Easter 2012

We enjoyed a wonderful Easter weekend with Marmee and Grampy, who came in town to celebrate with us. The weather was nice, our days were filled with fun Easter preparations and activities, and the twins seemed to enjoy their very first Easter. I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking...

Sweet Caroline on Easter morning.

Marmee and Caroline decorating our Easter cookies.

Mommy and Caroline dyeing the eggs.

Caroline discovered that she loves hard boiled eggs!

Our completed traditional bunny cake. 

Caroline ready for the Easter egg hunt at Westwood.

Princess Bunny

J and M looking not so jazzed to be meeting the Easter bunny.

Mommy, Margaret and Julia

Julia and Margaret looking unsure as the Easter egg hunt happened around them.

Daddy and J

Daddy and Caroline hunting eggs.

We enjoyed a tasty lunch after the egg hunt. J happily wore her flower headband the whole time.

Grampy entertaining Margaret at lunch.

The Easter bunny was good to our sweet girls.

Mommy and Caroline

Marmee and Margaret

My darling Easter babies. M/J

A trio of beauties

Grampy and Marmee and the girls. C/M/J

Our family

Double Trouble

I'm sure there will be countless future posts entitled "Double Trouble" and maybe even a few "Triple Trouble" posts too, so we'll just plan on this one being the first in a series.
Now that both twins are fully crawling, there is no resting for this already tired Mommy. It seems I spend all my time at home taking the twins from where they are not to supposed to be and putting them back where they should be. And of course it's rare that the girls find the same areas of the house interesting at the same time. Instead, it's often that I see two little behinds headed in two different directions. Each twin causes chaos in her own special way...
Margaret is a speedy, noisy crawler who you can hear coming from a mile away. She has a great affinity for seeking out and chewing on shoes, loves to pull up on just about anything, and will follow big sister Caroline around just about anywhere.
Julia is a stealthy little bugger who has been known to sneak away without anyone noticing she's gone. She loves to crawl under tables, hang out in the kitchen and open and close the cabinet doors, and has a particular interest in spilling the dogs' food and water bowls.

Here is double trouble in action...

Contained and cute, Margaret and Julia

Julia explores the dishwasher.

Margaret is tempted by Caroline's milk cup.

Mmmmm...shoes.

Hello, safety hazard! Julia shakes the tall lamp.

Margaret attempts to pet Isabel. Generally a very bad idea.

Oh hey, Mom. I'm just dipping my fingers in the water...

...and maybe spilling a little bit of it.

Mommy likes it when we're in our high chairs because it means she gets to take a break from chasing us! M/J

For some reason, the twins are content to sit nicely on a blanket at the playground. For now anyways. J/M

Here are a few pictures of Caroline, who is generally not causing chaos these days, thank goodness!

The Richmond Bag Lady

Planting a mini flower garden.

Rocking some great dance moves.

Exhausted after a park play date.

Run, Mommy, Run!

Yesterday I completed the Monument 10K race, an event for which I trained only moderately and was a little skeptical that I could complete without having to walk the majority of the time. Lucky for me, the course was flat, the weather was decent, and chatting the whole time with my buddy Annie made the run a piece of cake! We finished in about an hour and are looking forward to signing up for another race soon. I can actually say in all honesty that I enjoyed the run, and I'm pretty darn proud of how I did too! I was hoping to post a picture of me crossing the finish line, but it looks like it will be several days before the race photographer makes it available. Here's what I have instead...

Annie and me at the start line before the race.

Post race with the Harris Williams wives enjoying a celebratory mimosa!

In other news, we are gearing up for Easter! I took the girls outside last week in an effort to get a decent group shot of them in spring dresses, but as you can see below I struck out on the group pic and had to settle for individual ones. 

Margaret

Julia

The best shot of the twins I could get.

Caroline

And a couple other pictures...

J and M after a big and yummy dinner.

Happy girl feeding the ducks at the University of Richmond.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

For some people, the most wonderful time of the year is the start of winter and the holiday season. I loathe cold temperatures, winter clothes and snow, and the holidays tend to stress me out more than anything else, so winter is most definitely not my favorite time of the year. Instead, it's spring that's the most wonderful time of my year.
Here are some of my favorite things about this time of year:
1. The ability to shave a few minutes off our departure time in the mornings. Without winter coats, hats, and mittens to weight us down, we can easily get out the door in under 5 minutes. That's quite an accomplishment when you've got three kiddos.
2. The warmer temperatures, longer days, and extra outdoor time. There is nothing I like more than plopping myself down on my front porch and watching Caroline play with the neighborhood kids. So far, the twins are happy to sit next to me and play with a basket of toys, so it's almost like taking a mini-vacation. Almost. We've also been enjoying spending time with friends, especially our preschool buddies, at the playground in the afternoons.
3. Flip-flops. Favorite.shoes.ever.

Here are a couple things I do not like about this time of year:
1. The dogs' obsession with sunbathing and their desire to go in and out of the house onto the back deck a million and one times a day. This picture just about sums up Isabel's days when the weather is nice...

2. Flies: Flies are my own personal arch nemeses. When the dogs want to go in and out, in and out, and in and out all day long, I tend to just leave to door open to save myself a million annoying trips to the back of the house. Unfortunately, this allows flies to come into my home, and they drive me insane. Flies are useless and gross, they cause Frances to whip herself into a panic induced seizure, and they make me batty buzzing around and landing on all my nice clean surfaces. So what's a girl to do when she's too lazy to open and shut and open and shut the door all day but cannot live with flies in her home? Well, until this year, I've always left a bottle of Windex on our kitchen counter top solely for the purpose of killing flies. Once inside, the pesky critters typically end up on one of the windows and when they do, I draw my spray bottle faster than the blink of an eye and shoot. It's a win-win: the fly dies almost instantly and my windows are always nice and clean. The only downside of this method is that if you guests in your home, you end up looking kind of like a loon as you sprint through the house wielding a bottle of glass cleaner.
This year, I'd rather spend my time doing something other than hunt flies so I ordered this: https://www.buymagicmesh.com/  For only $19.95, I am hoping to stop the nasty flies dead in their tracks while still allowing my sunbathing-obsessed dogs free reign over the doorway to the back deck. We'll see how it actually turns out when my Magic Mesh is delivered in 4-6 weeks ;)

Ok, enough talk. Here are some pictures and videos of the girls from this past weekend and last week...

Caroline headed out the door with Daddy to go to the children's museum. 

Caroline and Daddy leaving for Home Depot. 

Double trouble: Margaret and Julia

Margaret spends a lot of time exploring these days.

Julia on a wagon ride with C.

Caroline scootering with Daddy.

                                            Julia loves to jump!!

Margaret on the move

Julia on the move

            

Julia clapping