Jonathan, Joy, and Seth came to visit us this past weekend (they live in Greensboro). Jonathan and Aaron went hiking on Saturday while Joy and I played with the babies. Their Seth turned 3 months old on Saturday and he is a great baby! I told Vivian to take notes, especially on his napping skills.

Ahhh! Attack!

And the men enjoyed their afternoon in the woods. They hiked almost 20 miles in about 9 hours!

P.S. I stole some of these pictures from their blog.>

The service for Peepaw was very honorable. We enjoyed seeing family. Afterwards we went to his house to eat lunch with everyone. Thanks to everyone for your prayers and kind words!

On Monday night, Aaron's Peepaw died. The funeral is on Friday so we're leaving tonight for Fayetteville to be with his family. Thanks for your prayers!

Vivian is in the beginning stages of sitting up by herself. It only lasts for a couple seconds, but she's getting better! I got a little of her action on video tonight before bedtime.

Please ignore dorky mom.

We live next door to famous people! This is Adam and Tina. Tina has lived in the house beside us for many years, but this year she married Adam and we've been getting to know him, too. They are a sweet couple. But the crazy thing is that they are both pretty famous in the bluegrass world. In fact, Adam just recently won Mandolin Player of the Year. He used to play for Allison Krauss and now he plays for the Dan Tyminiski band (think music from O Brother, Where Art Thou movie). Tina's pretty well-known also for her banjo playing. We've heard her play...she's awesome!
Fun neighbors :) And they love Vivian...potential babysitters?!

Yesterday we went to see Aaron at work. We do this a lot during the week, if he doesn't come home for lunch. She loves to see her dad.

Thanks to Gramme for the Mommy's Lil Pumpkin hoodie and pants! And the shirt has "mummy's little girl" on it.

This blog is not meant to be anything more than a chance to share what's going on in the Fernandez family, but my comment in the previous post about our feelings on Sarah Palin's candidacy requires more explanation I think. It's so much to get into in a blog post here, so here are a couple of articles that go in depth about our views of Biblical womanhood for those that want to read. They are long, so get into them when your little ones are napping or during your lunch break...

Vision Forum Ministries Responds to CBMW Compromise
Sarah Palin and the Complementarian Compromise
But What About Deborah?
The Palin Predicament Resolved (I haven't read this one yet but it's written by the same guy who wrote two of the others)

Sarah Palin is here in Salem tonight. She is speaking at a rally right across the street from our house at the Salem stadium. Vivian and I took a walk over there to see what was happening and were very surprised! Hours before the rally was supposed to start, the entire inside of the stadium was full. I've heard the stadium holds 20,000 people...there were more than that there. I just hope all those people will go to the polls for her. We're going to vote for this party for many reasons, but honestly we're not too excited about Palin as VP...not sure it really fits with our belief in complementarianism that the Bible presents so clearly as God-honoring.

This is our street...people starting parking here around 2 pm today.

Vivian wasn't too interested...imagine that.

The line was crazy! It wrapped around at least 4 times. And it was COLD. We made our way back to the house pretty quickly.

Last night the youth came over for afterglow. All the youth. This small house hosted around 30 people. Aaron grilled chicken wings and sausage and we had great conversations about the foundations of grace and Martin Luther and part-time jobs and what clothing fads we used to adhere to. These kids are very impressive.

We love our big deck for nights like this!

P.S. Vivian slept through the whole thing and didn't make a peep!

I keep thinking that the warm days are gone, but not so! Today it was beautiful outside. We sat outside for a while this afternoon. View from our deck (you can sort of see the mountains between the trees, but they are really pretty in person...very colorful): These are the plants that Aaron put in a couple of weekends ago:

We tried ear candling today, too. I just heard about it recently and got some candles at some nature store. We're not really sure how to do it, though...we still have two candles left if anyone has a suggestion. If you don't know what it is, this picture of Aaron will be very strange-looking to you :)

We've had a great weekend together. Saturday I went to get my haircut and Aaron watched the baby. Every time he has her alone, I come back to find her in the buff. This is how I came home to her Saturday morning: I can't figure out why exactly, but he always thinks she would be more comfortable without clothes on. Anyone have ideas about that?And then in the afternoon Joey and Sierra came over to show us their new bike. Ahhh! It's really nice and they're excited about it.

Stephen came home from DC this weekend and brought a friend, Ashley. They hung out at our house for a couple of hours on Saturday afternoon, and then we went to an early dinner with them and mom and dad. It was great to get to know Ashley. Stephen has known her since his first year at UVa and now she lives in northern Va too. They came down to see the leaves (and to spend time with his niece!). They also came to church with us this morning.
Last night I invited some of the 9th and 10th grade girls from the youth group over for a dessert night. Unfortunately we didn't take the picture until after Allison had left, but left to right are Haley, Megan, and Corey. It was fun to get to know them better. Since Aaron is teaching the H.S. youth S.S. class, I've taken a small leadership role also in encouraging this age group of girls. They are sweet.

Difficult week. Monday night Vivian didn't sleep well because of the shots she had at her 4 month appt., and it's been hard for me to catch up all week. I had a terrible headache all day Tuesday and Wednesday and then last night I started getting a sore throat, the start of a cold. Today I just have a lot of sinus pressure. Blahh. And I've been nervous about getting Vivian sick...75% of our days usually consist of me kissing on her face!So thankfully, Gramme took her yesterday for a couple of hours so that I could sleep a little. Gramme has a fancy swing at her house that Vivian has started to warm up to (she has never liked swings too much).And she loves playing in her crib by herself...she really enjoys watching this mobile. I got it for her when she was not even a month old, and it's still one of her favorite things to do! It's so tacky, I know, but how can I care when she likes it so much?!

And finally, Papa and Gramme asked for a picture with the pumpkin that's on our front porch, so here it is! I had a hard time getting her to look at the camera because she kept staring at the pumpkin...

How can I complain about anything when this cutie smiles at me? :)

Our baby girl is 4 months old! Her birthday was on Saturday, but Aaron had the camera on his hike, so I had to wait until today to do her photo shoot (still have found no stuffed animal for size comparison). We went to the pediatrician today for the well check, and found out lots of great stuff. She is growing so well! Here are the stats:
13 lbs, 12 oz. (75%)
24" long (50%)
16 1/2" head (80%)

I love how she smiles with her eyes!!
At 4 months, Vivian:
-is very, very sweet!!
-still eats every 3 to 3 1/2 hours (5 times a day) and once at night, still nursing
-goes to bed around 7:30 pm and gets up at 7:30 am, waking up once or sometimes twice during that time for a few minutes
-takes either two good naps or three short naps (we are working hard on lengthening naps but she is sometimes stuck at waking up after 35-45 minutes)
-has total head control and great trunk control
-loves to be outside
-is starting to enjoy her exersaucer and jump-n-go
-squeals a lot when we play peek-a-boo