wedding reception pics

my sister got married back in Sept. but waited until Nov. to have her local reception... a few pics for her! the cute couple! Heather and Fredy

peggy rogers, my papa, my dad, and my papas "lady friend"

holly, CL, susan

ew. gross... they're kissing

all of the originals: heather, amy, nate, kelly, holly, lyndsay and the rents: Bob and Sandy.. together for the first time in 2 months.... (that is totally a record, btw...)

the siblings

holly, t, cl, nate, and nates gf tara

a blast from the past.. my bff from elem. school! erica and amy

my super cute grandma...

please excuse the 1 handed typing. welcome to the family fredy!

I have a confession

While we were driving to the beach, we passed this diner..... I guess it's like a landmark... If you've passed diggers diner, you're almost there! We look for it every year... This year, I thought it would be a good idea to stop there for breakfast on the way home. Diggers Diner celebrates all things grave digger. Grave Digger is a monster truck. Having grown up in VA all my life, and now living in an area where there are race tracks, monster truck shows, and rodeos, I have tried to shy away from them at every possibility. The thought of watching cars race around a track bores me to sleep. The thought of the smells of watching a rodeo makes me gag. the thought of the sound of a monster truck show has me running for ear plugs. But yes. It looks like I will now be taking the kids to such an event. The diner is located on the drivers property. It has a ramp to jump a school bus, all the trucks from the team, a workshop, tons of trucks... van is now obsessed with all things grave digger. Yesterday we were shopping at my fav. store (target) and I was a few end caps ahead of him. Over all of the crazy holiday bargain shoppers, I heard his sweet voice swell above the crowds: "Look mom, gravedigger!!" as he jumped for joy. Yes, grave digger. On the front of a greeting card. If I ever get a grave digger greeting card from somebody, I would cry. It does not seem like the kind of thing I would enjoy getting a birthday sentiment on. The grave digger wishes you a happy birthday??? Not for me.

on the plus side, in NC they are required to post sanitation scores in each public place serving food. the diner had a 99.9 score... and the food was really good...

tough guy poses

a fanta monster truck? that is practically heaven on earth for these addicts

vacation: how do i love thee? let me count the ways

I've been meaning to post about thanksgiving ever since we got back from the beach and between work and kids, just haven't found the time to sit and upload photos, but now that the kids are out of school, time is all we have... We all enjoyed our second thanksgiving at the outer banks this year... here are a few of the things i love about this vacation...

time to be together as a family. uninterrupted, and on our own schedule and time... it is so peaceful.

time to sleep (and catch up on sleep)

friends we don't see as often as we wished

many kids for the boys to play with... (this year there were 18 adults and 27 kids in the house...)

a place for the adults to relax and veg out

water. lots and lots of (cold) water to enjoy

Thanksgiving football game on the beach

lots of sand to play in

the joy of being in nature, surrounded by what I feel are some of the most beautiful creations we have been blessed to experience

Good friends, who share wonderful experiences with us and our kids

We are so grateful to be blessed with such a wonderful group of friends. Thanksgiving is such a wonderful time of year, and i really enjoyed the chance to reflect on all the things in my life I have been blessed with.

a few random pics from before thanksgiving: CL got sick (again)a week before we needed to leave with an eye infection and horrible cold. She was sooo pitiful. Luckily the ocean air was exactly what she needed and seemed to feel better once we got there.

painting babies toes are harder then I expected...

great smiles!

Every childs dream

M had a field trip yesterday to meet "community helpers" to go along with their communities unit they have been working on. In your town, community helpers are probably police officers, firemen, crossing guards... I can think of a ton of professions that could be labeled community helpers, and for them I am grateful. Imagine my surprise when upon reading the permission form, the community helpers they were to go meet were the trainers that work with the Virginia tech football team... don't get me wrong, i love football. In fact when John and I got married he didn't watch football at all, i am guilty for beginning that OBSESSION, but I still don't quite see how the trainers of those fine, well behaved grown men qualify as community helpers, but i digress.... So yesterday was the field trip. Our school usually has a hard time finding enough chaperone's and since it was my day off, I volunteered to go tour the football field, the tunnel, practice fields, etc. Upon arriving at the Merryman Center (home of trophies and hokie birds) and seeing the buses pull up, I realized I didn't need to worry abt. lack of volunteers. Every child but 2-4 depending on class, had a parent with them. 90% of the parents were dads. Ms eyes were wide the entire morning. I wish I had brought my camera... His cousins dads cousins (got that??) plays for the hokies and M was so excited to see marshman written everywhere.

