We love our cousins!!

We are so grateful that more cousins are being born and more are living close to us. It allows for moments like these:

Watching Tangled

Sarah and Charly holding hands

I love this one of Tara, Leland, and Connor!

Charly and Houston

Leland and Nick trying to calm Abby

If we didn't have siblings, there wouldn't be cousins.

Spring Family Pictures

Show us how you really feel about taking family pictures.

Easter Hunt #2

Our next Easter Egg Hunt was with the McBride's. A local church put on an awesome free event.

Paparazzi at every angle. (Chuck in the orange above. Mitzi in the brown below)

Catching air on the bounce houses.

Face painting - a butterfly and a spider for Mrs. Spiderman

We also flew kites, but didn't get any pictures.

Happy 6th Birthday

Leland turned 6 years old. I can not believe my girl is growing up. She is...

• losing teeth
• has almost completed Kindergarten
• loves school
• says she has a boyfriend
• ties her own shoes
• Oh the drama!! the tears, the sobs, the kicking and screaming all over what clothes to wear to school
• knows so much about the Gospel of Jesus Christ
• corrects me when I sing the wrong words to a song
• is a huge help with her little sisters
• says she wants to be a librarian when she grows up, so she she can read stories to kids for story time
• is really smart
• loves to cook and is always ready to help chop, stir, or pour
• loves Taylor Swift and some Katy Perry and Lady Gaga thanks to her dad

We sure do love this girl. She is a joy in our home and are so grateful for her example to all of us. 

The Cupcake Faces

Easter Hunt #1

We went to a community Easter Egg Hunt with the Morris girls. Leland and Lucy knew the drill and were on the run to get as many eggs as possible. Charly just stood there watching the craziness. Even when we showed her candy was inside the eggs, she still was not interested.

The girls showing off their loot (that I would later throw away).

It's funny how the girls are so different in little ways:

Just dump 'em all out

line 'em up one by one

Then the Easter Bunny came for a visit. He was kind of creepy looking if you ask me.

We then checked out the beautiful flowers...

and baby chicks at the local garden store. As much as I hate birds, I really wanted to take some of these home to have chickens and fresh eggs.

Jungle Party

Leland's kindergarten did a musical show called Jungle Party Tonight. It was so cute. You could tell they had practiced so hard.

She even had a small speaking part.

Monument Ave 10k

On Saturday, I ran in the Ukrop's Monument Ave 10K along with over 41,000 people. It was so much fun running on such a historical course (along the only street in America that is a National Historic Landmark) with such a large crowd. There were 35 bands along the 6.2 mile stretch. I'm not a big runner and did more of a jog/walk combo, but I beat my goal time by 7 seconds. I guess it was a realistic goal after all.

A little after the 5 mile mark, I saw this guy standing in the middle of the course. Just standing there! Everyone was swerving around him like a stalled car in the middle of the freeway. I was thinking "What is that crazy dude doing?" As I got closer, I realized it was my husband waiting to take pictures of me. What a sweetie! He would snap pictures, then turn around and run a little ways in front of me, then snap more pictures.

I'm so glad my sister Christine came down to run it too. We started together, but she went a lot faster than I did. It was a really fun experience to share with her, since it was the first race for both of us.

We had a great cheering section for us. They even made signs.

There were 10 of us friends from church that all started together, but we all ran at different paces. I'm so glad so many friends decided to run it "with" me. My mom even came up from NC to cheer us on. The race was the morning of VCU playing in the Final Four and the race started and ended in the heart of VCU campus. Needless to say, the city was excited.

It was a fun time and such an iconic "Richmonder" thing to do. Chuck's already planning on running it with me next year.

Rock Climbing Wall

Last weekend we went to a Summer Adventure Expo by Richmond Family Magazine. It was at an indoor rock climbing center. During the Expo, kids could climb the wall inside for free.

It made Lucy a little nervous. She wanted to come down and as she was being lowered she knocked her forehead on one of the grip/foothold things and ended up with a huge bruise in the center of her forehead. Poor girl.

Leland loved it! She did awesome.

Nutzy the Squirrel from Richmond's AA Baseball team the Flying Squirrels.