Celebrating Easter

Celebrating Easter this year kind of started off with a bumpy road....We headed down to Macon on Good Friday morning and just before we left Gracie started complaining of her eye hurting. Needless to say she SCREAMED the entire trip to Macon. As soon as we arrived we took her to pediatrics after hours and the doctor thought she most likely had pink eye and gave us some eye drops and she seemed to feel better within a couple of hours. Preston and I planned to celebrate our 6 year anniversary on Saturday night in Macon since grandma and grandpa volunteered to babysit. On Saturday morning Bailey woke up with a stomach ache and he complained all day until late in the evening. Saturday night we were on the phone with our pediatrician until Bailey finally fell asleep. Preston and I found ourselves holding a sick baby while enjoying a glass of wine and a bag of chex mix. It wasn't exactly how we had planned to celebrate our anniversary but we have learned to make adjustments since becoming parents of twins. We had two Easter celebrations. The first was on Saturday and we had a cookout with all the little cousins and did an outdoor Easter Hunt. The twins also enjoyed dying eggs for the first time. They chose to color their eggs with crayons before dunking them in the dye. On Sunday we enjoyed casseroles with Aunt Lala's family and our gma and gpa Grace. The Easter Bunny left baskets of goodies and the kiddos had fun playing with their cousins. At the end of the Easter Celebration I honestly have to say that Preston and I were looking forward to heading to Beach early at 2am after a rough start to our holiday vacation!

Bailey showing Granny what was in his egg

Easter kisses from Daddy

Gracie is all ready to hunt eggs!

Bailey loved finding the surprises in his eggs

Celebrating hand in hand on Easter morning

Princess Party

Gracie was invited to her very first Princess Party in order to celebrate her cousin Lauren turning four years old. It was a special day that I was able to spend with Gracie while Preston took Bailey for the day. The party was held at Sweet and Sassy. All of the girls started the day with picking out a princess dress and then they were pampered with getting their nails and hair done. There was a crowning ceremony and all of the princesses danced to their favorite music on stage. Lauren chose to dance to Hanna Montana! Gracie was so excited to spend the day with her big cousins, Molly Kay, Lauren and Addie Mae. They were all so sweet to include her and allow her to participate. Gracie could not wait to get on the stage and dance. She had a blast celebrating Lauren turning four.

Princess Lauren's "in purple" Fourth Birthday Party

Gracie dancing with the big girls to Hanna Montana

All of the Princesses at the party

Our Little Easter Party

Gracie and Bailey's Easter Party

I felt so blessed today to be able to have a "perfect day" like I always dreamed about before having kids. I used to think about first of all just having children and then how I wanted to be a stay at home mom and host fun little parties for my children and their friends. Today we did just that! We hosted an Easter party for just a couple of Gracie and Bailey's friends who live close by. We started with a little "snack bar" which was a big hit with the kiddos. They loved being able to help themselves to gold fish, raisins and Cheerios. They played in the play room while the mom's took turns going outside to hide eggs. We separated the yard off and all the kids had their own section of eggs to find. Gracie and Bailey loved opening their eggs to find surprises. Gracie's eggs had dress up necklaces and Bailey's eggs had various mini stuffed sports balls. After the egg hunt the kiddos did an Easter craft and we enjoyed pizza for lunch. We ended the party with blowing bubbles outside which made all the little ones laugh. I really enjoy watching Gracie and Bailey interact with their friends as they are getting bigger. Gracie was such a sweet little host and offered snacks to all of her friends. Bailey played with his buddy Zach and shared his cars and trains so nicely. My babies make me proud each day. I love making special memories like today with my Gracie and Bailey.

Getting ready to host our friends

Gracie offering snacks to her friends Our sweet twin friends Annamarie and Brianna Katie and Zach with his Easter stickers on his face

Gracie loved hunting her eggs

Bailey's favorite part was discovering the surprises in the eggs

So much fun hunting eggs!

