Happy Birthday Latisha and It's a....

Another birthday for Latisha.  We called it the pregnancy graving birthday.  It was quite fun.  Since Latisha and family were gone for Christmas day we tried to combine her birthday with a little Christmas.  We had presents around the tree after lunch, then played games, followed by more family over for dinner.  The menu was shredded beef burritos, cheese fondue, ceasers salad, and fruit salad, followed by gingerbread cake with hot butter sauce, and chocolate cookie dough ice cream and raspberry sherbet for dessert.  It was wonderful.  

We are so blessed to have Latisha in our lives.  She is such a great mother and wife and takes her job as a homemaker serious.  This has not been an easy pregnancy but Latisha is doing amazing.  Yesterday was the big ultrasound.... and.... it is a Girl!!!  Already from the ultrasound picture we can tell that it is an absolutely beautiful baby.  We are all so excited and looking forward to this new addition.  

So happy birthday to my beautiful daughter and a big praise the Lord for this little gift to come in a few months.  Love you Sweet pea!.

Have a blessed day.

Alicia

One of my favorite little girl pictures of Latisha 

new baby It's a Girls!!!

Christmas

Wow this last month has just flown by.  I apologize it has taken me so long to get back to my blog.  I have a few blogs I need to post, I think we shall start with Christmas.  Our holiday was lovely, a bit quieter than normal, but still very nice.  The reason for the season was celebrating the birth of our savior and that was wonderful.

We haven't gone to a candle light Christmas Eve service in years.  This year some friends of ours that have a church in our area had a service at 3:30, perfect.  We missed naps but it all worked out.  It was so good to see our friends and hear our friend preach.

Then we headed to my parents house.  We enjoyed good food, the kids acted out the nativity story as I read it, Cassandra played a carol on the piano, Danika played one on the violin, and Sierra played one on the piano.  Then Danika and Sierra played as we sang carols.  They did sooo good and my mama heart rejoiced as we worshiped our savior while they played.  We played games with my parents and siblings, dressed in our Christmas pjs, then headed quickly home and to bed.

The next day was a little sad because we were missing a few of our family members, Alex and Ivy had Christmas at their home in the neighboring state and Brent, Latisha, and August went to be with them; but we still had such a good day.  David totally surprised and blessed me.  He had taken scraps from previous years of left over Christmas pjs I had made for the family, cut them into squares and took the squares to a friend who sewed them into a beautiful and extremely sentimental quilt.  I was very emotional when I saw it.  What a thoughtful gift.  The kids enjoyed opening gifts and Aidric was very expressive with each gift.  Isabella loves going through our family photo albums but is not very gentle, so I had made Isabella a photo album that she can go through of pictures of herself and family.    This entertained her for quite the time and she still loves to study the pictures and turn the pages.  My brother and his son, my sister, her husband and daughter, and my parents joined us for a great food and games, including a friendly game of ping pong.  The day was lovely and topped off with an extremely beautiful white Christmas.

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and we look forward to all 2017 has in store.   God bless and have a blessed day, Alicia

Cassandra singing with the kids at church

Isabella and David 

Church service the Sunday before Christmas 

Cassandra as Mary and Aidric as Joseph

Cassandra playing her song

Danika her's 

Sierra hers

together

Christmas pjs

My amazing quilt

Christmas Day

Isabella and her book

The sun setting Christmas day

Christmas meal

Thanksgiving

This has been a wonderful Thanksgiving.  We were so blessed to have all the kids here for the holiday, unfortunately not all will be here for Christmas but we enjoyed our time together for this holiday.  Alex and Ivy were able to spend Sunday through Saturday with us.  It was a very relaxed and wonderful time. Sunday, Alex and Ivy headed over after church.  It takes about six hours to get here so it was later in the evening but it was great to see them.

We had a fun filled week as we enjoyed celebrating being thankful.  First night we had bowling and pizza and got to hang out with Brent and Latisha and see their pictures from their Hawaii Trip.  Next night the whole family went to a family movie.  Wednesday was cleaning and cooking for Thanksgiving.  Thursday was food and fun, not to mention celebrating our thankfulness for our family and grandbabies on the way.  David's brother and his family and David's mother were also able to join us.  Friday was our last full day so we set up the inside Christmas decorations, played games, went to a Japanese restaurant, and a movie with the adults  (all little excitement on the side, I might share another day).  Saturday we enjoyed pumpkin chocolate chip pancakes and Alex and Ivy headed down the road.  Things went quite smoothly and it was a wonderful week.

I pray you all had a wonderful holiday.  We are truly thankful for all our family and friends and grateful for the family we got to celebrate with.  God bless and have a great day.

Alicia

lovely dinner

decorating

games

family

food

food prep.  So fun to have Latisha and Ivy together with
their growing bellies.  

bowling

all right, bring on the Christmas season :)

Baby Shower

I had the privilege of helping to throw a family baby shower for Alexander and Ivy.  Latisha headed it up and I enjoyed helping where needed.  We got to have a craft day where we made all the decorations with our dear friends help.  It was a great time.  Then the big day finally came.

Alex and Ivy live about 5 1/2 hours away, so we were very blessed that they took time out of their busy schedule to come here and let us throw them a party.  The decorations were adorable, with a woodsy theme.  Then Ivy had asked for pie, so we had a wonderful pie buffet.  

It has been a while since we had seen them, so it was so fun to see how Ivy's tummy has grown into a perfectly round ball and the baby is moving very actively.  It is always a blessing to see my Son and daughter in law.  Such an exciting future ahead for the both of them.  

We also got to celebrate Ivy's birthday.  Happy Birthday Ivy.  I hope you had a wonderful day.  We had a brunch here with french toast and crapes topped with a cream cheese sauce and fruit.  Not to mention some bacon to top it off.  It is so wonderful to have Ivy as a part of our family and I do thank God for putting her and Alex together.  She is an awesome wife and it is with great excitement that we know she will be an amazing mom.  It was a good and fast trip.  But here are some pictures from the weekend.  God bless and have a blessed day.

Come on in

this way to the baby shower

setting up

fun table decorations with prayer card for baby

cool drinks 

hot drinks with hot chocolate, apple cider and coffee

table with coloring pages for the kiddos

the lovely parents to be

pie buffet

up close

David and our grandson, August, praying for our evening

Aidric

Alex and his long time friend Jeremy

The men getting ready for the game

The blind feeding the blind

David didn't appreciate his food.  

Ivy's daddy saying a prayer over the couple and baby

cute poofs Latisha made

Ivy's grandma made this blanket

Birthday brunch complete with china, candles and Christmas music

Happy birthday Ivy

Our two little boys awaiting the arrival of the new buddy to come.

I made the new baby a blanket in the colors of the nursery