sc bound

the girls and i are off to south carolina tomorrow! 

i'm beyond excited, but slightly nervous about flying with the girls all by myself for the first time. i'm crossing my fingers that everything goes well. but even if it doesn't, it is SO worth it because i love going home. there's nothing quite like it. am i right? 

we'll be gone for a couple weeks. hopefully i'll be able to post a few things, but i'm not making any promises.

tonight before we left, we decided to hit up DQ for some ice cream. a last little hoorah with daddy, before leaving. 

south carolina, here we come...

i have two one year olds.... ahhhh!!

i have to say that i have been dreading the girls' first birthday, because i was afraid that i was going to be an emotional train wreck. thankfully, i only shed tears once yesterday and the rest of the day was filled with tons of fun, laughter, and of course food!

{here's my lame attempt at painting reese's fingernails. i thought it would be fun for their birthday. i snuck into the girls' room the night before and painted them. once i realized how difficult it was, i didn't even bother doing ella's}

we kicked off the day by heading to the como zoo here in minnesota. austin was able to meet us over there, which made is SO much more fun for the girls. they love their daddy! we had a picnic on the grass out front and then headed inside to get a glimpse of some of the animals. the girls saw gorillas, lions, giraffes, bears, and leopards. 

{picnic time}

{here are the girls checking out the lions. they definitely liked them the most!}

later that night we had a cook out/pool party. we had a blast!

{here's a pic of our only guests... annie, jordan, jake, brittany (the twins), and juliette}

{dinner time}

{swimming}

then we headed back to our place for presents and cupcakes...

{presents}

one little conundrum with twins is whether or not you sing happy birthday to each child or just once and stick both of their names in there. we decided to sing to them separately. here's ella eyeing her cupcake while we sing to her. and then as i brought the cupcake closer to her to take the candle out, she grabbed it and burnt her little hand on the hot wax. poor thing. i felt terrible! she was so upset that she didn't want anything to do with her cupcake.

and here's miss reese as we sing her happy birthday. she had no problem shoving that cupcake in her mouth as soon as she could get her little hands on it. and then she got upset when it was all gone. i of course caved and gave her another one. it was her birthday after all!

{everyone else enjoying their cupcakes. ella finally joined in and started eating hers. she was so excited about her yummy cupcake that she rubbed it all in her hair}

the day was everything i imagined it would be and more! i can't say enough how much i LOVE my two darling girls. they bring so much joy and happiness into my life and i am so thankful to my heavenly father for allowing me to be their mother. its an honor and i feel truly blessed.

i love you reese's pieces and ella bella!

mon anniversaire

sunday was my 25th birthday, and i have to say that it was definitely different compared to birthdays 1-24. the major difference was that i had two sick babies to take care of (i had been up pretty much the entire night before). and even though its your birthday, you can't really take a day off from motherhood! but the great thing was that i didn't even mind. if anything, it made me more appreciative of the 25 years that i've spent on this earth and excited for the "how every many" years to come. i love where i am at in my life as i cross this milestone of turning a quarter of a century. i can't wait to see what these next 25 years hold in store. i'm pretty sure they are going to be the happiest/craziest/silliest/hardest/greatest years of my life!

here's austin with little miss ella when she was sick. you know your 11 month old is sick when they sit still for 45 minutes to watch a movie with you. usually her attention span is all of 10 seconds.

but even though my actually birthday day was spent at home with austin and my two sickies, i didn't feel cheated or anything because we really celebrated the day before. we took the girls to the park, had a picnic, played on the playground, went to the pool, and then austin and i went to the local amusement park here in minnesota later that night. 

we had SO much fun! i totally recommend amusement parks for a great date night. we rode every roller coaster at the park, got dippin dots and did some great people watching. amusement parks always attract some interesting people... you know exactly what i'm talking about! 

all in all it was a great birthday!!

right outside the park

on one of the roller coasters right before it started

this was our favorite roller coaster. i know i don't look too happy, but thats my "oh my goodness i love/hate this" face. i am obsessed with this picture. it makes me laugh every time i see it!

and thankfully the rugrats are now feeling SO much better! here's the proof...

{that's food on her face, not puke. just thought i should clarify}

time for catch up a.k.a. the longest post ever

to say that i have been a little m.i.a. from the blogging world is a bit of an understatement. tomorrow is the last day of june and this is only my second post this month. i'd like to say the lack of posting has been due to all the amazing things we've been doing and the insane fun we've been having, but alas its because i've been a big ole slacker. 

don't get me wrong, we've been having some good times (making memories and all that fun stuff), but nothing that would have kept me from getting on here and posting a few things. 

i was actually telling a friend yesterday that i've been in this kind of funk lately. i have no idea why, but i've just been BLAH. so i'm going to attribute it to that. anyways, i'm attempting to get out of my funky rutt and along with that comes blogging again. so here we go.

warning: this post is probably going to be long and will definitely be random.