Gymnastics with Daddy

We have been loving our weekly Gymnastics class and Grammy usually comes to help me with twins but today she could not make it and so Daddy came to assist. I thought it was super sweet of Preston to take time out of his busy work day to come to the twins gymnastics class. It was great to have him there to help as things can get a little hectic with having two 20 month olds doing flips, the balance beam, the bars and jumping off equipment. Bailey was SO excited to see his Daddy drive up to the class. He ran to him yelling Dada Dada and his little arms were waving. I hope I always remember his reaction on this day to his Daddy. Gracie discovered the bars for the first time in class and her sweet face was so proud as she hung all by herself. We will have actual pictures of us doing gymnastics next week as it is a "family watch day" where we are allowed to take pictures. Just wanted to share how blessed we are to have such a great Daddy who is willing to participate in our fun daily activities.

Sunday snapshots

This morning we got up and did our same Sunday routine to get ready for church. Gracie and Bailey were very excited to get to where their new bunny shirts. Shortly after getting dressed Gracie ran to the door and started yelling "pic, pic," I hadn't realized it but I guess I kind of have gotten in the habit of taking pictures of them each Sunday on our front porch as we walk out the door to go to church. I loved that Gracie reminded me and that she is actually willing to let me take pictures. This just might be our new little blog tradition!

Shortly before going out to get pics, not sure if they were wrestling or loving each other!

Proud of our bunny shirts

My sweet Gracie

My good looking boys!

Twin boo boo's

My mom was staying with us this past week and Bailey happened to bite his lip at breakfast and so I got out boo boo Elmo and boo boo Hello Kitty. My mom started laughing and said "do they always do this?" Without even thinking about it, I looked down at my two sweet babies and said "yes!" This is just the normal routine in our house, when one of us gets a boo boo we both have a boo boo and no matter where the boo boo really is we always put our boo boo Elmo or Kitty on our head! I love that Gracie and Bailey make me smile over the smallest things!

Big Cousins!

On March 30th I had the honor of being in the room while my sister in law, Nicole delivered Mary Elizabeth McFarland. She was 7pds 4oz and 21 inches long. It was truly amazing to watch this sweet little life be brought into this world. Her daddy, Parker actually caught her with assistance from the doctor and it was precious to watch Nicole and Parker become a family of three. Gracie and Bailey have been loving on Aunt Nicole's belly for some time now and so when I came home and showed them the pictures the next morning they were so excited. After a couple of days we went and visited Mary Elizabeth at home. Gracie and Bailey can both say "baby Mary." At first they just kind of looked at her from afar but it only took a couple of minutes for them to get comfortable with their new baby cousin. They gave her love and were very good while their mommy and daddy held our sweet niece. I was surprised that she was so little and I honestly find it hard to remember Gracie and Bailey ever being so little even though they were only half her size. One thing that holding her did bring back from my memory is the feeling of peace of love when holding a new little baby in your arms. We are so excited to welcome sweet Mary Elizabeth into our family.

20 Months Old!

Gracie and Bailey turned 20 months old on April 2nd! I honestly can't believe that my babies are almost 2 years old. Many things have changed now that they are 20 months old. I have been telling people it is like magic and that someone took my babies away and brought me two well behaved great sleeping big kids! I always preface the statement with the phrase "let me knock on wood" because it is like it is too good to be true. They have been doing fabulously "if I could create a word!" We put them to bed in the same room at around 7:30-8:00 and sometimes we have to wake them up at 8:00am and we haven't been hearing a peep out of them. They are also taking consistent 3 hour naps which I love and it greatly helps me with getting things done around the house. We haven't seemed to have a "no no corner" in some time and their behavior has been very good. They really have started to genuinely care for each other and will kiss each other's boo boos or bring each other their favorite toy. "Ring around the Rosie" is their new favorite game to play and we play it over and over again. Their vocabulary is great and they say the funniest things now and sometimes are saying too much....Gracie is just abut ready to potty train and so now when ever she has to go she will yell to tell us what she has to do and it doesn't matter where we are. The other day we were at Ruby Tuesdays for lunch and she was announcing to everyone that she had to go "poo poo," I kind of felt bad for the people eating next to us! We continue to enjoy lots of fun play dates and we love to do art and read books. Bailey's favorite toy is still his Thomas the train set and Gracie is really into Mickey Mouse right now. We are very excited that we have planned a trip to Disney World for this Fall. For now I am going to bask in this magical moment of my babies being so sweet and good!

A picture on our 20 month Birthday!

Bailey playing dress up on a rainy day

Daddy and Gracie celebrating her Birthday with a carousel ride

Fun play date riding cars

All ready for church on Sunday morning