Alexander's Music

My son's friend at college is a recording major and needed to do a project for a class.  He asked Alexander to play the piano for his recording and I love the result.  One of the things I miss the most having Alex gone is listening to him play the piano and especially when he improvises.  He loves to play for the Lord and you can really feel it in his music.  I was so blessed to be able to have a recording I can listen to and I would love to share it with you.  Enjoy and have a blessed day.

Alicia

https://soundcloud.com/alex-cdebaca/how-great-is-our-god

Moving Along

Ahhhh, things are just moving along here.  Progress right?   We are well into our new semester, and school is going well.  I look at this semester and am wowed by another school year half over.  My children are learning, completing assignments, and growing up. They will never be in these grades again.  I enjoy watching them learn and cherish our moments together.  Not every day is smooth, but on the perfect days I have such a feeling of satisfaction over all we accomplish.

Books, books and more books.

The wedding preparations are also coming along.  This being my first child to marry, I am learning so much.  So many decisions, planning, crafting, creating, fittings, and budgeting are getting done and things are moving right along.  The other day Latisha, a couple of her bridesmaids, and myself went to get Latisha's wedding dress fitted.  It was very fun.  I was surprised how every alteration made was a different charge, so we had them do the parts we weren't comfortable doing.  She was a little hesitant but was happy to cut the cost a bit.  The bridesmaid's dresses need a little adjustments too.  We are adding wider shoulder straps and hemming them a bit.  One dress is done, now only 3 more to go.    

Latisha and I  picking up the dress, she looked absolutely beautiful but we're keeping the dress a secret.  :)

work day

The other day we had some friends over to work on wedding projects.  We spent the afternoon making bridal shower invites, rsvp cards, tags for the sparkling cider, and folding wedding invitations.  Latisha was so happy with all we got accomplished and we had fun doing it.  What a great way to brighten up the dreary weather we have been experiencing here.  Hope all is well with you all.  God is good.  Have an amazing day.

Alicia

Happy New Year

Here it is, a new start to a new year with so much in store.  I just dropped my son, Alexander, off at the airport.  I always hope to say something profound as he heads off to a new semester but as always I get chocked up and blubber my way through the goodbye.  It was so nice to have him home and this year we put him to work on a new project.  A couple years ago I painted my dining room and had planned on getting the kitchen and living room done.  So while Alex was home we put him to work again and with the help of the family got it done in just a few days.  It got pretty exciting some times with some of the hard to reach areas but it is so nice, clean, and warm.  I like how it turned out.  Thank you Alex!  :)


Now that that is done and the Christmas decorations are put away, it is back to school and wedding preparations.  I bought some material to tie a quilt for Brent and Latisha as a new project for myself.  Unfortunately I haven't got my last project of my brother's Christmas present done.  So I need to get that done first.  Guess I better get on that.  Have a blessed day.

Alicia

The finished paint job

material for my new project.  

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

A New Love Story pt 2

A few weeks ago my husband received a phone call.  I was in the other room playing with the little ones.  David came in the room very serious and said that Brent had called him and wanted to talk with him.  We had a pretty good idea what the talk was about but it was exciting.  The older girls were gone for the evening so the timing was perfect.   Brent came over and asked for permission to marry our daughter.  It was a special time and David finished with a prayer over their engagement and future life together.  Now we had to sit back and wait for the proposal.

I am horrible about keeping surprises from people I am close too, but David thought it best that we not say anything to anybody including our parents.  Yikes, not as easy as it sounds.  My mom and I are quite close and something as exciting as that was stretching me.  But we made it the next couple weeks until the big day.  Already though I was having a hard time with sleep.  We knew a couple days he was thinking about asking her but weren't sure.  I would wake up with the baby in the night and couldn't go back to sleep wondering how and when Brent was going to "Pop the question."

Tuesday after Labor day was to be the day.  I'm pretty sure Latisha had known something might be up that weekend but nothing happened so Tuesday she was totally unsuspecting.  Brent had let us know his intent on Sunday so I was busy trying to make an engagement cake without any of the kids knowing.  I baked and froze it Sunday while they were out then tried to frost it on Tuesday while they were doing school and Latisha was gone for a bit.  Not my best decorating job, but it was the thought that counts right?  Brent's parents were going to come to dinner but Latisha didn't know that, so I was trying to not make a big deal about dinner.

Brent had called that day and Latisha had invited him over for dinner.  At 5:30 Brent's family was to arrive but it wasn't until 5:15 that Brent had called Latisha and the plan began.  He asked if she could come and help him with his car.  When Latisha finally left we all flew into action.  I told the kids we were having company and they needed to do a quick pickup while I reset the table.  Brent's parents showed up and we anxiously awaited the return of our kiddos.

Latisha had showed up where Brent's car was "needing help," it was in a church parking lot.  She walked up to the car that had a flower on it and a note.  The note had said how he was looking forward to giving her many more flowers for the rest or her life.  He had music playing through his speakers to a song called "Marry You,"  she was getting the idea what was going on but was in total shock.   He came out of the car with a bouquet of roses and got down on one knee and asked her to marry him.  She of course accepted.  She was so excited and shaking but now had to drive home to us.

When they came in the door they were both aglow, smiling, and shaking.  It was so precious.  We all had a time to rejoice and take a couple pictures and they headed off to dinner.  Brent and Latisha had a "wonderful" dinner at the Cheesecake factory.  We had dinner with our daughter's in laws to be and it was a blessed evening.   When they came back after dinner they were still shining and we all were so excited.

Now the planning has begun... and my sleep is still interrupted with wedding ideas but we pray that Gods blessing will be upon our daughters fairytale reality.

the cake

the flowers

the ring 

the family

More to come...