We sang and opened a few presents. The girls were already prepared for bed by that time, that's why they have their nightgowns on in these pictures.

It was also a time to celebrate Sue's birthday, so she and Aaron shared the song and the cake.

Ben and Ashley gave him this awesome NC State wall design that she made using thread and needles. She is a creative lady!

Mike let Aaron play a simple version of Wheel of Fortune to guess the gift that he and Peggy gave. We all got a kick out of playing along and trying to guess :)

Patient Princess

 Rehab Escapee

Cute Screamer

 Birthday Man

 Sweet Snoozer

 The Battery Man himself, Mother-and-Daughter-of-the-Year, and the New Daddy and Mommy (sorry, Natasha...I missed getting you in a picture!)

Cool dads let their kids lick the icing off the candle.

Happy Birthday, dear husband. I am so thankful I was able to party with you for that whole week!

 2 of K:

 2 of H:

All 3.

I really love this picture!

So sweet to watch them play (and eat a picnic dinner) at the park in between ballet and church night. 

We haven't really gotten into a groove for Wednesday evenings yet. There isn't enough time for us to go home to eat dinner between the end of V's ballet class and the start of church. So for now we are doing things like this and loving it!

sweet, cooperative boy playing in his crib while I get ready for church

Homework for this little girl!

She has been cutting out pictures from magazines and gluing them down for the specific alphabet letter they're doing each week. 

She has from Friday to Wednesday to complete it. 

Kate wants to help so badly, so she has been sitting at the table, too...coloring her own stuff or helping V find pictures. 

V really enjoys it so far!

Dear Hank,

Do you remember the time, the summer right before you turned one, that you somehow got your foot stuck in the small bars of the shopping cart at Kroger? 

Remember that the manager was called down and within 30 seconds, there were about 15 Kroger employees were surrounding us?

There was a woman employee who ran to get some baby oil and poured it all over your leg. It was all over the floor and her clothes. By this time you were starting to scream and there were lots more people around to watch the crisis. 

The manager told someone to call 911 because your ankle looked like it was starting to swell. I think he said that just as a precaution.

Then someone ran to get a hammer to try to knock the bars apart. It didn't budge them. Mommy was panicking a little. Your sister Kate got upset for a moment but then the pharmacist offered to hold her away from the chaos so we could concentrate on getting you unstuck.

Another employee got some bolt cutters but they didn't even make a mark in the metal bar. More crying and I just tried to hold your head close to me and calm you down.

Finally a customer came by that said he had heavy duty bolt cutters in his truck. The manager and another guy kept working until he came back with them, and two men together were able to cut the bar above your ankle and below it to free you!

You were just fine and stopped crying seconds after I picked you up and held you.

The fire department did show up a minute or two afterwards, and checked your ankle...no problems! Just a frazzled Mommy who was now worried about picking up your biggest sister from piano on time. :)

I'm so glad that you won't remember this! But I will never forget it!

 Both girls (finally) learned how to swing by themselves this summer. 

Might not seem like a big deal, but it makes a huge difference at the park, playground at school, and our outside playtime here at the house...no more need to yell for a push!

We love to visit Aaron at work every so often. 

Hank has even said "Da" when we pull in the driveway at the shop. 

It's just for a few minutes...just enough for Aaron to come to the car to say hello, but the little things are what make our days sweeter!

There is an annual picnic for our church body at the end of summer and we were finally able to go as a whole family this time! We brought a packnplay for H to nap in while we all enjoyed the lunch, and then he was up and ready to play. The kids ran free and found lots of things to do. We spent the whole afternoon there, and it was nice to not be in a rush while visiting with people!

 We went to an awesome superhero party this weekend for Seth's 5th birthday!

 Rainbow Brite...so creative and cute!

 All the superheroes showing their muscles

 spider girls :)

One other thing we did this summer that I forgot to post about was a dance camp for both girls. They went for about two hours every day for a week and loved it. On Friday they let the parents (and Gramme!) come to watch the class for an hour. I love watching them prance around! 

I loved what they did at the end: Mrs. Smeltzer read a story while the girls acted it out in dance. I was so impressed that they followed along so well! From the last year being involved with this, I have kind of figured out that ballet is just that: telling a story through dance (yes, I know, probably really late on realizing this...but truthfully I had never thought about it before). So I thought it was cool that she is already starting this concept with even the littlest ones.

Here's another video from the beginning of the class:

Thanks to Mama Dot for letting this dance camp be their birthday presents from her!

 V and H hung out together in the semi-crowded waiting room (nothing compared to how crowded it was for V's class yesterday). 

Vivian worked on a princess book that Aunt Tasha gave her.

Hank was upset that he couldn't climb the stairs but was easily distracted with other things (chewing on her markers), thankfully. 

I eavesdropped on all the mommy conversations in the room :)

 I asked Kate to smile so that I could get a picture of the event. 

This is a good action shot of everything going on.

If you ever want a good laugh, ask Kate if you can take her picture. Her poses are hilarious.

One of her new ballerina friends!

We are in love with this baby. She is so precious and perfect.

At the end of the day on Monday, Joey and Tasha brought Olivia to the pool to hang out, and we were able to see her and hold her and give her some love!

To note: check out Kate holding that paci :)

Vivian started swimming at the beginning of this summer. It was awesome to see her try something and work to get better and better. Now, as of Monday, we have another swimmer! Kate jumped off the diving board to Aaron the first two times, and then felt confident to try by herself. She did this over and over all day on Monday...so excited and proud of herself. We were all proud! 

I will say that my dad predicted that she would be swimming by the end of the summer and I thought there was no way...but he was right!

And here's another video that gives a glimpse of how we spent Labor Day this year. 

 and kid conversations in the hot tub:

Aaron sometimes takes Hank out to the garage to hang out with him while he works out or cleans up or whatever he does out in his garage.

 He said that he really likes to explore there...the evidence of a fun time is in the dirty knees. 

On a related note, Hank has taken a few tiny steps over the last week...just one or two...but he is now making fast progress toward walking. So maybe these filthy crawling legs will be a thing of the past!