Aunt Brynn graduates = lots of visitors!

We are so proud of Aunt Brynnie for graduating from DeSales a few weeks ago! We had a cookout at our home to celebrate her. 

 Trying on her cap and gown...

 They *love* their Aunt Brynnie!!

 And a special day meant that some special visitors were in town...

Aunt Jenny and Hadley flew up from NC...

(cousin love!)

And Popi flew up from FL...Guster was particularly excited about our houseguest for the weekend!

Guster *loves* Popi!

It was a beautiful day and it was great to finally have a gathering at our new home...

 Two sweet faces....

 Photographer Avery was capturing a moment between Popi and Hadley!

This guy sure looks good holding a baby!

 Congrats, Brynn!!! We are so proud of you!

 After the party, we continued our weekend with Popi. We decided to go to the Lehigh Valley Zoo the next day!

 She's so cool...

 First time I ever saw a peacock with its feathers out!

Then we went to a late lunch at Bravo. They give kids dough to play with until their meal arrives! Genius idea! And perfect for our overly tired and hungry children!

Typical Grayson behavior...

Then, Popi had the great idea of taking the kids to the Toy 'R Us that he used to work at! Boy, was this a special treat! I generally avoid taking my kids to toys stores! But it was nice to just walk around and look at things. 

He even let them pick out one toy each for him to buy! You'd be surprised how looong it to them to each decide on something.  Avery chose a play dough Cinderella doll. Grayson chose a Planes loop track toy (didn't get a pic of that one!)

 We all had a great time celebrating and spending time with family that we don't see too often!

 It's hard to get a good family pic these days!

Avery's dance recital weekend

Looks like Mother's Day and our wedding anniversary weekend for many years to come will be spent celebrating Avery's love of dance! Last month was Avery's second recital on this special weekend. We are both becoming more confident in all the makeup, hair, and prep that goes into these three straight nights of performances! I feel like I'm becoming a real dance mom! 

This is what Avery does while I am curling her hair....

she spelled out her name in bobby pins and a hair tie!

She just loves to get her hair and especially, make up, done!

 Ready for her first night...

 She had lots of fans come to her performance over the three nights.

 Ben gripped onto his ticket and Avery's flowers the whole time.

 Even Avery's littlest fan, Giuliana, was there! She was a perfect angel!

 I surprised Avery with flowers each night...

 and so did everyone else! I loved how pretty my house looked for the next week!

Ever wonder what 4-7 year girls do backstage before their performance?

Dance of course...

and also blow feathers around that have fallen from their skirts! I'm surprised there were any left on their skirts by the time they got on stage.

Lining up...ready to go on!

 Here is her whole class.. Such dolls!

And here is Avery's studio picture...much improved from last year (if you recall, Mommy was sick on picture night resulting in a  lipstick disaster with Grayson and hysterical crying from Avery when Daddy brought her to the studio with no tap shoes!) Yes, I'd say we all really improved this year!

 The nights after the recital resulted in some pretty voluminous hairstyles!

 And late night silliness!

 It doesn't really matter that she looks at her feet most of the time or that she is always a step behind or ahead of everyone else....this girl lives for recital weekend! 

We're just going to have to get used to it!

She is one happy dancing girl!

Visit from our Baltimore friends

Last weekend, we had some very special visitors for the day....some of our dear friends from Baltimore (two out of the four girls that I used to work with when we lived there).

And now they have kids!

Amanda and Kyle's little girl Zoe:

 Sherry and Shaun's little girl, Samantha:

And Sammy's big sis, Mady!

 The bigger girls had a lot of fun together!

While Grayson was the only boy in this group of pretty girls!

And of course, they had to watch a bit of Frozen to relax after all that playing...

As always, it was wonderful to see them and we were so glad they made the trip up to us!