September

Is it really October already? Where did last month go?? I guess time flies when you're not sleeping. :)

We started out the month with a visit from nearly everyone in the family for Katie's baby blessing (you may see us spelling her name either Katie or Katy. This is something we have yet to agree on. But don't worry, she's got another 4 or 5 years before she needs to start learning how to spell her name).

Here we are with my dad:

Since we had everyone out, we held Maggie's baptism the same weekend.  I can't believe I have an 8-year-old already!

Look, we can squeeze six people onto a loveseat!

It was a fun weekend.  We went to the beach one day and the kids loved playing with their cousins all weekend.

And here are some more recent pictures of Katie.  She started smiling about a week or two ago.  I tried to get a picture of her smiling, but with her, smiles equal wiggles and I took just one very blurry picture of her smile.  We'll just have settle for pictures of her trying to figure out what Mommy is doing with that big, black camera in front of her face.

More Baby Pictures

Here are some more pictures of baby Katie.  It took some doing to outsmart Blogger and get them to post properly.

Kathryn Violet Harper

We're all happy to welcome Kathryn Violet Harper into our family. She was born Sunday August 23, 2009 at 4:34 p.m. Her weight was 8 lbs. 8 oz. and she was 21 inches long. She is beautiful and already has her daddy wrapped around her little finger.


Bonnie was having a good string of contractions early on Sunday morning, so we went into the hospital. As soon as she laid down in the bed and they started monitoring her, the contractions stopped, so they ended up sending us back home at 8:30 a.m. As soon as we got in the car to come home, the contractions started up again. I made Bonnie a nice breakfast of blueberry muffins and scrambled eggs, and Grandma took the kids off to church. After the kitchen was cleaned up, we started timing contractions again. After about two hours we were pretty sure that this time, it was for real, so we headed back to the hospital again. Everyone was happy to see us again, and we even got the same room back, the big room with the jacuzzi tub. Of course, Bonnie didn't get to use the tub because she got her epidural soon after being admitted. Once the epidural kicked in, it wasn't much longer till the baby was ready to be born. She only took two pushes and little Kathryn was finally with us. It was love at first sight for me.


Grandma brought the rest of the family up later that evening to visit their new little sister. The kids were so excited and all got turns holding the baby. Mommy and baby are doing well, and we hope to have everyone home on Tuesday afternoon.

It's Soccer Season Again

Today was the first day of Soccer season. We have two little soccer players in the family this year. This is Andrew's first year playing and Matthew's third. Andrew was so excited to be playing soccer. He runs around with his tongue sticking out, which has drawn comments from other concerned parents that his tongue will be bitten off as soon as he takes a tumble. In Andrew's group most of the kids are playing for the first time so the focus is on not touching the ball with your hands. Andrew scored two goals in his game today and he was very proud of his accomplishment.


Matthew's game didn't start until 11:15. This time of year in Florida, 11:15 is pretty hot. Matthew had sat in the hot sun cheering on Andrew for an hour before, and hadn't been drinking much water. When his game started, he played very well for about ten minutes and scored a few goals before the dehydration and lack of snacks caught up to him. He said he was feeling sick and sat down in my fold-up chair. A few seconds later he said he felt like he was going to throw up after which he threw up in my chair. We packed him up and went home after that. Matthew got a cool bath and a sippy cup of Gatorade. My chair got a good washing, and soccer season was kicked off with a bang, or--to be more precise--kicked off with a barf.