November 2018 - All-Region Band, Thanksgiving

Looking back through my pictures, I did not take very many in the month of November, so it'll be a short post. We start with a few pictures from Taryn's Fun Fit Friday. With the colder weather, we spent their PE in the gym. I grabbed Taryn and her friends while we waited to start a game. They had to have a silly picture after the serious one. Here's Taryn with her friends: Elene, Gabby, Alyssa, and Isabella.

Tyler joined Aubrey and Tessa for their annual Daddy/Daughter Activity Days activity. The dads learned how to do hair. They learned how to do a braid, a regular ponytail, and a flipped ponytail. Tyler had to work quickly since he had two daughters, but he stayed caught up and they had a great time. Abby and I were very impressed with the girls' hair when they came home. Tyler was very proud of his handy hair-work. He even did Taryn's hair in the flipped ponytail on another occasion.  

Abby auditioned for the All-Region band at the beginning of the month and she found out that she made 2nd chair in the top band. Her school had the most students who made the All-Region band for the entire area. Abby was just ecstatic that she got a higher chair than last year, which was 3rd chair. She was really hoping to get 1st, but she was happy that she placed so high. She had a week of rehearsals and a long day of rehearsals and the concert on the following Saturday. They played some really good songs, and we enjoyed her concert. 

The rest of November flew by, and before we knew it, the girls were out of school for the Thanksgiving break. Tyler worked the first couple of days of that week, and on Wednesday afternoon we headed down to San Antonio to spend Thanksgiving with Scott and his family. My parents were already there, so we had a full house. We love being with family and the girls love seeing their cousins. I wish I had taken more pictures, but here's what I did get. Abby's buddy is always Nadia. The only person that Nadia loves as much as Abby from our family is "Uncle Tyler," who she constantly asks about. "Where's Uncle Tyler?" is what you hear multiple times during the day when she's not already hanging out with him. It's so cute! 

We pulled an extra table in and squeezed the whole family in the same room while we had our Thanksgiving meal. Besides eating yummy food and lots of pie, we kept ourselves entertained by playing games and playing with the kids in the backyard. 

We also had an outing to the Bass Pro Shop to see the fish, animals, and Santa! Our family went and we took Chloe and Nadia with us. I was a little nervous about Nadia seeing Santa since her parents weren't there, so I asked Chloe if she thought Nadia would be ok or if she would freak out. Chloe's answer was hilarious. She immediately said, "oh she'll be fine. Nadia loves men." I just laughed and figured that's good since we wanted a picture with Santa. I thought the picture turned out really cute. Taryn and Nadia were both happy to sit on Santa's lap and tell him what they wanted for Christmas.  

We also let the kids play at some of their activities like the shooting range and a little sand box. The girls also went up on some of the boats, so I grabbed a picture of that too. It seems like it's become a tradition that whenever we visit San Antonio we're going to make a stop at Bass Pro Shop. 

Daniel was very fun to play with. He loved throwing a ball to you and he's adorable to watch as he walks around since he's just gotten the hang of walking. He would also get in some kissing moods, and just keep kissing your cheek by slowly moving his whole face to yours until he made contact with your cheek. I tried getting a picture of him kissing Tessa, but my camera was too fast and I got the leaning in picture instead of the actual kiss. We love these kids so much! 

We also drove down to a park to play outside for awhile. The kids had fun running from one playground to the next. There was a balancing log that challenged them and the girls made up all kinds of games to entertain themselves as they played together. I was happy to grab a picture of all the cousins before we loaded up to head back to the house. 

On Friday night, Taryn showed me this list that she had written of all the things she wanted to do on our last day in San Antonio. She would get very sad every time we talked about having to go home. The weekend was not long enough for her. After the other girls saw Taryn's list, they all made a to-do list and they spent all Saturday doing everything on their lists. All the games and activities that they wanted to make sure that they did one last time while they were together, and I think they managed to check everything off their lists. My favorite part of Taryn's list was her Sunday schedule, which was the day we drove home. She wrote that after breakfast, we would leave from "Sand and tonyo" and go to El Paso. So cute! I love that girl so much!

On our drive home from San Antonio, we made good time, so we stopped as we got close to El Paso and ate dinner at Cattleman's Steakhouse which is in Faben's TX, right outside of El Paso. Their steakhouse has yummy, fresh steak and a small zoo that you can walk around. We got there in time to grab a picture on the way in to the restaurant before the sun went down. But by the time we finished eating and walked around the zoo, it was dark. There were still deer, goats. rattlesnakes, and an ostrich that we saw. We didn't get to walk around the lake or stay for too long since it was dark and cold, but now we can say that we've been there. We'll have to go back when we have more time to explore. It was fun. 

Finally, Abby's best friend, Braelinn, had her 14th birthday. They had a party and her mom created an escape room for them to do in their house. The girls had fun and they took this picture at the end of the party. Abby wanted me to save it. It's a cute picture of all of her friends. They had a great time. 

