Mary has a sister and Judah has bettered his chances of marrying a Roper

I'm pleased to announce that Colleenie is a mom again to a sweet little 6 lbs 10 oz girl named Sarah. Colleen went to the hospital around 8:00 last night and by the time the doctor really checked on her she was 8 cm and pushing. So my sweet lady had to go no epidural & endure the ol' natural way. I talked to Colleen this morning around 7 and she sounded calm, rested, and excited for Mary to see her new sister. Now let's all admit what we are thinking....we are all a little pissed that Colleen is again reproducing & dreading seeing Sarah's picture. Because seriously, Hart & Colleen are very good looking and they produced such a precious Mary the first time that although our kids are "cute" hers will always be BEAUTIFUL!!! I'll make sure she posts some pics after she gets home & settled from the hospital.

Crusin'

Andrew and I are taking a Royal Caribbean cruise for spring break out of Fort Lauderdale, to Cozumel, Belize City and Key West. Has anyone been on a cruise/to any of those places that might have suggestion on things to bring or do or any other words of wisdom? I want to make the most of our last big hurrah!

Any word from Martha?

Went to a baby shower today which prompted me to pray through the list of my friends who are preggers... which is in fact longer than I realized... and I get to 360 ladies who are preggers and I wonder... Is Martha preggers or has little Cullaty arrived? Regardless, praying for y'all!

Mother & Father's Day pictures

If you or someone you may know is looking to take family photos this spring I'm putting in a plug. My sister is doing a special for family/kids photos for Mother & Father's Day. She's booking sessions in the Raleigh/ Durham area & in Charlottesville. The special includes a regular portrait session at the location of your choice, a set of 4x6 prints, an 8x10 of one image from the session, an online gallery, AND a 20 page, 8.5x11, leather bound, custom designed, coffee-table book of the session all for $150! Gift certificates are available upon request.

Her website is chappellphoto.com which shows her previous work and her blog is lashellechappellphotography.blogspot.com if you want to see an example of the photobook and read more about the special.

Can I get a LITTLE credit?!

Okay, so the only thing going on around here is a lot of doting on this sweet face, (sorry the pics are turned the wrong way-can't fix it!) and not just by me, but by the big sisters and Daddy as well. She looks exactly like the other two, just like Dad, except that she has dark hair, and tons of it. I am doing all the work on these kids and you would never know they are mine! She is the sweetest thing, seeming to understand completely that she is the third and has to take what she can get;) I never did get around to posting when Ryah Layne (first name means rejoice in Indonesian, second name family, same pattern as the first two girls) was born, but I had her totally out within 2 and a half hours of my first contraction. "Precipitous labor" I believe they call it. This is, mind you, after my first two labors were almost 20 hours long! So I think I can be forgiven for thinking, when I was in the car and I felt like I had to push, that I probably just needed to go to the bathroom. (Um, yeah, you moron, that is what it feels like!) We are lucky we didn't putz around anymore than we did before going to the hospital or we would have been selling the Honda Pilot for parts (for those of you who have had a baby you know it would have been ruined. Permanently.) I was screaming like a banshee, swinging (literally) at anyone who came near me with equipment-the few seconds that I could get a breath in teh hospital I was apologizing to everyone that I was "that girl". I was not at all like that with my first two, but then, I had drugs with them. It is really kind of funny because I never even got my clothes off; in all the pictures afterwards, I am still wearing my coat and stuff. Love to all!

PLEASE COME OUT SOON.

Just about 4 weeks to go. I am assuming this is a normal emotion to have.

Someone's done a lot of growing in 2 1/2 months

So I know I risk overwhelming the blog with baby stuff I had to share! After much debating we decided not to find out the sex but let me tell you sitting in the ultrasound, watching him/her wiggle around on the screen and look like a real (very tiny) person, I nearly caved. And I was the one who convinced Andrew we didn't want to know!

Vern's #3

Hey y'all! I've been watching JD's website... looks like Veronica had little Greear gal #3 on Sunday!

Check it out:
http://www.jdgreear.com/

I'm moving this comment up from below so that all of you can email Julia and see her while she is here.

Hi guys!!! So I'm a little slow and can't figure out how to post... Sadly blogspot is not too available in China. I can randomly get on every once in a while, but most of the time can't. But, I am now back in the States for the next 4 weeks! I'd love to see you guys!!!! Man, I have so many new babies to meet (and preggie tummies :) )!!!! So exciting! Please email me if you have time to catch up! Julia

More Babies

While we're posting about babies to come, I would like to give an update on us. I am 22 weeks pregnant and am expecting a little baby boy around the 20th of March. Brian will hopefully have defended his proposal for his dissertation by that point and be able to find a job using his soon to be had PhD. We are so excited to meet our little one!

This is going to get weird...

So I know it doesn't look like much but I'm told by medical professionals that this is in fact my child with an ETA of June 25th, 2008.

...I'm going to be a mama, what the heck!

Reunion??

What's the plan for the weekend ladies? Right now I'm so all about it, but who knows what my clients will want to do by weeks end!!

Sitemeter Stats

When Megan added me on as an administrator of this blog a few months back, one of the things that I did was add a sitemeter (scroll down to the bottom of the page and you can see the counter there) to our humble little blog. Now, I am not terribly internet-wise, but for those of you who are less blog-savvy than I, a sitemeter counts the people who visit a page and keeps track of stats on visitors. It can even tell a few things about the people that visit.

