Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year

Well, Christmas came and went so very fast and now the New Year is upon us.  I sit here reflecting on this past year and must say it has been a challenging one and I am ready to get on with 2014.  This last year has had some major issues and times of trusting in our Lord, but it  has also been one of great blessings with the birth of our baby boy and the engagement of our oldest daughter.  God is so good and I am thankful that he has good things in store for 2014.

Christmas was very nice.  We enjoyed Christmas eve with all our kids,  my parents,  and Latisha's fiancé and future in  laws.  Every year the kids act out the Christmas story and this year they got a little creative and it turned out so cute.  Sierra organized it and had Danika and Jaden (Brent's little brother) as Mary and Joseph.  They dressed up, rode stick horses, and even had cowboy hats.  Cassandra made an adorable Shepherd and later wise man/queen (she said, "queen, you know because I'm a girl").  She said her lines with feeling and had a great time.  Isabella was a cute angel floated about not always on cue and Aidric was a perfect baby Jesus.  The girls were excited to have a boy baby Jesus this year.  Then Christmas morning we had a blessed time as we opened our gifts to each other and celebrated the birth of our Savior.  Our tree was overflowing, as you can imagine, with each child buying gifts for each other in addition to the ones we bought.  Next year it might be a good year to have the kids draw names.  Christmas day we spent with my parents and sister's family.  We truly are blessed to be able to spend our holiday with our family and friends.

I hope you all enjoyed a blessed time celebrating the birth of our Lord.  May you have a wonderful New Year and God's blessings on you and yours.

Alicia

our extended stocking

Christmas eve full of amazing food

my mom and Isabella ready for the show

Cassandra proclaiming the good news

Jaden, Danika and baby Aidric

Danika playing songs

Cassandra and Sierra's turn

Sierra also added the flute 

Aidric also performed his new trick

Ready, set….

go…  Present time in our new matching pjs

Aidric got a basketball hoop, which was the same one that Alex got when he was about his age.
I was so excite when I found it. 

Christmas dinner

Afterwards the kids had games with friends

My Baby Girl is Now an Adult

Today is Latisha's 18th birthday!!!  What a joy and blessing she has been.  When my pregnancy with her began it looked like it was about to end and I was so very upset.  I cried out to the Lord and he heard my prayer.  Latisha was born and has been a huge joy and blessing.  I can still remember the scare or losing her and the doctor telling me there was really nothing he could do this early in the pregnancy, but there was something God did and we are so thankful.  This is a day of celebration.  Thank you Lord for Latisha and thank you Latisha for being such an amazing daughter.  We love you and are so looking forward to all you have in store this year.  God bless you, Latisha.

Love,

Dad and Mom

Update

Yes, it has been a while since I have posted.  Things have been a bit busy around here.  Much progress has been done in wedding planning.  We now have a wedding dress, bridesmaids dresses, flower girls, invitations and many other miscellaneous things.  It has been so fun.  Latisha has ordered a lot, so the delivery man has been to our house quite a bit with packages for wedding or Christmas and it is so exciting.  We have been blessed with some good deals and that is even more exciting.  The first big job was to decide the place and date.  Latisha and Brent really want an outside wedding and found an amazing spot.  The best part was they were already booked for the month of May, the month they want to wed, except for Memorial Day, and since it is on a Monday it was a great deal.  I was married on a Monday and had told my children it is not a great day to get married on but since it is a holiday I think it will be perfect.

picking the dress

 Next we got engagement photo's.  It was a very chilly day and I did them, so they are not perfect but I was happy with the results and we had a lot of fun.

 We have also been seeing a lot of doctors for Isabella, which at time can be very draining and discouraging.  When going to the different doctors they look at her and tell us all the things they think could be going on and that can be quite scary.  Once again, it is so good to know God is in control and I choose to believe he is going to do something awesome with Isabella.  We are grateful she is a happy little girl and she could care less what the doctors say.

 Our next craziness has been David.  He just had shoulder surgery and is recovering from that.  It has been quite painful but he has been a trooper and is doing well.

 Aidric is doing amazing.  He has started crawling, pulling himself up to things and has even taken a couple steps.  I am so looking forward to celebrating his first Christmas this year.  I just think he is so adorable and I am so happy to have him in my life.

 Then Alexander has finished up another semester at college and is home for the holidays.  It is so good to have him home and I am trying to savor the time together.  We have had some good snow and today was the perfect day to build a snowman.  Alex got all the kids together and they built a new family record 10 foot 2 inch snowman.  They called him Goliath and built a canon in front of him and a little snowman, David, connected to the cannon.  They put a big hole in Goliath and once again David killed Goliath.

So, if you made to the end of my long post you can see that we have had a month of ups and downs and these are only the highlights.  But God is so good and we are looking forward to celebrating the birth of our Savior in a few days.  We look forward to 2014 and pray God's blessing for the new year.  Have a great day.

Alicia