What a wonderful weekend! I have been wanting a new family picture for quite some time now. Several months ago we finally settled on a date to do one and plans were made. Since the date ended up being the day before Gracie’s 4th birthday, we decided to also have a party for her while we were all together. After months of planning and waiting, we finally did it! I loved having everyone together, watching the littles playing and enjoying one another, seeing the excitement on Gracie’s face, getting some cuddle time with Archer, hanging out with my kiddos, and getting some quality pictures (thanks to Candice) to celebrate our time together. I can’t wait to see how they turned out! I’m sure they will be amazing…Candice was great! She did better at getting genuine smiles out of the littles (except Archer) than anyone I’ve ever seen!
In preparation for the weekend, Dennis and I had to get the
guest room finished. That took some mad scrambling, let me tell you! We put in
some long, hard days, but we had it ready to be occupied just in time for
Stephen’s family to arrive. Dennis still has some detail work to finish, and I
still have pillow shams to make to match the rag quilt, but we can slow down
and work at a more reasonable pace to accomplish that. Today, we plan to take
things pretty easy and rest up! These old bones and muscles are TIRED! (I’ll
share pictures when we get all of the finishing touches completed.)
We had fun with Gracie’s birthday party. She is at such a
cute age! Mandy brought stuff to decorate (the theme was Frozen), and we served
all of Gracie’s favorite foods for lunch, so it was mostly finger foods. She
loves berries, which we had in abundance, so we decided to go a little fancier
and do chocolate covered strawberries…always a hit! This was the first time
that I made her birthday cake. I always loved doing doll cakes for little
girls, so I did Anna, from Frozen. She loved it! (And, of course, she had the
doll after the cake was served.) At the end of their visit, I asked what her
favorite part of the weekend had been. After giving it a little thought, she
answered, “Playing outside…and my presents!”
Archer actually did better than I expected with all of the
craziness going on. He doesn’t like a lot of noise or people around, and there
was plenty of both this weekend. He really enjoyed watching the kids. We spent
some time with him outside on Saturday, which he loved! It reminded me of
another time about 8 years ago, when we were all together, sitting outside on a
quilt playing with our first little! Sweet memories!
I hope that you all enjoyed your weekend as much as I did
ours! Have a good week and be kind!
Ps 127:3 Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, The
fruit of the womb is a reward.
