Easter Season & April Happenings

With this Easter being so late, we had nicer weather for the egg hunts, outside Easter pics on Easter Sunday, & just in general beautiful weather for all of the outdoor activities that accompany this time of year. Maw Maw & Cousin Alex had an Easter Party for all of the neighborhood girls the first weekend in April, so Ella along with Robbye (who stayed w/ us the night before) went down the road and dyed easter eggs and ate the cupcakes we baked the night before. They had a great time!

My helpers in the kitchen....Helping me decorate the Peep Cupcakes for MM's party!

The Finished Product

Dying eggs with the big girls

Our Peep Easter Cupcakes the girls helped me decorate

The sun was in their eyes! Charlie came out for the hunt and MM walked down to watch all the kids in action!

Our neighborhood assc. had an easter egg hunt in one of our friends yards the following weekend. We had donuts, juice, coffee, and cookies for all to enjoy while hunting eggs, playing, and getting their face painted or balloon animals made by the sweet lady who comes every year & entertains the kiddos. It's so nice that we have our neighborhood hunt b/c it is just enough people & not overcrowded like all of the city/town hunts throughout the counties. Perfect for my 3 year old who has the hang of hunting eggs these days :)

Loving on Mama

She's ready!

Ella and Morgan finding all the eggs :)

Big Daddy came into town the following weekend & he and Tim got to work on replacing the right side of our back yard fence. They did an awesome job. I walked out to check on Ella and Faith our next door neighbor b/c I didn't hear them upstairs in the playroom and I didn't see them in the backyard playing either. I walked outside to see this......

Tim & BD working their tails off..... & Pop, Faith, Ella, and Jake looking on! I fell out laughing.

LOL - They were even finishing up their popsicles they'd been enjoying. 

 

Posing in front of Maw Maw's BEAUTIFUL Azaleas in the backyard. She's getting so big!

Easter Weekend - 2014 - 3 Years Old

Our 4th annual Bunny Cake together. She was only 4 Months Old when we did our first one :)

Easter morning- that bunny stopped by our house! Ella said Peter was who stopped by. We are quite obsessed w/ Peter Rabbit these days. 

  

Hunting the eggs that the bunny hid in the den w/ Big Daddy

Found one up high!

Before church on Easter Sunday - Posing by our Azaleas that will one day be big! Notice the Sophia Necklace we had to wear to show Mrs. Cheryl & Miss Jessica in the nursery.

w/ Mama :) 

& w/ Daddy 

This is about what it is like trying to get a good pict of the cousins these days. Griff being silly, Ella with her eyes closed, Roo smiling for the cam as always, Taylor being a ham, & who knows where Baby Thomas was! We had brunch with my sister and family after church and then headed home for a nice, relaxing Sunday afternoon. Later that evening & after naps of course, we all headed to Southaven to have Easter Dinner w/ Tim's family and have a glow-in-the-dark easter egg hunt courtesy of Aunt Jamie- the kids loved it & I'm sure we have started a new tradition!

Here is my latest helper in the yard these days. We were planting hostas in the front yard on my day off. Look at those long legs & big feet like Daddy's! 

Riding 4 Wheelers w/ the Daddies

This past weekend we went to Pickwick with our friends the McKay's and had a great, relaxing time at a fellow State Farm agents cabin. We rented a boat on Saturday and enjoyed cruising all around the lake with the kids for 4 hours. Ella loved it and even fell asleep in my lap TWICE. She said "Mama, the sun is so nice and the wind feels so good." :) Tim said that sounded just like something I would say!

Eating breakfast w/ Jonathan and Baby Libby

Blowing Bubbles on the front porch

Riding off on the trails w/ the Daddies

Time for a boat ride!

Sidewalk Chalk Art

Deep thought on the boat. 

Baby Deuce @ 17 Weeks (whoa- baby #2 definitely made its presence known ALOT sooner than Ella did- Like my selfie in the bathroom mirror at work? ;)

And I would be amiss if I didn't mention my pregnancy! I honestly forget I'm pregnant on most days except when I go to dress myself and realize my limited options- lol. We are 18 weeks tomorrow & find out the sex on Monday. This pregnancy is flying by already. I guess w/ #2 I just stay so busy with work and keeping up with a 3 yr old that I just don't think a/b it! Ella's pregnancy was easy, but this one has been a breeze so far. Again, no morning sickness and little fatigue. I'm not complaining and keeping my fingers crossed it stays this easy! By this time with Ella, I had already had a severe ear infection, burst ear drum, and made a trip to the ENT Dr AND I had already made a visit to Baptist Women's and been hooked up to an IV for fluids and zofran due to food poisoning @ 17 weeks- So far, NONE of that with #2---Cruising along and loving it! I also felt my first flutters this past week - the exact same time I started feeling Ella "swimming" as I like to call it. Each day they're getting more frequent and stronger.....I don't think one can ever get tired of that feeling! Update to come next week of whether Ella is getting a baby sister or baby brother!!! Exciting times!

