Weekend Away

We traveled to Richmond over the weekend for the wedding of some friends. We also were able to help my parents start a remodeling project in their kitchen.

Here is Daisy with her godmother Jeanette, who was a bridesmaid in the wedding, on Saturday afternoon.


My parents were gracious and watched Rose the whole time and Daisy during the reception so we could enjoy ourselves. It was nice to have a night out and enjoy talking to friends and participating in the festivities without worrying about Daisy and Rose.

Yesterday morning, we had breakfast with the Schmidts. Steve cooked up some pancakes and served it with lots of fresh fruit. It was a very hot day outside (over 100 degrees), so this was a refreshing way to spend the morning.

Rose enjoyed "playing the piano" in Uncle Steve's lap.


-Daisy had fun climbing all over the couch. Jorie made sure she didn't fall off!



The trip back was long, as we had to stop several times for fussy girls, but overall, it was a great weekend away.

July 4th

Since we ended up staying in Blacksburg this week, we spend July 4th at home. Since Daisy still talks about the town Christmas parade, we thought we'd try to hit up the July 4th parade. Because Rose had been sick and it was hot outside, we tried to 'stay cool' as best we could during the afternoon.

We decided to walk downtown for lunch and we ate in Moe's to enjoy some air after our hot walk. We then went outside and grabbed seats in the shade for the parade. Daisy got handed a flag during the parade, and she has loved waving it around.











After the parade, we met up with some friends and their two girls (same ages as ours) and we went to Rita's. We then sat in the shade at the opening the the Lyric theater. Here's Rose eating some of mommy's peach-flavored italian ice.


Daisy with her ice... she didn't care about flavors...she just wanted the one that was red/pink in color!


While sitting in the opening to the Lyric, we noticed the lights on. We looked on the schedule and saw they were going to soon be showing "Field of Dreams" for free. David and I both love that movie (in fact he was able to visit the actual site in Iowa back in 2004). Both girls needed naps, and David thought we could get them to fall asleep in our laps in the back of the dark theater. It worked! We were able to get both girls asleep, and Daisy slept on Daddy and Rose slept on me and we watched almost the whole movie. Rose woke up with about 2 minutes to go, so I stepped out in the lobby and we waited on Daddy and Daisy. Fortunately, we know how it ends, and David and Daisy left the theater during the last scene of the cars driving up to the field. It was fun to enjoy a movie as a family -- the girls' first together in the theater with us!







At home, we ate some dinner and Daisy played around with all her bags.


We ended the night by walking outside to watch the town fireworks. We are lucky that we can see them from our house. So Daisy slept through them in her bed as we stepped out the front door, baby monitor in hand. Rose also slept through them in my arms. We then watched the White Sox beat Texas on tv and called it a night. A nice day as a family celebrating our independence.

Father's Day, BBQ contest, and a few other pics

I finally remembered to download the father's day pictures off of David's phone. Ever since my iPhone ended up in the washing machine in our "Daisy helps with laundry" fiasco, I've taken a lot of pics with David's phone. The problem with that is that then I don't have them to post... grrrr...

Anyway, my parents came through Blacksburg on the Saturday afternoon before Father's Day and spent the night. They were on their way to Texas and decided to spend a night with us. We got up early Sunday morning and went to Cracker Barrel before they hit the road towards Memphis.

Here are a few pics from Cracker Barrel.

Also, here is one my most favorite recent pics of the girls... I just love the look on Rose's face for some reason in the one where she's reaching for the camera!

This past weekend, David participated in a BBQ contest in Fluvanna county with his brother Mike and one of Mike's friends.

They chose to enter the "backyard" portion of the contest instead of the full pro contest. This meant they only competed in 2 out of the usual 4 events, which were ribs and chicken.

Here are a few pics of the ribs:

Although the narrowly placed second in both categories (by less than a point each time), their combined score far surpassed all of their competition, making them the grand champions!

While David was away on Saturday, the girls and I tried to get out and have some fun around town. Since Daddy had the car, we had to stick close by and could only go where my legs and the stroller would take us. We walked to McDonald's for breakfast Saturday morning, and Daisy loved her hotcakes.

Daisy and Rose both managed to nap at the same time for a few minutes (about 20 overlapping minutes) so mommy could start cleaning the house. Here's Rose asleep on the living room floor:

In the afternoon, Jessamyn came by and helped mommy clean the house. This was a huge help (she did a lot of dished for us!). We then loaded up the stroller and walked with us downtown to Summer Solstice. There, Daisy 'won' a Dora blowup doll thanks to mommy's prowess on the hammer-bell game.

