Birthday Party at the Beach!!

My Nana Ruth is turning 75 soon so we all met in Duck, NC to celebrate! I had such a good time with my grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. It was my first time to meet Aunt Nancy, Uncle Chris (the other one) and Kevin and I LOVED them! See, here we all are!

Here's just all of Grandpa and Nana's family...
And here's just my family!

We all spent a week together in this big house and had such a good time being together and celebrating Nana Ruth (she's where I got my middle name! :)).

Mommy and Daddy took TONS of pictures. I don't want to overwhelm anyone in this post, so I'll just post some of the beach pictures. More will come later. I loved the sand and the waves. Mommy isn't sure how much sand I ate that week, and neither am I, but it was nice and crunchy. I liked to play in it with my hands but then I'd get distressed by how much stuck to my hands. My solution was to lick it off. It didn't work very well though... Here I am exploring the NC coast.

I had to go on my tippy toes when the waves came.
Lana, Nana and I had a good time digging.
Nana Ruth and Papop were very interested in what we were digging.
I even loved the ocean during the storm!
Daddy dug me this big hole!

One day all the adults played beach football (they played wild games like football, kickball, water polo and stuff every day. Lana, Drew and I just watched, but soon we'll be playing too!). I accidentally crawled too close during the football game and got tackled!! I was very surprised at all the sand I got in my mouth, face and eyes. It was sad, but don't worry unnamed uncle from TX... I've completely forgotten about it. ;) Here's pictures of the game before I got tackled.
I loved the beach and all the time I got to spend there with my family!

Crazy Art

Last month we went to the VA Art Museum with the VanStempvoorts. We really love that museum, but this trips highlights were the two special modern art exhibits - both quite crazy but interesting as well. :)
The first is Mocha Dick. The life size felt sperm whale replica. Here are Evie and I with part of the whale just to give you an idea of size.

Quite funny and weird, but kind of cool as well. :)

There was also a special tobacco exhibit going on... check out this giant tiger run, can you tell what it is made out of??

Yep, over half a million cigarettes! Isn't that crazy?? Someone has a lot of patience and $$. :p
Afterwards Sam and Evelyn had a great time playing together. Sam was quite gentle and sweet with her. Thanks for sharing your wagon!

I love fall!

It's still only the beginning of fall here in Virginia, but we've already had a lot of fun enjoying all sorts of fallish activities. A few weeks ago we headed to the pumpkin patch with our friends the Wrights and McHenrys. Evie was SO excited by all the big orange balls!
She had a hard time choosing which of the big ones was her favorite.  
After much looking with the help of Margaret...  

Evelyn found the perfect one just her size.

This was baby Caroline's choice! ;)

Once everyone made their selection we headed back on the ferry. It was such a beautiful afternoon and we had such a great time with friends!

The same weekend we headed out to Charlottesville to pick apples with Aaron and Laura. Carter Mountain is our favorite apple orchard here in VA. It's on the very top of a mountain with beautiful views all around. Both the donuts and apples were delicious!!
Evie loved the apples. :)

Thanks, Trimbles, for inviting us for lunch, showing us your lovely home and going to the orchard with us! We're so glad we live close! :)

Fun with Friends

A few weeks ago Beth, David, Elizabeth, Eileen, Evie and I all went to the Virginia State Fair. It was Evelyn's first fair and my first state fair. The animals were definitely a highlight. Evie and David were quite interested.

This little calf is only 11 hours old! It was too too sweet.
One of the many mommy/baby pig sets. :)
Virginia Tech agriculture students had a stand set up where kids could see and feel different types of seeds and grains and take some home in a jar. Beth and I made David and Evie grain rattles. :) Evie loves her jar full of corn, wheat, barley and cotton. :)
The quilts were probably my favorites. So incredible!!
Thanks for getting us the tickets, Eileen!


Last week Evie and I went on a CW walk/picnic with a lot of our friends. Evelyn loved playing with her friends and tried so hard to keep up with Amy and Kate! Sadly, they were much faster than her (except for this picture, when Kate was trying to pull the wagon with dead-weight Amy hanging on to the back ;)).

Jessie and I tried to get a good picture of Evie and James. This was our best try...
We'd try to set them next to each other and .2 second later they were like this:
Busy babies = busy moms!!

We just love being outside in this beautiful fall weather!!

Daddy's Office

Last week Mommy and I got to visit daddy at work! His office is SO COOL! He even let me sit at his desk and pound on his keyboard and play with his mouse! I had never played with a mouse since we only have a laptop at home. I'm not allowed to play with our laptop's keyboard so banging on daddy's was extra fun!
  
I took all the work I did that afternoon very seriously.


Maybe I'll want to be a lawyer some day...

Walking Baby!

Evelyn took a few steps on her own this week! She also stood up on her own without holding onto anything today. We can't believe how big she is getting! She was really into taking steps (with the incentive of a bite of animal cookie) earlier this week and we were able to get a few videos. :) Don't worry, she didn't get a whole cookie with every attempt, just a pea sized bite. ;) You can tell how pleased she is with herself too. :)

Jammin' Baby

Last week Great Grammy and Great Granddad came to visit. We had a marvelous time with them. Evie *adored* them and didn't stop smiling from the time they arrived until the time they left.

On the night before they left they took us out to eat at Plaza Azteca, our fav Mexican place. It was a beautiful evening so we ate on the patio. Just as we were finishing up the live music started. Everyone except Evie was glad they waited until we were on our way out, but she LOVED them. Here she is dancing. ;)

She was a little confused when the music stopped and everyone started clapping!

Here are a few pictures of our fun as well.

Thanks for coming to visit, Grammy and Granddad!