Eva turns 9

Our incredibly beautiful, head full of curls, ever so quirky girl turned NINE!! We celebrated with the family and had a small party with friends and a piñata. She was pampered and celebrated! We hope she knows how loved she is and how grateful God gave her to us. We are the blessed ones to get to watch her grown and transform before our eyes into the work of art God is creating. We see everyday just how special she is. She is artistic, funny and loves fiercely!

Happy Birthday, Eva Lou!!
 

 



 

 

 

Jasper: 1 Month

Jasper is one month old! We are celebrating our sweet baby, even as we celebrate the baby Savior. This gargantuan child is over 13 pounds now. He nurses every two hours, due in part to his massive appetite and in part to the sweet relief it brings his reflux. Poor guy! (And poor Mama!) He does sleep a 3-3.5 hour stretch at night, so I get a bit of good sleep. He is not smiling just yet, but we are working on getting him happy and pain-free, so we can enjoy those sought after smiles! He just catnaps during the day, but we are taking sleep when we can get it. He loves to cuddle and sleeps better when he is on his Mommy. We love our sweet, perfect 10! 

 

 

 

 

Merry Christmas 2017

We started singing Christmas Carols early this year. We just could not wait for December. Although we may not have known exactly how much, we really needed to get a jump on Christmas tree searching....and good thing we did! We had a baby the very next day!! I do not foresee this becoming a Christmas tradition for us, but one never knows. We went to Ward's again for our tree. Our growing family still fits in the mule-drawn wagon! After thoroughly inspecting several "not its" the kids choose the perfect tree. It was cut down, shook really good(in case any loose limbs or critters were hanging on) and wrapped up for us. We all piled in the cute little cabin for hot chocolate as Daddy paid. We loaded our tree into Daddy's truck and the big kids rode home with the tree and I drove the little home. After setting it up in water and letting it acclimate, it was time to decorate. We also bought a Christmas tree for the boys room and the girls room upstairs. This I year I got to decorate my beautiful mantle; something I had been longing to do!

 

We enjoyed our usual traditions of candy and ornament making. This  year we made some new things (peanut clusters and divinity) and some of our favorites (pretzel turtles and peanut butter fudge). All hands are on deck for this part of our holiday. Little fingers love adding, mixing, baking and especially tasting our sweet, yummy treats. They seem to disappear quicker than we make them, but they sure are delicious! The kids used popsicle sticks, hot glue and paint to make sleds, snowmen and a snowflake. The big kids also got together and helped the little ones make burlap reindeer. They are super cute on the kids will have so many ornaments on their tree next year!

 

We continued our nightly tradition through Advent, beginning December 1, of reading Ann Voskamp's family devotion, Unwrapping the Greatest Gift. I have come to treasure our beautiful tree that Marcus crafted out of pallet wood. I especially love the downtime that we share snuggled together reading God's promises we each other. Christmas is such a busy season; we so need this time to refocus.

 

We broke our tradition of procrastination wrapping! Hallelujah! We had most of our gifts wrapped before Christmas Eve this year, so we wrapped a few things, stuffed stockings and enjoyed our new tradition....watching Die Hard....because its a Christmas movie!!! Christmas day was a sweet day! We always start the day with our final devotion, Christ's birth. Then we unwrapped gifts, ate our traditional Christmas breakfast of biscuits and gravy with Christmas tree cinnamon rolls and enjoyed our day. I cooked Christmas lunch for our family again, purchasing our smoked ham from Birth Choice. It has been such a blessing spending Christmas day together in our pajamas instead of rushing from here to there all day!  

 

 

 







 

 

 

 

 

 

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas!

 

And the angel said to them,
“Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.
Luke 2:10


Eli turns 13

 

Attention ladies and gentlemen, we have a teenager in the house. As we celebrate our oldest child, we also wave goodbye to childhood and look toward a different venture. He was a breeze as a baby, a joy as a little boy and now comes the hard part....the beginnings of manhood. I have no doubts that he will be up to the challenge. Son, you are a gift. You are a gift to our family and bring compassion, patience, and quiet strength to this table. We love you and we are so very proud of you!

 



Jasper: Newborn

Heidi Lipford has done it again folks! I do believe she has actually outdone herself. She has captured the most precious photos of our baby boy. Here are some of our favorite shots from Jasper's newborn session. If you have not visited her on Facebook, do it now! Heidi Lipford Photography