Allison and Jenna

The Pepper family is very involved in soccer. Both girls play on select teams for their ages. Allison, Jenna, and Tyler all had tournaments this weekend and they all did very well. Tyler had a min-seeding tournament this weekend. Allison's team came in first place and Jenna's team came in second place. Enjoy the pictures.
Jenna at her tournament in Burlingame with her daddy, cousin Michelle and Andrew.Allison and Jenna with their trophies.

S'mores

We were so excited to have the Hicks Family over for dinner last night. It is always so much fun to spend time with them and even little Lauren gets excited to play with Heidi. I told her that Heidi was coming over and she said, "yes, yes, yes" while nodding her head. Lauren is very relational - she loves to spend time with people and she likes to just hang out. Will was thrilled to play with Jackson and they enjoyed riding bikes and scooters after dinner. For dessert we roasted s'mores and the kids all decided to sit down on the front porch steps.

Jackson, Will, Lauren, and Heidi enjoying their s'mores.

Thanks Dad and Mom

Well, on August 1st my dad officially retired from his job with Northrup-Grumman. On August 6th, they left their home and headed off on a 2 month tour of the United States. Their first official stop was our home (though they did some site-seeing for a couple of days on their way up). They were here for almost a week and it was so wonderful to have their company. Dad brought his tools up and he did a lot of handyman work around our home. He did a variety of things, from hanging drywall to installing quarter round in the basement. Will enjoyed having his own Bob the Builder in the house! It was nice to have Dad finish up the basement for us. We've been remodeling our basement over the past 6 weeks. Joe and I have torn out the carpet (with some help from Nonnie), painted the entire basement, scraped the cement floor until it was smooth (that was a pain), painted the baseboards, and laid a new floor. We've done all of this work while the kids were sleeping or while there were two of us around. It's been difficult and exhausting to remodel the basement, but we just love how it turned out. Joe did a great job on the floor and the quarter round it just beautiful. Thanks guys!Mom and I had some serious work to do this past week. We have a storage room in our basement and to be honest, it's really easy just to throw things into the storage room to get them out of the way. A couple of years ago, mom and I went through the storage room and organized it. Well, this time we didn't just organize it, we purged! Mom and I went through the entire storage room and we took 3 car loads of things to goodwill. I feel great about the work that we did down there. I still have about 6 tubs of baby stuff that I need to go through and sell at Will's school's consignment sale, but that may come at a later date. We've already sold our baby gear to some friends of ours and at Little Lambs Consignment sale. It was nice to get rid of all of those large items. Mom also helped clean out my kitchen and family room. She did some of that deep cleaning stuff that you can only get to twice a year. It was great to have another helper in the house!Dad and Mom left on Wednesday to head out to Colorado to see Paul, Kristy, Bradley, Matthew and Zachary. After spending almost a week there, they're headed out to Nevada, California, and Oregon to visit with family and friends. The kids loved having their grandma and grandpa here for almost a week. Lauren and Will really got used to having them around and they got pretty sad when they left. Lauren even asked for them the next day. Will's been a little grumpy because his grandma and grandpa have left, but they'll be back soon. My parents are coming back through in September and they're bringing my Grandma with them! We're their last stop on their tour and I'm excited because Dad, Mom, and Grandma will all get to see Will play soccer.

18 months

Lauren turned 18 months old today. She is a little girl with boundless energy and a very driven personality. She is very loving and enjoys playing and taking care of her babies. She shares pretty well, though she doesn't like to have her toys taken out of her hands (who does?). She doesn't eat much, but what toddler does? She is an excellent sleeper - she sleeps about 11 hours at night and she takes a 2-3 hour nap every day. She is so easy to put to bed. We take a bath, brush our teeth, get pj's on, read books, talk a little, and I put her in her crib. She never cries, she just lays down and we don't hear from her until the morning.

She still loves to play independently (which is a new concept for us around here - Will still loves to play WITH someone). She's stacking blocks, reading books to herself, feeding babies, riding her ride-on toys, etc. She's talking a lot now - mostly animal sounds and familiar names and objects. My favorite word of hers is: MINE! Boy, did that come a lot earlier the second time around!

Her doctor visit went great, though she does have an ear infection. Here are her stats:

Weight: 19 pounds 8.5 ounces (1%)
Height: 32 3/4 inches (80%)
Head: 47 cm (63%)

Yes, she is very tall and VERY skinny. The doctor was very pleased with her growth and thought that she was a "pretty little girl". We think so, too.

Here are some pictures of Lauren as she's been growing up...


Lauren - 4 days old
Lauren - 3 months old
Lauren - 6 months old
Lauren - 9 months old

Lauren - One YEAR OLD

Lauren - 15 months old

Lauren - 18 months old

As I look at all of the pictures, I can see her happy personality and her spunkiness. She is a very spirited child! She is always so happy and loving and we just love her so much. She is our little sunshine and we're so happy that she's ours! Enjoy your birthday, baby girl.

Soccer!

We signed Will up for a 4 & 5 year old soccer league. He is very excited about playing soccer this year. Joe took him out to Dick's Sporting Goods this morning to buy his soccer gear. They came home with the cutest little shoes and shin guards I've ever seen! Will is actually pretty good at kicking the ball and I think that he's going to have a great time playing soccer. He's on a team with his buddy from pre-school and church (and his buddy's dad is the coach), so we think this will be a fun experience for him. Here's a picture of Will kicking the ball with his daddy.

Raddy Twins

The Rademaker Family came to Lexington to visit with us on Wednesday night. We had a great time seeing Charlie, Anne, Paul, and Lizzie. Lauren really loved having friends over that where there for her - not her brother. She thoroughly enjoyed playing with the twins (they are one month older) and all the kids had a great time together. We eventually made our way outside.... Will saw his buddies outside and he wanted to go ride his bike with Cayden and Rylan. All the younger kids had a great time playing outside together. They took turns riding tricycles and playing with sidewalk chalk. It was a great evening.