We visited there with Jess & Nathan, Rachel (Jess's sis), Karin, Cory, Terri, Jeanette, and Carl & Betty. That kept us busy until dinnertime, when we finally walked home and did bathtime before Daddy got home.

It was a fun weekend and we're glad Daddy is home, where he is always our grand champion! :)

Rose is walking!

Yup! Rose is walking!!! She's been taking steps on her own for a few weeks, but this week she's finally put it all together and is ready to roll. We knew it would be coming soon, since she's been mobile on her hands/feet for a while, and she's been 'scaling' around rooms holding onto stuff for about 6 weeks. Finally, she's ready to be independent of holding on! 10.5 months and ready to go!

Slide

Wednesday night we took a walk before bathtime and bedtime. Daisy enjoyed a few rides down the slide in a park around the corner from our house. Check out the static electricity from her hair and the slide!

Blueberries!

Our blueberry bushes have started to produce fruit. Here are some pics of Daisy and daddy picking blueberries on Wednesday night:

Fun times on Saturday

Yesterday, I ran my 3rd half-marathon in 90 days! (actually 85) Woo hoo! This was something I put on my 'bucket list' after Rose was born. It's the minimal requirement for a group called "Half Fanatics" and I wanted to give it a shot. I'm happy to say that I succeeded!

My friend Jessamyn and I drove down to Tazewell county to run the Varmint 1/2 marathon and 5k. I race the half, Jesse ran the 5k. We had a blast on our roadtrip and enjoyed the weather and scenary. I definitely passed more cows than people on my run!

David stayed home with both girls and our friend Jessica came over to help out. They enjoyed donuts before heading to the park.

Here's Jess with the girls at Caboose Park.

Once I got back in town, David took Daisy to a co-worker's house for a birthday party for his son, who turned 2. Daisy enjoyed playing in the water and eating some snacks while mommy and Rose napped back home.

It was a great day and a great start to the weekend!

First fall and a day with mommy at work

It took 10 months, but it finally happened. Rose had her first 'major' fall.

It was around 4:20 in the morning, when it happened. One minute I was nursing Rose on my side of the bed. Next thing I know, she crawled/rolled off  of David's side of the bed (which was vacant because David was snuggling Daisy who had woken up crying earlier in the night).

I heard the thump and the crying begin, and I bolted to scoop her up. I checked her out, and she seemed fine. I was able to get her calmed down and such, but I was wide awake. I felt terrible that it had happened. I'm still not sure how it all happened so fast.

Needless to say, even though she was moving around and babbling as normal, I didn't feel comfortable taking her to daycare. I just wanted to keep my own eye on her all day. So she went to work with mommy.

She played around, took a nap, ate some, and had a typical day sitting next to me at work. I was sitting at the receptionist desk in my office helping to cover for our office assistant who was out today. Rose became the life of the office and was making everyone who walked in smile. All in a day's work for a little girl!

She continues to seem like she is fine and showing no ill effects from her tumble from the bed. And let's hope tonight is more restful, as I'll be getting up early to run a half-marathon in the morning.

More tomorrow... sweet dreams!

10 months old... and finally an update!

Yes, it has been 3 months since the last update... not intentionally, but somehow time has gotten away. In part, we kept wanting to update everything that had happened, so it was daunting to think about how much we had to post.

Today, I said enough. Here's a short post with a picture.

Rose turned 10 months old today... and she is moving quite a bit. She hasn't started walking completely, but she has taken a few steps recently. She took one for me today at daycare! She loves to "walk" around scaling items, and she is a climber.

Tonight, she climbed up in the chair in her and Daisy's bedroom. Here is our little 10 month old girl who has gotten so big:

Snowy morning in Mechanicsville

We awoke to snow in Mechanicsville this morning. The girls are staying with my parents there while David and I head to Chevy Chase, MD for the Ecclesia Network of churches national conference. We will be gone about 50 hours total, and while part of it will be nice to have time away, I also know we will miss the girls a ton. We're only 30 min down the road and I miss them already. I know they are in good hands and they'll have a good time.

The snow is falling on I-95 as we drive...


Here are a few pics from this morning.

Daisy getting ready for the snow


Ready to go!


Outside in the snow with Daddy and Grandpa


Mommy kept Rose inside in the warmth



This morning, Jonas and Asher went to school in the snow






I'm sure it will be melted at Grammy's by dinner time. But it was pretty to watch and fun for Daisy!

More from Ecclesia later...