Aubrey's 5th Birthday

On February 10th, we celebrated Aubrey's 5th birthday. We even did a chain count-down to her birthday, and she was super excited to tear one off each morning (we usually forgot to do it at bedtime, but it was the first thing she thought of in the morning.) She helped me cut and tape them together. Here's a picture of her last one (the night before her birthday.)

 

We finally decided awhile ago that we would only have big birthday parties every other year, so this was supposed to be Aubrey's "no party" year; however, since we stay home all day while the older girls and Dad are at school and work, I decided we could at least do a play date on her birthday. (It was a Monday). So Aubrey was excited to invite a few friends over to play and have cupcakes. (No games, favors, etc, so it was quite easy for me!)

 

She wanted blue icing to go on the cupcakes because she's very into the Frozen movie and anything having to do with Elsa and Anna. She even wears her hair in the sideways French braid ("Elsa Hair") almost every day.

 

 Here are some more pictures of the Elsa and Anna hair from the front and back. Aubrey loved having the Elsa Hair and luckily Taryn preferred the Anna Hair because her short, fine hair probably couldn't have done much else in regards to french braids.

 

 Once the family was back together after school and work, we went out to dinner - Aubrey's pick. We went to her favorite place to eat - IHOP. She LOVES that place. They even gave her a little ice cream sundae for her birthday. And then we headed home to open her presents. Here's her wrapped stash.

 

Some of her presents included the Frozen soundtrack, an Elsa dress, Frozen cups, some Frozen t-shirts (remember she loves all things Frozen), and a Lego Friends set. 

 

Grandma and Grandpa sent Aubrey her first and very own American Girl Doll. Tessa got her AG doll at age 5, so for the last couple months, it's all Aubrey's been talking about whenever they play dolls. She got online with me, looked at all the dolls, and decided she wanted Ruthie because of her pretty purple dress with flowers, and a purple headband. She was super excited when she opened it. 

 

We love this girl!! She's grown up to be quite the little lady. She loves to do and try everything the older girls are doing whether it's riding bikes and scooters outside, or playing the computer or Wii inside. She's still our thumb-sucker and even though she said she'd stop when she turned 5 ("when she was a big girl"), we're still working on that one. She loves picking out her own clothes (still skirts and leggings only - no pants) and when I have to pick something for her, she always says, "make sure it's beautiful, mom!" She wears headbands (whenever it's not in a braid for Elsa Hair) and she makes sure she's fully accessorized with headband, bracelets and sometimes necklaces every morning when she gets dressed, which she usually does before she even comes downstairs. Her favorite pair of shoes right now are pink cowboy boots that are like 2 sizes too big, but it doesn't stop her from wearing them ALL the time.

 

Happy Birthday to our Aubrey!!

Beginning of 2014

It's already March and I haven't posted a single thing this year. I was so proud of myself for finishing the blog through the end of the year; I guess I took too long of a break to celebrate. Besides Aubrey's birthday (which is my usual beginning of the year post) I found a few "firsts" pictures that I have taken that were worthy enough for a blog entry. They span January and February, but I figured I'd squeeze them all into one post to catch up and then do a separate post for Aubrey's birthday afterwards. Now that I have Spring Break activities and Tessa's birthday on the horizon, I know I've got to get back to my usual one blog per month schedule so I don't get too far behind again. So here are some "firsts" for our family as we started the year 2014:

 

Taryn got her first haircut. I finally decided her long hair just needed to be trimmed and evened out. It wasn't totally noticeable, but I did grab a front and back picture after I cut it. I had even cut Tessa's and Aubrey's hair while I was at it, but just trims for them as well.

 Tessa finally lost her first tooth on January 6th - middle of her first grade year, just like Abby. She was one of the last kids in her class to lose that first tooth. She was happy when it was all said and done, but the wiggling and bleeding did upset her for awhile as you might be able to see from her reddish eyes.

