Love our neighborhood and Camping (March)

 Here are some super silly boys playing in the dirt :)

And I walked out my front door and had to turn around and grab my camera to capture the moment.  Good neighbors visiting, kids playing happily, these are pretty huge blessing and I am so thankful that they are a part of every day life. 

 A little friendly game of football 

it looks like Lincoln and James' team is celebrating

 Oh, these boys love their camping!  And I know they love their dad who is so sweet to always want to take them. 

 Notice they all have good backpacks, proper shoes, hats, special socks, even the clothes they wear are picked out with care.  Dave loves outfitting them with all the right stuff to make their hiking trip enjoyable. 

 They took my car and drove up the mountain for awhile and then hiked to were they set up camp.  

you can see the car heading up the dirt trail at the end of our street

Last Sunday at the Maxwell's

 It was a sad, sad day when the Maxwell's moved from Cedar Hills :(  After getting three sisters and our parents to move to Cedar Hills the Maxwell felt it was time for them to move on.  We've had so many fun family dinner's, parties, holiday celebrations, etc., at their home and we were all sad to gather for one last family Sunday dinner.  Here is a typical Sunday at the Maxwell's. 

Food Prep, lot's to do!

taking care of kids while waiting for dinner

sitting around the table for a long time

 cousin love

taking care of babies

she wanted me to take this picture

 Uncle/Niece bonding time

 cheesing for the camera

'hunting chickens'

Lincoln loved chasing the chickens around but even when he got close enough to easily catch a chicken he just wouldn't do it.  I think they scared him a little :)

 

 trying to gather for a family picture

 got one!

 but we were missing Dad.  He was sick in the hospital still awaiting his transplant.  We often went up to visit him as we did this night. 

This picture was taking about a week or two after the above visit.  He was just barely out of his big surgery and this was the first time we were able to see him.  He was so heavily sedated but when he heard my mom's voice he was struggling to find her hand wanted to have her next to him.  He gave a big thumb's up and the emotion come over his face as if he wanted to cry and cheer all at the same time.  "We did it!"  He seemed to want to say.  So many prayers were answered as he lay there with his new liver.  There was still so much discomfort and recovery ahead of him at this point but this was a major victory to make it this far!