Baby Brayden is Here!

This sweet little face has made us into a Great Aunt and Great Uncle! This is James Brayden Cummings and he was due on Jan 30th so we just knew we would get to meet him in person. Kayci went to the doctor on the 29th and he told her to come back on Monday morning (Jan. 3rd) for induction if she does not go into labor herself before then. So we left on Friday, disappointed that he had not made his entrance into the world! Kayci did go in on Monday but after 19 hours of labor, Brayden actually was born around 1:30 a.m. on Jan. 4th.

Isn't he a handsome little fella?

CONGRATULATIONS KAYCI AND JAMIE!! (AND LA-LA!!)

Christmas 2010

Well the holidays have come and gone and the kids went back to school today. Our Christmas break was great except for a little sickness that we brought back with us from Alabama. This post will have lots of holiday pictures so get ready!

Christmas Eve morning, Santa left us a couple of gifts.......(this is after all the wrapping paper!)



Our Christmas Eve service went well and again, we had a great turn out from the community. We pulled out of our driveway at 5:55 pm and arrived in Alabama 22 hours later! A record trip! The roads were clear the whole way and no one was on the highway in the middle of the night. After a very welcomed shower, we spent Christmas night with the Owen side of the family....

Above are all the Owen grandchildren. I love how cousins love each other so much!

Above is Kayci and Jamie who were anxiously awaiting the birth of Baby Brayden who had not arrived at this point. Below, Mason surprised Carter with his very own baby doll before giving him his real gift!

Parker and Mason are buddies!

!

I thought it was so sweet that thru the month of December, Haven would say "I can't wait until Christmas!!!!!...I get to see my cousins!!!" not "can't wait to get presents"....it was all about family for this little one and her number one love is her cousin Sydney....

On Sunday, Mike preached at Emmanuel (per his mom's request every time we come!) and then we had the Richardson Christmas over at Mom's. This is all her grandchildren in their silly picture.....

I know I took a lot of pictures this day but I think I made them on Mom's camera (She always gets us to make the pictures for her). So I had to borrow some of these pics from my nieces. Here's Colton and Kayla....

Haven and Hannah....

Haidee and Mason sporting new hats.....

Faith, Hannah, and Hallie at Nuna's....

I sure love when this group gets together! They have so much fun together and it blesses my heart to see how much they love each other despite how little time they actually get to spend together!

Here is our family shot for the Richardson Christmas

On Monday, we all went over to see Daddy and that was a heart blessing also. As you can see, he got his left leg removed back in November and is doing very well.

Thank you for your prayers for him. Once completely healed, he will get a prosthetic leg and will hopefully walk again.

The rest of the week was filled with fun cousin time as we anxiously awaited the birth of Brayden

Above, they are in order of oldest to youngest. Below is Caleb, Carter, and Sydney.....I love these little faces!

We also got to spend some time with our 2nd cousins in Tuscaloosa at Chuck E. Cheeses and I loved getting to see my aunts and cousins. On New Year's Eve, we spent a little time playing some games....

Below is the new grandmother La-La! Mike's sister Angela was on pins and needles all week, waiting on her grandson.

Thanks to Angela, the Owen family will remember these 3 things about Christmas 2010:

1. Rubbing and walking the baby out,

2. NORMAN.....and

3. O to be a boy again at Christmas....

LOL!!! (Sorry, only the Owen's will get this)

Mama Kaye and Pop got sick while we were there which was disappointing for them and we didn't have the extra time to travel to see our friends in Cullman Co. this trip, but other than that, it was a great time!

(OH, and Baby Brayden didn't come while we were there....can you believe that!)

GORGEOUS!

A friend of mine, Ronnie Arrington who lives in the Forest Lake neighborhood posted this picture on Facebook this morning and I just had to share it with you. Mike wanted his nephew to see it... so Brent...this one's for you.....

I borrowed these local shots from another Facebook friend that lives here at the lake.....ENJOY!

Happy Birthday Landon!!

We celebrated Landon's 10th birthday with a party at the ice skating rink in Durango on Monday! And they had a blast!!

I was very proud that this year Landon felt like he had enough friends here to have a party instead of having one in Alabama!

What he wanted the most was a Fushigi ball and here it is!

Today was his actual birthday and boy did we have one excited kid! He spent the day playing his new Toy Story 3 Wii game and then we went to see Yogi Bear at the movies because you get in free on your birthday!
Haven helped to make Landon a cake

It happens in a blink...it happens in a flash.....

and the kid you birth turns 10! We love you Landon and hope your birthday celebration was everything you wanted it to be!

Christmas Comes Alive in Vallecito

Saturday night our church performed a live nativity called "Christmas Comes Alive in Vallecito". (That may sound a little familiar to our Gordo readers! Ours was very small scale) Now that we have the covered drive through on the new building, we enclosed it with tarps, put in some gas heaters and created our barn. It was a perfect spot!

The drama started off in the sanctuary with a prophesy by Isaiah....

Then the guides walked them out to see the shepherds and the angels that appeared to them.....

And then into the barn for the presentation of the nativity.....

It was short and sweet but hopefully a reminder to our community of the real meaning of Christmas! God is so amazing......the weather was bad all day, snowing and blowing but at the time we got there to set up, the snow stopped and subsided until after we were done! Our fear was that the weather would keep people from driving up to see it and it possibly did, but we still had around 85 come through it and had to do 7 performances. So it was a great first year and it's always great to work with your church family on a project to glory our Lord!

Here's more shots of the night.....

We had a sheep, a donkey, and two goats that were the hit of the night for all the kids!

Haven's favorite was Cecil the donkey.....

Below is Steve and Nancy Walb, two of the greatest teachers of God's word. I've learned so much from these two since we've been here

Merry Christmas from the Owen family and we can't wait to see many of you next week!