In the Pink

What pretty little gals!
I am headed to Raleigh tomorrow to take some young ringers to a handbell festival, so I dug this shot up to reminisce about our trip last year to a festival in Charlotte, NC.
Have a great weekend, everyone!

Mighty Young Men

My brave knights, making the world a safer place.

Hands On

Coffee Time

Tea Time

Agape and the Amazon

Yes, Sir! That's My Baby!

Oh, yes, she is!!!!

One of the things we both like to see:

The Best Thing in Her Whole Life!

This huge event was sort of passed by in the blogosphere, but without a doubt, bringing baby "Taylor" home from school is the highlight of Agape's whole year!

We Love You, Hokie Bird!

Tenacity

Some inspiration from this weekend's Special Olympics basketball tournament:
That determined little pansy is growing in the sidewalk along a wall surrounding the Va Tech memorial to the April '07 massacre victims. Poignant.

After 4 years of participating in the basketball tournament at Va Tech, and practicing every Sunday since last August, our team, the Carroll County All Stars finally won a tournament game!!! They were already winners from the first year, but it sure was thrilling for them to finally have the score to prove it!

Meet some winners:
One of them is facing brain surgery in the near future.
One them's mother is in the fourth round of her battle with cancer.
One of them is the smallest player on the team.
One of them, just this week, passed the math SOL test after many attempts.
All of them are incredibly inspiring individuals.

Orchids, Again!

Hrumph!
Here is a post I just found that I drafted and never published. Whatever!

Well, they ARE pretty!

Charlotte!

It's not who you think, but I am crazy about my spunky little namesake!

4:00pm to 9:00pm

Here is part 2 of the long labor day.

I always like to document the passing of time during labor.
It was so much more fun than usual because Starla has clocks all over her house.

Do we look like we are all excited that the baby is coming?!?!
Ha!
The only thing truly extraordinary in this scene is that it is a Thursday afternoon and Papa is home, instead of at the hospital.

Agape STILL doing what she does best!
Can we say P-e-r-s-e-v-e-r-a-t-e???

How sweet it is when brothers and sisters get along.

Well, it was sweet while it lasted!
Steven is a fantastic labor coach.
Good thing he had established those skills before he went to medical school!

Deena, the midwife apprentice, doing one of the hourly fetal heart tone checks.

We only took time to make sandwiches for dinner, but Paul and Nathanael don't seem to care that the offerings on the table are not up to gourmet standards.
(We made up for that on Saturday with the famous Curry Feast!)

While Mama works, everyone else plays . . .

Steven administers some loving comfort for the back labor.

The little birdy says it's time for bed, Charlotte!

Nighty-Night!

You won't believe what we did next. Even the midwives said they had never done THAT before on a birthing! Stay tuned. More on Sunday.