another great 4th of july!

This year with our big family week coming up at the end of July, Brian and I took a few grandkids over to the beach to celebrate the 4th on Balboa.  We had some surprise visitors when my son Al and his wife Mary decided to fly in last minute with our newest grandchild, Evangeline. Everyone had a wonderful time with lots of hours at the beach, paddle boarding, front row seats to the boat parade, trips to the toy store for swords, and lots of time to gush over the newest little miracle in our family.

It was a wonderful long weekend!

Happy 4th to everyone!

Hope yours was great!

happy st. patrick's day!

Well, we had another wonderful year at my son's neighborhood St. Patrick's day party!  Every year he builds a pub in his driveway, they block off the street and have a huge party.  It is so much fun!  This year they hired the band Elvis Before Noon and we all had a blast dancing into the evening!  The lovely Willows' ladies even hopped into the photo wall for some fun pictures!

Happy St. Patty's day everyone!

celebrating with the ones i love!

My oldest son and his family came in town for a long weekend, so we decided to have a little Valentine's Day party with all the grandkids last Friday night.  I had some little helpers in my craft room that morning, so we made bags for each of the kids.  That night each child went around and dropped their valentine's into everyone's bag.  They had so much fun and with that many cousins, ended up with quite the goody-bag full!  (Some of my grandkids go to a really small school and were laughing that they had to make more valentines to share with their cousins than with their classmates!) We missed those that weren't here (my son in Chicago with his wife and grandbaby number 20 due this summer and my daughter in Belgium), but it was wonderful to all be together!  Family is the best!

Hope you had a lovely Valentine's Day!

The moms all needed goody bags, too! 

Grrrr, group pictures.  Oh, well.  We tried.

our holiday party

Once again for Christmas, we had our adult holiday dinner that I host at my home.  (Like I said, it's been a crazy year and I'm a little behind...)  It's wonderful to be able to spend some grown-up time together during the holidays.  We have drinks and appetizers, sit down for dinner together, have a gift exchange, play games, indulge in dessert and just have a great time laughing and talking and being together.  This year my best friend, Laurie was able to come from California to help me decorate and get all set up for the party (and to join in the festivities, as well!).  We have so much fun doing this sort of thing together!  It was a great night with ridiculous games and lots of laughs!  Even though it was almost two months ago, I thought I would share some pictures now anyway.  

Better late than never, right?