They got to go through the tunnel and stand on the field and look all around at the 66,000 seats that are usually full and loud. They got to see trophies, the weight room where the players work out, practice squats. They were all excited the whole trip, and had a great time seeing all the things the football players get to do, but NOTHING brought excitement like when they got to walk through the players lounge. The lounge is not usually part of the tour, but one of the kids in ms class has a dad that works with the team so we got to see it. When the kids walked into the lounge, almost immediately they all started screaming that they were going to grow up and play football. Even the girls. The reason? the lounge had a big screen tv, a pool table, and abt 20 video game machines. (and Evans, asleep on the couch...) So thank you, K teachers, thank you for teaching my kids all abt community helpers. It was indeed a very productive field trip.

pictures

it is so hard to believe CL is already 3 weeks old... the time has flown. Life with 5 has been crazy. (why did nobody ever warn me???) We have been blessed with an amazing baby. She almost never cries, and is so patient with the schedule we keep. I wanted to post some pics of the growth we have seen in her the past 3 weeks, and I will post Halloween later (we had an interesting evening...) So I'll start with the most recent (since blogger has reversed the order of my photos.... whats up with that?) CL was a butterfly for Halloween. her costume was extremely ridiculous, but i thoroughly enjoyed dressing her up with tights and wings... i have been waiting a LONG time for that! (and yes, that is a pink stroller she is sitting in, just couldn't re use the blue stroller!)

I love bows! I love her hair! 1 week old

we enjoyed a visit from Stephanie and her adorable boys when she was 6 days old. her boys were slightly interested, its so hard to believe they were that size just over a year ago, they grow so fast!

3 weeks old

my mom came and visited for a few days while john had finals. she stayed with some family in Christiansburg but came over in the mornings to take the kids to school for me (we commute our kids to a school across town due to great teachers) and it was so nice having her here to visit. we went shopping, i took naps, she took van out on a date, it was great. I think she enjoyed her visit, and i def. missed her when she left.

3 days old... look at the difference already!

we have been battling all sorts of funk in this house. since having her, van has had 2 rounds of stomach flu. He is currently in what i hope is the end of this round. Hes been sick since Thurs. night and is still throwing up... John is finally kicking a horrible cold/cough that he picked up during finals (which he did AMAZINGLY well on! i had to take CL in to the doc. on Mon. due to a horrible cold and pink eye. she was so pitiful, i hate it when they get sick so young. my pediatrician helped me feel better though, he reminded me this was probably inevitable (the ped. at the hospital at discharge told me to be careful where i took her my first 2 months.... how in the world is that even possible????) she was already up to 7 pounds 10 ounces, so she is growing well! the boys love her and she even is sleeping pretty well. overall, we are very much enjoying the blessing of a new baby!

She's here!

CL was born Friday, Oct. 17! She is the sweetest girl on earth, and I have gotten NOTHING done since she's been born b/c I have to hold her and look at her all day. Its a tough job;-) We went in at 6 am for a scheduled inducement, and she was born at 9:01. John got to deliver her since he is in med school (the first thing he said was its still a girl!)! She was 7 pounds, 1 ounce and was 20 3/4 long. She was our biggest baby, and was born with dimples on both cheeks and the greatest head of hair. In the sunlight it looks like shes already gotten highlights! We think she looks the most like M (see above) but has less defined eyebrows (thank goodness) and shorter eyelashes. Overall she is sleeping really well, (up to 4 hours at a time at night!) smiles a lot (i know its not on purpose, but still adorable!) and is so sweet! it has been so much fun to put so much pink on her!
Van wasn't phased at all at her unhappiness, and has done really well with his adjustment as big brother.
T and Jo with her
look at her hair! poor girl already has a mullet!
John is absolutely in love with her already! I guess the saying daddy's girl is true. John made the comment when she was just a few hours old that the most un-datable girl ever has just been born...

She already has enough hair for clips!!! too much fun! (1 day old, showing the rare eyes)
the nurses felt she needed a special hat to remind us she was a girl. They took 2 hospital hats and fashioned a lovely bow for her! I kept calling her him until we got her dressed in real clothes to take her home!
she has fat cheeks and fat thighs... poor girl!
She didn't really wake up and respond to much her first few hours. John went to go get the kids from school around 1 pm so they could come meet her. When the boys walked in the room, she opened her eyes and looked for them. it was so neat to see her recognize them, and the boys thought that was really cool that she watched them.

Big smiles when we left the hospital... look at her great dimples!

in other news: after 3 weeks without a washer (and doing 20 loads a week at the Laundromat) John and I went Mon and got a washer! it gets delivered sat. so CL and I went and did 10 loads yesterday to get us through til the new one comes (a Maytag!!! Merry Christmas to us!) promptly upon returning home with everything in the entire house clean, she proceeded to blow out on her very cute jeans and girly onesie...

Jo had a field trip to the pumpkin patch this morning. It was so beautiful in the valley. I went 2 weeks ago with vans class and the trees on all sides were still mostly green with a few reds peeking through. today there were more oranges and reds then greens. I sure will miss this place when we have to leave. It was beautiful. Ill post the pics later.

John starts finals next mon. he has 6 finals next week, then 3 more the following week.... Good luck John!!!