Celebrating Birthdays

This afternoon we said goodbye to Eric and sent him back home on the airplane.  (we miss you already, daddy!)  Before we had to part, we got in a little party!  We had a lunch celebration of Eric & Taylor's birthday!  (since they share their special days with each other!)  Riley came to help Taylor celebrate with some fun!

Lunch was meatloaf (Eric's request & favorite!)

Whopsie... got some on the elbow!

Taylor & PopPop sharing some good times!

Taylor is not much of a cake person (she's not MY daughter... I love cake!) so we got her a birthday cookie - with plenty of icing!

Then outside for some piñata fun.  (the girls got to hit it... but this is how it ended: me brutally attacking the thing & Eric trying to restrain me!)  Apparently, the round piñata is the most structurally sound!

Diving in for the loot!

Taylor gave Eric her present - a one of a kind, finger paint masterpiece for his office!

Taylor got a Fancy Nancy & Frenchy doll, and several Fancy Nancy readers from Mimi & PopPop... it was a hit!

After presents, the girls had fun with bubbles and play-dough!  They seemed to have a great time. (we saw Riley this evening - still sporting her hat... this girl loves to party!)  :-)

Date Night

Last night, Eric & I met some friends downtown for drinks and a comedy show!  We had a great time with good friends!  Here are a couple pre-date pictures.  Taylor wanted to get in on the photo shoot so we decided to "ham it up!"

Pool Fun

Yesterday afternoon we took an opportunity to get out of the Austin heat and headed over to the neighbor's pool to meet Riley and her daddy for some swimming!  The girls had a great time swimming with their daddies and we had a great time watching the fun pool-side!

ISR Refreshers

Part of our trip has been devoted to continuing her ISR lessons from last year.  Ms Robin has become a favorite friend!  The first couple days were rough (we screamed, kicked and even took a swing at Ms. Robin!) but we've fallen in love with the pool once again!  I'm looking forward to next week's lessons to solidify what we've learned from last year!  She's a fish!

Waiting pool-side for our turn to get in!

A nervous hair twirl (takes after her daddy!)

Finally taking the plunge!

Doing the "Starfish"

Loves to jump to Ms. Robin!

Tuckered out after a long 10 minutes!

A Quick Trip to LC

We picked daddy up at the airport in Houston last week and hopped over to Lake Charles for a quick visit with Grandma C.  We had a great time eating crawfish (well, everyone else did) and shrimp and visiting with family and friends.  I'm waiting on other pictures from people (since I can't seem to remember to take them) but here's one I snapped of our play date with Emily and Shannon - thanks for a fun morning!

Allergies have brought out the nebulizer - we've successfully prevented the cough from turning into a trip to the ER!

More Fun

Yesterday morning it rained (actually, it pored!)  We decided not to let that keep us inside - we put on our rain gear and got in some good puddle jumping!

Then we went inside for some finger painting fun!

After that it cleared up enough to go meet Riley outside for some playtime fun - here they are chasing the neighbor dog.  Lucky for the dog the girls aren't very quick but it sure was fun!

Austin... Finally!

After driving (and driving) and a stop over in Dallas to spend the night/visit Uncle Eddie & Aunt Betsy, we finally made it to Austin this afternoon.  We got in early enough to have plenty of play time before bed!  Taylor met the new neighbor, Riley, across the street and the girls had a great time visiting "Old McDonald's Farm" down the road and playing at the playground before dinner.  We will have lots of pictures to post in the next few weeks I"m sure,  so stay tuned!  

Its nice to be back!

Beautiful Sky

Our trip to Meijer Gardens came just before the rain!  The sky was so dark in the distance I thought it was a neat backdrop for some pictures.  Of course Taylor didn't agree!  I can't seem to get her to pose for pictures these days (or to hold still)... 

Belated Easter Pictures

You may not have noticed I neglected to post Easter pictures - if you did notice, we DID celebrate this year, but the pictures were on mom's camera and consequently spent the last month on the camera in the closet at her house - desperately waiting for me to come visit and rescue them! Here are some pictures from the weekend at Grandma & Pa's...

Baking cookies with Gramps & Daddy!

Coloring eggs with Grandma & Grammy...

Rolling out the dough...

The sad result of my gluten-free attempt at baking... we were able to salvage them by cutting out the shapes in the warm cookies - they tasted fine!

Everyone gets in on the decorating!

The finished product!

Taylor's Easter basket

Beautiful Girl!

Posing after lunch with Grandparents and Greats!

Such a ham - wonder who she gets it from??? (Really - we wonder because it comes from both sides!!!)

A Weekend With "That Guy"

This past weekend we met Grammy in Indianapolis to spend time with Uncle Stan & Aunt Terry and also to attend a baby shower for our cousin. The weekend was quite a blast although, Taylor was a little confused about the baby and it needing a shower. Equally confusing was the fact that Uncle Stan and Gramps look very much alike! Taylor had difficulty at first figuring out what was going on and ended up naming him "that guy". (ie: can "that guy" read me a story) We had fun spending the weekend with family and Taylor had a great time getting to know Uncle Stan & Aunt Terry a bit better! Thanks for the great weekend!

Taylor & "That Guy" throwing rocks in the pond...

Grammy & Aunt Terry had a great view of the rock throwing from the sun room window!