Lito and Lita celebration

We had the blessing of hosting Lito and Lita for their celebratory weekend of their anniversary and Lita's birthday. Austin took the liberty to get some balloons, party hats and streamers just for fun.

Can you tell Gloria likes to snuggle with Lito? I kept finding her in his lap all weekend. :) Lito fell asleep on New Year's Eve (and so did we!) after the disappointing first half of the Aggie game. We streamed the second half so he could see the amazing comeback. But apparently it still wasn't exciting enough because he and Gloria dozed off together!

Father and son all dressed up after mass

The littlest Darth Vader

 Cousin time with Julian!

 Lita gave the girls sewing lessons (yay...they have been begging me, but I have not had time/energy!). They made some simple dresses for their Texas Girl dolls.

 All the grandchildren with Tia Nana playing before our big dinner of BBQ ribs on Austin's new smoker

  Early Valentine's gifts from Lito and Lita

 And some nice reading time with Lito

Snow day!

We had our once-every-few-years snow yesterday. I didn't get many good pics because the camera on my phone was acting up. Everyone got up early, knowing it was supposed to snow overnight, and they all bundled up over their PJ's and ran out while it was still dark!

Mariana collecting snow in buckets

 Allia with her two layers of clothes and funny "ponytail" hat

We also ventured to a neighbor's house and the park to play in the snow there. Some of the girls even had a snowball fight with the neighbors. Fun times!

Amazing Allia

Our sweet girl amazed us yesterday. Monday night just before bed, Austin and I both came down with a wicked stomach bug. Just a few hours later, Mariana joined us. All three of us were up all night and still very sick in the morning, at which point Gloria moved into the sick room too. We had no choice but to quarantine the two little ones downstairs with Allia, pray that they stayed well, and she had to run the house the whole day on her own while we all lay in bed trying to recover. She was amazing. She kept them happy, changed diapers, played movies, made meals, answered door and phones, and brought stuff up to us in the sick room, including some medicine some dear friends delivered for us which finally led to our recovery. We just kept mumbling prayers of thanksgiving for her all day. We finally drug ourselves out of bed briefly in the evening to help a0opls best we could with dinner/bath/bedtime, and everyone was grateful. But the two little ones were so well taken care of. So thankful for our big girl!

And just for smiles, the next morning when we were all downstairs and mostly back to normal again Anastasia said, "I so happy, Mama!" Me too, Annie!

What we've been up to

Wow, it has been over a week since my last post! Besides getting back into the swing of things after Christmas break, we have been...

working on our fence that blew down many months ago in a wind storm. The winter weather just has not cooperated with us, but this weekend has been absolutely beautiful, so we are finally finishing it!

Dinner and a movie night with some sweet friends

 Anastasia opening her Christmas gifts from her Godparents

Portraits

I just wasn't up for portraits before Christmas, but I love having a 2 year old portrait of each child. And the girls like having wallets...we are just suckers for photos. So I took the children in to Portrait Innovations this morning. It went really well, and here are some of the best results...

Happy 6th Birthday, Gloria!

Then

 Now...
After breakfast, she opened gifts from us. The girls made some little things for her, and she received her first mini American girl doll from Daddy and I.

She generously shared her cupcake lollipop from Allia with Anastasia

We took the three oldest to see Frozen, which was really a great movie! For dinner, I made chicken wings, fried okra and celery sticks...several of her favorite foods. After dinner she chose surprise cookies for dessert, so I made homemade gingerbread for them to decorate. We put a candle in hers and sang before she decorated it. :)

Photos from her party, which was actually Saturday afternoon...
She wanted a princess/mario party

Allia did Pikachu's face painting

The Chain Chomp pinata

Dr. Posvar finally busted it after all the children had a try!

Happy Birthday!

We love you so much and are so thankful to God for your sweet life! I love my cuddly snuggle bug, Gloria. :)

Happy 2nd Birthday, Anastasia!

We welcomed this sweet little redhead two years ago...

What a girl! She woke to balloons everywhere thanks to her big sisters. After her cake breakfast, she opened a few gifts and played with her playdough in her high chair since it was too cold outside!

"Happy Birthday" happens to be one of her favorite songs. And of course she loves candles. :)

She is our biggest (and littlest) Aggie fan. Daddy and I gave her an Aggie Hello Kitty shirt which she insisted on wearing over her pretty cupcake dress. :) That's my little Aggie!