Dear Stomach Bug...

you are no longer welcome in my house!!! I have to say that cleaning up puke is one of the worst jobs as a parent (and Brooks just cannot stomach it). Grace caught the bug first and only got sick once which wasn't so bad. Two days later it hit Lily and she had it bad! The poor thing had to bathe and change PJ's 5 times (and so did I). It inevitably hit me Saturday night and luckily Brooks was here on Sunday to entertain the girls. I'm hoping he can fight it off and we can get all these germs out of our house. I'm thankful that I had today off to spend time with the girls. We packed a lunch and headed to the park...

She loves the monkey bars!

Playing in the leaves...

Singing...

Spider Web

Happy Birthday...

Our sweet niece Elizabeth turned 3 today! We had so much fun at her Tinkerbell party on Saturday. The kids played outside on Elizabeth's new playground and we brought the girl's jump castle, it was a beautiful 70 degree day! Kelly did such a cute job with the party and the girls loved being there.

The Birthday Girl

Lily loves balloons (until they pop!)

Jumping Away!

Playing flashcards with Booker.

Grace and Elizabeth had their first official sleepover on Saturday night. Lily went to Mimi and Booker's house with Brooks and I think she enjoyed the extra attention.

We took them to Mc Donald's and they had a blast playing together in the coolest and cleanest indoor playground I have ever been to. When we got home they jumped a little more with their glowing fairy wands.

Before they went to sleep, they read books in bed together (too cute!).

HUGS!

We listened to them talking through the monitor before they went to bed and they were just too funny. Grace is a talker and usually cannot fall asleep with someone beside her because she just keeps talking. Elizabeth finally told her that she had to be quiet because her daddy was sleeping in the other room and they both fell asleep.
A special happy birthday to my sister Jen too (who probably never checks my blog)!

Holiday Break

It was so nice to have a long break and be at home! The girls had lots of fun with family in town. They went to the park, the aquarium, Monkey Joe's and we ate lots of good food. Except for the day we spent at the hospital monitoring my sister's baby boy (she fell in our tiny shower), we had a wonderful time. The baby is doing great and I got to hear his little heartbeat!!

TaTa loves to do nails...

At the Aquarium...

Lily loves to share her silky with Sadie.

My parents stayed for New Year's Eve, so Brooks and I were able to go out to dinner. It was so nice to go to a grown up dinner and enjoy delicious food and conversation.

Christmas (Part 2)...

My parents, sister and Steve arrived in Charleston on the 26th. We exchanged presents and are looking forward to spending the week with all of them.
Even though Lily got sick on the car ride back to Charleston (which was not fun to clean up), she was well enough to play her new instruments!

Nana and Lily

Papa loves to support the Gamecocks!

Christmas...

We headed to Columbia for Christmas Eve (Elfie told Santa to deliver our presents there).

We made cookies for Santa Claus.

Coloring Cookies

We sprinkled our reindeer food outside.

Santa Claus was very good to Grace and Lily!

They had a blast opening each gift and checking out each others presents.

After all the excitement of Santa Claus gifts, we did our traditional gift exchange with the adults. Grace had fun handing out the numbers this year to see who would choose first.

Lily Bug

Christmas ~ 2011

Merry Christmas!

We hope everyone has a happy and safe Christmas!

Here are some pictures from the photo shoots I did with the girls (Thanks to my parents and Brooks for getting some smiles out of them). I probably took 200 pictures, but here are some of my favorites.

The Christmas card pictures...

SISTERS

Grace

Lily

We tried some at the beach, luckily those dresses are machine washable!