It's A Family Tradition!

There are few things in my life that are more important than my family, so I was incredibly excited to be able to spend all day Saturday with them to celebrate my youngest cousin's 3rd birthday. My parents, grandma, uncles, aunts, and cousins all live in different states from each other, so it's difficult to be able to get together very often. Even still we couldn't all be there on Saturday- my brother had to stay at school, my husband couldn't get off work, and one of my aunts was sick, but everyone else was able to be there! And let me tell you, we get a little crazy when we're all together. In perfect birthday tradition (for my family anyway), the adults acted like children:

We all sang incredibly loudly, off-key, and horribly when it came time to blow out the candles (there are no pictures of us doing this because I was singing just as loudly and horribly as everyone else during this time, so instead I'll give you an adorable picture of my little cousin blowing out his candles instead):

And there was a piñata (which we all still get on our birthdays even after we're long past the normal age for them):

I couldn't love my family more if I tried. We may have some strange birthday traditions, but we have a blast every time we get together, and I wouldn't trade any of it for anything. Here is me with my cousins, an honorary cousin (a cousin's boyfriend), and my brother (who I cropped into the photo because I didn't want to leave him out):

THEN, on top of the wonderful time I had with my family on Saturday, yesterday I got to spend time with some of my husband's family! We go to the same church as his granny, so I got to spend time with her while we packed boxes for Operation Christmas Child. Our women's group packed about 180 shoe boxes to be mailed away, which is just awesome, and I pray that the boxes we packed will go to the children who can best use them!

After such an exciting and enjoyable weekend, Chris and I went to have dinner over at his uncle's house, where we got to enjoy breakfast-for-dinner and more family time. WHAT a family-filled weekend it was!! God has blessed me richly and reminded me of all my blessings this weekend with so much time with the family I love so much!