Taylor's tumbling class

*I posted 2 posts today so after this one continue on.

After almost three years, well actually longer, of accompanying me to watch Kaylee do tumbling it is finally Taylor's turn to take her own class. She absolutely loved it. It cracked me up when they tried to teach her how to do the splits and do a backbend. For a 2 year old she is pretty good and is very brave. It is funny because I remember when Kaylee started tumbling she would not jump off of anything, she couldn't jump on the tramp right and it took a couple of years for her to bear jumping into the pit. It is amazing the differences in their personalities.

Cousin time

Over Christmas Jeff's brother Kevin and his wife Stephanie, and their two cute girls stayed with us for a few nights. It was so much fun to have them here. This is their last night and the kids were having so much fun playing. Of couse I don't think Sophie got put down once. She is so sweet.

Rylee and Taylor were going to school. I put the hat on Tay because her hair was out of control. I thought she would look back on these pictures and think that I was a neglectful mom and that I didn't take care of her. The truth is that her just showered hair is not a pretty sight. We have to either curl or straighten her hair after the shower or it looks terrible. She looks cute with a hat though!

Christmas

I know Chrismas is over. It already feels like it was months ago. I feel like life is finally settling into a normal pace so you will get to now see pics from Christmas. We had a wonderful holiday and are so grateful for our blessings and our little family.






Taylor loved her boots and had to have them on most of the morning.




Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!

McMinn photo shoot

During our trip to Utah for the McMinn cousin Christmas party we had family pictures done. It was so fast and painless and most of the kids cooperated really well. I love the setting with the barn and the snow. It was fun and we surprised Grandma & Grandpa with them for their Christmas. They loved it.
We loved the huggy pictures
This shot took a little work to get Rylee to stop pulling on Kevin's face and to get Corbin happy. So in the middle of the shoot, Corbin was switched out for Maddie. In the meantime Poor Rob had Brooke on his shoulders. It's a good thing for Jeff, Kevin, and Craig that the youngest in the family is 2. Well in Kevin's case his baby was too little for a shoulder ride.
All the cousins. This is one of the only ones that Corbin is not crying.


Another hugging pic.
The sibling clowning around
We did not get a single picture with these guys where everyone was looking at the camera. Hmm they are all old enough to follow directions don't you think.
Once again not a single good picture with everyone looking. Mostly it is the siblings again. The in-laws did a good job :)
I loved the color in these pics and of course the model.

Clogging ppictures

Finally getting around to post pictures from Kaylee's clogging performance. After the performance the girls sat on Santa's lap. All of the other days the Santa's helper was a 20 something kid with a spray painted gotee with the beard on top of it. He gave me the creeps and the kids seemed a little freaked out. This day the santa was wonderful and the girls smiled for the picture and talked to him. Kaylee & Tambree

Saydree, Tambree, Kaylee

Kaylee is all about posing. Sometimes I have to tell her to act natural and stop posing.

Happy Birthday Kaylee!

I know that I am a little slow with this post since Kaylee has now been 5 for a couple of weeks. Her birthday was on December 18th. We had so much going on that week and we were so busy with her birthday and holiday stuff. Don't feel bad for her though she got to have 3 separate celebrations plus a Christmas celebration with lots of presents on her birthday. So here is a recap.

We got up before Jeff went to work and Kaylee opened her presents. She got some fun stuff including a polly pocket roller coaster resort. That afternoon her cousins on the Byington side came over for a gift exchange. Grandma and Grandpa also spoiled the kids with more presents. When Jeff got off of work we drove to Utah and stayed with the McMinn cousins. Before leaving though we got to go to dinner at Golden Corral (Kaylee's choice) Kaylee was especially excited to stay with Maddie! On Saturday we had a Christmas party with said cousins and we also had cupcakes for Kaylee's b-day. Then on Sunday evening when we got home we had a party with grandparents and cousins with cake and ice cream. It was a really great b-day for a really great girl.

Just a fun picture of the girls, not taken on an actual birthday.

Opening presents, it was tad early and Kaylee looks a little sleepy. Ater opening presents Kaylee got to pick her favorite thing for breakfast, German pancakes.

This present is from Grandma & Grandpa McMinn, Kaylee says thank you.

Kaylee chose the barbie cake from Barbie and the Diamond Castle. It is one of her favorite books.

A couple of days before her birthday we took cupcakes to school for the treat. She chose the ornament cupcakes out of our cupcake book. They were fun to make.

Hopefully I will get caught up on the other activiities from December.

Annual Christmas pics.

Here are the annual Christmas eve pictures of our family. There are a few missing when we didn't make it home for Christmas. It is funny to me to see the changes in our family. Glenn this post is especially for you.

PS if you want to start with the earliest years then go down to the bottom.

2008, last year, if you blow up the pic you will see the matching braces for mom and dad.

2007

2006-love this picture with me big and pregnant, gotta love the chubby cheeks. This was the year we moved to poky.

2005

2004-obviously we did not go to Idaho for Christmas. Kaylee was 1 week old.

2003-Ryan was 2. Sadly we do not have a family pic this year. We were also in Pittsburgh this year because Jeff was on call over the Christmas break. It was a hard Christmas for me not being with family for the first time in my life.

2002

2001-We didn't start the stair tradition yet, but we were at the Christmas Eve party at Belnaps.