Family Time!

We've been  blessed to see so much family in the past few weeks.

Daniel, Kimie, Lucy, and Elliot made the trek down from Dallas 2 weekends ago.  That's no small feat with a 2 month old infant, and we were delighted to spend the weekend with them.

 

Elliot just loves hanging out with Kimie in the Moby, and they've sold us on it, too.  Joshua has become quite the fan of snuggling up in the Moby as well.

While the kids played around the house, we had some nice time to visit with Daniel and Kimie.  They're wonderful parents and a fun family to be around, and we really enjoyed the time with them.  On Saturday we enjoyed the sunshine and took the kids out to the neighborhood park.  Jonathan rode his scooter, the girls rode in their chariot wagon, and the baby boys got a Moby ride.

Back home, Aunt Kimie managed to get some photos edited on her computer, taking breaks to read stories to my kids while snuggling Elliot in his Moby wrap.  Quite the picture of the SuperMom!

Getting 5 kids under the age of 5 into a photo is more than a bit of a challenge, but we did get them all in one place!  This one is complements of Kimie.  I'm really excited about watching these little guys grow up together, and I can't imagine what a challenge a photo like this will be in another 16 months when there are two little toddler boys to contain.

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Then on Wednesday my dear sister came to my aid while David took off on a 5 day camping trip with church.  I was excited about the opportunity for him to go on the men's retreat to Big Bend, but I was also really relieved to have some assistance on the home front while he was gone!  It made the perfect excuse to get 5 days with my sister all to my self (well, almost all to myself).  I think it's the most time we've spent together since I got married, and it was just wonderful.

She got to meet Joshua for the first time, and he was totally taken with her.

I didn't have time to focus, but I caught the sleepy baby smile. 

 Few random kid pics ;)

I'm totally obsessed with photos of eyelashes.

Jonathan's still obsessed with dinosaurs.

 Go Texan Day was the Friday that Heather was here.  This is the day that the rodeo comes to town, and to celebrate most of Houston dresses in Texan gear that Friday.  The kids had a Go Texan parade on Thursday at preschool to celebrate.

Abby was quite a ham while the big kids sang their songs in the auditorium,

 because Jonathan and his friends couldn't quit laughing at her.  

 

On Saturday we headed out to see Grandma and Grandpa.  Heather entertained all three kids while I packed up, but then of course I had to grab the camera to capture the sweet moment.

Seeing the bright, airy photos that our photographer took during our recent family session and talking about getting good exposure in backlit photos with Kimie recently I think has given me a better feel for how to shoot and edit them, and I was pretty happy with these.

This one is my favorite :)

And this one, too.  Doesn't he look cozy?

Soo... I was saying that we went to see Grandma and Grandpa...

They got to meet Josh when he was about one week old, but it's been a while, and we all enjoyed the visit.

(More backlight)

Abby really enjoys playing with Grandpa!

I've heard a lot about some letters between Grandma and Grandpa that they've been reading again recently while doing some organizing, and I asked Grandma if she'd mind reading us a few.  the ones above are from her to Grandpa the year they were engaged.

They were so sweet... truly, good old-fashioned love letters, sprinkled with random details about their days that gave us a feel for what college life was like for Grandma at Baylor and how much the two of them missed each other that year they spent apart.

It was amusing to discover that they did continue to go out with other people, with Grandma noting things like, "I really wished that I was with you, and I think [random boy's name] knew that"  !!!

You can tell reading these again really warms Grandma's heart. 

What a treasure.