Even more Christmas ....

Sunday after Christmas we headed over to Nicole and Tyler's

place so we could celebrate another Christmas morning with Gabe.

He had been out of town during Christmas

and Johnny had the stomach thing so he couldn't go

with me. But it was still fun to see the guys open their presents

and boo on me......I only took a couple of pictures and most

were not good enough to even post!

Gabe checking out his mega sticker book

 

Nicole

 

later........

 



More Christmas 2013 ...

The Saturday after Christmas my family, all 26 of us, gathered

at my niece and her husband's house

Aimee and Alex are the ones I mentioned before that built such

a beautiful new home last year. It's always fun when we get

together but this past Thanksgiving and Christmas, being in their

spacious home has been wonderful. As Johnny says....their new

home is just fun!! And beautiful.....

here are some pictures from that

Jacquelyn and Aimee

 

Victoria and Gaby

 

Declan got a Dallas piggy bank along with some change to add to it

 

I think Mallory's scarf goes great with Matt's sweater......haha!!

 

Mallory

 

these next few pictures are not good.....they are too blurry

but I love them so had to post

 

my mom and I.........

with my little sister Kandi and my brother photo bombing.....

 

us 3 sisters with Mom......and another photo bomb by our brother!

in the crazy gift exchange was a set of hands that you hang on the wall
I guess like decorative hooks.....and they fast became the brunt of jokes
for the rest of the evening. So much fun!!

 

Alex had the final pick of the gifts for the night and asked everyone to display

their gift. Since my brother was liking his gift, he decided to just display the

hello kitty gift bag in hopes that Alex wouldn't steal his real gift.....ha!!

 

as always, it was a fun evening with our family

 

later.........

Christmas 2013 ...

Did I blog about Christmas....here it is almost the end

of January and I realize I didn't say much about Christmas

Christmas was as fun as it always is except that a few of us

were sick. We had that nagging cold, sore throat thing that was

going around. You would feel sort of ok during the day but then

at night and first thing in the morning just feel awful.

Then poor Johnny came down with the stomach thing going around

and he ended up missing 2 family events.

Jake, Jacquelyn, Bucky and Declan spent the night with us.

so being a part of Declan's first Christmas was so exciting

for Johnny and I. And really, we didn't think he would be much interested

in his gifts, more the paper and boxes since he was 9 months old

but no...he loved opening presents. He would tear a little piece of paper off

and promptly hand to his daddy, then tear off the next piece. He did this

with every gift he opened! haha.....so much fun.

Then pretty early in the morning Tyler, Nicole and Maddox came over

for breakfast, gifts and hanging out. We were sad not to have Gabe with us

this year but knew we would have another Christmas morning

with him once he returned.

so here's a bunch of pictures.....

We had a wonderful dinner on Christmas eve with family over
and I did not take one single picture :(
but the few below are Declan before going
to bed on Christmas eve.

 

Jake getting some love from Bella Boo......

 

here's Declan crawling into the den on Christmas morning.....

 

pulling things out of his stocking

 

our sweet and beautiful daughter Jacquelyn

 

Ziggy taking a ride on Maddox's seat scooter

 

we were sad that Gabe wasn't with us but look how

happy this sweet little family is......

 

Declan loved his new car

Maddox enjoying Christmas morning breakfast

dressed for Christmas day....

 

later.....

My year in review .... 2013

So I've def been very, very bad about blogging

and I need to do better this year

memory just isn't what it used to be so I need to document this stuff....haha!!

so here you go, our year.....

JANUARY

We experienced the "empty nest" as Jake moved to Charlottesville in December

I'm not going to lie, all kids being gone is fine...that is the way it's supposed to be. But do I miss them, of course! My girls come over quite often so Jake only coming around every other weekend or so was a little sad.

We also started our den makeover and I started the

series on my blog of "people in my life"

that failed terribly.....I only blogged about 7 people...ha! There
also was a baby shower at our home for Jacquelyn and Bucky.

FEBRUARY

We helped our daughter Jacquelyn and son-in-law Bucky get the nursery

together for their new son on the way

and we pretty much put life on hold so we wouldn't be out of town or doing anything big as we waited and waited.....for the baby to arrive
 

MARCH

Baby Declan Liam arrived on March 8th

and what joy our family had!! Another addition to our family and we just love him so much!!

The 2 year mark of Johnny's stroke passed...with no fan fair at all, which is the way it should be.
I turned 57 years old....oh my word, how did that happen

and after having a winter with no snow, we finally

had 4 inches of snow on March 24th...yay!!

 

APRIL

We were still working on the den makeover...

and all of my family came over for Easter, such fun

our daughter Jacquelyn turned 26

 

MAY

I finally got around to ordering the red bar stools

for our new kitchen

Johnny and I celebrated our 34th wedding anniversary

our son Jake turned 25 years old and

my daddy turned 80 years old

JUNE

June was a crazy busy month for our family......
We had a surprise 80th birthday party for Daddy

Our niece Mallory got married

Our niece Alison graduated from high school

We finally finished the den makeover

My hubby Johnny turned 60 years old and his sister

from Atlanta and sister from San Antonio came to

town to help celebrate with a party

and then we all went down to the Chesapeake Bay to continue

the birthday fun

We also received the good news that another grandchild would

come in January to Nicole and Tyler!

 

 

 

JULY

I started the Whole30, my introduction to clean eating

and I've never felt better!!

I canned a bushel of tomatoes......and should have canned a lot more

We went back to the Chesapeake Bay for the long July 4th

holiday weekend

 

AUGUST

Our daughter Nicole turned 31 years old

We went to my mom's 77th family reunion

We went back to the Chesapeake Bay for the long

Labor Day weekend

I went up to Charlottesville and spent a wonderful day with Jake

 

SEPTEMBER

We took all of our kids, grandkids and my parents to the beach

for a week. My daughter's mother-in-law Lynne and her

husband Tom came too.....what fun!

this was also my first week of not eating clean and I could def tell a difference in how I felt..... so then

I became even more obsessed with clean eating!

 

OCTOBER

Looks like I didn't really blog much of anything so therefore

I don't really remember much of what we did :)

One thing I do remember, Johnny and I became

very hooked on TV series The Walking Dead

and Declan had his first Halloween

 

 

 

NOVEMBER

We had Thanksgiving at our house for 11...such fun

Then Saturday after Thanksgiving, we had dinner at

my niece's house with all of my family, all 26 of us!
and Declan had his first Thanksgiving....

DECEMBER

Our son Jake moved back to Richmond!!

He still works in Charlottesville but just commutes now

We had a wonderful Christmas despite a few of us having

colds and sore throats. And Johnny had a stomach virus

for a few days after Christmas

We celebrated New Years eve with friends down on

the York River......a lot of fun.

 

It's been a wonderful year in the Delaney household

and now we begin 2014 looking forward to the newest

edition to our family, baby John Thomas. Johnny and I feel

so blessed with our sweet family and our wonderful friends

peace love and happiness to all of you in the coming year

later.......