Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Easter 2016

Keaton's spring break backed up to Easter weekend, so we headed to Greenville to celebrate with Scott's family. 
Annual egg decorating at Aunt Lisa's! Keaton takes it very seriously.










These two little buddies are a hoot. I caught them out in the yard after we decorated eggs deep in conversation.
I missed most of it, but I caught the tail end. Mark: "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" MEL: "Yep, playground!"
It was exciting to wake up to Easter baskets with our cousins!
Lots of jelly bean eatin' goin' on before church!

We enjoyed a wonderful service at Mitchell Road, and after church, pictures! 
The Lieblers
The Workmans
The Andersons
Sailor wasn't feeling terrific that day. You can tell she's mostly tolerating this photo shoot.
Our matching girls!



My handsome (almost) 8 year old! Side note, since Easter, he's wanted to wear a tie every Sunday to church!
He loves his sis!
My loves!
Me and my stone-faced girl!
After lunch, the kids enjoyed multiple Easter egg hunts (in between the rain showers)
Sailor loved her basket and taking the eggs in and out!
Hmmm...what have we here?
Happy with her finds!
Examining their loot!

We are so very thankful that we now live so much closer to family, so we can enjoy these sweet holidays together much more often. We feel so blessed to have such a loving family that we really enjoy spending time with! A truly Happy Easter!

On Monday morning, we stopped by Grandma's to visit once more before hitting the road.  What a fun weekend and a perfect ending to Keaton's spring break!



Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Mid-year Girls Trip (+10 kids and 2 husbands)

We were so excited to host the Dennisons and the Batusics for their Spring Break this year! You don't know how many "you must be crazy" looks I received from people when I told them that I would  have a total of 10 kids in my house (not to mention 3 extra adults) for 5 days!  I'm so thankful to God for giving us beautiful weather, and for keeping us all sane and (mostly) smiling even when the stomach bug descended on the house mid-visit.

Meg and her gang arrived on Wednesday night. On Thursday, Dave and her boys headed into DC for some sight-seeing while Meg and I and our "girls" (still so weird to say!) did some grocery shopping. 
These girls were a hoot together in the grocery cart at Wegmans!
Melissa and her 3 arrived on Thursday afternoon. We took a walk down by the Marina and got this shot of the 3 of us with all 10 kids! William (10), Hudson (8), Andrew (8), Keaton (7), Jacob (6) Mark (5), Allie (5), Crew (4), Sailor (16mo), Halle (16mo)
Melissa brought us a truckload of chicken from Wayne Farms, so we grilled almost every night! I don't think our grill have ever seen this much meat at one time!
Bath time with the baby girlies! We have to have enough embarrassing baby pics to fill up their dorm room one day!
Barely enough sitting room for everyone!
On Frdiay, we visited Mt. Vernon. Keaton was playing hookie!

The Dennison Family


Halle Kate!

The kids love running up and down this hill!

Allie Grace!
Mark, Crew, and Allie
I started calling these girls "sister-wives." It is much easier to corral 10 children when there are 2 other moms around to help! Haha




Double Trouble

Up to somethin...


Halle and Sailor having fun in the Visitors Center
 On the way home from Mt. Vernon is when Sailor first came down with the stomach bug. This same bug quickly made its way through the house - Allie to Melissa to Mark to Andrew. It sounds bad, but it really could have been so much worse! Thankfully, none of the Dennisons came down with it, and were able to enjoy the bus tour on Saturday and then a really cool tour o the Udvar-Hazy Center on Sunday after church.
Exploring downtown DC
BOYS!
On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial
Tidal Basin
White House!
A chilly but fun bun bus ride!
I was amazed at how well all these kids got along, considering they only see each other once a year (at best) and never all together at once! They really hit it off, and had so much fun together.

On their final day in DC, we ate breakfast at the delicious Founding Farmers before heading to the US Capitol for our private tour!
Thanks to our good friend Dennis Wischmeier for the tour!