Blessing Day

Our little girl was given a name and a blessing on November 13th!  It was a beautiful day spent with a lot of family members on both sides that were able to come.

 

Amelia-Jayne wore the same blessing dress and shoes that I was blessed in.  My Grandma Parrish bought it when my mom was pregnant with my oldest brother and had to wait 11 years for a girl to be born to wear it!    My mom and I did some minor repairs to it the night before and I made her bow and bracelet to update it. 

…Getting her ready…

This bonnet was made by my Great-Grandma for my Grandma and was also worn by my mom and myself.  That’s 4 Generations of baby girls in this bonnet!  With her large head and the fact that she was older when we blessed her-it would barely fit on her head…

 

It was a beautiful blessing given through Jordan.  The big group did such a good job bouncing her (it was like an NCA cheer basket toss), she was happy and making soft noises.  I am so grateful for the gospel and for our opportunity to have eternal families.  I’m also so grateful for righteous priesthood holders and especially blessed that I have one as the patriarch in our home. 

Better pictures of this day are on their way!

xoxo

Christmas Gift…

This week my family received a Christmas gift of the happiest sort.

A little background story-  My family has been affected entirely too much by cancer.  My Grandpa died from Lymphoma and I witnessed my Mom struggle with a very late stage breast cancer.  I remember on multiple occasions walking in her room and seeing her so sick and lifeless that I thought she had died.  Thankfully, she fought hard and beat it.

With that said, we were scared when we found out last summer that my Dad had Prostate cancer.  We waited for a while and last week Dad finally had his radical prostate removal surgery (where they go through your abdomen) at UCLA medical center and had it removed.  We heard back today from UCLA that his Pathology report came back with clear margins and with clean lymph nodes!

I couldn’t think of a better gift this Christmas than to know that the people we love are healthy and blessed.

   

Way to kick cancer in the butt, Dad! Amelia-Jayne is so lucky to have you as her “Pappi!”

We love you!

How lovely are your branches…

During our Hurricane/St. George visit, Amelia-Jayne and I got to go to the Jubilee of trees with Nani!  It was beautiful and got me all excited to go home and decorate our house for the holidays- especially our Christmas tree!

Babycakes met Mr. Clause for the first time…He was so sweet with her.

   

After seeing Santa, babycakes checked out and ensured her spot on that day’s very “nice” list. :)

 

Before leaving George town, I had to get the supplies to do up our tree (because there was nada at our Wal-Mart)…then we came home and baby and J helped put up our tree. It’s a bird/peacock themed tree that goes with the other Jewel tones in our living room (ignore the cabin wall:)  We want a star on it, but I’m waiting to get a sweet one and a few more things to load it up at the after Christmas sales!

 

I think she likes it!

And here’s just a few of my very happy Christmas girl!

   

In other news, I had a size mishap with her black Mary janes (one was a size one and the other shoe was a size two…wah, wah).  So, without anywhere to get them in time in V-town, I decided to make them…and spent WAY too long doing so…only to find out that I made them too small and they may only fit her this week.  Crud.

 

Cheery Holidays! xoxo

Butterball Turkey Day

We went to Hurricane for Amelia-Jayne’s blessing the second week of November and ended up staying until after Thanksgiving!  It was a long, but fun trip and extra special because Nani (my mom) and I got to play in St. George while our hard working husbands went back to work the week after the blessing…then Nani had to go home, J got off work and came down and we had Thanksgiving at Grandma Hastings’ house. 

The weather was gorgeous that day and we traded family pictures with Sierra and her family.  I love how round Amelia-Jayne looks in this picture…our own little butterball.

  J and Sierra’s husband, Bryn, were super excited to go hunting a few times during the visit and kept teasing us about having rabbits and squirrels for T-day dinner.  Luckily, that didn’t happen!

 

 

Dinner was wonderful and there was SO much food!  Babycakes even got her first little piece of dinner with sweet-potatoes…she wasn’t quite sure what to do with them, but she kept licking and sucking on the spoon.

 

We all ate so much, our pants felt a little like hers after…

 

xoxo