October, Part 2 - End of MS Volleyball, Halloween

Abby's 8th grade season of volleyball at school went by so quickly. She started as the setter, but like I mentioned before, was moved to libero half way through the season. You can see her better in the pictures because she's in the different color jersey than the rest of her team. Here is the game they played against Brown MS which is their biggest rival. We beat them in the first set in a very close match, but ended up losing the next two sets. Abby had awesome serves and dug a lot of hits, which is the main job of the libero; so she said it was a really fun game.

We took a picture with her old Stars coach, Denise, with the Brown players who were on their 13s Blue team: Selma, Sophie, Reggie, Denise, Andrea, and Abby.

We took this picture of the wall in the Hornedo gym where they had hung up all the 8th grade player's photos. Abby is center right below the top picture. We are so proud of her and the way she played. She was a strong player and great teammate. Many of the girls went to her with questions and problems. She really held the team together.

They played against Magoffin for their final home game. It was also their parent appreciation game so the girls gave their coach a rose and their parents a flower and candy and notes they had written. Here they are as they lined up to be announced before running to their parents. They won their final game of the season. Abby served a ton and it was a fun game to watch.

Since it was their last home game, we took a lot of pictures after the game. Here's Abby with her friend Paulina, and then one of the entire team. We were so proud of these girls and loved watching them play.

The next week, they had games multiple nights for the end of season tournament. They had to play the #1 seeded team from the Division II schools, and we beat them! The girls played hard and looked really good. Abby had awesome serves again and played the back row like a champ. 

The girls were so excited. Last year they had lost the first game in the end of season tournament, so they were so excited to be continuing on this year. They sang the school song after their win.

Here's the team picture after that win.

Their second game of the tournament was the following night. They played against Lincoln who they had lost to at the beginning of the season. They were so far ahead in the first set but ended up losing that one. The second set they were behind, but Abby ended up serving 9 serves in a row to win the 2nd set and take it to the 3rd set. Unfortunately they lost that set, but played so hard. It was a great game to watch. The girls had fun playing and they had a great season.

Here are the girls with their Stars friends from Lincoln. It really was a good game. It's Kayla, McKenzie, Abby, Emily, Annette, Andrea, and Diane.

Along with school volleyball, Abby's been playing again in band. They had their pep rally for the Fall sports and Tyler and I were both able to go. It was cool this time too because my dad's been working with their percussion students, and he started the school's first ever drumline and they debuted at the pep rally. It was so good! Abby played in the band and ran over to be with her volleyball team when they were presented.

Here she is with the band. I didn't get any pictures of her with her volleyball team. They basically just ran down from the stands, did a cheer in a circle, and then sat back down. Tyler had the afternoon off, so we were both able to be there and we found Tessa and Bianca as they came in and had them sit with us.

Tyler had a free hotel stay that was about to expire, so one weekend we had a staycation in El Paso. We got a hotel room on the other side of town and spent the evening hanging out as a family. We ate dinner and played at Dave & Busters and then went swimming in the hotel. We went to a movie the next morning as well. It was fun to do something different and fun together but still in our own town.

With the end of October and Halloween comes dress up days at school. The girls had crazy hair day, so I made these hairstyles for Taryn and Aubrey. Taryn got the ice cream cone hairdo and Aubrey wanted cupcakes. It was easy and fun. Abby chose not to do her hair crazy, and we tried a unicorn hairstyle on Tessa, but it didn't last very long. Although people were passing by her in the hallways saying, "Whoa it's a unicorn", so I guess it worked for a little while.

Abby had her first band concert the night before Halloween. They could dress up if they wanted to, so Abby just wore some flannel and old glasses and went as her grandpa. She tried a fake mustache but wiped it off before leaving the house. The concert was good, but usually they have all the bands play; but this year Mrs. Allen only had the top groups play because she thought the beginning band students weren't ready to perform. I was a little sad about that because Tessa is in beginning band and I would've loved to hear her play. Guess we'll have to wait for the Christmas concert.

For actual Halloween, we had decided as a family to dress up together again and we came up with the S'more's idea. I think it was Taryn's idea this year. At our ward trunk or treat which was earlier in the month, we had our costumes ready. I had Tyler dress up as the boy scout, Abby and Tessa were the graham crackers, Aubrey the chocolate, Taryn the marshmallow, and I was the fire. I thought it was a really cute idea and once people saw us together they got it and loved it too. But since the girls are at different schools and can't really do work with big cardboard pieces hanging on their bodies, they dressed up as different characters for the actual school day. Taryn and Aubrey dressed up as book characters like American Girl characters, but Tessa found this cute outfit to dress up as a ballerina for the day. She looked super cute that I had to get a picture. My little ballerina doll.

On Halloween night, the girls were back in the S'mores costumes and we walked around with friends to go trick or treating. We had a large group and a fun time. It was a little windy which made it cold, but the kids survived and probably lasted longer than the moms did. 

