Making a scene

Austin broke out this Nutcracker book for the girls during quiet time. It has paper dolls for all the characters from the ballet. Allia and Mariana spent hours setting up scenes of dancers, complete with spotlights and all.

A little visitor

Our Goddaughter and her family stopped by Friday evening for a little Christmas visit. The children are always enamored by she and her baby sister (Can you blame them? What a cutie!). Monica had lots of attention opening her Christmas gift from us and playing with it!

 

Baby update again

Yay! Everything looked good at the appointment this morning, well good enough to last until next week anyway. So we are scheduled to go in Tuesday afternoon/evening to start the process of ushering baby in. This means she should be born either Tuesday night or Wednesday. And I have Dr. orders to get a lot of rest until then. ;) That is my kind of prescription!

My new light

We have been trying to get some long awaited projects done around the house this week while the girls are at my parents' house (they come back today! Yay!). Austin has been wanting to paint the downstairs ceilings for over a year now, so that was his project of choice. As Austin was taking the light down, I had casually mentioned that if we ever needed to replace the fluorescent light in the kitchen I would love one of these decorative ones so it doesn't look so industrial. While he had all the fixtures down (on the floor), he threw a drop cloth over them to protect them from paint. Clumsy pregnant lady didn't notice this and stepped right on the fluorescent light cover. We looked everywhere for a replacement cover but instead had to replace the whole fixture. So I got my wish! And figured out how to spend my Christmas money. ;) (pardon the hole where he still needs to put the A/C vent back!)

Baby Update

Well, we are looking at baby girl being born sometime in the next week! And here I thought I would be going late again. There are some minor(hopefully!) complications in there, so it will not be safe to let her go much longer. If all goes well at my next appointment tomorrow, we will be scheduling induction sometime at the beginning of next week! Prayers for safety for myself and baby girl would be greatly appreciated. :)

Christmas fun

The girls are at my parents' house for a few days, so I have no excuse for taking so long to get these photos up except that I am trying to get lots of other stuff done!

We had a great celebration this weekend with my parents. We decided to do our big dinner Saturday evening so we could relax more Sunday. Here are the biggest and littlest (besides one yet unborn) sitting together for the Nativity Story movie.

Of course Austin was working hard on his aforementioned turkey. Here he is carving.

The meal was delicious featuring the turkey with cranberry relish, a spring green and strawberry salad, sweet potato fries and pecan tarts for dessert. Here we are about to eat.

 

Christmas morning, we woke and dressed for mass which was beautiful. No photos though. My dad took one quick one but I looked like a Beluga whale and refuse to post it on the blog. ;) After mass, we opened gifts. The girls squealed and shrieked for every little gift they received, even the pack of gum from their sisters (they had a low budget for each other spending their own allowance money!). This of course made me so proud. Stephen was a little overwhelmed, but his favorite gift by far was this automatic car from Lita that flips and rolls and just goes crazy. It was hysterical to watch. I tried to get a video, but there was just too much going on. The children were so excited to see baby Jesus!

 

Gloria was so excited to have her own Texas Girl doll...

Mmmm...

Gumbo! We had a turkey (cooked by Austin using his family's very laborious and yummy recipe!) for Christmas since we had gumbo for Thanksgiving at my parents' house. But we decided, after receiving a batch of turkey gumbo from a Cajun friend when Stephen was born, to try it out on our leftovers. I have never actually made gumbo myself...just watched my parents for many years and enjoyed the tasty results (they make seafood gumbo, but the process is basically the same)! But today I actually did it. I made a pot of turkey gumbo....and it was delicious! Yay! I am so excited. That just has to be the best way to eat leftover turkey!

Merry Christmas!

We hope your celebration is blessed!

P.S. If you didn't receive a Christmas card from us, don't fret, we still love you...we are sending out Happy New Year cards with baby girl's birth announcements when she arrives instead. ;)

Preparations

Mariana was Austin's big helper this afternoon preparing the turkey, and Allia helped a little with that then with my chocolate pie. Lots to do to get ready...

Surprise baby shower

A very sweet neighbor and friend organized a little surprise baby shower for me yesterday evening. Only a few friends were able to make it, and we had a nice relaxing time. What a treat!

