Wow! What a weekend!

First item of business upon arriving at Nana and Pap's..........DIRT PILE!


The gang from our second annual Cousins Day celebration. Last year, Brooke was in Libby's belly and neither Stacie or I knew we'd be the next!

She makes my heart melt with that smile...

Joshua and Pap wearing their identical State Farm hats.

Joshua playing "Put the Bink in Baby Anna's Mouth" with the kids at Stacie's baby shower on Sunday.

Too much partying for Joshua = I sacked out little boy. I think he'd still be sleeping if I hadn't woken him up!

We're home from our whirlwind weekend in Lewistown and had a wonderful time. It's never a bad thing when your days are jam packed full of parties, tractor rides with Pap, movie time and spending time with Brooke and Aunt Libby.

Joshua and I got to Mom and Dad's late morning on Saturday and Joshua immediately made a bee-line for the dirt pile that Pap had in the driveway. It took all of my might to get Joshua OUT of the dirt, and into the car to head to Aunt Libby's for our Cousins' Day festivities.

The "Richard Girls" (although funny, because very few of us are still Richard Girls by name any more) started an awesome tradition last year with the surprise gathering that Jason and Libby started as a birthday gift to me. We've now managed, two years in a row, to get all of the girl cousins together for a little party. We do what Richards are really good at------ we eat, we tell stories, we catch up, we laugh, we eat and we giggle some more. It's a wonderful time...quickly becoming my favorite Richard tradition of the year. I don't think any of us take for granted the fact that we have each other, that our families raised us to be as close as we are, and that it's remained a priority to all of us to keep that connection over the years as our lives have taken us in different directions.

We spent the evening at Nana and Pap's enjoying the kids. Joshua had his second tractor ride of the weekend while Brooke and I did some catching up. Libby and I had the brilliant idea to give the kids a bath together that evening, which ended in sheer disaster. The photo opportunity I had hoped for seemingly wasn't meant to be since both of the kids were quite literally screaming their heads off. Brooke was unhappy about the big bathtub that she wasn't accustomed to. Joshua was unhappy about his sore bottom from a bad diaper rash and refused to even sit down. Libby and I could do nothing but hurry the heck up and get them out of the tub before even more chaos ensued. My dad, at one point in all of this madness, came upstairs and peeked his head in the door to ask us, "What are you DOING to those children?"

Sunday morning, we got up and went to church with my parents. Joshua behaved like a little gentleman and sat still through the entire sermon. On the way out of church, he mentioned to the pastor that he enjoys shaking Pastor Jamie and Pastor Dave's hands at his church. Good to know.

We spent the afternoon, following a tractor ride with Pap, at Stacie's baby shower to help her celebrate baby Anna's upcoming arrival. Joshua and the other children were a little on the rambunctious side for my liking, so he spent the majority of the afternoon being wrangled by his very mean Mommy. We got to visit with a whole bunch of family members who were also there, so that was a lot of fun.

The evening rounded out at Nana and Pap's house with meatballs for supper, some more special time with Brooke and Aunt Libby and then an off season showing of the Polar Express (gasp!) in Club Bob thanks to Pap. I have told my father that the first temper tantrum that gets thrown due to the rules at OUR house being different than the ones at HIS will be shared with him via photographs, cell phone or an in person delivery of the screaming banchee right to his doorstep. In any case, Joshua had a blast watching the movie, and it can be safely confirmed that he does, in fact, still LOVE that movie.

We got in the car to come home about 10 this morning and made it home and unpacked before Grandma's arrival at noon. I found myself in the office by 1. The only remnant of our whirlwind weekend is a monstrous pile of laundry that wouldn't usually be there until about Wednesday, but we'll get to work on that tonight. What a fun weekend it was.

And now, this week's countdown begins until Joshua gets to go to the circus on Sunday. We can't wait!