Summertime fun

Embree Claire is just one happy baby these days. It is so good to see all those smiles and hear all those giggles!

Sweet face!

Embree Claire rocking the 2 piece that Aunt Linda bought for Sidney Kate. We decided to head up to Edwin's late in the summer for a dip.

Sidney Kate is getting soooo big!

Daddy's girls!

Church Picnic and Baptism

Our church had a picnic at Fisher River Park this summer. Since we don't have a church building right now we do our baptisms there. Mommy got baptised with 7 others!
Here is Mama V and Embree Claire chatting it up.

These girls have a lot to talk about!

Pastor David and the 8 to be baptised.

Sweet Jared getting baptised. He was the first of the 8 to express interest-after that the flood waters opened.

Mommy getting baptised. I think Sidney Kate told Papa that Mommy did good. One day she'll be in that river...or in a church somewhere...we can all pray for that. :)

Summer Olympics-July 23rd

So the Summer Olympics that our neighborhood friends came up with was...AWESOME! The event organizers were all over it! As a family we filled out the events we wanted to attend and everything-we even filled out a survey after it was all over with.
Here is our Team Venable picture....

Muscles and all!

There were lots of fun kids to play with-Sidney Kate enjoyed them all!

Embree Claire even made it out for the Lawn Mower races. It was a super hot day, but everyone managed to participate in the events and have a good time! **Thanks to Grandma for hanging with ECV while we showed our stuff in the games. :)

And they're off! Seriously this event was so much fun! It was the kick-off event. After the Opening Ceremonies, speeches and National Anthem!

The toddlers hanging getting cool while the rest of the crazy folks did a 1.5 mile run. This was at the beginning of my Couch to 5K...don't know what I was thinking! Eliminator hill almost didn't get to see me...

What you can't see is the look of fright on her face...she was horrified for some reason-but she finished! And the organizers even had buckets and goodies for the toddlers!

Sweetest thing ever-ECV came out in the evening to hang with us. Can't wait till next year! I know the kids are already planning it!

1st Project

Sidney Kate had her first project assigned and the topic was family. We waited until the night before, not a good sign of things to come, but finished it in no time. Thankfully I had scrapbooking supplies tucked away in Embree Claire's room. Sidney Kate wanted her name next to the puppies...I guess she likes them pretty good...considering she thought they needed to go to jail a few weeks ago.

Sitting with Papa

Perfect movie seat

Movie night!

Girl movie night includes; pjs, Grandma, Papa and Ariel! Oh yes...and beanbags. NC State beanbags. :)

Thursday's GG Day

Every Thursday GG comes to visit the girls. Slowly but surely Embree Claire is getting more in on the action. Sidney Kate is doing pretty good sharing her grandparents.

Hanging At Home

Testing out the Peanut Shell for State games. Since Little Miss had decided she's not terribly fond of my new carrier; she wants to see the people-not me! :)

I just wanted to compare these darlings...
Embree Claire hanging out on Mommy and Daddy's bed 2011

Sidney Kate hanging out on Mommy and Daddy's bed 2008

3rd Month Bear Rug

3 Months Old...say it ain't so!

Sweet little face

Pretty sure she won't know personal space ever...I stay all in her face kissing her and such...she's so adorable!

Some vaca fun

Clearly I didn't take a lot of pictures...good thing too because I'm way slow on doing anything with them. We went shopping at the outlets one night...walked around thinking "Man we got good parking spots...no one is here..." And then we see that we arrived at the same time everything closed. hahaha...so we played instead

Not so sure she cared about tickets or trading them in, but we attempted to show her. She did enjoy the games though.

Vacation is tough on a little one but she did just fine.

Cabin and Cade's Cove

We had "much" fun (as SKV says) in our cabin and at Cade's Cove. Here we are calling for Rapunzel to let down her hair.

Getting ready for bed...however someone did NOT want to sleep with Grandma and Papa...she had to sleep with us every night. Except that one wonderful night she slept on the pullout couch with Grandma...who, by the way, wouldn't say it was wondering. :)

hahaha.

Free at last, free at last!

Even if we had walkie-talkies, she found it to be much more fun hollering out the window to me.

and out...

Pigeon Forge Trip

...and over a month later :)
This picture was taken for one reason...look closely. If you see that it looks like Mommy has chest hair you are right-hahaha.

This was taken seconds before she fell down...

Walking through mega hot-overrated Gatlinburg. I've been there-done that enough recently. No need to ever go back. Gatlinburg is like a Myrtle Beach in the mountains-full of junk. I was super bummed about it. The extreme heat didn't help my attitude...

Cheese it up!

So hot she had no other choice that to pass out...