Aquinasfest

Our parish had it's annual festival this weekend. Despite a wonderful amount of rain, it turned out great. We went to the dinner and dance Saturday evening. The children had a great time dancing with their friends even though the rock band was deafeningly loud!

This girl ran around the room the whole time with a big smile on her face! Cute little Aggie girl!

Then Sunday they had the games and rides. We missed having Lito with us like last year, but we managed to have some fun. ;) The children were so glad the rain did not ruin the horse rides.

 Anastasia loved the horses so much that she kept trying to run away from us and go back to them!

Allia had her face painted

 And Gloria won at the doll wheel

 We also won two batches of cupcakes at the cake wheel which we have been enjoying ever since. :) What a fun weekend!

Sports Saturday

The three older girls all started sports games this morning. We had two 9am soccer games and a 10am volleyball game! Fun times! All three did great and were so excited.

Gloria is on the "Flame Throwers" (one of the children on her team was not an Aggie fan, so they nixed that name even though they are maroon :) )

Allia is on "Pink Lightning"

 Mariana is on the "Pumas"

Gloria and Allia's teams both won their games. Mariana's team lost by just a few points. Looking forward to next week!

Enjoying grandparents

Anastasia sure enjoyed Manah this visit. She was teething and a little needy, so some Manah time was just what she needed!

Pawpaw's birthday is this week, so we celebrated with him Sunday evening. After a nice dinner, he requested an ice cream party. So we got six flavors of Blue Bell and all the trimmings. It was quite a yummy party. :)

 Mariana was very excited about her creation!

New Arrival

As we wait for our newest family member next year, we had a new arrival late last night...our big white van! Austin's vehicle needed to be replaced, so we decided to make the leap to the big van and pass our family vehicle to him. It came all the way from California (because we wanted all captain's chairs instead of bench seats). Everyone was really excited to see it this morning. After mass we opened the doors, and the exploring began!

The inside looks like an airplane!

Driving it will definitely take getting used to. We took advantage of Pawpaw and Manah being here this afternoon and went to practice in the high school parking lot together. :)

Birthday Party

Mariana wanted a party at U Paint It, so I let her pick 3 friends to take along yesterday afternoon (and no siblings to save on cost). Pawpaw and Manah stayed with the others at home. The party goers were so cute trying to pick their items to paint and hardly made a peep for the first 20 minutes or so because they were all so focused. My pregnancy brain kicked in, and I totally forgot to take photos. :p After they finished, we went home for cupcakes and gifts with siblings and a few neighbors too.

If you are wondering why some of them are in swimsuits, it rained all day Friday but without any thunder or lightning. So instead of letting it rain on our party....we partied in the rain! Again, I didn't take photos until about half the guests left, but it was quite a show of children riding up and down our street in the rain! They had a blast, and it was really fun to watch too!

I am so glad my sweet girl had such a nice celebration. We love you, Mariana!

Happy Birthday!

Mariana and I celebrated our birthday yesterday. She is 8 years old now...wow! First thing in the morning, the two girls opened their joint gift from Lito and Lita...a sewing machine! Now if only I could feel better so I could teach them to use it. They have some children's learn to sew books to help out too!

After a yummy breakfast of Oreo truffle brownie, Mariana opened her other gifts

 Allia was so sweet to use her own money and surprise Mariana with a mini Ariel doll she wanted.

And Pawpaw and Manah sent a box of clothes with a big Strawberry shortcake doll set at the bottom of the box. That kept the girls busy most of the day!

Austin took the day off to celebrate with us (my favorite birthday gift), and fixed the girls' bikes which have needed new tires for many months now.

We wrapped up our day with confession, daily mass and dinner out with friends. What a nice birthday!

More birthday stuff

We had more birthday fun today. Mariana and Gloria attended the princess birthday party of a friend. Here they are all ready to go...

And Allia had her birthday celebration at Martha's Bloomers (local nursery with tea room). I have been telling her for years that when she turned 10, we would go with a few of her friends. It is hard to believe that time has already come. We even convinced her Godmommy (not pictured) to come along!

Such sweet friends

They had lovely conversations and surprised the waitress with their enjoyment of the tea (she served them strawberry lemonade instead, but they requested the tea also).

They kindly allowed us to bring in our own dessert since Allia cannot have dairy. So she blew out her candles after a quiet birthday song.

She received some great gifts...books, a pretty purse, an Aggie shirt, and a giftcard from her Godmommy that she really enjoyed spending on their plants and other garden items.

The girls with their loot ready to go

Helen and I enjoyed our quiet meal, being served, and musing over 10 year old girl conversations. It was a lovely time! We even made it home just in time to watch the Aggies play football. :)

Happy 10th Birthday, Allia!

I cannot believe my oldest baby is in double digits now! What a wonderful girl you are, Allia. You are so smart, an awesome reader, a wonderful musician and a super helper to Mommy and Daddy. We are very thankful to God for you!

Stephen gave Allia this birthday crown to wear. She requested chocolate chip cookies for breakfast, which everyone enjoyed, of course!

The girls were so sweet using their own money to get some very thoughtful gifts for Allia. She loves painting, so she received a face painting set and a suncatcher painting set. She was very pleased!

And how many 10 year old girls would be excited about a Hobbit Lego set? She is Daddy's girl for sure. And Mommy scored a whole bunch of quiet time while they all disappeared upstairs to help build it! ;)

Manah and Pawpaw sent her a whole box full of cute clothes.

And Lito and Lita sent a joint gift for the two September girls that they will open in between their two birthdays. :)

Here's to more celebrating!

One year old cuteness

One year olds have to be the cutest creatures on the planet. Don't get me wrong, every age has its irresistible cuteness (at least until they get older and become charming). But one year olds take the cake. All of the cute botched words and efforts to imitate their surroundings... Anastasia has recently decided that she absolutely must have a utensil to eat with at every meal, even if she cannot really use it to feed herself. The cutest part is that she tries to say spoon which comes out, "Boom." She will say it over and over, increasing in volume, until she receives her utensil. What a cutie!

A celebration and new life

This weekend we were so blessed to celebrate the closing of our local Planned Parenthood abortion clinic. Austin and I have been praying outside that place since our college days. It was almost surreal to stand outside it and celebrate the fact that it is now closed, and that the scorn of abortion will no longer be in our community. Amazing. Of course, we still have work to do in the rest of the state and country! But it was so beautiful to be reminded of all the amazing people we have right here in our town that worked so hard to make this happen. God is SO good!

And on a related note, we are celebrating our own new baby in the womb. I am now about 12 weeks along, and we heard a nice strong heartbeat yesterday. So hopefully at the end of March, we will be welcoming our 6th baby!

Hot Shots Soccer!

Stephen had his first day of Hot Shots Soccer today, and he loved it of course. He has been asking for weeks if it was time to go yet.


All ready!

Good dribbling

Now if the weather would just cool off a bit, that would certainly be nice!