A Christmas Party

Last Sunday we went to the InVision (Stephen's company) kid's Christmas party. Grady and
Ella had a lot of fun! They got to watch a marionette show, eat milk and cookies (oh wait, mom and dad didn't let us participate in that part!) and even got presents from Santa! As you can see, Ella was not happy about sitting with the big jolly man!

The party was at the Waterloo Center for the Arts. So after all of that fun, all the kids went over to the Youth Pavilion to play. It's sort of like a science station place. There was a little area with mats and a big mirror for crawling infants. Grady and Ella LOVED playing there. They would have been content there all day if we let them! What a fun time!

Our first Tree!

Last weekend we took the twins to get their first Christmas tree! Stephen and I have gone to the same tree farm every year since we got married to get our tree, so it was fun to bring Grady and Ella along this time. (Ok, actually we picked out the tree, then got them out of the car to take a quick picture!)




Let me at that tree! We usually have barricades up but they still find a way to get at the ornaments.




Silly boy! They both stand up on everything these days, and do really well walking behind their walker toy!


I just took this picture this morning when I noticed they both fell asleep in their high chairs for their morning nap. Must have been tuckered out!

Ella got a black eye this weekend taking a nose dive into the table from dad's lap :( It's getting better.

Had to leave you with a better picture from a couple days prior to the accident! Doesn't she look like such a big girl?

Little Panthers

On Tuesday, we went to a pumpkin party for InVision (Stephen's office). Grady and Ella went as a Panther football player and cheerleader. I must say they were much cuter than any of the real ones I've ever seen at the games!

Yesterday was such a beautiful day, so we played outside with the leaves and pumpkins! Grady and Ella love playing outside outside - way more things to try and eat!

A lot going on

We've had a lot of stuff going on lately! Here's an attempt to catch you up to speed...

Stephen: What a lucky guy! He was chosen for federal grand jury duty a couple months ago. This basically means that he needs to keep the first work week of every month open for the next year and a half. Yes, you read correctly.....he potentially has to sit in on the grand jury for one week a month for a whole eighteen months! I had no clue that duty could be that long! Anyway, he's been pretty lucky as the last couple months they've only had to meet for 2 days of that week. They meet in Cedar Rapids, so we've been making the best of the situation and I've been going down with him and the kids because they pay for a hotel room. Good excuse to bring Grady and Ella swimming!

On the home front...we've recently listed our house with a realtor. We're praying our house sells very soon! We've decided we're heading to Manchester, and are pretty excited about the decision. We're currently staying with my parents for a couple weeks. Stephen is doing a little remodel project on their kitchen and it's kind of necessary to be out of the house for a while as our realtor is showing our house a lot! Kind of impossible to keep it in showing condition with the twins.

Grady: a crawling, tooth-growing maniac. He's been crawling for a while now and is fast! I just noticed his second tooth yesterday which is soon to be followed by a third I see coming in! He's just a fun little boy!

Ella: a uniquely maneuvering, toothless girl! Nope, she's not doing your official crawl, but can sure get around in her own little way. I'm pretty sure she's just going to skip to walking. She's testing the waters with pulling herself up on things and has the scrapes to prove it. No teeth yet :)

And last but not least......Stephen and I were quite surprised last month to find out that we're expecting again! Hey, I heard your gasp! The reality is finally settling in that this spring, we will have three children sixteen months apart! (Due date: May 24) We do have confirmation that it's only one this time as we had an ultrasound last week! I've been feeling so overwhelmed with this news, but as we saw and heard that little heart beating on the ultrasound, we instantly fell in love once again!

I'll leave you with a picture:

This was actually taken a couple months ago, but I love it as it is rare to get a good picture of the 2 of them :)

Bath time and mischief

I can't catch it!


...still can't


My bowl!



We're innocent!


You always get me in trouble!

Florida

We recently spent a week in Florida visiting Stephen's mom. How relaxing it was! We spent the majority of the time lounging around in the pool. Grady and Ella LOVE to swim....babies after their mom's own heart! It definitely wore them out and they took great naps in the pack and play's next to the pool during the afternoons! We did take a trip to the beach one day as well as an afternoon at some outlet malls, and of course the twins were completely spoiled by their Nana. Here are a bunch of pics :)


Grady and Ella loved the beach, and their cool shades! They liked to dig their toes in the sand as the waves would come up! (and yes, Ella loves her pacifier...even at the beach)

Silly faces...






Swimming with mommy in the fun new suits that Nana bought us!


Ella fell asleep in the pool more than once!


We loved our floaties!


Bam......


.....just kidding, love ya sis :)

Airport Fun!