 

This was taken on the first park days of the new year which was on January 8th. What was awesome about it was that it was like 70 degrees in January and while a lot of my friends up north were complaining of snow and cold and talking about their kids playing in the snow and making snow angels, we were enjoying the warm Texas weather while the girls made sand angels at the park.

 

Our first motorized vehicle for the girls. Funny story: Our family plays the "slug bug" game where we point out Bug cars as we see them drive them around town. We were discussing one morning how much we like Bug cars to the point where the girls were talking about how they want a Bug car as their first car once they were old enough to drive. We separated from Tyler and Taryn for awhile and when they came back from the store, Tyler told the girls that he bought them a Bug car just like we had been talking about. They were super excited thinking it was a real Bug car. I was smiling thinking it was a little candy-filled toy or something, and actually it was somewhere in between. He said he found it on sale and couldn't pass it up. The girls drive it around every day - they love it so much!

 

I love taking pictures with Tyler and all the girls. This is definitely not a first, but still some of my favorite pictures.

 

Also not a first, but funny that over the course of two months, I found multiple pictures of Taryn snuggling with her sisters. I love seeing them snuggle so much, especially when I just walk into the room and see it. And Taryn has no preferences. She'll snuggle with anyone!

 I love these girls. They are getting so big! I'm happy to share our fun times with everyone and be able to keep our good memories preserved forever! 



Christmas 2013

The final post of the year! We started our Christmas vacation early by letting the girls open one present each Thursday night after Abby opened her birthday presents. Tyler's family sent us home from Thanksgiving with money for Christmas gifts, so the girls opened the gifts we bought for them from Grandma and Grandpa Gibbons which for the younger girls was a doll from the Frozen movie, which they were hoping to get. Abby got her Just Dance Wii game that she had been wishing for as well. That started out the Christmas break with a bang.

 

We spent half of our two week break in Wichita Falls with my family. We had been making our plans ever since the wedding in November, so we knew there were only about two and a half days that we would all be together with everyone's travel and work schedules. Tyler had a short day on the girls' last day of school (which was also a half day) so we decided to head out to Wichita Falls on Friday and drive straight through. The weather had progressively gotten colder and my family had even had some icy, shut-down-the-city-type days the week or so before. We basically drove through rain the entire 9 hour drive, but we made it a little before midnight that Friday night, the 20th. It was cold most of the time we were in Wichita Falls, but actually a lot warmer than it had been and it got colder again the day we drove home, so we were there the perfect week. We had our family gift exchange and also our annual dollar gift exchange which everyone loves. We played lots of games and even got a family picture after church while everyone was still together.

 

Some of the other fun activities we did while we were there included walking through the Fantasy of Lights, which is at the University. It was cold, but the girls love seeing all the displays. Some of the favorites were the Snow White, Cinderella, and new Buzz Lightyear displays, and always the bubble-making robot.

 

I like driving through the neighborhoods to see all the Christmas decorations. This was a favorite that I kind of got a picture of as we drove past it a second time. Many people go all out with the lights and we enjoyed driving around finding the most decorated yards.

 

We decorated some gingerbread houses this year. Here is Abby's that she made with Tyler's help. I worked on a larger one that the little girls were supposed to help me decorate, but by the time I got it put together, Chloe was the only one patient enough to wait and decorate with me. So she made all the detail decisions and got her picture taken by her masterpiece.

 

I like taking pictures whenever the kids are near Grandma or Grandpa. I caught these two pictures at different times, but thought they were cute. Aubrey's always been Grandpa's girl (she's always climbing all over him), but I liked finding this quiet moment with Grandpa and Abby too.

 

 The grandkids had fun eating treats and playing together. Here they are Christmas Eve in their matching pajamas from Grandma and Grandpa.

 

Christmas morning was fun. The girls loved seeing what Santa brought and finding the empty plate of cookies and milk. We spent all morning unwrapping presents and having the girls wanting each new toy opened so they could play with it right away.

