Family....at the Farm!

So, rewind to a year ago. The very talented photographer, Nathan Clendenin, came to our home to take newborn pictures of the twins. NONE of us counted on the twins experiencing their first growth spurt at 10 days old...on picture day. The session was a disaster. I went through ALL of my frozen milk in this one day, and they were still screaming. They peed, pooped, screamed, cried the entire time! I was in tears by the end of the session and cried and cried the rest of the night. Well, despite this chaos, Nathan managed to get some very adorable pictures of the twins at such a tiny time in their life. Well, he emailed the next day and said whenever we wanted, if we wanted, he would come and do a "take 2" he felt so badly about how everything happened! How awesome is that!?

So, we took our time to keep from having a repeat disaster session. So, for the twins' 1 year shots and some family shots we knew exactly who to call. I can't recommend him enough...he is such a talented photographer! Take a look below, need I say more? :) We had the best time going over to Page Farms (they were so nice and let us come and romp around the entire farm!) and I couldn't be more pleased. Jenna was not having any of it on this particular day which made me a little sad. She has a smile to melt your heart but didn't want to flash it for most of the pictures...oh well, we still got some winners. I'm in love with every picture. I love pictures!!!! WARNING: I can't pick my favorites, so the rest of the post will be pictures, pictures, pictures!!! There are so many, I'm just going to blow up this post with our family pictures. We got some adorable individuals of the twins for 1 year I'll do in another post!

Love this one of R and his little Mini-Me!

We love this picture of Jenna...such a beautiful little girl!

Small Miracle...Jenna is smiling!

Not the Girls' best picture...but I LOVE Caden in this one! What a Ham!

One of Jenna's many meltdowns.....

Definitely one of my favorites!

Family.....at the Beach

So sometimes, my non-picture-taking husband gets a little agitated at me when I want to take family pictures ALL the time. a) it doesn't bother me a bit :) b) when there is an extra person in our vicinity who can snap a picture, I take advantage of it! and c) I tell him he will treasure them one day when I'm gone or when the kids are all grown up and out of the house. Sometimes, I get snappy and tell him he should be proud of his family and proud to take pictures with us. I don't seriously believe that for a second of course, I know he is bursting at the seams proud of our family and thankful for the twins...but it makes him stand in his spot and smile faster. haha!

So...we have recently had two mini sessions. One at the beach for Labor Day and then our "official" one year pictures of Caden and Jenna with some family shots thrown in too. I am in love with all of them. I seriously can't choose 1 without choosing 35! Here are the pics from Labor Day....our last big fling at the beach for the twins' first summer!

Happy Birthday Week...Cont.

After our fun-filled Pre-Birthday Weekend, we tried to jam pack as much fun as we could into our Birthday Week for the Twins! I am just so grateful to have them here and to be celebrating a birthday for a child of mine that I wanted to give them the moon this week! Here is our whirlwind week of fun!:

Tuesday: Happy Birthday Jenna and Caden! After the twins got up, I took them to Party City and got them each a Birthday Balloon to play with. Then we had a surprise visit from Papa T! The twins looove Balloons!

Then I let them play with the Sunday Paper. They try to play with it every week and we always have to take it away from them. Since it was a special day...I let them play with it, tear it up in pieces, slide on it, crinkle it etc... You would have thought I bought them the newest toy out there. They had a blast! I did not have a blast cleaning it up during nap time:)



That night, we went to Sweet Frog (a new Fro Yo place here in town owned by believers! The "Frog" stands for "Fully Rely On God", they have scripture hanging in the restaurant and Christian music playing through the speakers!) The twins looooved getting all of that sugar!

Ryan says he "forgot" that you pay by the ounce. His one cup was as much as the rest of ours put together. haha!

The twins were so sweet and got me some Sunflowers for making it through the first year and as a thank you for giving birth to them. ha!

Wednesday: Daddy took the day off work to stay home and play with us! yea! We started the morning with our 1 year appointment...not exactly fun, but it must be done! I'll post their stats in another post. Then, even though it was raining off and on, we took advantage of our Daddy Time and went to the fair again! We had one meltdown, then the twins were fine and loved seeing the people and lights. There was no one there b/c of the rain so it was very nice to walk around minus the damp shoes :) We found our new favorite food: Red Velvet Funnel Cake with Cream Cheese Icing! WHAT?! Delic. I got my yummy corn photo. Remember last year's shot? I was 36 weeks pregnant with twins...huge...trying to walk and eat those babies out! haha Oh the difference a year can make.

2010

2011

We had to get creative in a water-resistant way to shield the twins from the rain ;)

They were mezmorized by the waterfall.We definitely camped out here a while post melt-down.

We made a stop to go see my Aunt Alice who works at the Fair.

Thursday: We started our day by going over to our buddies house for a PlayDate. Wow did we have fun...we didn't even miss our morning nap! Jenna crawled everywhere and got right in the middle of the big boys playing. Caden hung out with Kailyn and tried to put the moves on one of his future girlfriends :) Dont worry, he kept his eye on his two new prospects...Baby Callie and Baby Adelaide.

Hmmm is that Baby Adelaide cutting eyes back at Caden?? :)

I know buddy, life is full of tough choices. Kailyn, Callie and Adelaide are all your type! It will be up to their Daddies if you can date any of them.

Baby Callie already waving at Caden while pretending to be asleep...


Today, Kailyn is my playmate of choice!

Then we went to Gigi and Papa T's house to celebrate Aunt Rob's Birthday. We are so glad we share a birthday week with Aunt Rob. We tried to do a test run with the birthday candles and blowing them out. The twins were not having it by that point. Oh well..next year maybe!


Saturday: Huge 1st Birthday Party. A post or three in itself. Coming soon!

Sunday: Went to the Fair AGAIN! Its hard to stay away when you can park and get in for free. We went with Miss Emily and ate and ate and ate. Jenna sniped my country ham biscuit in a millisecond and had the entire top half of the biscuit in her mouth. After fishing out most of it to prevent a chocking hazard...she thoroughly enjoyed it :)






What a fun week! I can't tell you how exhausted I was. After all of these fun days, I stayed up late every night getting ready for the big bash on Saturday. But it was a fantastic celebration and the twins are worth every bit! Next post is our super fun Birthday Celebration!