Party Hardy

On Saturday, we went to the Bingham-Waggoner Estate in Independence to celebrate my dad's cousin Steve's 50th birthday!  Despite having lived in Kansas City my entire life, I'd never actually been to the Bingham-Waggoner house.  It was beautiful!  The Cox family had the house all to ourselves for the party, and Sarah had so much fun exploring the mansion and climbing up and down the massive staircase.

We tried to get the "newest generation" of Cox's together for a group picture on the stairs, which was interesting considering they range in age from 4 months to 2 years.  This was the best we could do!

Just kidding!  Even though it was like herding cats, we actually managed to get a picture of all the cousins sitting on the stairs!  You can almost see all of their faces in some of the photos, too...

Clockwise from top left: Presley and Chloe Churchwell, Gavin Johns, Beckett Daughtery, Aiden Aquino, Sarah Archer, Lucy Young

At Grammie's request, we also took some pictures of Sarah with Uncle Adam and Megan.  Unfortunately, she had used up all her "sitting for pictures" skills on the cousin pictures!  Sorry, guys...

Back to climbing the stairs!

As the evening wore on, Sarah discovered a new "favorite part" of the Bingham-Waggoner Estate - the giant front lawn and the sidewalk that led down the hill and off into the sunset!  She walked all the way down that sidewalk six times, and she had to be hauled back up the hill kicking and screaming each time.  Eventually, Grandpa Jeff discovered that she was a lot happier to come back up the hill if she got a piggy back ride!

Cousin Aiden joined in the fun, too - he was a lot more willing to walk up the hill on his own!

We had a great time catching up with the family and celebrating with Steve.  It was so nice to see everyone - Sam and Jeri Agulara and Lisa, Chloe, and Presley Churchwell came up from Oklahoma, Barry and Jodi Paharm came up from Texas, and (obviously!) Steve and PJ were in from Portland.  Sarah LOVED playing with the younger set of cousins, too - I'm so glad that she has such a large and loving family!