Other November Happenings

Mei's first visit to the dentist! No cavities- hooray!

1st grade Thanksgiving feast- Mina is thankful for friends, sisters, Jesus & Heavenly Father, mom & dad, family, and a place to live.

Morning walk to the neighborhood park/pond...gorgeous fall day in Houston.

Pie Anyone?!

The annual Dibb pie before turkey party had to come quite early this year b/c of the craziness with the upcoming move...it was a smaller affair this year...but still yum! I love pie. And I love this family tradition b/c I get to remember the families we've invited in the past and the friends we've made over the years!

And We're Moving...Again!

I want to start this post by first saying how much I love Houston. I really do. I don't love the humidity...and I don't love the traffic. But I love the people here. I love the friends we've made...and our amazing neighbors. I love southern hospitality and the accent and Tex-mex and BBQ. So...it's a bittersweet announcement to say the Dibbs are moving to San Diego!

Brian has accepted a job offer with Sempra, an energy company based in San Diego. We are excited about this new opportunity- and despite the timing (never ideal to move again after just doing it in July!) we are up for this new adventure and feel it's a good decision for our family. Brian starts early December and we'll follow shortly after. So starting December 8th...the packers will arrive yet again! Luckily this time I don't have to wait 3 months for a sea shipment! Brian and I just got back from a whirlwind house hunting trip where we managed to find a house we're excited about. Our offer was just accepted so hopefully everything will go smoothly so that we can move in straightaway in early January. It's been a crazy month over here!

"A" Honor Roll

All 3 of our kids got straight A's the 1st term of school! The school does a very small shindig where the parents are invited to watch the kids get a popsicle. Seriously, that's it. But the kids are happy and it's nice that they're recognized for doing a great job in school.

Mina, also wearing this Australia hat b/c it was crazy hat day at school. (Grandpa got to watch Mina eat a popsicle too.)

Hooray Mina for getting straight A's.

1st graders still love to sit with their parents. 4th graders love to sit with their friends. These girls have become fast friends with Emi...and they also all attend church with us. They are a great group of girls! I love their silly personalities!

Halloween

Pumpkin Patch- our first visit to a pumpkin patch in ohhh, 6 years??? The kids were in awe of all the pumpkins. I was in awe of the cheap pricing.

Costume theme this year: Disney Villains! Cruella de Vil, young Maleficent, Evil Queen from Snow White, and Ursula. It's hard to tell from the photos, but Mei's tentacles were awesome. And she was so excited to wear blue eye shadow and have her hair spray-painted white.

Kaiya was the mastermind behind the pumpkin carving this year!

Becca

Becca is my dear friend I met in Perth. She moved to Vietnam right before I moved to Houston. During her most recent trip back stateside she stopped in Houston for the weekend to visit me. B/c we had both just read The Martian (and saw the movie in the theater) we just had to go to NASA.

She also saw a tutorial for swants and decided we had to make some. What are swants? If you want a good laugh...check out this link HERE. Unfortunately, the thrift stores in Houston don't have a lot of sweaters in stock (pretty sure it has something to do with the never-ending heat here) so we were limited in our options...but we persevered and got those swants made! I'm pretty sure Brian rolled his eyes at us many times...

I'm so thankful for life long friends...the type where despite living miles away and not seeing each other for ages you can still laugh and have plenty to talk about. I miss her already.

Other October Pics

Kaiya's team was invited to watch the World Selections comp (this meet determines who is selected to represent the USA at the world championship)- so Kaiya got to see some of the world's best gymnasts perform. After the meet, the girls got to mingle a bit with the gymnasts. Kaiya got to meet Olympic gold medalist Gabby Douglas- so cool!

I have no explanation for this photo...

Showing off their blue tongues (and crazy personalities) after having a blue raspberry snow cone.

Future rock climber, maybe?!

Storybook Parade

Unfortunately, the schools in Houston don't like to celebrate Halloween. Lame sauce. Instead of doing a traditional Halloween parade (like I remember growing up)- they do a Storybook Parade. Kids are supposed to dress up as their favorite storybook character. Most kids just wear their Halloween costumes and find a book to match...but Emiko took this parade seriously. She's really into the Warrior series (it's about cats) so she insisted on dressing like a cat. Mina was Jasmine- not b/c it's her favorite character but b/c she thinks the outfit is pretty.

Austin

Early October we went to Austin for the weekend b/c Emiko had a bouldering competition there. Whilst in Austin, we went to the Thinkery (children's museum) and the Austin Aquarium. Fun stuff.

7 Years Old

Mina turned 7 last month! A long time ago, the girls had checked out a book at the library about cake decorating...it was one of their all-time favorite books and they loved looking at all the different cakes that I finally bought a similar book. They still enjoy looking through the book at all the different kinds of birthday cakes. Unfortunately, it also meant that Mina had her eye on this cake for almost an entire year. She really, really, really wanted me to make this cake for her b-day. I'm no cake decorator. But with Kaiya's help we managed to put something acceptable together. For perspective, the picture of her desired cake on the left...and ours on the right. (Also, what kid wants a haunted castle for their birthday cake?! My child, apparently.)

It wasn't a friend party year for her but there's always a handful of neighborhood kids that play in the cul-de-sac...so we invited them in for cake and ice cream. I'm glad we were able to celebrate our sassy, strong-willed, independent, defiant but lovable, cheeky Mina. Everyone needs a Mina in their life!

Letters

Mina has taken to writing us letters. Most of the time they are sweet & cute little love letters. But when she's mad at us, we get hate mail too. Here's a few of her writings left around the house:

Broken Arm

The end of September Kaiya has a bad fall on bars. She was doing giants and when she was at the top (in handstand position) she slipped and fell to the floor. Her arms broke her fall and unfortunately she came away with a small break by her left elbow. B/c it was a small break she didn't require a cast...but she needed a hard splint to keep the arm mobilized while it healed. Luckily she only had to wear the splint a couple of weeks. The next month was spent gradually rehabilitating the arm and now she's pretty much back to normal. We're grateful it wasn't more serious!

Rock Climbing

Emiko's love of rock climbing started in Perth when she was invited to a birthday party at an indoor rock climbing center. When we moved back stateside, she tried out for a youth team and has been training 2 days/week since then. She absolutely loves it. She's entered a few bouldering competitions this Fall and it's been fun to watch her climb. Her best finish so far is 5th place in her age group. It makes us so happy to see her find a sport that she loves doing!

Photos in Random Order

This looks bad...but I swear she's only drinking ginger beer!

Deciding on a paint color for the main living areas...the winner ended up being Sherwin Williams Worldly Gray (top row, 2nd from the right)

More 4 wheeling fun with friends during Labor Day weekend. Mei was really scared at first...but if you look at the second photo you can see she realized there was nothing to be scared of.

Mei is starting to get pretty good at doing puzzles. She was proud to complete these without any help.

Blue Bell ice cream back on the shelves after a 6 month hiatus. However, being gone so long it meant more like a 6 year hiatus for us. It was yum.

1st Day of School

Nearly 3 months after it occurred...1st day of school for these kiddos. Kaiya- 7th grade, Emiko- 4th grade, Mina- 1st grade, and Mei- preschool