Papa built Vivian and Kate a swing in his new barn, and yesterday we went over to surprise them with it and try it out. Maybe a little hesitant at first?I don't know about this, Papa, but I trust you!Ok, this is fun!

Kate's turn! Vivian wanted to help push, but she was mostly in the way. Kate's eyes say it all: Hey, everybody, I'm getting dizzy!

She loves Papa!

Thank you Papa for such a fun gift!

Stephen and Michael came over on Saturday to hang out. We had a good afternoon together, and they were so sweet to Vivian and Kate.

Two sugar cookies came to play with me in the bed this morning! What a way to start the day :)
Thanks for the new matching pjs, Mama Dot!

Merry Christmas to everyone!

These first two pictures are Vivian actually smiling for the camera. She's only recently started getting the concept of it...I'm excited! She's only done it a couple of times...when I said smile, she did!

-say "Elmo". It's a dominant word for her, but she is adding more! She says duck, hop, hat, hot, dada, shoes, eyes, choo-choo and makes signs for Help please, all done, more, thank you.

-eat yogurt. It's one of her favorite foods. Others are string cheese, broccoli, PB&J, and most anything in front of her at the table :) She's feeding herself most of the time, which means we either take her shirt off or use a bib.

-buckle buckles. She is obsessed. If she walks past Kate's carseat and it's not buckled, she cannot continue with life unless she stops and buckles it. It's the same with the buckles on Kate's swing, her high chair, etc. It's hilarious!

-try to put on her socks and shoes.

-go up the stairs with just leg power...no more knees!

-spend time with Papa and Gramme.

-brush her teeth. She has gotten so many teeth in the last 2 or 3 months, I can't count them all.

-practice making a few animal sounds. She can make a quack sound for duck, "mmm" for a cow, and make her mouth do a fish. It's adorable.

-Another word that she has learned to say is "no," unfortunately. She is beginning to understand that she has a choice when I tell her to do something. For example, when I tell her to "come here please" I can see in her eyes that she is thinking about whether she wants to come to me or not. Uh oh.

-I'll come back and add more about her as I think of it...Kate needs me right now!

It started snowing yesterday afternoon and stopped mid-morning today. It's gorgeous! Aaron took Vivian out for a few minutes to play in it. The roads are still pretty bad they say...we've been hanging out inside all day with Dad!

she's waist-deep!

we never measured, but we heard it was somewhere between 12-18 inches.
she was pretty confused! Kate and I stayed inside where it's warm.

I just updated Kate's 4 month post below with her stats from her appointment last week!

Yesterday Aaron and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary! Debbie came over to stay with the girls while we went out to an awesome lunch in downtown Roanoke at 202 Market. After that we went to get a couples massage...an hour of total relaxation. We both were due for it...Aaron has been training for a marathon and my kids are heavy to carry around everywhere. It was a nice treat. The only thing about our big date was that during our lunch it started to snow here. And when we went outside from our massage appointment, the roads were covered! It took us more than an hour to get home, and my dad had to come relieve Debbie so that she could get home before it became impossible for her. It was a mess! But it was fun to spend time with Aaron :)
God has given us favor in our marriage. We are thankful for an opportunity to reflect Christ's love for His bride, the Church. We pray for more grace to do that to the glory and fame of His name.
Happy Anniversary, Aaron :)

Ashley is a new friend! She and her husband Zach and their 10 month old Cohen have recently started coming to church and we've hung out several times. She stays at home with Cohen, and they live 5 minutes from us, so we've had a couple of lunches together. Today she invited us to their house for a few hours. Vivian enjoyed playing with different toys and I enjoyed the company! There are many women in the church that stay at home with their babies, so hopefully we can do things like this more often.
Actually, Zach and I graduated high school together! Small world.
And a happy birthday shout-out to Ashley!

*Update*
At Kate's appointment last week, she weighed 14 lbs, had a length of 24 1/2", and her head was 16 1/2" in circumference. She is in the 50th percentile in all of those areas. We talked about her eating habits, and Dr. B said it sounds like she might have reflux. So he gave us a prescription which we've started, and prayerfully it will help. We need for something to change! Other than that, she is very healthy, strong, and happy!

The little lady is 4 months old! I am ashamed to say that she turned 4 months old last Saturday, and I am just now getting around to doing this post. So she has probably even changed since that time! We went to the doctor on Friday because I thought she might have an ear infection (she didn't) and she weighed 14 lbs, 4 oz. I will get the other stats on Tuesday when we see Dr. B for her 4 month well-check.We took this picture on Dec. 5th, her actual 4 month birthday. You can see how much she's drooling...the whole top half of her dress is soaked :) Aunt Stella, you were asking about Christmas gift ideas...how about some bibs?!This picture was taken today because I forgot that I had taken those others last week. Can you see any change that one week has made?

Vivian and I played with some face paints the other night before her bath. Next time I'll try to find some qtips so that it turns out a little better...I never said I was an artist :) She thought it was really cool. A little confusing for her, but something different and interesting.

The most interesting thing happened yesterday...when I got some Christmas decorations out of the basement over the weekend, I noticed a box of toys that had been misplaced in the move. I brought them up to Vivian when she woke from her nap and she was excited to see her long-lost toys. One of them was this elephant shape sorter that Granddaddy and Grandma Carolyn had given her. She immediately started putting the shapes into the correct holes! She was not able to do this 2 months ago. She can get the yellow square, for example, and turn the elephant's body until she finds the hole for the yellow square, and drop it in!
It's amazing to me the difference 2 months has made in her development! Praise God for His perfect design of our little babies.

Last Saturday night we went out with Dennis, Shannon, Bethany, Chris, and Crystal to dinner and to see the 11th annual Scrooge production at the Roanoke Civic Center. It was an impressive show! Fun to do something festive. We had a great time with our friends :)

Vivian teaches Kate how to look for Tillie at Papa and Gramme's house.

On Friday, Vivian and I had a mommy/daughter date to see Sesame Street Live! We were invited by her preschool and sat with them. I had been looking forward to taking her for a while now...she loves Elmo! She sat still for the most part and it was a great experience for her.

This is a post that probably only family might want to see...lots of pictures of family from Thanksgiving, strange faces to most of you. Uncle Rick took these pictures for us. I didn't really sort through them so a lot of them are the same shot at different angles. Just wanted to keep these on the blog to remember our time with Aaron's family! I'm still trying to get the pictures that Maria took with her camera...she got lots of Vivian that day.



I just realized that some are too small...I'll go back and fix it later!

Today for the first time in Vivian's life, she did not sleep for her nap. At. all.

She was in her crib for 3 hours and did not sleep. At. all.

She played, jabbered, had a BM (which I had a hunch about, so I went in and changed her and put her back down), and I guess just laid there.

Ha!! Crazy.

Dad played some songs for Kate when he got home from work tonight.If you can remember, around this time last year he was doing the same for our little Vivian:

We love our families

Have to include a picture of Vivian with the decorations she's not allowed to play with...

Maybe we'll put up the tree by this weekend! Stay tuned for more.

love that bald spot

Can this be comfortable?