What a Week!

I'm going to keep it short because I have so many fun pictures to post from this past week.  We had a wonderful week of spending time with family.  From traveling to Richmond and Harrisonburg to see our Acker (and Gilbert and Jones) family to heading back to Carrsville to welcome Uncle E, Aunt Lauren, Hudson, and Holland; we are wiped out from all the fun we had!

One notable before we move on to pictures: Susannah laughed for the first time yesterday!  Of course it happened a mere 2 hours after Uncle E, Aunt Lauren, and the boys left...  She laughed 3 times within just a few minutes and hasn't done it again since.  I can't wait until that cute little giggle happens on a regular basis!

Fun times with the Gilberts

Each of the "big girlies" got a chance to hold Susannah:

Love these silly personalities:

Laying around with Aunt Brae and "cousin bun-in-the-oven":

In Harrisonburg Cousin Chip was taking pictures with a really nice camera -- much, much nicer than mine -- so I ended up with no pictures from that part of the trip!  Darn the luck!

The Wares' Visit

Meeting Uncle E and Aunt Lauren:

My precious nephews:

We spent so much time outside chasing chickens and helping Uncle Pete:

I was also informed that my windows were dirty and someone wanted very badly to clean them himself.  Who am I to say no to that??

Cousin Pic attempts were hilarious:

The closest I got to a good pic of the three of them:

And last but not least, Eric and Susannah jamming:

We could not have had a more fun-filled week with our family.  Having Eric, Lauren, and the boys come in town for the weekend helped to refuel my tank, as they offered some wonderful encouragement, laughter, and insight into this new "life with kids" thing we have going on now.  We miss all four of those Wares already!  Each time Pete and I get a chance to see our siblings and parents on either side, we are reminded time and time again how amazingly blessed our little family of three is to be covered in so much love, support, and prayer; and we thank Jesus that this is the family into which we get to introduce our sweet baby girl.  Susannah will have so many wonderful role models to choose from!  Whenever Sus wants to spend the afternoon reading stories with loving Aunt Brae, go on an adventure with cool Aunt KK, turn the backyard into some imagined kingdom with crazy Aunt Lauren, or spend the weekend at SuSu's or Figgy's; I will most readily say, "OF COURSE YOU CAN, SWEET GIRL!" because I know Susannah will come back to me a little stronger, a little more confident, and a little closer to Jesus than she was before.  And when she wants to spend time with Uncle E, Uncle Mike, Pops, or PopPop, I know she will come back with raised standards for the men she will allow into her life down the road (and we want those standards real, REAL high, folks...).  Susannah will need to see these things from more than just her mommy and daddy, so praise Jesus we can count on our family to help us in the godly task of raising this girl.