We finally made it to Florida to visit Stephen's mom after some unexpected airport delays! Our plane was supposed to leave at 4:40 pm on Tuesday evening. To make a long story short, we finally left on a different plane they sent from Atlanta at 2:30 am. A LONG time to be in the airport with 2 babies! We of course missed our connecting flight in Atlanta, but caught another flight to Ft. Meyers at 8am Wednesday. Needless to say, we slept most of our first day of vacation. Luckily Grady and Ella did AMAZING. They were so happy and entertained the other 13 people waiting until 2:30 am for the plane. I was so proud of them - they were more content than mom and dad were! The video shows a rousing game of peek-a-boo they played with daddy.






So content.....showing off their sitting up skills. (Ella has been sitting up for almost a month now, but it is a new thing for Grady just this week!)

hmmm

I tend to find the twins doing funny things when I walk in the living room after leaving for a few moments, but this one really had me laughing when I figured out what happened. No, Ella's diaper did not leak....that would be Grady's spit-up on her bottom! Never a dull moment in this household :)

Atlanta

Last week, my mom, the twins and I

went to Atlanta to hang out with some

family for an extended weekend! We

had a great time...

Grady on the plane (Once we took off, he was sound asleep for the whole ride)

Ella was sound asleep even before the plane took off!

My cousins Wendy, Nolan, Riana, my mom and I went to the Georgia Aquarium while Amy and Kathy watched the twins (Thanks!) We had a great time! Don't worry Nolan and Riana.....the picture with Deepo didn't turn out, so it's not posted :)

We also went to World of Coke. We had a little trouble getting there! Our parking ramp elevator brought us to a really nice building with absolutely no people in it. Hmmm.....we couldn't figure out how to get out! This is everyone posing with the elevator we took a hundred times trying to get outside..........maybe you just had to be there!

We did eventually get there! It was quite the interesting place. You could sample every Coke product made from around the world; a tummy-ache waiting to happen!

Nolan and Grady - the brave boys who hung out with the girls all weekend!

A Food Story....................by Ella

A couple weeks ago, I started getting really hungry in the middle of the night. I would wake up and cry and cry trying to get mom and dad's attention. Grady would just sleep while I was doing the hard work of waking them up, but somehow he would always get fed too. Lucky kid. Then mommy told daddy that they needed to feed us cereal so that we would sleep through the night again. I wasn't sure what cereal was, but it was fine with me because mom and dad were kind of cranky in the middle of the night. So they put us in these weird chairs, and put something towards our mouth that was not a bottle..........


......and that's what I thought about that.


Mom was saying that Grady ate like a champ........


.....so I showed her what a real champ would do - hold my own bottle!


Then Grady had to steal my thunder.

We decided to drop our bottles a few seconds into this, though. We didn't want mom thinking we could feed ourselves yet. It's very entertaining for us to watch her try and feed us both at the same time during the day!

Where did June go?

Wow, summer is flying by. A lot has changed in the Mulligan household since I've last posted. First of all, Grady rolled over for the first time at the very beginning of June, followed by Ella a couple days later....so the time came to sleep in separate cribs :( Okay....well the twins were fine with this; mom is the one who was sad! Now, Ella is a little rolling maniac. Every time you set her on her back, she immediately turns to her tummy. Grady doesn't roll quite as much which I am quite content with as I know the days of them being where I left them are numbered. I had a good laugh on Saturday when they were both trying to play with the same book on the floor. Grady grabbed it and moved it to the other side of him so she couldn't reach it, followed by a prompt swipe of Grady's pacifier from his mouth by Ella! How funny they are :)

On Father's Day we had a dedication service for Grady and Ella at church. There were four other babies dedicated as well. I thought that six new babies in the past 8 months was a lot for our small chuch.....but just when I was thinking that, Stephen had to remind me that our kids made up 1/3 of that number!

We just got back from vacation down on Table Rock Lake last week. We had a fun, relaxing time. Grady and Ella loved the pool! It was a little bit of a bummer that Ella was sick half of the vacation. She was running a high temp. for close to 3 days. Poor girl.

House for sale! We're trying to sell our house. We've had it on the market for a couple weeks and have showed it about 4 or 5 times......no takers yet. If you know anyone looking for a house in Waterloo, send them our way :) Our flyer is online at http://150prospect.mdmichel.com We're praying it sells fast as it is very hard keeping our house clean with the twins and ready to show at any time!



I took this picture today...when I left the living room they were lying side by side...when I came back, Ella was hugging Grady!




Kiss me right here!


Chilling in the pool




Nice evening for a swim!