Two weeks

Before the girls and I left for our trip, Mike warned me that "Emily better not be walking when [we] get back." Two weeks is a long time to be away from your babies, especially during a time that they seem to grow up so quickly anyway. I couldn't even imagine being away from my girls for two whole weeks! (sorry honey) It's funny that he said that because it seemed like as soon as we left, Em was all of a sudden so interested in walking. I was getting really nervous that she would take her first steps while Daddy was thousands of miles away. (Luckily for Daddy, she waited until we got back.)

The girls were so excited to see Daddy. He picked us up from the airport with flowers in hand. As soon as Kylie saw Daddy standing at the bottom of the escalator she turned to me and shouted, "Mommy, Daddy brought you flowers!" and then she did her cute scrunched nose, shrugged shoulder giggle. (Love that girl) The next day, Mike took the day off of work so that he could spend some much needed time with his girls. Ky and Em were his little shadows all day. You could completely see how much they missed him. And Emily was so excited to show Daddy her new tricks and how close she was to walking. It was a very good day.

We are very glad to be back home and even happier to reunited with our favorite handsome man :)

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World Travelers

The girls did so well on our flights around the country. I was so nervous about how the traveling would all play out since it was the first time I was taking both girls by myself. I'm sure I was quite the sight to see with my two kids, double stroller, two car seats, two suitcases, a camera bag and a purse. People were commenting left and right about how I "had my hands full" (nah, you think?), but there were so many people that were so willing to help me with loading and unloading on the planes and I was so grateful for that.

They make me smile.
(Just a couple Instagram pictures from our flight out to California.)

Before you go thinking that I am such a stud muffin taking care of two kids and all our stuff in busy airports all by myself, my mom made my life about 1,000 times easier by meeting us in Houston, where we made our first connection, and flew with us in the next 3 flights.  It was sooo nice having an extra pair of hands and an extra person to entertain the girlies.  

After we spent a week in California we headed out to New Hampshire (for another wedding). We had a great time hanging out and playing with family. I managed to pull the camera out a few times (but not nearly enough).

Bapo took Emily for a nice little evening walk. She loved being in the little backpack thing (I don't know the proper name). She sat in there and just looked around, and didn't make a peep the entire time. 

The girls got to play in their very own "built in 30 seconds" teepee (or castle if you ask Kylie). They loved playing with all of their new toys in there.

And they took turns sliding down the big wood beam in the kitchen (with help of course). It was pretty comical.

 

 

How did I not get any pictures of my mom or sister??? We had a great trip and were so glad to be able to spend so much time with my side of the family. I'm so glad that I have a job that gives me the opportunity to travel around the country. It's a pretty cool deal. 

P.s. What is going on with blogger compression? My images are so pixelated and that does not make me happy. It seems alot worse than it used to be...

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We Went to California

I went out to California to shoot a wedding in May (isn't my job the coolest?) and decided to bring the girls along with me so they could see family and meet some that they'd never met before. Mike had to stay behind and do that job thing (boooo). I keep telling him he needs to quit that thing and just stay at home with us all day, but then he reminds me that we need bacon if we want to eat and live in our house. (Bacon Schmacon.) But I digress... It was a busy busy week and our trip pretty much revolved around the wedding (naturally) but we did have some down time and got to spend time with some of my fabulous family.

We spent alot of time hanging out with Papa T. It always makes me smile to see my big tough dad playing with my cute little girlies. No matter how tough he thinks he is, he just melts for these girls.

 

While we were there we were able to see (almost) every member of my immediate/extended family on my mom's and dad's side. That hasn't happened since I was a little girl! It was wonderful! My mom (Mimi) and Bapo came out and so did my sister, Toots, or Titi as she's called by my girls. My dad's mom, Inky Grandma (or Inky G.G. to my girls) and her good friend Billie, came down from Washington. My Mom's Mom and Dad (who, growing up, we always called Regular Grandma and Grandpa Graves) and my Aunts and Uncles and cousins were all there too. (Confused by all the strange nicknames? Don't worry, you'll catch on soon enough.) It was so great seeing everyone! On Sunday afternoon we had a birthday/anniversary party for (Regular) Grandma and Grandpa.

The guests of honor. Aren't they cute?

The family and a couple of G&G's old friends.

My dad's secret weapon- Mickey Mouse clubhouse on his phone. Gets 'em every time.

My adorable Inky Grandma. I just love her!

Kylie was napping for most of the party and when she finally woke up, the first (and only) thing she wanted to do was get all dressed-up. It was a party after all.

My cousin Matt playing paper dolls with Ky.

Oh man, were my girls spoiled with all of this family around. No seriously, not just in quality time, we had to ship a huge box of gifts home because it wouldn't all fit in our suitcases.

After we left CA we flew straight out to New Hampshire where I was shooting another wedding the following week. (Pictures from that leg of the trip are coming next). And in case you were wondering, yes, the time changes were horrible. We went from AR to CA, which is two hours behind, and then to NH, which is three hours ahead, and then back one hour to AR- all within two weeks. My poor girls' schedules were so messed up and it didn't really help that right before we left Emily started the separation anxiety phase. But considering all that, they actually did pretty well and we only had a few complete meltdowns. Thank goodness we had our family there to help keep us sane :)

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Mother's Day

Have you missed me? You can always tell when life gets busy or I get slammed with my photography biz because our blog completely suffers. Sorry about that... But thank goodness for blogger back-dating so I can still keep my posts in the order that they happened (This was actually posted on 6/20 but lets pretend like it was 5/10). Ready for this? Here comes a massive update over the next couple days (all back-dated of course).

Mother's day was really special. It always is. Mike and my girls know just how to make me feel special and appreciated and loved. I got to sleep in a little that morning (well as much as you can when church starts at 9am), Mike took care of all of the meals and diapering and let me relax all day. Then after a wonderful dinner I told him the one thing I wanted was to take some pictures of our girls so he humored me and helped me get them ready as fast as we could before the sun went down.

By the time we got out there we had about 10 minutes of good light and Emily was soooo ready for bedtime but Kylie was all about the little yellow flowers and wanted to "pick all of them!" I just adore these pictures of my little sweethearts and even more that we took them on a day that we celebrate motherhood. I am so lucky to be the mommy of these two little girls.

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