nervous about being on stage, and even met some fun new friends after hanging out with them in the seats and backstage.

 

After the ceremony was over, we met up with John and McKaye who now live about 5 minutes away from the Arts District where the ceremony was held. We got to see their new place and then we ate dinner with them and McKaye's family. They also took us on a tour of the rich houses in the downtown Dallas area and we saw some famous people's houses. We then took Tyler to the airport to fly home and work for the next week while the girls and I stayed and played with the cousins. Tyler flew back Thursday night (as another one of his long weekends began) so he was there to drive us home after the next weekend.

 

Whenever we go to Wichita Falls, it has also become an every time occurrence to make a trip to Jump for Joy. The girls love it and I love how the bright colors make for really cute pictures. I could not get Taryn to stop long enough for a non-blurry one however.

 The cousins had so much fun playing together.

 

We also celebrated Chloe's 5th birthday while we were all together. Scott was not able to be there because of work, so he's on the phone via Facetime so he could see her blow out the candles.

 

Once Tyler was back for the second weekend, we took our usual trip to feed the ducks and walk around the pond. I think we always stop at this particular tree to get a picture of the cousins, but it's always so cute, so why not?

 And finally, one last picture of all seven young grandkids together at Grandma's house. We always have so much fun together.

 

As we drove home the following Sunday, we stopped halfway (which is in Midland) and saw Tyler's cousin, Tyson and his family. They moved to Midland right after we moved to El Paso, but this was the first time we finally got in touch with them and stopped to say hi. They fed us dinner, and we visited while the kids played. It was fun and made our very long 9 hour trip not seem so bad with the fun break in the middle.

Utah Summer Trip

I was thinking I was caught up for once on the blog and ready to do one more post before all the holidays began with Halloween next week, but as I organized my pictures, I realized that I totally forgot to do entries for our trips to Utah and Wichita Falls this summer. So I guess I'm not caught up, but I am ready to post the rest of our summer pictures, so here they are. First, was our trip to Utah which was over the week of the Fourth of July. We knew we were getting together with Tyler's family over the weekend, but we always take an entire week for the trip, so we planned some fun family adventures we could do whether we had family with us or not. I took this picture at one of our stops on the long drive north.

We usually take a long route around the state and stay with each of Tyler's siblings, but unfortunately this time, Tyler's sister Tiffany's family was sick the day we were supposed to stop and see them, so we had to change our plans a bit. Luckily, Tyler's other sister, Tara, had healthy kids, so we stopped to see them first. We also added an extra leg to our trip as we got in to Utah and decided to head all the way up to Idaho to see Tyler's cousin's missionary homecoming. Tyler's parents and brother Tim and family met us at the hotel in Idaho Falls. We had enough time to walk along a bridge by the hotel the morning before we headed to church. The Idaho Falls Temple is in the far background of this first picture. It was fun to see all the first and second cousins who were there and hang out with them after church.

We drove back into Utah that night and stayed with Tyler's brother in Stansbury Park, UT. We wanted to go to the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake during our trip since we have the discounted zoo pass, and we wanted to take the girls to Temple Square as well. Tyler's sisters and families were going to meet us for some of these activities, but they still had sick kids, so we did the Salt Lake trip on our own. We started at a Planetarium and Science Museum. The girls had a lot of fun checking out the cloud-making machine and looking at all the planets.

 

They also had some really fun exhibits set up like the moon and Mars, where the kids could walk around and I could get some pretty cool pictures.

 Taryn also had fun even though she was confined to the stroller for the trip. The girls got to pick out souvenirs from the gift shop and they ended up with rings and a bag of fancy rocks to add to their rock collection which they started on this trip by finding rocks in each state as we drove from Texas to Utah. 

 

We walked from the Planetarium around some outdoor shopping areas, ate lunch at Applebee's, and found this splash area. It took the girls awhile to decide to get wet, but with the random shooting fountains, there were times they got wet even when they weren't expecting it.

 

We took a ride on the tracks that circles downtown Salt Lake and it was the girls' favorite part of the entire trip I think. Here's a picture I took as we waited for the tram to arrive and I liked how you could see the name of the stop (Planetarium) behind us.

