Girl pictures

Anastasia is Cecilia's sweet buddy most of the time. Cecilia loves to copy whatever she does.

 And Stephen took this picture in the car while they were waiting for me, to try and annoy Anastasia, but I think it turned out so pretty that I kept it! See, God does turn "evil" into good. ;)

Sleepover!

Stephen turned 10 last month, which now makes him old enough to have the privilege of a sleepover. He wanted to do it in conjunction with his birthday party, but there was too much going on right before Christmas (and too many illnesses coming through the house!). So we took advantage of the 3 day weekend.

I helped him do a little planning, but Austin took charge of most of it since I am quite inexperienced at boy sleepovers. ;) He took them shopping for snacks and goodies. They had so much fun. They played darts and games, played remote control cars quite a lot, watched a movie, and I don't even know what else. Stephen begged for them to be allowed to sleep in the living room, which didn't allow them a lot of sleep. But everyone survived, and Stephen rated it a 10 out of 10! Success!

 

 

 

 

Last Day of Christmas

Cecilia just looked so cute dressed up for mass I couldn't help but take a picture. It's her last time to wear her Christmas dress! :/

Sweet moments

Sisters crafting together

Brothers reading together

Happy 12th Birthday, Gloria!

Sadly, Gloria's birthday fell on the day that all the celebrating for Christmas ended. Today we wenet back to work (Austin was even sent out of town!), school, piano, swim, etc. We consoled her by getting doughnuts to bring to her English class and cookies to share at swim practice. She also had her favorite meal for dinner and was invited to a sleepover with a friend after swim practice (public school doesn't start until Wednesday).

Only one more year and then we will have another teenager! We love our sweet, determined Gloria!

K family visit

We had a great weekend with the K family. We love their visits so much!

Carolyn and Anastasia are such cute buddies. Both mornings I came downstairs to find them crafting together.

Our sweet little Godson!

 

Cecilia and Sarah were sweet buddies too!

And Saturday was Emily K.'s birthday so we had more celebrating to do!

 

 Stephen was so cute, making friends with James. He was quite enamored with him!

And maybe the feeling was mutual?

 

When Cecilia wasn't available, Allia was Sarah's chosen buddy

What a group!

The blessed chalk to write our Epiphany house blessings

 

And a little piano concert since the K family are full of musicians too!

 As usual, there were tears at our parting, but we are hoping to see them soon. Maybe we will head their way for a visit next!

Happy 8th Birthday Anastasia! (and a party and K family visit)

And today was Anastasia's birthday, so we celebrated as a family in the morning and with her party and the K family coming to visit for the weekend in the afternoon! What a birthday!

 

 

 Lito and Lita bought the December birthday kids electric toothbrushes, so I stole her idea for Anastasia's birthday since she mentioned several times wishing she had a Frozen one (the others were Toy Story and Star Wars).

 My biggest helper...this girl loves to help around the house, especially in the kitchen!

 

Gloria's birthday party

After a lovely New Year's Day spent hosting two wonderful families (and our pastor, Father Albert for a bit) and concluding with all of us joining in Christmas music together (pianists and vocalists), we went on to host Gloria's birthday party today.

She chose a game of bowling and a game of laser tag with the group and then home for cupcakes and gifts. (The big van sure came in handy transporting this group!).