After Birthday celebrating

Yesterday, Pawpaw and Manah arrived. While we were waiting, Stephen enjoyed his reindeer lollypop from Lita. Then, he received a cool red scooter from Pawpaw and Manah which he enjoyed riding in the driveway. He pretty much attached himself to Manah's side when they arrived and has not left since except for an occasional scooter ride or quick mow. Nice break for Mommy, but I am afraid Manah has barely had a moment's peace. ;) Great to be loved, right? It does make us all feel better that things will go smoothly when baby sister arrives, though!

Birthday fun

We had a great day celebrating with Stephen yesterday. It started with cupcakes for breakfast and the opening of his gift from us...his mower! He was so excited. My camera cut out in the middle of him opening it, but you can hear the end of him exclaiming, "Daddy! It's a mower!" So cute. My little guy is totally intrigued with mowing and has been running down to his friend's house every chance he gets because our neighbor has a little plastic mower. Well, now Stephen has his own! He was a little torn between actually mowing and chasing the bubbles it blows though. (The neighbor's doesn't blow bubbles any more.)

Then we went to Daddy's work and had lunch with him which Stephen loved of course. Any extra Daddy time for him is a good thing! For dinner, Lita, Uncle Matt, Tia Nana and their puppy, Penny joined us. The dinner was nice, and the children had a blast with the dog afterwards! So thankful for a fun celebration of our sweet boy!

Happy 2nd Birthday, Stephen!!!

You are such a treasure and bring so many smiles to our lives. It was so fun to have a new baby boy on Christmas day, and we are so happy to celebrate with you again this year. I had no idea how sweet and cute a little boy could be (and wild and mischievous too of course). We love you big 2 year old boy!

 Newborn

One year

Two Years!

Final touches

We put the ornaments on the trees and put the nutcrackers out last night. It was so fun to watch the children's excitement as they rediscovered their ornaments from past years. Stephen was mostly interested in the bubble wrap and string beads but did enjoy putting his football ornament on the tree. This boy loves football...yikes. I would rather him take interest in a safer sport, although I am a big football fan myself. ;)

Weekend with Friends

We had two visits with some out of town families this weekend. What a treat! The H family came Friday night for dinner on a quick overnight trip to attend a graduation, but I totally missed out on photos! We had a great time visiting with them.  Then, Saturday we made a day trip to see Allia's Godparents, our Godson and his baby sister. It was a great relaxing day together.

Here are the children playing with Stephen Patrick's Christmas gift from us

And Allia's Goddaddy has a cool remote control helicopter that had everyone captivated, especially our Stephen!

Gloria's last dance class

I was so proud of Gloria yesterday. She had her performance and did great (especially compared to dance camp this summer where she didn't even move!). She really enjoyed her class and was so excited about the ornament exchange and cookie party at the end. Sweet girl!

Ballet (please pardon the immodest leotard in this one..I didn't realize while I was filming, yikes!)


Tap

Scooter Boy

Little guy has been working on riding the scooter lately. After some lessons from Allia this morning while I was inside cleaning bathrooms, he got it!

Saturday Dinner

Saturday we had dinner with two of our local priests and the R family. It was a wild, fun evening! Here are the younger children at their table enjoying the special "mixed" drink Austin made for them (lemonade, apple juice and sprite). The oldest two, Richie and Allia, sat at the big table. I didn't get any photos by the time the priests were here and the rest of us were eating, but it was a great evening and a nice prelude to Gaudete Sunday!

Helping out

We watched some children this morning for a friend who is recovering from a C-section. The girls loved being little mommies all morning. It was great...and easier than I expected adding 2 toddlers to our mix!

A little piano duet with Michael

"Baby Jane" really warmed up to Mariana and even leaned her head down on Mariana's shoulder for a bit. Mariana was beside herself.

Jane received a LOT of girl attention, even during lunch

Phone call to Daddy

This morning as I was trying to do some school with the girls, my mischievous boy picked up the phone and pressed a few buttons. As I asked who he thought he was calling, he spoke into the phone, "Hi! I wove wu, Daddy." So sweet!

Happy Anniversary!

Today, Austin and I celebrate 9 years of marriage. Best 9 years of our lives...may we be blessed with many more!

Dance performance

Allia and Mariana completed their semesters at the homeschool center dance class today. They did some sweet dances for the parents at the end of class.