Easter Pictures

We celebrated Easter in Snyder this year. It turned out to be a beautiful day! We got to see all of our family. Granddad Bob, Lorita and Memaw Dena came over to eat lunch with us at Grandpa and Grandnanna's. Everything worked out great and the food was good!

Rachel looked very tall in her Easter outfit. The high heeled shoes made her reach almost 6 foot! She looked beautiful!!

Even though the temps were on the chilly side, Luke opted to wear shorts. He looked really nice all cleaned up!

Kate looked beautiful in her pretty Easter dress! She doesn't think she looks like herself with a head band and curled hair. I think it makes her look older. 

Wade's bow tie is my favorite! I was so excited he agreed to wear it and didn't complain at all about being uncomfortable. I think he looks so cute!! My baby...

Group Shots

Luke is catching up to me pretty quickly. I may have to stand in the front row soon. My kids will all be taller than me.

 We are REALLY proud of this grandkid picture!! They all look so pretty and handsome all dressed in their Sunday best. I love how Wade & Tye and Luke & Miles have their arms around each other. Sweet cousins. I love all these kids so much!!

Grandnanna and Grandpa

I wanted to take a picture to show Rachel she was almost as tall as Grandpa.

This is Luke photo-bombing my attempt. Haha

Fluvanna Easter

Yesterday was the big Stansell Reunion and Easter Egg Hunt! This is something we all look forward to each year. The kids can't wait to hunt the eggs. This year the Easter Bunny sent 500 extra eggs via Cousin Lindsey. The kids had so many eggs all their baskets were overflowing!!

 All lined up...

Ready...

Set...

GO!

 Some action shots of Luke. This may be his last hunt at Fluvanna. :0(

Madison - 4

Tenley - 10

Kate - 8

Tye - 4

Sydney - 6

Miles - 8

Luke - 11

Ian - 8

Mac - 6

Rachel - 14

Wade - 5

Caroline - 20 months

Organizing their loot!

We had a great time!

Santa Claus

Every year we look forward to our visit to see Santa Claus. It is tradition to go with our cousins on Sunday after we have our Thanksgiving weekend with Chris's Mom. Our kids had a list of their wants ready for Santa.

Wade kept forgetting his list, so Rachel wrote it down for him to give to Santa. He wanted a Paw Patrol truck and trailer and a Miles of Tomorrowland Stellosphere. 

This boy has come a long way. Santa is his buddy now! And he likes the candy cane and chocolate milk too.

Kate asked for a REALLY big teddy bear. 

The Moms have also made a tradition out of having the kids take a group picture when they get together and dressed up. What a good looking group!!

Wade thinks Ian is pretty cool! Ian loves to play video games and so does Wade!

I am not sure what is going on here....silly boys.

Pretty girls.

Thanksgiving 2015

We decided to do something different for Thanksgiving this year. We had had a rough couple of months since school had started with two funerals, marching band, football, and piano practices and games. We were ready for a vacation. The kids were out of school for the whole week of Thanksgiving this year. We thought this would be the perfect time to get away. 

We have a place at Port Aransas we like to stay right on the beach. We have always enjoyed our summer trips, so we thought we should check out the beach in the Fall. We really did not know what to expect. We knew where we were staying and what restaurants we wanted to eat at, but we were wondering what the weather would be like in November.

The weather was pretty cold and windy the first two days, but the temps were in the 70's most of the week. It was nice enough for the kids to get wet in the ocean every time we were on the beach. ;0)

 We figured the beach would be deserted this time of the year. We were really surprised by the people who spent Thanksgiving at the beach! There were a ton of people!! It was slow at the beginning of the week, but it was packed on Thanksgiving and the weekend.

This is my favorite picture from the week. I love the colors in the sky and reflecting on the water.

We tried to take our own family pictures. We brought a tripod and set the timer. They actually turned out pretty good! The kids did better this time than they ever had before with family pictures. I think looking at the flashing light on the timer and the bribes of candy if we got a good one helped. My biggest problem was my and Luke's hair blowing. I wish the background would have been more colorful but the day was overcast.

Luke and I built an octopus in the sand.

Cuties playing in the sand....Those dump trucks traveled all the way from Midland with us. Wade was super excited to have all the sand to play with them with.

We had a great week at the beach!! We took a lot of walks and collected a lot of shells along the way. We found bigger and better shells than we had on our summer trips. We also watched dolphins swimming and jumping in the bay. We were all able to relax and rest. It was a perfect Thanksgiving week.