Aquinasfest!

Our parish had it's annual fall festival this weekend. The kids always look forward to this so much! I was recovering from a cold, so Austin just took the older girls to Bingo Friday night.

Then yesterday we all enjoyed the games and fun together. It was a lot to keep up with our gang amidst the crowd, so I didn't get many photos...

Allia and Mariana helping with the cake wheel (our family won this 5 times...so. much. cake. :p)

Gloria won a lot of games!

The two boys fell prey to the sno cones!

This guy won the cake wheel and picked these cupcakes. He was so happy!

Growing girl

Cecilia is really enjoying her newfound mobility and is pulling up a lot. Anytime she sees Pawpaw, she expects him to hold her hands and let her walk around the room. She is pretty easy-going but can turn very demanding if one does not meet her expectations! She also often demands to be held by Allia and Mariana.

 She loves playing on the living room floor with the other children (though is not as welcome sometimes since she can crawl over and destroy their games!). It makes her so happy when they let her play/play with her! Here they just made her part of the potato head bin.

Birthday stuff

Mariana and I baked together Sunday. We made a cake for the family (I baked, she decorated) and cupcakes for her 4-H robotics club meeting which fell on our actual birthday.

Austin took me out to a nice brunch (in Lito's car) on Sunday. He took the morning off Monday to spend a little extra time with us birthday girls, and the 3 of us went to lunch together. I always love having my sweet Mariana to celebrate with...and it's a nice excuse to extend the celebration over a few days!
Mariana has really blossomed this year. She has made some huge improvements in her figure skating, and it is so wonderful to see her using her gifts in robotics as well. She is very good with Cecilia and has started babysitting for a few other families. I can't wait to see what is in store for her this next year...her last year before becoming a teen! :0

Aggie Game Day

Lito came into town for the weekend and took Austin to the Aggie game. They were so proud because a college girl complimented them on their "ride".

Birthday Party, Take 2

Mariana is turning 12 on Monday, and we celebrated with her party last night.  She and Cecilia looked so pretty in pink together!

She wanted just a few friends over, and we started with a mini craft and then pizza and Chinese for dinner

Then we headed to Blue Baker since she loves their cupcakes. Lito arrived just in time for the party, and we pretended that we were going for a ride in is cool car!

They had a great time playing on this modern merry-go-round after their cupcakes.

 Then we came back home for the big craft...painting on canvases with some little accents, glitter, etc. Everyone did a beautiful job, and it was a lovely way to celebrate our precious Mariana!

Happy 14th Birthday, Allia!

We did a little celebrating this weekend and the rest today when we could. Allia opened what family gifts there were this morning, many shipments were delayed thanks to Harvey's aftermath. We made cinnamon rolls and cookie cake, and Pawpaw took her out for sorbet. We had a 4H meeting this evening, and I made cupcakes for the whole group (I baked 98 cupcakes total...including a few to keep!). They sang Happy Birthday to her after the meeting. It is always a blessing to celebrate one of our family members.
Allia is growing up so quickly! One of the kids said, "Hey, next year she will get to start driving." I nearly fainted. ;)

(We have some new neighbors who happen to have girls the same age as these two, and in their unpacking/cleaning out they passed on some cute teen/preteen dresses to us.)

Really, it is a gift to watch our Allia growing into a young lady. She is so helpful and responsible (Cecilia loves to be held by her!), she loves to bake and craft (hence, her party) she is enjoying her new group in swim team, learning a lot in school and generally just making us very proud. Cheers to another year!

Birthday Party

Allia turns 14 Monday, and we celebrated with a few of her friends last night.
We were originally planning to swim but with the weather being a bit cooler and one friend with a hurt hand, we opted for a Baking Challenge: Birthday Edition competition instead.
The girls made these name tags for their cups as an opening craft/icebreaker while waiting for everyone to arrive...

Then on to the bakeoff. They divided into 3 teams of 2, and the surprise secret ingredients were graham crackers and Orange Marmalade. I was so impressed by their creativity and the fact that not one team used any sort of recipe! They had one hour to complete their creation. Here was the spread when they were finished. Austin and I judged while they enjoyed some pizza!

 Team 1: Greek yogurt bowl with graham cracker bottom and a garnish of honey-graham marshmallows

Team 2: Orange filled graham cracker tart

Team 3 (named themselves "Sugar and Spice"): Marmalade marshmallow pie with graham cracker crust

The judging was tough, as they were all so creative and quite tasty too. There were several categories such as teamwork, creativity, etc. But Best Overall went to team 3. Austin thought it tasted like a dessert from a restaurant. Their secret? They made the pie filling with cream cheese. It blended really well with the tangy sweetness of the orange marmalade.

We also did a pencil holder craft, but I missed photos because I had to go put Cecilia to bed right after I got them started on it. Too bad because they all did a beautiful job! Here are Allia and Gloria with theirs (Allia let Gloria join the party for this part).

  It was such a nice way to celebrate our sweet Allia who loves to bake and craft! :)

Week's happenings

Allia had her first classes this week, postponed from last week thanks to Harvey. She is taking 4 classes at One Day Academy on Tuesdays this year. She had a great first day!

This little one had her well check this week with some catch-up shots. No fun! She did well at her checkup, though. She weighed 17lb 1 oz (30th percentile). She was in the 60th percentile on height and 89th for her head. She is growing and changing so much. I have found her standing in her crib, and she is crawling well enough now that we have banned legos from the downstairs, and the kids have to protect their other creations when playing on the living room floor! She really likes a change of scenery so we try to make a daily visit to Pawpaw and Manah's!

Some of the kids were invited to a jumping birthday party this week. The schedule was a little crazy, but we made it work. They had so much fun that they are all begging for parties there! When I went to pick them up, I found this cutie talking off the ear of her Godfather. He was bearing it patiently, but I thought it was funny that he made this face for the picture...how I often feel when I am at the receiving end of the conversation. ;)

9 Months old and Baby potato head

Our cutie is 9 months old today! Pawpaw and Manah generously treated us to dinner out last night, and Cecilia loved the fresh steamed green beans we ordered for her. She was literally shoveling handfuls into her mouth (or at least trying...with about a 50% success rate. glad I didn't have to clean the floor!). I tried to capture her but kept missing it.

This morning Stephen decided to turn her into baby potato head!

She is starting to pull up on things, sleeping well through the night (8:30-7/7:30), taking 3, 1 hour long naps a day, babbling, giigling and just keeping us all wrapped around her little finger!