We had to grab a selfie with all the moms too. I love these ladies: Niki, Jessica, Kristina, me, and Damaris. I love this picture, although I mentioned that it would have been awesome if Kristina (who's dressed up as Malificent) would've had a serious face in the background. That would have been hilarious. Overall, it was a great Halloween.

October, Part 1 - Aubrey's Volleyball, Shawn Mendes, Taryn Turns 7

Tyler and I have been coaching Aubrey's volleyball team again. This season her team decided on the team name, Lucky Charms; and some moms made these awesome tye-dye shirts for the team. We took these team pictures and the one of Aubrey serving on a night when we had two games and we won them both. Our girls had so much fun playing together. They cheered for everything and had all kinds of chants and cheers that they yelled constantly throughout the games. You could definitely tell that they were having fun.

Lucky Charms ended up third in the after season tournament. We won our first two games to stay on the winners side of the bracket. Then we lost our next game that would have put us in the championship game, but it meant we ended up third overall. I was so proud of these girls and all of their hard work. Here's a silly picture we took after the girls got their medals.

And here are a few closeups of Aubrey and Aubrey and Riley with their medals. They all played so well together and just had fun.

Remember our chickens that we got back at Easter time? Here's the finished chicken house that Tyler built when we finally moved them from their temporary box inside our house. We kept telling the girls it wouldn't be until around Taryn's birthday that the chickens would be old enough to start laying eggs. Well they were right on schedule and at the beginning of October, almost exactly 6 months after we bought the baby chicks, we got our first chicken egg. The girls are so excited to check for eggs every day now. And we usually get between 2 and 4 eggs every day.

We harvested the sweet potatoes from our garden too and got a pretty good haul. For Taryn's birthday dinner, we had a Thanksgiving feast and we used all of these sweet potatoes from the garden. It was yummy! I love taking random pictures of the girls, so I caught them all in the kitchen one day so we took this tower picture. I love my girls!

On October 13th, Shawn Mendes was in town for one night for a concert. Tyler promised tickets to Abby and Braelinn a couple months back when they babysat a bunch of kids so we could go out on a big couple's date. Tessa and I got to tag along. We took pictures as we waited in the long line to get into the arena. The girls were so excited! And we saw so many people that we knew. It was a pretty popular event.

We got there early so Abby could get a t-shirt and we waited for quite awhile for the concert the start. We had great seats. On the 2nd row, pretty close to the stage.

It was Tessa's first official concert. She loved being able to say that she was already going to her first concert at age 11; especially after I told her that my first concert wasn't until I was in college.

Here's one of the best up close pictures I could get of Shawn while he was performing. We stood the entire time and everyone sang along with all of his songs. It was a great performance. I loved being able to take pictures of the girls with the stage and Shawn behind them. It shows how close we actually were.

Khalid, another singer who's from El Paso, even came out and sang a couple of songs with Shawn Mendes. It was like a two for one concert when they were both performing. The crowd was going crazy!

These girls were screaming and singing and loving every second. Shawn would occasionally wave out at the crowd and at one point he was facing our side when he waved and the girls were convinced he was waving at them. Their main line they always said when talking about the concert afterwards was, "He legit waved at us! I have it on video!" It was hilarious.

He was a really good performer. I even knew more songs than I thought I would. Abby and Braelinn knew every song he sang. It was a really fun night.

We grabbed a few more pictures as we left the arena and walked back to our car. The girls said they'd never forget this night. It was a fun time.

In honor of Taryn's birthday, I've added a few pictures of Taryn with her sisters while we talk about Taryn turning 7. I feel like 7 is such a big milestone. To me, 6 is still a little kid, while 7 is the beginning of the big kid stage. We no longer have little kids in our house! Here's Taryn with me and Abby after one of our duet performances. She wanted to be in our picture and I thought it turned out pretty cute. Abby even mentioned how much Taryn looks like her in this picture. They are the most similar in looks of all the girls.

Taryn's in first grade and loving school. Her teacher says she's a big helper in class and she's always giving Taryn jobs like helping teach another student something they missed after being absent. She loves making friends and being nice to everyone. She's awesome at the monkey bars and has the calluses on her hands to prove it. She loves playing games with her sisters and playing barbies and the wii. She likes to star in movies that she makes with her sisters. She likes playing games on phones whether it's mine, Tyler's, grandma's, or anyone else's that she can get her hands on.

She's always happy and although she's starting to get a little sassy like a tween, she's still pretty sensitive and definitely recognizes the feelings of others and is ready to cheer anyone up who's feeling down. She still loves to read and in her free time, you can usually find her on the coach surrounded by books. We had a big Sunday dinner on her actual birthday and she picked three families from our ward to join us for dinner. Besides the Kasallis's who we always celebrate birthdays with, Taryn picked two other families who have little kids because she loves playing with "babies." We love that she's in our family and couldn't imagine it without her. 

We love you Taryn! Happy Birthday!