The Richardsons: A House Full of Richardsons

For the past 4 days our house has been buzzing with energy!! Between Ryleigh, the 8 & 9 year old visitors and Lucy, things were much more fast-paced than what we're used to around here : )

The hubby's brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew all made the drive down from Michigan to visit us for a little while. We haven't seen them since Christmas, so we were very excited to hear that they decided to include us as a stop during their summer vacation this year!  Since we moved away from Michigan, we have done a lot of driving between NC and MI, but this year we were able to host Thanksgiving at our house while family came to us and this summer is packed with visitors coming to stay with us, so I can't even explain how nice it is to be able to stay put this summer and let others do the traveling. Thank you so much Dave & Cristin for packing your family up and making the trek down so that we can stay stationary for the summer, we really appreciate it : )

We had LOADS of fun the past 4 days...it was exhausting, but fun! Our visitors drove through the night, so they arrived at our house at 9 a.m. Saturday morning, so needless to say, there was a lot of napping going on that day to catch up.  Tyler and Kylie were amazed at how fast their little cousin had grown since Christmas. They kept reminding me that "the last time we saw her, she couldn't even sit on her own" or "the last time we saw her she just laid there doing nothing". Haha. It was so much fun to watch them let Ryleigh crawl all over them and to hear them talk to her in that high-pitched baby voice. Nothing like hearing a 9 year old boy say "How big is Ryleigh? SO BIG!!!!!!"

Not only did they have fun playing with their now much more exciting little cousin, they enjoyed running around with Lucy. Chasing her around the living room, up the stairs, letting her lick their faces every time they laid on the floor, and Lucy loved every bit of it! Poor thing pretty much passed out every night...but not after trying everything she could to sneak into their bedroom with them. She'll sleep for the next 4 days straight : )

During the 4 day visit, we also ventured out into the 95 degree North Carolina heat. One day we spent a good amount of time at the pool. The kids really seemed to enjoy it and Kylie even made a friend. Aunt Cristin also had lots of fun with Ryleigh in the pool.

On Monday we celebrated the hubby's birthday by driving down to Charlotte and spending the day at Carowinds. Dave and I both love roller-coasters, but we have spouses that don't, so it was a great opportunity to get a chance to ride without feeling bad for leaving the other one on the ground ; ) Tyler also likes roller-coasters but hasn't been tall enough to ride the big ones at Cedar Point yet...but he was tall enough at Carowinds! He was able to ride all the rides with Dave and I! I was also very proud of my hubster who actually rode 2 of the coasters with me...he was scared out of his mind and almost hyperventilating, but he did it!  AND he survived! It's a miracle. Ryleigh was able to ride the carousel with Mommy and Daddy, but that was it. She seemed to enjoy it and she did a great job behaving the whole day. She started getting fussy towards the end, but eventually gave in to her sleepiness after being awake for 7 hours.

After our day at Carowinds, the next day was spent hanging out and relaxing. The boys went golfing early in the morning and then came home and relaxed with the rest of us. We had a pretty cranky baby on our hands considering the poor thing has 6 new teeth coming in!! I couldn't believe it when Aunt Cristin told me she felt some popping through. Only 2 weeks ago she cut her top 2 teeth, and now, she has 2 more that have popped through on top and 2 more that are popping through on the bottom! She's going to have a full set by the time she's 1!

We were so sad to see everyone pack up and go this morning, but we certainly did enjoy the time we got to spend with them! We are so blessed to have such a great family filled with people we love to share time with. Ryleigh is so loved and since she doesn't get to see family on a regular basis it's always an amazing feeling to watch her interact with them when she can. Thank you guys so much for coming down and spending time with us and we will see ya'll soon!!