Easter Egg Party and Hunt #2

Our friends JulieAnn, Rett, and Ellie hosted an Easter party for a small group of friends. It was such a nice day and so much fun to relax with friends and watch the kids play. It seems like it has been forever that we've all been together - lots of new babies and adjusting to new schedules, etc. The kids hunted Easter eggs in the backyard, colored Easter eggs, and played. The babies hung out on a quilt in the sun and us moms sat around and just enjoyed hanging out. We are so lucky to have such great friends and it is fun that our kids are all around the same age.

On the Hunt!

Rett's tractor was a hit. Rett drove like a race car driver and Hudson ran behind.

Will driving the tractor

Big sister Claire with her little brother, Cullen.

Collin eating a candy bracelet.

Easter Egg Hunt #1

Our neighborhood preschool PTA has an annual Easter egg hunt. It was a very windy day, but still great to be out with the kids at the park. We had many friends there and it was so much fun to be celebrating Easter and Spring. Will doesn't really get the concept of hunting eggs. He wants to open each egg and consume what is in it before moving onto another egg. That means we end up with just a few eggs. He's happy, though, and that is all that matters. I do still tell him it is all about quantity when hunting eggs. :) After the "hunt" we went to Chick Fil A for lunch and had a great time at the playground there, too. Here are a few pictures from the day.

I love this picture and how Kate is looking at Will. Truth be told, he's usually harassing her and she is running away.

Yes, his basket is as big as he is!

Patiently waiting to hunt eggs

Maddie bundled up for the windy day

The fam

Kelli & Preston

Birthdays + Weddings + Time with Friends & Family = FUN!

We had a busy weekend! It was a lot of fun. Friday Chris took off work and we hung out with the kids, did the Bunny pictures, and tried to relax some. We went out to dinner on Friday night for Chris's Birthday. We ate at York Street. It was really great. We then met Heather at Capitol Pub for some drinks. It was a nice, relaxing night among adults! On Saturday, my friend Heather Ogier Bradshaw had a wedding reception. They were married on Feb 27th in Jamaica, but had a local reception to celebrate in Trophy Club. We went to the reception and had a great time. We were able to hang out with Em and Rob, which was great! Congrats again, Heather and Tony! On Sunday, we celebrated Chris's birthday (AGAIN! - boy has had a lot of celebrations this year) with his family. We just had BBQ at our house and cake, of course! The kids had fun playing and we just hung out and watched Aggie Basketball. It was definitely a fun weekend and one that

Pictures from the photo booth at the reception. They took one copy of this and made a scrapbook for Heather and Tony to keep. Cute idea!

One more Birthday Cake for Chris! This one is homemade chocolate fudge cake with cream cheese frosting and chocolate curls.

About to blow out the candles. He is laughing because Will already blew out a couple. Early again...

Snow in March!

What a winter we've had! We've definitely set a record for the amount of snow in Dallas. And of course, with snow comes playing in the snow. I think Will has become accustom to seeing it. If we have a "normal Texas winter" next year he may be a bit disappointed. It is so pretty to see everything white, but I am ready for some warmer temps! Here are a few pics from this snowfall. This is Will's first snowman. He's been sick so much this winter he hasn't really had a lot of good playtime in the snow. He of course still has a runny nose, but we decided to let him have some quick playtime since this is probably (hopefully) the last snow of the season.

Daddy, Will, and Mr Snowman

Will was very confused with Daddy and what he was doing...

Will & Mr Snowman

Y'all stay warm!!!

Bunnies!

Happy Easter...a little early! We visited the Northpark Mall bunnies for our annual Easter photo! This is Will's 3rd picture with the bunnies and Maddie's first! They were both in good spirits and Will loved petting the bunnies. He was scared of them last year, so it was a nice change. I couldn't decide on one, so we ended up with two different shots.

Standing Toddler Playgroup

Several of our neighborhood friends have decided to get together and have a standing playgroup each Thursday. One mom hosts all the kids from 9:30 to 11:30 and gives the other moms a couple hours of "toddler free" time. Then at 11:30 we all meet up at the hosts house for lunch. Today was our first one at our friends Melissa, Joe, Kate, and Elia's house. Will had such a great time and has been talking about playing at Kate's all day. He didn't want to leave when it was time to go. It is great to have such wonderful friends and for Will to have such sweet kids to play with!

Here are a couple pictures from the first one!

Kate hustling for the ball!

Will giving Elia some love! He loves her.

There were lots of pictures with his juice cup. Evidently that was some GOOD juice.

I see a future goalie already! Rett is a little athlete!

Kids playing in the playroom

Happy Birthday Daddy & Abby!

Chris shares his birthday with our sweet little pup, Abby. They have the BEST birthday ever - ST. PATTY'S DAY! Seriously - it is always a party and everyone celebrates. For me, it really is the best because of the cupcake options with an "Irish flare". Well...and of course because the love of my life and my first 'little girl' were born on the day.

