Lilly's First Holy Communion

Today was a big day in the Lloyd house. Lilly received her first Holy Communion at Saint Bonaventure Catholic Parish. In a nut shell for non-Catholics it is a person's first reception of the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. She is the first of the four Lloyd kids to receive this Sacrament. It was a beautiful day celebrated with our closest friends and family. 

Lilly is wearing a traditional white dress along with my veil from my First Communion back in the 80's. My grandmother also made her a special purse out of pieces of my dress and my Aunt Liz's dress.

Lilly with her Godfather and my brother Jeremy

With my parents

I have to throw in the two that her brother so lovingly photobombed (Just wait Bobby, she gets her chance in 2 years when it's your turn!)

With Uncle Kevin and Auntie Kat

With Grandma Carol, Auntie Andrea, and Mommy

With my grandparents

With Uncle Randy and Aunt Cheryl

With Marilyn

 With Auntie Min and Uncle Peter

And of course it wouldn't be a party if my mom didn't make her fantastic cakes! This time she even made two! One is a cross and one is a bible. :)

And of course here's the girls playing in the pink tulle we decorated the backyard in.

And last but not least the only family photo we got of the 6 of us. It describes our life to a tee right now :)

Easter pics!

Yes I know Easter was about 2.5 weeks ago but I finally have a little time to blog about that. Easter was super fun this year. On Sat afternoon, Lilly lost her first top tooth (which would set off a whole chain of teeth falling out over the next few weeks! Another post on that!) so we had the excitement of BOTH the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy coming to our house all in one night. The kids were actually pretty good about going to bed that night. Michael and I followed our usual Easter Eve routine of watching The Ten Commandments on TV (we never make it to the end since it's over wayyyy past our bedtime), enjoying some cocktails together while we wait for the Easter Bunny (and now the Tooth Fairy) to show up. I love that we have this routine together and it's probably the only Sat night in the entire year that we sit down together and watch a movie.

On Sunday we spent the first part of the day together as a family, relaxing and enjoying our goodies. The Easter Bunny usually leaves books in our kids baskets along with some candy. And he was kind enough this year to leave Mommy some Cadbury eggs (my weakness) and some wine! He knows me well!

Then we headed to my parents house for the afternoon to spend time with the rest of the family. We had a nice sit down dinner and an egg hunt. The Easter Bunny also visits my parents house and every year he brings all the grandkids new bathing suits for the summer. That guy really knows what we need! It was a great day and the kids were all exhausted by the time we got home that night. :)

 What?!! The Tooth Fairy is coming tonight too?!?!

The baskets are done!

So much excitement over her $$

Waiting to check our their loot...on a side note, someday I want to take all of my "on the stairs waiting" pics and make a book like 10 years from now. We always take their pic just before coming down for Christmas and Easter morning. Or maybe I can make a collage of these pics to hang on the walls on my stairway???

We cannot wait to dive into this collection of the 6 books of Mary Poppins this summer :)

Bobby collects the Pete the Cat books

Mmmm blue candy...

The East Bunny also brought the family a deck of cards. I taught the kids how to play War and Go Fish. Michael taught the kids Black Jack...

My loves...

My everthings...

Cousins (just a few days before my newest nephew arrived)

It was also my grandmother's birthday! And her favorite thing is shoes so my mom made her a shoe cake. And little individual bunny cakes for all the kids.

Egg hunt time!

THE END!

Loralee's 3rd birthday pics

So I have about a billion things and pics I need to blog about but as usual time has gotten away from me. Since Loralee's birthday was a month ago and I didn't post anything in April I figured it was about time to get to it. Loralee turned 3 on April 3rd. I like when her birthday isn't super close to Easter because I feel like we have more time to focus on her before the holiday. In case you're wondering, Easter doesn't fall on her actual birthday until she turns 56. So I think we're good for awhile...

I scaled down her birthday this year since I know I have plenty of years ahead for big parties. We kept it pretty simple at the park near our house and did a butterfly theme. And of course Nana came thru again with her amazing cupcakes and cake!

In our house 3 is an awful age. I don't know what it is, but we seem to have these angelic babies up to the age of 2 and then on the night of their 3rd birthday, they turn into this demon child. Every single Lloyd kid, for the entire year they are 3...Loralee hasn't been too bad yet but she's definitely had her moments. I'm happy that this is the last time we have to go through the terrible 3's in our house. There are many things I'm going to miss about having toddlers in my house but the tantrums, meltdowns, and crazy attitude is just not one of them.

So here are her birthday pics! Enjoy!

cupcake bouquet #1

cupcake bouquet #2

butterfly cake

pinata time!

candy time!

But the best part about our parties is playing in the dog run.

She loves being three and I wouldn't trade this firecracker of a kid for the world!

The End :)