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{acrylic paint class}

the community center here was offering an acrylic painting class that my sister-in-law brittany and i decided to take. the class promised that by the end of the 2 hour session you would have a completely finished landscape painting. 

i'm definitely a creative person, but i've never really stretched my creativity as far as painting before. my grandma is a wonderful artist and my mom definitely inherited her genes, but me not so much. 

while my painting didn't turn out to be anything amazing, i had the BEST time. it was so therapeutic and i am always game to try anything that allows me to release some creativity. i wish i could take a class like this once a month. 

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{baby shower}

i knew for a while that i wanted to throw brittany a baby shower for her and her twin boys that are on the way. and all of a sudden i realized that her due date was creeping up on me and both of our summers are already jam packed. so i decided about a week in advance that i was going to go ahead and throw her a shower sooner rather than later. so i recruited a couple of brittany's best buds here in mn and we got a crackin. we decided to make it a surprise, because let's face it... its SO worth the face of the person you are surprising. and let me tell you, brittany's face was well worth it!! she actually looked more scared than surprised. ya... it was perfect! 

and like a complete bonehead, i forgot my camera. luckily, i was able to borrow someone's camera to snap a few shots, but i don't have the pics yet. so i quickly snapped a couple pics of the diaper cake i made, just to give you a little taste of what the shower looked like. i'll share more when i get the others. overall, the shower was a huge success. 

i'm so excited for these little munchkins to get here!!!

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{cookies}

so the girls have tasted cookies before, but never have i given them free reign over their own cookie. its not because i think they shouldn't have them or anything. its usually because it just so happens to be right before they take a nap that i make cookies, and i really don't need them to be on a sugar high while trying to go to sleep (nap time is my saving grace people). also, if i make cookies its normally after they go to bed at night. you know, a little reward for making it through the day. its the little things! 

anyways, i decided it was time for the girls to have more than just a little nibble of a cookie. so we let them have at it last night. and sure enough, just like mom and dad, it was love at first bite. 

baked goods = pure happiness in this household!

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{harry potter}

confession... i LOVE harry potter! i mean, really really love harry potter. i couldn't go quoting the movies or anything like that, but i've seen all the movies at least 3 times each... at least. 

so in preparation for the new harry potter movie (and last, tear), i decided to watch all 7 of the movies. i just finished number 7 and am so pumped for the new one to come out. July 15 can't come soon enough!

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{cardboard box}

a birthday present arrived for the girls today from their grandma margaret and grandpa nolan. its a little two-seater wagon and is oh so cute. i took it out of the box because i want to have it assembled for the girls on their birthday. 

i figured that would be more fun than a big box, but... i could be wrong. so far, they've been loving their huge box. they have been crawling through it all day. its been quite the crowd pleaser!  

and i've started blogging again just in time, because the girls turn 1 a week from tomorrow. madness, just madness i tell you!!!

buddies

these two are quickly becoming the best of friends. 

{a kiss from her sissy}

its so fun to watch their sweet interactions with each other every day. they love each other SO much and are always having the best time! 

i wish everyone could have a built in best friend like them. what lucky girls! 

...i'm secretly envious.

ready or not, it's here!

nothing will motivate you to whip yourself into shape quite like bathing suit shopping! am i right?

...here's to getting into shape and feeling good in our suits this summer

{mind you, i say this as i sit here eating a bowl of kettle corn}

warm weather happenings

for the most part the weather's been really nice lately, so we've been taking full advantage of it. i feel like i have this ticking time bomb inside that keeps reminding me we only have 4 more months of nice weather, so we're trying live it up! 

here's some of our warm weather happenings lately...

a few weeks ago, the girls and i went to the park for a little play date with some friends. i've taken the girls to the park before, but none of them have had baby swings. thankfully this one did, so they got to try them out for the first time. 

10 month old + swing + nice weather = pure bliss and lots of giggles

they loved it from the second they got in. which then made me feel bad that i had been depriving them of this childhood experience for the first 10 months of their lives. 

 

when we first got the park i saw a woman put both of her kids in one of the swings, but facing back to back. it made sense, because then the little baby could have some support. i tried it out with the girls. it was pretty funny and cute.

it was so fun seeing the pure joy on these little girls' faces. i couldn't help but grin ear to ear too. their happiness was infectious! 

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my super sweet sister-in-law brittany (try saying that 10 times fast) picked up a plastic kiddie pool for $1 at a garage sale the other weekend. such a steal. here's some pics of the girls taking it for a test run.

 

looks like we've got some water babies on our hands. 

keep the warm weather coming because we've got lots more fun things we want to do outside!