Planting flowers...

Our neighbor across the street, Ms. Sophease, is in her 80's (she's as sharp as a tack, I tell ya!!). She has some flowerbeds in her front yard that were empty and I mentioned to my other neighbor, Gina, that we should fill them for Ms. Sophease. Gina had already been thinking about doing that, so last weekend we bought flowers and planted them for Ms. Sophease. It was so much fun and she was thrilled!!

Mainly for the grandparents...

Here are two videos of Kate. One is of her playing, but of course as soon as I got the camera out, she stopped playing. The second is of her doing raspberries. :-)

More helping Daddy...

Ring Around the Rosie...

Our finished fence...

Brad with The Sonflower Group (704-488-9498) did a FANTASTIC job on our fence! We decided to do a 5 foot, semi-privacy fence. It's called a Shadowbox fence. We LOVE it! Thanks Brad!!

Tummy time...

Yeah for Kate! She rolled over from her back to her tummy yesterday. Of course, I missed it! One minute she's 90% there and the next she's on her tummy. I think I turned to get something for Emma. :-) It didn't scare her, but I think she was trying to figure out how she ended up on her tummy! :-P Once she actually realized she was on her tummy, she immediately wanted to be back on her back. (Mommy obviously hasn't been as diligent about tummy time as she should be!) She didn't do it again today, but we were on the move this morning and she slept all afternoon...maybe tomorrow!

Daddy's helper...

Jonathan was out helping Brad finish up our fence and of course Emma had to be right there with them. She came in the house after about 15 minutes and told me she needed her "purple shovel". :-)

Our fence...

Here are some pictures of our almost finished fence and our backyard...

Sweet Kate...

Here are a few recent pictures of Kate. She truly is the sweetest baby!

She recently had her 4 month check-up where she weighed 11 pounds 10 oz and was 24 inches long. It seems as though we make little girls over here in the Kelly Family. ;-) Emma weighed 11 pounds 7 oz at 4 months, but Kate seems so much bigger than Emma was. I guess it's because Emma was a half inch taller.

Kate is sleeping very well at night! Most mornings I have to go wake her up. This morning I let her sleep and she woke up at 8am. She's getting close to rolling over. I think when she does it will scare her to death! :-P She loves sucking her thumb and eating her hands. She has also started grabbing toys and chewing on them. She LOVES to coo and talk. Again, she's the sweetest little girl!

My sin...

I am reminded today how very short life can be. Last night Steven Curtis Chapman and his wife lost their 5 year old daughter to a tragic accident. Today I've been so frustrated with my life curcumstances and have failed to see the beauty of my children. Thank you Father for the gifts you've given me in these 2 beautiful little girls. Forgive me for the lack of patience I have with them most days. My selfish heart often gets in the way of letting a 2 year old be a little girl. Who cares that she wants to wear two pair of socks during nap time? Does it really matter that she takes her shoes off EVERY time we get in the car? What's the real harm in mixing all the Play Dough colors? Does one little wipe cost so much that she can't have one to "help clean"? Is there really a scientific amount of ranch dressing that is too much? And the list goes on...I have to learn to lighten up and let my children be kids and ENJOY them.

The last 4 weeks...

...gosh, has it really been 4 weeks??? We are still traveling up the roller coaster, but hope to go down and enjoy the ride soon! Things certainly have not progressed as quickly as I had hoped. As I've told some people, my expectations for being unpacked were way up here (imagine me holding my hand over my head) and they should have been way down here (picture me holding my hand close to my feet). Reality then may have been somewhere in the middle. Instead, I'm left with being incredibly disappointed that we have been here in the new house for almost 4 weeks and we aren't even close to being settled. BUT some really great things are happening despite not being unpacked. We have a security system, motion lights out back, the new fence is going up and should be finished by Friday or Saturday, the master closets have GREAT shelving, and the kitchen is completely unpacked and I have an empty cabinet!!!! Oh...and we have cable in one room and internet service!! (Kate just almost rolled over as I'm typing this :-) ) I suppose I shouldn't be so hard on myself...the first weekend we were in the house, Jonathan was gone with his dad to the Wachovia Championship (they do this every year and already had their tickets before we even put the old house up for sale), the next weekend we were in VA for Mother's Day and this past weekend was spent putting in the shelves in the master closets. And Jonathan's nights have been jam packed with work and other obligations. We'll get there...eventually!! :-P

Here are some pictures to help catch you up...

Most of our old house all packed and ready to be moved...

Some things I'll miss about the old house...

Emma and Kate playing together despite all the boxes and chaos.

Emma "helping" water Grammie's flowers...

This is the life...

Grammie reading to Kate...

Family photos on Mother's Day...

The girls with Grandma...

Four generations...

All the women...

The Kelly's 4 with Grandma...

The Kelly's 4...

The women...

Celebrating Grandma's 80th birthday (which isn't until June, but we wanted to celebrate with her while she was in VA)...

Our friends from Lubbcok, Marc and AMy Corbett just moved to Lynchburg to start RUF at Liberty University. We are SO EXCITED that we will be able to see them often!!!!! This is their new daughter, Caroline. I blogged about the Corbett's not too long ago.

The other morning Jonathan asked me if I had put Emma's shoes beside his in his closet. I didn't...Emma did. Cute!!

Hello again...

We're back in the world of internet!! FINALLY!! I still don't have a lot of time to blog...there are boxes all around me filled with things that need new homes in our new house. People keep asking how we're settling in...the simple answer is "slowly". We've had to deal with some minor issues, but I think today is the first day of the rest of our house! ;-) I love our house and I love how we've met so many neighbors. I hate that on the 5th day in our new house, someone tried to break into and/or possibly steal Jonathan's car. Our fence should be going up this week or next, so hopefully this will help the temptation to break into our cars or steal things off our deck. :-)

(why does my internet and cable keep coming and going???)

Anyway, I'll try to post pictures in the next day or two...

A little haitis...

(is that how you spell haitis??) Anyway, tomorrow is moving day and we have frantically been trying to get all the last minute stuff done. Can I just say that moving SUCKS and even so much more when you have children!! BUT it will all be worth it in a few days!! And needless to say, the blog will be slow for a while!! See ya when we see ya!!

Pigtails and blue tongues?

The pictures speak for themselves.

Playdough worth eating...

My friend Joanne sent me this recipe for peanut butter playdough. We had fun making it, playing with it and most of all eating it!

Peanut Butter Playdough:

1 cup peanut butter

1 cup nonfat dry milk

2/3 cup powdered sugar

Mix peanut butter and milk. Add sugar and work in with fingers. If it is too dry add more peanut butter. If it is too sticky add more dry milk. Make fun creatures by adding raisins, chocolate chips, pretzels etc. Eat! Repeat.

(Cell phones are Emma's favorite thing to make with ANY kind of playdough!)

Still no Africa

We've had our map of 'blog hits' active for quite some time now. (Over 1 year at least) Please refer to the map on the right side of our blog. After all this time and after many international hits, we've not had one hit from Africa.

I think that this is a clear sign of the extreme poverty of the continent. We certainly don't have a blog that targets Africa, but to have no hits at all is a bit telling. I've been reading a book about Bono and his efforts to encourage debt forgiveness to African countries.

I can't say that forgiving debt will cause hits on our blog, but perhaps it will begin to encourage economic development.

Here's to Africa!