Baby Blessing, Birthday Party, and Fall Leaves

I've been meaning to post pictures of my new niece for a month now... But I kept losing them through some technical difficulty or another. My niece was blessed yesterday by her dad, my brother. We are so excited to have this beautiful little girl in our family!

Other than the fact that they're quite tired (as new parents often are), my brother his wife are, of course, thrilled by her, too.

One of the nicest part of the blessings, for me, was the opportunity to spend some quality time with my brother and with my nephew. The new big brother had a pretty full week between his birthday parties and Halloween and then all of the excitement of his sister's blessing. He wasn't really in the mood for sacrament meeting.

As soon as church was and he could get outside, he grabbed my hand and headed for home. He was so happy to be heading home that, even though it was raining, he ran and laughed the whole way.

Of course, that wasn't the only event of the day. My oldest nephew turned 8 yesterday. So after the blessing, we went to my Grandpa's house for Sunday dinner and a birthday party. He got lots of Pokemon (his favorite thing). Plus, Grandpa had raked all of the leaves in his yard into a big pile and the cousins climbed in and had a great time burying themselves and having "leafball fights". They were also good enough to pose for a few pictures. These two are really great friends. You'd think they were brother and sister, they are so close.

This wasn't my niece's first time in the leaves this week, either. A few days before she'd come to my house for the afternoon. She helped me with some gardening. (She loves Veggietales, and thus was more than happy to pick all of the "Bob's" (tomatoes) in my garden to make room for a leafpile. Here's my favorite picture from that day's fun.

If you know me, you know that all of this constitutes a GREAT weekend for me. I love kids! Getting to spend some quality kid time with my nieces and nephews is always a treat!

I'm so lucky to be an aunt! I can't even imagine my life without kids. My nieces and nephews keep me young