Happy Easter!

I hope everyone is having a great Easter weekend with their families!  We were very sad to see Chad's mom Kathy and our nephew Jaden leave this morning.  They have been such a huge help while they've been here and we had a lot of fun during their visit.  I know the babies will miss them a ton too!  The good news is we do have more upcoming family visits to look forward to.  We are excited that my Mom is coming to visit on Tuesday!

Last year for Easter we didn't do a whole lot since the babies were only a little over 2 months old.  They were too little to appreciate an Easter basket and we were just plain tired from being the parents of two newborns.  We did manage to take an Easter picture of the babies last year.  This was their first holiday so it is the first one I can compare to this year.  Here they are on Easter 2011:

Now here are their pictures from Easter 2012.   These are from their visit to see the Easter Bunny on Friday afternoon and from opening their Easter baskets this morning.

This year their baskets had a duck hooded towel for each baby, Spiderman pajamas for Brady and Tinkerbell pajamas for Chloe, two large stuffed Easter Bunnies from my Mom, various other Easter-themed stuffed animals, and they each received another book from the Little Quack series.  Their Great Grams and Great Grandfoder also sent them an Easter package and Aunt Gigi sent them some adorable frog hooded towels.  Thank you to everyone for your sweet Easter presents for the babies!   The Easter Bunny didn't put any candy in their baskets this year since they don't have any special preferences yet, but I am sure next year they will want candy in their baskets and the Easter Bunny will bring them some.

Our family wishes everyone a wonderful Easter Sunday!

 

Bluebonnet Pictures: A Texas Tradition

While Chad and I grew up in Virginia and North Carolina respectively, the babies were born in Texas and are therefore Texans by birth.  One big tradition of a Texan childhood is to have your picture taken in a field of bluebonnets (some families do this annually).   The bluebonnet is a wildflower, and the Texas state flower.  It is currently bluebonnet season in Texas, although I believe we are coming to the end of it.  On a whim this morning I decided we would pack the kids in the car and try to get their pictures taken in the bluebonnets.

I will admit this year we were disorganized and didn't really even know where we were going when we headed out this morning.  Considering that we just moved last weekend, I suppose I should consider it a positive that we got their pictures taken in the bluebonnets this year at all.  The babies weren't really thrilled with the whole thing, but they were very patient considering we had to drive about 40 minutes in the car just to get to a field with bluebonnets.  Next year I will do more research to find a really nice field, this was just on the side of the road.  Here are a few pictures from our adventure today:

Hope everyone is having a great Easter weekend so far!

 

The Saga of the Purple People Eater Kitchen

When we first went to see the new house we loved a lot of different things about it.  The neighborhood, the fact that it was one story, and all of the space!  One thing I did NOT love and couldn't look past was the dark purple kitchen.  Chad didn't seem to mind it too much, but I told him I just could not live in a house with a dark purple kitchen.  As a condition of us renting the house, we asked that we be allowed to repaint the kitchen.  It turns out that we have permission to repaint almost all of the rooms in the house, so we are excited!

I had hired a certain painting company before to repaint some areas in our city house back when we had it on the market, and since they did such a great job that time I decided to hire them to repaint the kitchen and two bathrooms in the new house.  I exchanged about 5 emails back and forth with the owner of the company, and signed a contract for the painting.  I had arranged for the painters to come the day before we moved in and the appliances were delivered.  On the morning of the scheduled day I rushed over with the babies and all of their gear in tow to the suburb house to meet the painters at 8 AM.  They never showed!

Obviously I was upset, particularly since the whole move had been scheduled around the painting.  The owner of the paint company came out to the suburb house personally to apologize, and then offered to paint the kitchen and the two bathrooms for FREE the next day.  I was very surprised and pleased that he offered this solution.  The only problem was that meant on Moving Day we would have the painters, the movers, the appliance delivery people, Chad, Meepie, Jaden, me, and the babies in the house at the same time!  At one point that day we counted and we had 13 people in the house!  Also the wall where the refrigerator was had to be painted first thing in the morning so it would dry before the people from Best Buy delivered the refrigerator around noon!  Chaos!

Anyhow, I tell you all of this so that you can appreciate the lengths multiple people went to in order to eradicate the purple people eater kitchen!  Here are some pictures:

PURPLE KITCHEN BEFORE:

NON PURPLE KITCHEN AFTER:

Whew!  Happy Friday everyone!

 

The Great Outdoors: Our New Neighborhood & A Landscaping Project

Since we are pretty settled indoors, we've had some time to explore and improve our outdoor situation now too!  I wanted to share some pictures of our beautiful new neighborhood that we are really enjoying.  We took TWO walks today, one earlier in the day and then one later this evening after Chad got home.  The pictures are from our backyard, our neighborhood, and even a landscaping/mulching project we completed in the front yard!

This first picture is from our backyard.  We bought a bird feeder and the birds have been going to town eating the food!  The feeder is almost half empty now!  Here is a cardinal enjoying the feeder this morning. I don't know if the picture is too small to see the bird, but it was so pretty!

This next picture is the honeysuckle growing over our fence.  If you look out the window of Chloe's room, this is what you see!

Here are some pictures of our neighborhood from our walk earlier today:

Here is Meepie and Jaden with the babies down at the dock by the community center:

Here is the Community Center in our neighborhood:

Now for the landscaping project we worked on today.  When I say "we", I mostly mean our nephew Jaden.  He has been a huge help around the house while we've been moving in this week, and he put down about 95% of the mulch in the front yard today.  The poor yard had been neglected for some time, and was in desperate need of mulch.  We bought rubber mulch, which is supposed to not fade and last for 15 years. It is also not made of wood so it should not attract bugs or termites.

YARD BEFORE:

YARD AFTER:

Finally, here is a picture of the kids in their new wagon on our walk this evening:

We are loving our new surroundings in the suburbs.  We have lived in the city for over four years and we haven't been able to get out and enjoy our neighborhood or a yard before.  To be able to look around and see flowers, grass, lakes, birds, and nature in general is wonderful.  Chad's commute to and from work is an average of 40 minutes each way, but he has said it is worth every minute of the commute to have our family in our new neighborhood.

Happy Thursday everyone!

 

Pictures of Babies' New Rooms

We are getting more and more settled into the new house.  It is starting to feel more and more like home!  I have some pictures to share with you of the babies' new rooms.  It has been a super busy day and I am tired, so I won't gab on, I will just show you the pictures!

BRADY'S ROOM:

CHLOE'S ROOM:

So far the babies have seemed to really enjoy having their own rooms.  Chloe in particular has enjoyed the quiet space for napping and sleeping since Brady had a tendency to wake her up when they were sharing a room.  

Happy Wednesday to everyone!