Easter Eggin'

Today was a fun, but busy day.  We started off the morning with a baby shower for Maggie and Baby G.  I was going to ask my mom to keep Ansley since Mitch had to work, but I decided to take Ansley to the shower.  Even though she missed her morning nap, I thought she did really great.  She was definitely on the go the whole time, but she was really sweet and made herself right at home!  I tried to snap a few pictures of her this morning, but she would not take her paci out! I managed to convince her to take it out for a quick snap, but it went right back in!

After the shower (and a long nap), Ansley and I headed to my parent's church.  We missed the Easter Egg Hunt at our church, but we were able to go to my parent's church for theirs.  They did an afternoon hunt with a bring your own picnic snack afterwards.  My dad's family joined in on the fun.  Last year Ansley was only 5 months old and had no clue what Easter Egg Hunting was all about, but this year she understood a little better.  She quickly realized that the eggs were filled with surprises.  She was so cute in walking around, grabbing an egg, shaking it, and either opening it or putting it back.  She also only went to the really special eggs.  She knew exactly what she was looking for!  Here are a few pics from the egg hunt.

Family pictures are harder to take with this squirmy girl.

Asher and Layla giving each other love.

It was impossible to get Ansley and Asher to look at the camera at the same time.  I was doing good to get him to stand next to her!

Checking out her goodies.

Shaking the egg to see if something special was inside.

Sweet Gavin found a little surprise.

AG was not in the mood for posing.

The Easter Bunny stopped by and dropped off a few goodies.  Ansley has a new personalized step stool for her bathroom and a few goodies to play with. 

The picture makes it look blue, but it's really purple.  I made this on my new machine.  I was pretty proud of my efforts.  :)

Although Easter Egg Hunting and the Easter Bunny are both fun parts of Easter, I am thankful that we have a TRUE reason to celebrate.  Thank you Lord for your ultimate sacrifice and resurrection.  Thank you for your forgiveness, mercy and grace.  One of my favorite songs to listen to that reminds me of what Jesus did for us is Casting Crowns' song, Living He Loved Me.  Here are the lyrics below.  I hope everyone has a wonderful Easter.  I'll post more pictures of our Easter celebration after tomorrow.

One day when Heaven was filled with His praises
One day when sin was as black as could be
Jesus came forth to be born of a virgin
Dwelt among men, my example is He
Word became flesh and the light shined among us
His glory revealed

Living, He loved me
Dying, He saved me
Buried, He carried my sins far away
Rising, He justified freely forever
One day He's coming
Oh glorious day, oh glorious day

One day they led Him up Calvary's mountain
One day they nailed Him to die on a tree
Suffering anguish, despised and rejected
Bearing our sins, my Redeemer is He
Hands that healed nations, stretched out on a tree
And took the nails for me

One day the grave could conceal Him no longer
One day the stone rolled away from the door
Then He arose, over death He had conquered
Now He's ascended, my Lord evermore
Death could not hold Him, the grave could not keep Him
From rising again

One day the trumpet will sound for His coming
One day the skies with His glories will shine
Wonderful day, my Beloved One, bringing
My Savior, Jesus, is mine

Oh, glorious day

Westfield Auction

Saturday night, Mitch and I were invited to go to the Westfield Auction.  It was held at the Ag Center in Perry.  Mitch's cousin Katie had a table and invited us to join her.  Each group pays a fee for the table, and you bring your own food/drinks for the evening.  To make things fun, they had a theme for the night....television shows.  There were some really creative tables, and some people even dressed up to coordinate with their theme.  Katie did a great job of decorating our table like the television show Las Vegas.  We didn't dress up as a group, but next year we'll be ready for the friendly competition.  Some of the great tables were Duck Dynasty, The Love Boat, Soul Train, The Price is Right, and the Beverly Hillbillies.  They had a silent and live auction, and it was really entertaining to watch the live auction.  Here are just a few pictures I took at the beginning of the evening.

Here is our table with our theme Las Vegas.  Katie did a great job with the feather centerpiece.

Me and Mitch with Katie and Charlie

One of the Duck Dynasty tables.

Katie and me

Love Boat...they won first place in the secret competition.

The Big Break golf tv show.

I've been doing a TERRIBLE job of documenting our life in pictures.  Ansley is growing so fast, and I capture a lot of things on my iPhone, but I don't always get the nice camera out to get some good shots.  I'm going to try to do better.  Here are a few pictures of my sweet girl and hubby this morning before church.  I'm sure I'll be getting a few good pictures next weekend as we celebrate Easter. 

Such a big girl!

This is her face when you say, "Close your eyes."  Too cute!

Ansley loves some "nanas"

My loves...

What's been going on...?

