My brother Stephen is taking the LSATs tomorrow and the girls have a special message for him:

Vivian is going to preschool one day a week for a few hours at a church down the street. We are glad for her to have a chance to play with other kids. Looks like she has a lot to learn about sharing... :)
These are her new friends Avery and Linda Gail. There is another little boy in the class but I can't remember his name. I think she has a great time with her teachers! I'm sure we'll have more posts this year about things happening with preschool.

Today Granddaddy, Grandma Carolyn, and Aunt Nancy drove up from NC to visit and meet Kate for the first time. We were very thankful they were willing to make the trip because otherwise they probably wouldn't have been able to meet her until Thanksgiving! They got here mid-morning and caught Kate when she was awake and ready to play.They brought gifts for Vivian! It's always great to get new toys to make things interesting. She was still in her pjs...oops :)Then we met up with the rest of the family (we missed Sierra...she was working) for lunch in town. Kate slept well through lunch. They went to Mom and Dad's to see the barn which is almost finished, drove past our new house, and stopped by to see Joey's new truck. It was a busy couple of hours. After Vivian's nap she had a good time playing with her new elephant shape sorter while Kate slept during her tummy time (which turned into a 2 hour nap hehe).

We are all sick with colds. :( Well, everyone except Aaron. Today is the worst. I feel miserable and the lack of sleep during the night hasn't helped. Vivian is really snotty and has a little bit of a cough. So I made today DVD day. Gramme brought over some new DVDs yesterday and Vivian has already watched them both. I plan to put another one on when she wakes up from her nap this afternoon. Normally she doesn't watch more than one 20 minute video each day, but today is special. I even tried to make a special fort...pathetic, I know...any boy moms have advice for building fun forts?We also stayed in our pjs. None of us have changed into regular clothes. We are a sorry bunch. Kate snoozes during tummy time. I can't tell if she feels bad or not...she's definitely snotty and I've heard her cough some, but she isn't fussy.

Vivian entertains herself in the funniest ways. I'm sure other toddlers do this kind of stuff, but it's new to me so I think it's amusing. She has the best time taking things from one place to another. Here's an example:

I'm on a mission, Mom! Yesterday she did this for about 30 minutes...she took off down the sidewalk, picked some flowers,headed back towards the house, and placed the petals on the front steps. And repeat. Many times. She thought it was the most awesome game.

We had some pictures taken of Kate when she was about 2 weeks old. Here's a sample!

This picture is professionally taken...Liz, who took pictures of Vivian when she was about 3 months old, came back to do the same for Kate when she was 2 weeks old. Aaron had just bought the motorcycle the night before. Check her out... www.thebirthandbabyphotographer.com

We also took some the other day when Aaron got home from work.

She feels the same way as Mom does about Dad's motorcycle.

On Friday last week Macy came over to have a tea party with Vivian. They played well together!

Vivian got this tea set for her birthday and loves it.

Our Internet is down! Actually, our whole computer is not functioning. Aaron will have someone look at it soon, but in the meantime I am not able to update the blog. Sorry sorry! I have lots of new pictures to add of our little girls so I'll try to find a computer to use for more than 5 minutes (I'm at Aaron's work right now using his computer until a customer comes in).

On Monday we enjoyed the day together as a family of four. We stayed around the house all morning and then went to the park in the afternoon. We love having Dad around to play with!

On Sunday evening we met some of our family at The Homeplace for dinner. Michael joined us from Charlottesville. Stephen was in town from DC because he had a vacation day for Labor Day. I had every intention of getting a picture of Kate with Michael because I forgot to get one the first time he met her. I forgot again :( But here is a good one of him with Vivi girl! She wouldn't smile because she was concentrating on a game of volleyball that was going on behind the camera.

After Kate was born, friends from church brought meals for us for two weeks! Every night we had hot, yummy meals and I didn't have to lift a finger. It was awesome :) Thanks to everyone who served us at a time when we really needed it! Praise God for your reflection of Christ's servanthood. We love you.Kristin brought EVERYTHING we needed for a delicious italian meal...the pasta, chicken parmesan, extra sauce, parmesan cheese to top, dessert, even two cans of Coke! She brought both Vivian and Kate a gift, too. So perfect. And last Friday Chris, Crystal, and Chandler brought us dinner and stayed to enjoy it with us. We loved their company. Chandler is several months older than Vivian and she's so animated! We had fun and were very thankful to have a meal provided.

We put an offer on this house last week and it was accepted. The closing is scheduled for mid-October so we'll be moving very soon! It's about 15 minutes from our current house...still in Salem but much closer to Aaron's work. We are very thankful!

Last week Judie had Vivian over to play with Nicholas and Macy. I am trying to arrange these playdates so that Vivian has a chance to learn how to play with other kids. She spends so much time with me! But thankfully we have lots of friends at church with children around the same age (Macy and Vivian are about 3 weeks apart in age).

I didn't realize until after I had Kate's pjs on that the girls were matching with pink with white polka-dots :)

Vivian moved up to a new Sunday School class this morning at church. She immediately joined the other toddlers at the table for a snack as soon as we walked in...they looked so sweet all sitting together at the table that I had to get a picture. I think she had a good time playing with them in a new room. Growing up! It's fun to think that these little ones will be her good friends for a long time (we pray!).

Last week I went with my friend Kari to The Glazed Bisque-It in downtown Roanoke to make handprint and footprint plates for Kate's room. It was fun! It ended up taking a long time because Kate wanted to eat while we were there and also because you have to do three coats of everything you paint. But it was time well spent...the plates will be very cute and I also got to hang out with a great friend! Her son Boston is 6 weeks old and his footprints came out perfect.
Kate HATED the whole process. She screamed the whole time, especially when we tried to get the handprints. After we got some good prints, the lady realized that we used the wrong color pink on one of the hands so we had to do it all over again! Poor Kate. I felt like a terrible mom. Good thing she won't remember it :) But she'll always have the plates!

Even though our girls are so close together in age, there is a huge difference in their size! It's amazing what one year will do for the growth of a baby. Vivian seems like a giant to me now :)

An update! We just got back from a beach trip last night and I have some pictures to post. I left with the girls on Wednesday morning and met my mom in Raleigh (she was already at the beach) so that she could help the rest of the way down (it's a 6 hour drive total). Aaron drove down on Friday night to meet us and hang out for the weekend. It might sound crazy to take a trip like this with a 2 week old, but I really wanted Vivian to have one more chance to play at the beach this summer. It was worth it! She had a great time. It was nice to have Gramme's help for a few days (and Uncle Stephen and Mama Dot were there to help too). The weather was perfect every day. Kate was a trooper and did her usual sleep/eat/diaper change thing there just like she would have done here. The only (small) issue was having to sleep in the same room with her...I didn't get much sleep while we were there. Thankfully, however, we were able to stay in Nan and Danny's trailer so we didn't keep everyone else up all night.

this is for Gramme. kind of gross but oh so sweet :)

Sorry to be so delinquent in posting new pictures...I am choosing to nap and catch up on sleep instead of blogging.