We took the tram to Temple Square and walked around with the girls, which we hadn't done since Tara and Andrew's wedding which was when Tessa was a baby. The girls really liked all the statues and flowers around Temple Square. They also liked the Reflection pool in front of the temple.

 We walked towards the Church Office Building which was where I worked for a year while Tyler finished up at BYU. We found this spot outside the Relief Society Building which was where Tyler proposed to me almost 13 years earlier. I made them sit in that spot so I could get a picture, and I had Abby take a picture of just me and Tyler too.

 On our way back through the temple grounds, we went through one of the visitors' centers and looked through their church displays. The girls liked all the videos, wax figures, and the huge Christus Statue.

 

We did get to the zoo and Tara and her two kids joined us, however, I just realized that those pictures were on my camera (instead of my phone) and they are now currently lost on the broken hard drive. Maybe one day if I ever get those pictures back, I will be able to upload them to the blog later. We had a fun time at the zoo. The girls loved the polar bear, the peacock that roamed freely, and the sea lions.

 

We stayed the next couple nights with Tara and her family. Her new baby, Grayson, was so fun to see since it was our first time since he was born. Taryn especially loved him and really liked helping him swing and borrowing his Bumbo to sit in herself. Abby was probably the best helper, either taking turns holding Grayson, or playing ball with Parker.



It's become a tradition whenever we go to Utah to make a stop at the Cabella's by the point of the mountain. The girls love all the animal exhibits and we always get really cute pictures. They love to look scary like the bears and they each got to pick out where they wanted their individual pictures taken.

 Abby wanted her picture by the mountain lion because that is their elementary school mascot, hence the LU symbols for her school, Lundy. 



 

We also promised Abby that we'd walk around the BYU campus, which she loves to do. We walked through the bookstore and I grabbed this picture. The girls each picked out a little purse from the clearance section. The girls had fun searching for the right patterned one, although Dad did not think it needed to take as long as it did. :)

 

On Wednesday, we drove out to Grandma and Grandpa's in Vernal. Everyone was there by the Fourth of July, which was Thursday. We saw the parade and the kids had fun with boom sticks and rainbow wands.

 I caught a picture of Tessa and Makaela with Grandma.

 

The kids had fun at grandmas making t-shirts, playing outside, playing kickball and volleyball, and just hanging with their cousins. The Dinosaur Museum in town had free admission on the fourth so we headed over there to check out those dinosaurs. They had this guy welcoming everyone at the main lobby.

 

 I let the girls pick which dinosaur they wanted their picture next to. (Apparently Aubrey never decided on one because I did not have an individual picture of her.)

This was my favorite picture because the girls and cousins decided to look really scared in front of this huge T Rex. We also walked around the exhibits on the inside and the girls' favorite part was having an artist draw pictures of dinosaurs of their choosing for each person. We had to wait awhile for each grandkid to get his or her own drawing, but the drawings were pretty amazing, and we had a large variety of dinosaurs by the time he was done.



 Here's a bunch a girls piled on Andrew. He didn't seem to mind and I thought it was a cute picture.

 

We spent one afternoon taking new family pictures. It seems we do this about once a year, but there's always at least one new family member since the previous one, so it has to be done. Here are just a few of all the grandkids. One with Grandma and Grandpa and one with just the kids. All the kids did pretty well considering they were forced to stand still and smile when all they wanted to do was play together. But we were near a playground, so we kept bribing them to be good so they could have play time afterwards. The photographer even came over to the playground afterwards and took a lot of candid shots and some of those are my favorites as the grandkids played together and showed off for Grandma and Grandpa.

 One of the main reasons we went out to Utah this particular weekend was to be there for Anna's baptism. We didn't get to see Tiffany's family as much as we would have liked since they kept passing the sickness between each kid, but it seemed like by the weekend, everyone was better, so they had the baptism as scheduled.

 

This included the luncheon at their house afterwards. The kids had fun playing, and I finally got a picture of the three young grandkids who enjoyed playing (and fighting) with the toys together.

 

We left straight from the luncheon to head home over the next two days, but the sickness that we thought was gone ended up hitting our family by the time we got to the hotel that night. It passed through most of our kids and we heard every family that was there also got some form of the sickness as well. No fun, but we were glad we were able to be with family and have as much fun together as we did. We love our family and can't wait until the next time we get together.