For example, since I added the meter to our blog, we have had a total of 1500 visits. (It counts each time you open your browser and click over to the blog as a new visitor.) We average about 15-20 visitors per day and they spend an average of 2 minutes on the site each. Most of our visitors are from VA, but we also frequently have visitors from NC, CA, and Kalispell, Montana (Liz or Megan that must be you!), as well as occasional visitors from NJ, FL, and OR. We've had one visitor from Peking, China too.

Besides seeing where most of our visitors are located, I also can see how people find our site. Let's hope that a lot of us are "googling" ourselves because the most common way that people find our blog is by googling for "Shelly Reese," "Julia Leibson" or "Veronica McPeters Greear." In fact, someone found the site by searching for "Leah Snyder starbucks".....um, odd.

The best search terms that brought someone here was by far the person who searched for "where will I meet my man in the next 2 days?" Hmm, I don't know where you will meet your man, but I'm guessing that it won't be at the 360 blog!

Matt Oblas is going to be a dad!!!!

Had lunch with Matt today...told me the good news. What a blessing!!!!

A Little Plug for My Sister

My sister Lashelle has a new website for her photography business. She has been photographing weddings and families for the last few years. Shell & John were supposed to move to Germany but funding feel through so instead he is doing his post doctorate work at UNC and they are living in Durham. Since she isn't in Charlottesville anymore she is trying to build up some new client connections. If you know of anyone intersted in this kind of photography could you please send the website on? She is willing to come to VA to do events since it is an excuse to visit friends/ family but is also trying to get to know people in NC. I am very very proud of her work. There are even some pics of Judah & me on the site! :) And for all of you who knew my niece Hailey or nephew Jacob they are in some shots as well. Hailey is now 11! Remember when she came & spent the night at 360 & Brennan Breed stole her juice cup & made her cry. Boy the years have gone by.

Here's the site: http://www.chappellphoto.com/

Thanks for letting me brag on my sister a bit!
Love,
Leah

a 360ish weekend

So last weekend I drove down to Raleigh to play with my good friend Chelse. The weekend had a bit of a rocky start which included two stretches of the drive where I moved less than 4 and less than 1 mile in an hour respectively creating a total travel time of SEVEN hours door to door - particularly awesome for the girl who 1) hates driving 2) hates driving long distances 3) hates driving alone...I was pretty proud of myself though, I only cried once! :) Besides it was a chance to see Chelse my love and she knows my detest of driving and I knew she would appreciate the sacrifice. Of course sweet Chelse read my mind and had multiple glasses wine and chips and cheese dip ready for me upon my arrival. We got up the next day and promptly realizing I had forgotten to bring underwear, headed out to the mall where Chelse manipulated me into buying a VERY cute pair of corduroy pants (which I love). We filled out our day with four zillion hours of really terrible movies on TNT and Discovery Health shows about multiple births (I can't even begin to describe how disgusting the belly of a lady have six babies is, I nearly gagged!), shows that we found so intriguing we couldn't tear ourselves away to get dinner - Papa John's delivery it was! The 360-ish part of the weekend comes the next day when we met up with Andrea at the Summit the next day and we're sitting there right before the sermon and this girl gets up to start reading the passage around which the sermon was based and after probably 30 seconds Chelse leans over to me and says, "Isn't that Veronica?" and while I hadn't recognized her in the slightest before she said anything, at that moment a flood of 360 2 central pictures came back to me (I don't think I've ever actually met Veronica so I thought it was pretty good that I could recognize her from 10 year old pictures!). As if that weren't enough 360 goodness for one day, Chelse, Andrea and I went to Chili's for lunch and right in the middle of our chips, salsa and sweet tea (how I love the south and their sweet tea!) down plops Veronica, JD and company in the booth behind us! Seeing Veronica again was sort of like seeing a celebrity, I knew she totally would have no reason to recognize me but as she exists in the annal of 360 history and lore for me it was like, "Oh there she is again! I've never met her and now I see her twice in one day!". Silly but true. We left Andrea after lunch and wrapped up our weekend with more multiple birth shows (There are so many shows about them that I'm not sure I believe these multiple births are as rare as we are told, I'm pretty sure Discovery Health just makes it up so you are more inclined to watch) and dinner with some boys who love Chelse. I came home on Monday, barely tapped my breaks and was home inside 4 1/2 hours which was great but just made the drive on Friday burn that much more!

My rough rough life....

This is what I've been up to while "suffering" away on my company's top producer retreat in Maui. It's been a strenuous week of meetings....oh wait, there's just the one that makes it tax deductible. Please note the enormous size of the waves i'm riding. Hopefully tomorrow there will be more!!!

Annual Roper Update

It's actually been longer than a year since my last post. We are now living in NYC. Hart began a masters program at Columbia this fall. We'll be here until May and then back to DC. Our time here is short so we are trying to live it up while we can, i.e. before the winter and before baby #2. (I'm due March 5.)
I've been meaning to post for awhile. I thought I had a lot to stay but I guess not. Come on up for a visit. You can stay on our blowup mattress in our 400 sq foot apartment.

Blessed. Again.

Hey girlies... thought I'd share a pic or two from my recent visit out to Missouri to see Mark... one of us at the Air Force Ball (he's in the Air Force) and one from the backyard at a BBQ we threw for his neighbors/colleagues on the base. Note, the cat is a stray cat who has now adopted Mark... we call him Morris. We'll see how long he sticks around. This relationship has definitely been an incredible blessing... who'd have thought that having your mom's best friend play matchmaker could have so much potential? I am constantly amazed that the Lord loves me so much to have blessed me so much again!

NoVa or Cville?

So, I want to buy plane tickets, but need to know where to fly....No one seems to have a big preference. Is Cville okay with everyone? Will you NoVa people come down for the weekend?