September wrap-up

Well the month of September was a lot hotter than we were hoping for, but we did have one nice week of weather that wasn't in the high 80's and up. October is looking more promising we hope! Besides Eleanor starting school and soccer and all of our usual fall activities beginning, we celebrated Jane's and Chris' birthdays, and stuck mostly around town. I'm not supposed to travel far these days lest we have babies born and stuck in a hospital far from home, and it's just as well because I am so uncomfortable sitting in the car for long periods of time that I don't really want to anyway!

Our small group/community group kicked off another year together adding a new family to the mix as one family moved away last year.

For your entertainment, Jane attempts to sing the Doxology:

Doxology from Katie Stratton on Vimeo.

We had to do some car repairs that unexpectedly took longer than we thought and we were sharing a car for a couple weeks. Chris took the girls on a daddy date one morning after dropping me off at work at 6:30 before they headed to daycare.

We welcomed the new freshmen to campus at W&M by attending convocation - one of my favorite W&M traditions.

We took our last trip of the summer to Busch Gardens and everyone had a great time because it wasn't super hot! Chris got to ride their new wooden roller coaster the Invadr.

We spent a glorious Labor Day canoeing with our neighbors on the Chickahominy river and then went to a brewery for the evening.

We've spent lots of time outside playing with our neighbors who will sadly be moving soon (in town, but it has been a dream living on the same street these last four years)!

Because of kids getting older, school schedules, and our dear friends moving away this past summer, these girls have not had nearly the amount of friend time that we are used to in the mornings. These sisters have been learning how to play together a lot more recently, and it is certainly helping that Jane is talking now.

One of the girls' favorite things to do right now is to wait at the end of the driveway when Chris is on his way home from work and then as soon as his car comes around the corner, they run down the road and hop in to ride home with him. It's super cute.

Back in the day in this neighborhood (maybe 20 years ago we've been told) there was a club that used to meet during summer evenings open to everyone. Someone would put up a flag on their mailbox and then the kids would find it during the day and then all the kids and adults would come together at that house on each Saturday. The kids would play and the adults would each bring their own drink and chair and sit and chat. Well we restarted this Saturday club with our next door neighbors as a last minute thing and it was a blast. We hope to do this more in the future!

Here's just a picture of Jane being cute.

Aaaand here's a picture of our girls in the bath together because we almost never do baths in our house in lieu of showers.

Some pictures of Eleanor's first weeks at preschool - which she is loving.

And, Eleanor elaborates on her first day of preschool ever:

EleanorPreschool from Katie Stratton on Vimeo.

Grandma and Uncle Eric came down to visit one day and came with us to watch one of Eleanor's soccer games! There was also a lot of lego building, a trip to the park, and we grilled for dinner that night.

Jane and Eleanor have been sharing a room for months, but they've been sleeping in Jane's room (Jane in the crib and Eleanor in our guest bed). We decided to try to move Jane into a big girl bed before the babies come so that her room will be free and so far it has gone extremely well at night and very questionably during nap times. She absolutely loves her crib so we've had to tell her it's just a big girl crib instead of a bed and so far that has worked. It's a work in progress...

Eleanor's school had a Super Hero Picnic one weekend and everyone was supposed to come dressed as their favorite super hero. Well, we asked Eleanor who she wanted to be and she decided she'd rather make up her own super here so she came up with "The Gold." Not to be outdone, Jane decided she also wanted to be her own thing and wanted to be "The Beast" (I think from Beauty and the Beast) though the outfit she picked didn't really fit her theme. They were both pretty happy with their creations though so more power to them. There was a hay ride, tons of games, and a lot of fun.

As we await these babies being born, we are trying to get most of our transitions out of the way so the girls down have to do any transition except getting used to their new siblings. We got their new carseats so they could sit three across the back and turned Jane around to face forward since she is now 2! They are both loving it.

Eleanor's school also had a Wild West Recess that families were invited to to get to know each other and Jane, who I thought would have a lot of fun, was hot and did not enjoy it. It was nice getting to see some of Eleanor's new friends though!

So as you can see, it's been a busy month, lots of fun, lots of heat, and now we are off to October!