We're ONE!

Grady and Ella had their FIRST birthday yesterday -so hard to believe they're a year old! We have two crazy, active, goofy, loving, learning more every day babies on our hands. They had a fun birthday party last night graciously hosted at the Each's while we're currently in our packing and transition state at home. There were seven other kids besides Grady and Ella, so needless to say it was a little chaotic. They all had a good time, though. Enjoy some of the party pics :)

Birthday girl

Yay for new tricycles! Feet don't quite touch the pedals...but we'll have fun this summer!

Birthday boy!

Enjoying everyone singing to them :)

Yay, let me at that thing!

Hmmm....

Give me some more of that!

Gazing at the candle....I think I want that!

Not so sure....

We had to put him in the tub afterwards!

Cousins Halle and Jayden

More cousins...William, Maddie, and Lili

First and Last

For Christmas, Grady and Ella finally got some new car seats as they were getting way too big for the infant ones. So here's a look at the very first time they got in their car seats leaving the hospital, and the very last time. It makes me teary-eyed looking at the first picture! Ohh how long ago that seems...


Leaving the hospital

Home from their last ride. (I should have put them in the same order!)

Merry Christmas from Grady & Ella

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 :)