- skating party & a wonderful surprise gift! -

well, last night our family had a blast as we were invited to a birthday party for 6 children - no, it wasn't for the gosselins [john & kate plus 8] - it was a big birthday/skate party for our 6 nieces/nephews that all have birthdays very close to each other [lucas 10/21, elijah 11/7, loudnie 11/7, garrett 11/20, gideon 11/4 & braedey 9/26]

`

these kids belong to 3 different families & so they all got together & rented a local skating rink that was only for their family/friends [wow, that was very neat idea!] - we were there from 5-7pm & our family had a good time

`

here's some pictures of the evening & true to form, i added captions to them [enjoy!]

`

click here to see a video of madisyn skating for the first time - keep in mind i'd told her that if she felt she was about to fall down, so as to not get embarrassed, just stand there & act like she was dancing [she pulled it off too!!]

`

here, we have spike & ralph working really hard on their 'waltz hand off' - spike's been practicing for quite awhile on this & as you can see, he's really getting the hang of it [notice his left arm...such form!], so that ralph knows exactly what he's to be doing - spike must have been getting a upset with him, as it looks like he's surrendering [white rag] - that's alright ralph, you keep practicing!

here we have the blind leading the blind so to speak - girls, don't you think you ought to be looking up, instead of looking down??

madisyn, getting ready to hit the floor

she's no idea what she's in for as she's never had skates on before!!

here we have the 'roll arena skating praise team'!!

they're all out there praising the lord [well, most of them are, but it looks as if someone isn't really into their praise today, huh]

here's dustin & brit trying to look so cool for the camera

they're both so cute!

wave to the camera kiara!!

ruby, you do know you're supposed to stand up on those things, right?

karleigh, quit polishing the floor dear

ahniér said to me just before this picture was taken, "mommy, what are these people doing with the wheels on the bottoms of their shoes? - do they know how silly they look?" - "i know baby girl, you'll be much more 'grown up' than that when you're their age"

now for the surprise... - my niece alicyn & her hubby chad just had a baby boy about a week ago [xavier dennis arnold] & last night at the skate party she came up to me with some news - as a 'baby gift', every time she nurses xavier, she's going to pump breast milk from the other side for ahniér [PRAISE THE LORD!!] - this' the exact same 'gift' that we received when kiara came home from haiti - at that time, our other niece chanda had just had their little boy harrison & she did the very same thing - kiara lived on chandas breast milk for many months & it made the world of difference - of all the gifts we received [clothing, gift cards, toys, $$, etc.] that was one of our favorites & soooo unique - thank you alicyn for being willing to do this to help ahniér stay as healthy as possible, it's such a blessing to us