We had a really great evening. Chris came home from work early. We went to an early dinner at one of our favorite seafood places to load up on fried seafood. We then came home for presents and cake, played some, and Chris and Will did a little bit of gardening as the sun went down. It was a great day and I think we all had fun!

Happy 34th Birthday Chris and Happy 10th birthday Abby! We all love you both so much!

Yum! Green Velvet and Irish Chocolate (chocolate cake with Bailey's Cream Cheese Frosting)

Sweet little girl after dinner

The boys

Daddy and munchkins

Singing and blowing out candles. Will wanted candles, too. Of course he blew his out before we finished singing.

Loving the GREEN velvet cake!

Our Birthday pup, Abby. I can't believe she is 10!

Will and Daddy doing a little gardening before bed. Will really likes the rake!

Another picture of the Birthday girl! We love you Abby! (She is a furry mess right now. She is getting her birthday haircut a little late - on Saturday. She had surgery earlier this month and we've been waiting for her to feel better)

My Little Leprechauns

Thanks to Kelli, Jimbo and Preston for the cute pjs! We love them and we woke up with our green on to start St. Patty's day off right!

Maddie is 5 Months Old

These month milestones just keep on coming! Maddie is a little angel. I know we are biased, but she really is! She is doing so great and we just love her so much. Maddie is doing a lot of the typical 5 month old things and is such a good baby:

• chewing on her hands constantly
• grabbing at her feet, at toys, at Will, at anything she can!
• giggling when she is amused, entertained or deliriously tired
• loving her bath time
• loving watching her brother run around and play with her - she already looks up to him.
• trying to sit up - she isn't there yet but she is getting closer. She has really strong tummy muscles and will pull herself up into the sitting position when she is laying in her bouncy chair or her car seat
• taking 32 ounces of her Alimentum formula
• rolling around - she can roll from tummy to back and back to tummy. she still gets "hung up" and those arms get in the way a lot.
• sleeping thru the night!!! She normally sleeps from around 8pm to 7am. We've had some earlier mornings and later nights, but all in all she is fairly consistent.
• getting on a better nap schedule. if we are home all day she will nap in her crib for about 2 hrs in the morning and 2 hours in the afternoon. If we are out and about she'll nap some in her car seat (but it seems to be less and less) and will take a longer afternoon nap when we are home.
• playing in her excersaucer and her jumper a little - she is still getting used to these but is entertained for a little bit in them.

We haven't started feeding Maddie any sort of solids yet. We were given the go ahead to try between 4 and 6 months from our pediatrician, but we just haven't yet. I figure once you start you can't go back and she is really happy and content with her bottles. We are going to try regular formula in the next month and see if she has any problem with the dairy proteins and breaking them down. The Alimentum has already broken them all down for her, so it is much easier on her system. The doctor says most babies outgrow the protein sensitivity around 5 or 6 mos, so that is our window to test it out. I hope that it will be okay, but if it isn't we'll keep her on the "liquid gold" as we call it. I'm sure we'll also give rice cereal a try in the next few weeks. If she is like her brother, it is going to take her a while to really want to eat it.

Here is Will at 5 months to compare!

Speaking of Will, he is doing great as well. We've had a really rough month as far as his health is concerned. After 4 doctors appointments and 1 trip to the ER a couple weeks ago, we confirmed Will had both RSV and pneumonia. He's been on breathing treatments for over a month, on antibiotics twice, and on a couple steroids as well. We think we've finally beat it and he is definitely feeling better. We go to the doctor for a check up today to see how he's progressing. Being at the hospital with a 2 year old is just an entirely new experience. Will ended up having a chest xray, his blood drawn and cultured, and an IV of fluids administered and a RSV/flu test done. We left with the diagnosis I mentioned above and more medicine. He was so good and the doctors and nurses at Children's in Plano were AMAZING! Within a few hours he felt a lot better and his temperature had dropped 5 degrees (thank goodness!). Thanks to my mom for getting up at 3AM and coming to stay with Maddie so we could take him. Regardless of the request or the time of the need she is always here to help us out. We love you mom!

Here are pictures from the last few weeks. Hard to believe that we are approaching spring. I love that it is finally getting warm and we can play outside! Will just loves being out and so do I!

Talking to her bff - the sun

In her 'fancy pants' as we call them! I love these outfits that are shirts/dresses and leggings. But with all the chewing and pulling she often pulls the shirts over her head. So yes, I have a 5 month old flasher.

Jumping (well really just hanging) in the jumper

Relaxing on the couch

This is a face we see quite a bit of lately! Pucker up!

Our budding artist sitting at the BIG DESK!

Little man on the couch when he was sick. I am sure he's watching Yo Gabba Gabba, if I had to guess.