For Posterity's Sake

Last week my sister Sharon and her family spent a few days with us. It's always exciting to be able to spend time with her and to see my nieces and nephew. I'm very much into making memories/records to keep for posterity's sake, so I decided to have Sharon take a video of each of the kids before they went to bed one evening. (I wish I had videos of myself as a child to look back on, but I don't. Hopefully Sharon's kids will like watching videos of themselves when they're grown up.) I've watched these videos several times, and I know I'm partial, but I just love these kids! I love their expressions and sweet little voices. 

Eleven-and-a-half-year-old Elizabeth:

Nine-year-old Kate:

Six-year-old Sarah:

Four-year-old Rachel (eating a chocolate peanut butter graham cracker):

Two-year-old Matt: (It warms my heart to have Mattie come into my room in the morning and say, "Hi Heather!"

[Almost] four-month old Emily:

A Panda Express restaurant recently opened near my house, so one evening Sharon treated all of us to Panda Express for dinner since she's never had it before, but has heard good things about it from me. We got several different entrées so that we could all try a little of everything. My favorite thing from Panda Express is Beijing beef, so I made sure we ordered that. We also had orange chicken, Shanghai angus steak, kung pao chicken and black pepper chicken. (The orange chicken and Shanghai steak were both good, but I didn't really care for the Kung Pao chicken and black pepper chicken; too spicy!) We also got egg rolls and potstickers (which are also one of my favorite things on the menu). Here's a picture of our Chinese feast (I was looking like a hot mess, so I had to crop myself out of it!):

We didn't take many pictures during Sharon's visit, but we got a few. Sharon and her three oldest girls took a trip to Target to look for some school supplies since they don't have a Target in the town where they live (sad, I know!). Sarah was so excited about her new backpack!

Kate and Elizabeth:

Matt was sure proud of his tower and kept shouting, "Tower, tower!" over and over again.