thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving holiday, which we got to spend with both sides of our families.  Altogether, we ate three thanksgiving meals!  We spent a couple of days at my parents house.  It has become a tradition to go to park the day after Thanksgiving.  We had a picnic lunch and the kids played on the playground.  We went on a long hike on the beautiful trails in the park, to work off all the food we ate!  I am thankful we were able to spend the holiday with our loved ones and especially thankful that Dahlia's precious donor heart is still beating strong.

cameron and jess say yes!

Recently we attended my youngest sister Jessica's beautiful Hill Country wedding.  All eight of my parent's children were able to come down for the wedding.  It had been a very long time since all eight of us were together.  My parents rented a  huge house, high up in the hills, in the town of Dripping Springs, for everyone to stay at during the wedding weekend.  That part of Texas is so breathtaking.  On Friday night, everyone went out to eat at the Salt Lick, which is a well known barbecue restaurant. The restaurant is located in the country just outside of Austin.  The atmosphere was lovely; lots of large old oaks, twinkling white lights.  The food was delicious!  Saturday was the wedding.  It rained off and on during the day, but cleared up for the wedding.  Before the wedding, everyone enjoyed exploring the secluded property around the house.  A creek ran through the property and the kids had fun playing in it.  Jessica and Cameron's wedding was held at a beautiful venue in the rolling hills, near Austin.  The ceremony was held at a beautiful, Spanish style, open air chapel, high on a hill.  After the ceremony, the reception was held indoors and was beautifully decorated.  The food was catered by a food truck, which was really fun and yummy!  Everyone loved the ice cream bar following dinner, and all of the kids went crazy on the dance floor.  This was such a fun weekend and a magical wedding; everyone was sad when it came to an end.

nine!

This time of year, we have lots of birthdays in our family to celebrate.  On Sunday, Ava turned nine years old.  We celebrated Ava's birthday at Grammy and Grandpa's house.  Ava was really excited that lots of family members, who came into town for Aunt Jessica's wedding, were able to be at her party.  She had a great birthday weekend!

happy halloween!

seven!

On Thursday, we celebrated Laila's birthday.  She is now seven years old!  Laila decided that for her birthday, she wanted to go see a movie.  Ava also came along and we had a fun girls date, afterwards we had cake and opened presents with everyone.  I can't believe Laila is now seven!

pumpkin patch

Monday, after school, we went to the pumpkin patch, one of my favorite fall traditions!  There are so many cute spots to take photos and so many pretty pumpkins.  Dahlia was especially excited to go to the pumpkin patch.  She was become obsessed with pumpkins and Halloween.  I love this time of year!

crepe paper roses

I made centerpieces with crepe paper roses for Dahlia's birthday party. They were really easy to make, but a little time consuming.  I love working on crafts at night, after the kids go to bed.  These were fun to make while watching TV.  For the vases, I used some of Dahlia's empty formula containers and spray painted them gold.  I wasn't able to take any pictures of the decorations at the party, because I got too busy, so I had to document these flowers, because I spent so much time on them!  I used this template to make the roses, this website also has lots of other templates for different types of flowers.

four!

Our little, bitty girl has turned four!  Each birthday we have with her is such a precious gift.  Dahlia brings so much joy to our family and has us all wrapped around her little finger!  It is hard to believe she is now four!  It really seems like just the other day, I was with my little baby in hospital, while she was waiting for a heart transplant.  At that time of such despair and sadness, it was hard to imagine that we would ever be celebrating her fourth birthday.  Fast forward four years, she is a thriving, happy four year old and we are so grateful.

beach day!

On Saturday we decided to squeeze in one last trip to the beach before fall.  We took the four oldest kids.  Dahlia doesn't really like being in the water and makes Brian hold her the whole time, so we didn't bring her.  For it being Labor Day weekend, the beach was surprisingly empty.  It was nice and relaxing siting in a chair, under the beach umbrella, watching the kids play.