Our celebration April Part II

Aaand, we're back...

Easter Sunday was full of bopping around town stopping in to see our family on both sides to eat loads of good food and participate in numerous egg hunts.  Again, I literally cannot stress how lucky my kids are with the abundance of love and kisses they get.  We are very blessed.

egg hunt 1:  Pappy Butch & Gigi's house

Greyson & his #1 favorite cousin Morgan. 

Pappy Butch, Gigi, Grey, & Gemmi

Mimi and 2 of her great grandkids

our super colorful Easter family

Greyson's birthday is 1 day after his cousin Amy's birthday.  So they shared a cake and a high five

Gemma & her great Aunt Darlene

Gemmi & her cousin Janell

egg hunt 2: Chum & Abba's house

Gemmi hanging with her great Aunt Marlene & her great grandpap

Pap with his daughter (mum), granddaughter (me), and great granddaughter (Gemma)

Chum, Abba, Grey, & Gemmi Bear (hah, that face!)

this picture of my dad tickling Gemmi makes me laugh every time I see it.

You may now be asking yourself, where on earth did she get those matching outfits for her kids?  My friend Becki (hi, Beck!) is awesome (and about to have a baby here in a month!!) and she's way more creative and talented than me.  You can check out her facebook page & some of her designs here.  She hand made & designed Gemma's dress, diaper cover, and Greyson's velcro tie.  She's kind of a my hero.

thank you, Becki!

 We followed Easter weekend up with the first day of trout.  Brandon spent Friday night with his cousins at their cottage in Bedford like old times.  Pappy Butch took Grey out on Saturday afternoon to spend time with his Dadda and cousins near the creek (or in as we say in Western PA, crick).  The boys were in all their muddy, fish guts, stinky glory.

Grey & his cousin Reid

 While the boys were away, the girls will play.  So Gigi, Gemma and I made our way to the Italian Oven - ate plenty of pasta and then stopped off for manicures and pedicures.  We're thinking this should probably be a first day tradition.

Gem doesn't really care either way just yet. hehhe

Rounding out the third weekend in April, we go to celebrating Gemma's christening.  The mass was beautiful and we had so many family and friends come out to see her on her special day.  My Mum had been able to take immaculate care of my christening gown and had it all ready for Gemma's baptism.  She looked beautiful and it meant a lot to me to have her wearing the same dress I wore some 28 years ago (thanks, Mum!)

Gem was like a little angel and waited patiently for her big moment at the baptismal font.  She didn't even make a peep when she was baptized, she just stretched her arms out and soaked in all the attention.  This girl already has a flair for the theatrics.  We are so proud and happy for you, Gemma Rose.

Gemma's godparents, Aunt Kitty & Uncle Juice

our lucky girl

Adams Grandparents<3 

Gemma & her mothers

Studer grandparents<3 

her cupcake cross cake

Gemma & Mimi

Uncle Juice and his girl

It was a beautiful day and we were surrounded by so much love and faith.  However, with all that partying in such a short amount of time, it was really only a matter of time until we started feeling the effects.  Grey isn't in any of the pics, because he actually got sick the night before.  We pulled godmother duty on Tasha that morning and she stayed at our place with a sick Greyson while we all went to church to celebrate our girl.

After that, it was a pretty slippery slope of sickness through the last 2 weeks of April, including some vomit clean up in aisle 3 (just kidding, more like bedroom floor), stubborn fevers, a quick bout with suspected hand, foot, and mouth (Greyson), and a sweet little stint of food poisoning for me.  Its been nothing but eventful around these parts the past few weeks.  And if you know us, the summer brings on a major dose of celebrations and traveling.  We're busy body kind of people, but we prefer to do it without runny noses and hacking coughs if possible. Here's to hoping the spring and this warm weather bring on clean respiratory systems for all!