Family Album of the week

This has been a very busy week, so I decided to post a lot of pictures taken this week to give some quick updates. These pictures are not necessarily in chronological order, but they all happened this week.

Here are two pictures of Maddie, Zack, and Andrew at a bed and breakfast in Staunton, VA called 'Inn at Old Virginia' where we stayed during Ben's brother John's graduation from the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) this week.

Maddie, Andrew, Uncle John, Ben and Zachary in front of the barracks at VMI. My kids were quite impressed seeing John in his uniform. It was a very warm day, and I'm sure he must have been sweltering.

Andrew thought it was very cool seeing John like this. He will be very sad when John moves to California to start his Air Force job doing Space and Missile stuff.

While John is living across the country, Andrew will have to take his mind off missing Uncle John by throwing himself into some of his new passions, such as listening to music on some gigantic headphones:

When we were in Lexington, we went to my Aunt Barbara and Uncle Pete's house. They recently sold their house and the new owners will move in in June. They have lived at this house since I was Maddie's age and I will be sad to not come visit it any more. This is a picture of Zack in front of the house with my cousin Martha.

Like I said, these pictures are not in order. Here are some shots of Mylie and her cousin Tate at my dad's house on Mother's Day. They are less than a month apart in age and really love each other:

This is how I recently found Andrew. Why are my kids so into dangerous endeavors? Andrew and I had a long talk about the dangers of such climbing. However, I must admit that my first reaction was to grab the camera rather than to grab him down.

Ben's sister Suzanne and her husband Scott invited us to dinner at their new condo last weekend. It was a lot of fun, and we are very excited for them that they have made the mortgage leap. The kids made pizzas with Suzanne and Scott. Andrew wanted Lucky Charms cereal on his slices. Needless to say, once out of the oven, Andrew wanted nothing to do with these pizza slices:

Andrew and Bracken enjoying the sugar flowers off of the top of a Mother's Day cake:

While the rest of the family went to southern Virginia for John's graduation from college, Mylie stayed with Aunt Brooke. During her stay, while Brooke was grabbing a new top for Tate's bottle, Mylie decided to try leaping from the high chair head first. Brooke was mortified. She was not prepared for the shenannigans my children do and their special ways of risking life and limb to keep my life interesting. So, without further ado, below are a few pictures of Mylie's first shiner.

And some shots of Zack and Andrew at Andrew's pre-school field day.



All in all a very fun week. Congratulations, John! Thanks, Kent and Winnie, for bringing us along! Thanks, Brooke, for watching Mylie (now you know how on the go my kids are). Thanks, Sue and Scott, for inviting us to your condo, feeding us, and chasing my boys all around during the graduation trip. Thanks, Dad, for inviting us over for Mother's Day it was a lot of fun. Thanks, Maddie, Andrew, Zack, and Mylie for making my life exciting.