So I've been a little MIA from the blogging world lately.  Life has been really busy with school, tax season, and weekend obligations.  I was hoping things would slow down soon, but we have many weekend events coming up.  Ansley is 15 months old, and she is full of personality.  She is talking a lot, but most of it you can't understand.  She can definitely say "da-da", and she says it frequently.  She has yet to say "ma-ma", which breaks my heart.  :)  We work on it each night, but she giggles and says "da-da" instead.  She says something that sounds like Toby though, and she adores him!  She lights up when he comes in the room, and she always wants to give him love.  He's warmed up to her too.  I think he has realized that she isn't going anywhere, so he's accepted her presence.  I've been really impressed with how well he has responded to her.  He actually lets her do whatever she wants to him!  Although she can't say a lot of words, she definitely understands just about everything you tell her.  I love seeing how smart she is and watching her try to solve problems.  She is still so sweet too.  Her favorite thing to do is to give "love".  She will come over and put her head on you as she leans in for a hug.  It definitely makes my day each time she does it.  She loves brushing her mullet hair (Yes, a haircut is in the works soon!).  She also has 3 teeth...finally!  The teeth situation has been a little slower than I thought, but they are finally coming through.  The top ones have been a booger though...lots of fussiness and pain.  At her 15 month appointment, she weighed 19 pounds and was in the 35%...yay - progress!

Here are some pictures I've taken of our last month around the Greer House.  They are all iPhone pics, so please excuse the quality! :)

We finally upgraded to our BIG girl car seat.  Ansley loves facing forward! 

We love wagon rides in the neighborhood.  The weather has been warm enough for plenty of these.  She's sporting a cute dinosaur outfit my mom made for her.

She obviously has seen us do this...talk on a phone!  She loves to sit on the windowsill and "talk" on her pretend phone.  Too cute.

Playing in mama's closet is fun too.  Watching her try to walk in these was even more entertainment though!

Mama sometimes lets me try to feed myself...big mess!  She loves playing with the spoon though.

She has recently become interested in her baby dolls.  She likes to "push" them around in her stroller and give them a bottle.

Her FAVORITE thing to do....go through the cabinets.

She made this mess in about 5 minutes while I was trying to cook dinner.

Her ADORABLE Valentine's outfit that my mom made for her.  She had another shirt that had applique hearts with her initials.

Being silly for the camera.

Sporting her Valentine's Day PJs....AND her sippy cup.  We are officially off the bottle. 

A few of AG's Valentine treats from her friends at Mrs. Cathy's.

I just had to share this card from one of my students.  Too funny.

Hopefully I will do a better job of documenting our life!  :)  She is growing up so fast, and I can't believe how big she is!

A Lap Full of Love

In December, we celebrated my mom's birthday, and today is my dad's birthday.  They both wanted a picture with all three grandkids.  Taking a picture of three kids under 3 at once is always a challenge, but we managed to get one good photo.  I wanted to share these laps full of love.

AG's 12 month photos

I'm just getting around to posting Ansley's 12 month pictures.  I received them a couple of weeks ago, but things have been so busy that I haven't had a chance to even think about them.  She wasn't exactly in the mood for pictures that afternoon, but Kimberly managed to get a few good shots.  Here are some of my favorites.

Big Green Egg Pizza

Mitch's parents gave him a Big Green Egg for Christmas.  We have a couple of friends who have one, and Mitch really liked them.  His dad bought one a few months ago, and that was all it took.  Mitch was in love with them, and he couldn't wait to get one.  Mitch's dad built a beautiful wooden table to hold the egg.  Over Christmas, we watched lots of BBQ Pitmasters to see how the pros cook their meat.  Mitch picked up lots of tips and was ready to try his first meat.  We did baby back ribs first, and to be safe, we just invited 2 friends over.  We warned them ahead of time that the outcome could be questionable.  They cooked for over 4 hours, and I thought they were delicious.  On New Years Eve, we had a few friends from the neighborhood over for dinner.  Mitch really wanted to do a beef tenderloin, but the $150 price tag was out of the question.  We settled for a pork tenderloin.  Mitch's friend Joe had a great dry rub recipe we used, and the meat turned out excellent.  It couldn't have been any more perfect.  One thing we've heard everyone cook on their BGE is pizza.  We decided to try pizza Friday night, and we asked Mitch's parents to join us.  I bought the pizza dough from Publix's bakery.  It's in their refrigerator section.  You just let it sit out for 1 hour, and then you roll it out to the size you want.  We added ground beef, peperoni, onions, mushrooms, olives, and 2 types of cheese to our pizza.  We were a little nervous, so I made a salad to eat just in case the pizza wasn't edible.  To our surprise and delight, the pizza was so yummy.  It had an excellent smoky taste, and the crust cooked perfectly.  Mitch's dad said it was the best pizza he'd ever had!  It was pretty tasty though!  Here's a picture of the pizza.