EGGS FOR EASTER


Kate and Taylor decorated Easter eggs OUTSIDE today... it was a gorgeous 80-degree Saturday. Though what made this extra special is that their cousins, "The Fia's", aka Sofia and Lilian, are in town for the weekend. Four little girls in one house...princesses, unicorns, horses, fairies, and chocolate (need I say more?)...

Above picture is of Lilian!

The Easter Bunny is Here ... & some B&W from the park

Some pictures from our neighborhood Easter Party on Saturday. The girls were really excited to meet the Easter bunny and she, (yes, the bunny is a "she"!) brought her friend, Peter Rabbit, along for the day. As you can see, this was an actual, live bunny and the kids went NUTS when he was unveiled . Everyone got a turn to pet him and then it was off to the Easter egg hunt! I just cannot explain how fun it is to have kids who understand and enjoy these things...

@ MALL

At the mall with our good friends, the Dardanos. Their son, Pierce, totally has the Tom Cruise look down- what a stud. One of our girls' favorite things to do at the mall is ride the carousel- so, we are $4 poorer for it, but its so worth it (which begs the question- who is the one making some serious bank off those one-minute carousel rides?)

GREAT ANTICIPATION

Christmas is SO much more fun after you have kids. Kate got a new bike (with training wheels) from Santa and Taylor got a crib for her babies.

CHRISTMAS EVE DAY

Thank you to Taylor for being a fantastic model for dad ...

ALL ABOARD!!

Tonight we went with some great friends, the Shumways to "The Polar Express"

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER ...

I know this is the lamest post ever, but I just found these pics of Kate and Taylor in all of their Halloween glory! So, since my family asked about it, I will post these for them. Kate was Dorothy and Taylor was officially a lamb, but ocassionally sported this lovely Snow White get-up. And the donuts, well, lets just say it is the Crofts' latest favorite treat and since there is a donut shop on every corner here, this works out great for us. Brian and I did a 9-mile run on this particular morning and then were starving, so we effectively cancelled out our workout after downing at least a dozen donuts between the 4 of us. Yum.

Taylor (aka Snow White) just finished a chocolate-covered donut. You've gotta zoom in on this pic- she looks had and she only ate one! :)

Mommy got fun one day and let the girls finger-paint. They had a blast.

Thanksgiving in Atlanta

We drove the entire 12 hours (each way) to Atlanta to spend Thanksgiving with my parents. I have two sisters and two brothers who also live in the area, so it ended up being quite a crowd. We had a great time there enjoying my parent's property. Brian took the girls on several canoe rides in my parents' ponds and spent alot of time pushing them on the tire swing. Since my parents live in the country- in the truest sense of the word- there are farms almost completely surrounding them, so we took the girls to check out all of the local "wildlife". They especially loved the horses. Its always fun to spend time with my family- and I just don't get to do it often enough. Brian and I also ran our first race together, the Atlanta Half Marathon. I'll post some pics of that later. Here are some pictures of our little vacation.

The Big Orange Pumpkin Farm

We made the annual family trip to the pumpkin patch- the very fancy (as pumpkin patches go), very popular, Big Orange Pumpkin Farm in Celina. We had a great time- on account of the amazing weather (wind excluded), beautiful drive, fun farm animals, the ever-popular hayride, and of course, picking out our prize pumpkins (or "punkins" as Taylor adorably refers to them). Brian couldn't get enough pictures and the girls couldn't get enough of the cows, goats, donkeys, and sheep that were corralled all over the place. The best part of the day was when the girls got to pick out their very own pumpkins to take home. Here's a peek into our day at the "punkin catch" (Taylor's words- again).








Kate loved feeding the goats- but it was a delicate process. If you let the goats get a good grip on your cup, they'd rip it right out of your hands. Fun nonetheless!














Daddy and his girls on the hayride.



Taylor would have taken every pumpkin home, if only she could have lifted them all- you gotta admire her for trying. She hefted this one up just long enough to say, "Momma, its heavy" and then dropped it altogether with a big thud.











Needless to say, we took two of the smallest we could find. The girls had a blast painting them right after we got home.



I apologize for the over-abundance of pictures- if you know Brian, then you know why...'nuff said.