Ella has some NEWS to share.....

Yep, Ella is getting promoted to Big Sister in October! I don't know why it has taken me so long to write a post lately. I guess blogging has just been last on my list of priorities. I had no idea I hadn't written anything since Ella's birthday in January.....Where does the time go? We told Ella and family that we were expecting right at 11 weeks preggo. She was pretty excited as she has been asking for a baby sister (yes I said SISTER- she's stuck on a girl- hope there isn't any disappointment if we find out it's a boy instead!) since last summer :) She even got to the point that she asked if we could just take Baby Thomas (my sister's youngest - she had her 4th child in Nov. and apparently Ella was getting pretty desperate for a sibling at this point).

Besides getting through my first trimester successfully w/o any sickness & actually very little fatigue compared to what I had w/ Ella (Praise the Lord!), we have stayed pretty busy but still managed to find time to relax as well. We continued to cheer on our Tigers through the end of their basketball season. We all 3 really enjoyed getting to go to all the games especially during the winter time when nothing is going on - it gave us something fun to do most specifically on Saturdays. Ella is in the midst of taking gym and started back up her swim classes at The Dive Shop in March which she LOVES. 

We traveled to Atlanta over Valentine's Day weekend to spend time at Big Daddy's house....where we also shared the news that Baby G #2 was on the way (we swore him & the rest of the Grommersch Clan to complete silence for about a month ;) We had a great time while we were there- taking Ella to the Georgia Aquarium, taking a day trip to Athens to visit Cousin Bryan, introducing her to Sky Zone (indoor trampolines) & carrying Ella to the mall to see the American Girl doll store and of course ride the carousel :) We had a great trip & BD is coming to see us in 2 weeks! We have 3 trips planned this summer - 2 of them being Grommersch girl weddings where Ella is the flower girl in both of them - Lord help us! We have got to start practicing with her! The first wedding- Kelly's - is in 6 weeks @ Hilton Head, SC & Leslie's wedding is in August in Charlotte, NC. We're going over early on both trips to make more of a vacation out of it w/ the whole family so it should be a really good time- Looking forward to them both!  

Our BIG trip this summer is to Paris in mid-July. This is our first Ambassador Travel trip w/ State Farm and we are super excited. We're also going over a couple of days earlier and flying directly into Amsterdam to spend some time w/ Tim's friend Jaldert and his family. Jaldert and his wife Annet have 2 boys (Yoran & Bjorn) so it will be so neat to see Ella meeting their two little boys who speak a totally different language (primary being Dutch, but they also speak fluent English) than her and just interacting w/ them  in general. Yeah, did you catch that Ella is going w/ us? I had almost decided we were crazy - taking a 3 1/2 yr old and being 29 weeks pregnant and traveling internationally----BUT I got full clearance from my OB as long as everything is going smoothly in my pregnancy like it did w/ Ella and once I got to researching Paris - there is a TON of cool stuff to do w/ kids.....they even have Disneyland! PLUS it helps that my parents will be there as well :) Anyway, after our 2 nights in Holland, we will then take a train to Paris and meet up w/ all the State Farm folks including my parents :) We'll have a week in Paris to explore and sight see. Should be a fun, yet busy summer! Then, come October 1, Baby G #2 or Baby Deuce as Tim has so eloquently named this one will make their appearance. We will be 15 weeks this week & we go to our 4th dr. appt tomorrow. We're carrying Ella with us for the first time so she can hear the heartbeat :) At my next appt, I will be well into my 18th week, so I'm hoping we will be scheduling the ultrasound tomorrow for 4 weeks out. Dr. Williams let me find out at that time w/ Ella so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. :)

All in all, life is good and we're overly and abundantly blessed in more ways than we ever deserve. Tim's job is flourishing & my business/job is good too. We are still loving Collierville & recently had the Neighborhood Assc.  Dinner at our house last weekend so it was good to meet some more new faces that live in our circle. We've also done some home improvements in the past month and w/ Big Daddy coming in town in the next 2 weeks, I am certain there will be more of that :) I'm itching to get out in my yard and plant some new flowers for this season...if I could just get the weather to cooperate. I promise I will stay more on top of things and not be silent for another 3 months (very unlike me!). So until next time :)