 Nevla and I helped the girls make tye-dye shirts one night, but realized it's not really a kid-friendly project, so we did most of the work ourselves. Since we had taken over the table with our mess, the kids got to eat their dinner in front of the tv - once a table cloth was down to protect the carpet at least. The shirts ended up turning out really cute, but I was sad when I realized I didn't get any pictures the day they all wore them.

Another given when we go to Grandma's is the usual trip to Jump for Joy. Aubrey had been talking about this place for weeks and couldn't wait to go. Tyler had the honors of helping Taryn up and down the big slide, which she loved doing over and over.

Chloe, Tessa, and Aubrey just kept running from one bounce house to the next. They loved every minute they were there.

The girls slept each night in the living room on an air mattress all together. We pulled a name each night for that girl to pick the movie they got to watch when falling asleep. Scott and Nevla and Tyler and I would play games late into the night. One night we found their dog, Shyla, asleep at Aubrey's feet on the mattress. She apparently had given up on us going to bed any earlier. It was pretty cute. I had to take a picture so I could show Aubrey and have her believe me when I told her the dog fell asleep next to her in bed. Taryn had her own bed in our room, but each night she tried staying up late with the "older" girls. This was a cute picture when she snuggled up with Tessa even though the flash was a bit too bright.

 

A new activity for this year was going to see some mini ponies at a lady's house who my mom knew. Abby spent the day at her friend Ella's house, so it was all the other grandkids. They took turns riding the ponies, leading the ponies on walks, and riding the other toys and swings they had in their yard. The ponies were so cute and well-behaved to be around so many hyper kids.

 

Even Taryn took a turn on one of their smallest mini ponies. She seemed to like it as long as Tyler didn't stray too far away from her.

 Their other toys included this tractor swing made out of old tires. I kept staring at it wondering how easy it would be to make one because I kept thinking it would be something Tyler's dad could figure out and have fun trying to make. The kids loved riding it and pushing other people in it too.

 

They also had one of those toy rocking horses, which I think Taryn felt a little safer riding than the actual pony.

Everyones favorite activity had to be dressing up the ponies. They had hats, shoes, headbands, bandannas, and then glitter and hair markers and colored sprays for the hair. The kids could not get enough of it. Aubrey loved the white pony, named Coco, and did most of her decorating on her. She really liked having her wear the tiara.

Taryn couldn't get enough of the glitter. Every time I took one away from her, the next time I'd turn around she had found another color and was dumping that on the nearest pony. Luckily they didn't mind and the lady said it all would just wear off or blow off over the next couple days.

 

 We finally put on some sparkly pink shoes on the smallest of the ponies and I had to take a picture with Tessa since she had on her sparkly pink shoes as well.

 

Everyone had so much fun, it may have to become a regular part of our trip whenever we go out there for the holidays.

 

The final art project we had for the kids was some glitter fabric paint, so everyone painted either an apron, bag, or box. Luckily everything was dry by the time we had to drive home because we were a little worried since we had waited until the last night before starting this project. We got one more picture of all the grandkids with their creations.

 

We were there over a week and had a lot of fun being with everyone. We were lucky that none of the kids got sick, which always seems to happen whenever that many kids and people are together under one roof. Four of the adults ended up getting sick while we were there, but none of the kids and neither Tyler or myself, so we considered ourselves very lucky. On the drive home, we kept wondering if one of our little family would end up with the body aches and chills, but we never did - thank goodness. We had a great time and everyone else seemed to as well (when they weren't sick). We love being with family.

 

We spent the last couple days of 2013 at home with just us. It was nice and as we stayed up late watching movies, and playing games waiting around for midnight on New Year's Eve, I realized it was a lot of fun with it being just us. I decided we needed to have at least one holiday like that to just be home and hang out with our own family. On New Year's Eve, Taryn and Aubrey obviously didn't last too long, but Tessa lasted though the games until just after 11. Abby made it all the way to the new year for the first time. She was very proud of herself for doing that.

 

Overall, it was a great 2013 and we hope 2014 will be just as adventurous and amazing!