Birthday Party

Once again we took the party to our relatives this year, and road tripped 4 hours to hold Sam and Anna's 3rd birthday party near everyone that was invited.  While it has worked out well in the past two years, I am looking forward to having birthday party # 4 in our own (new) home next year! AND the end of this 4 hours-one-way stuff by myself with two 3 year olds and a lab!

 

Invites I created in 15 minutes (minus personal info at the bottom).

                           

Our safari themed cakes for our animal lovers, thanks to Daddy's mad amateur cake skills.

Table decorations with Reese's Pieces.  Each table had 3 different animals in the center.

We had lots of safari animal balloons since I skipped treat bags with only two other kids in attendance.  Sam and Anna's cousins each bought home a bunch of balloons.

The birthday banner I made.  It is hard to see, but the the background paper is a light zebra print.

Daddy's lion and bird fruit trays.

Anna with Aunt Mary (one of her Godmothers).

Sam and Anna with their Great-Grandma Marie

The balloons provided lots of entertainment.

Sam and his cake.

Anna and her cake.

Blowing out the candles.  It was Anna's turn to have the birthday song sung to her first this year!

Opening presents.

(Post party, Sam and Anna have switched the stuffed animals they each initially attracted to.  Anna's is now the zebra print one, and Sam sleeps with the leopard print one every night.)

The biggest party present hit were the 2-1 tricycles, though.

Although it was her first time attempting to pedal something, Anna picked it up extremely fast.

Sam didn't want to spend any time learning how to pedal- he was much more content walking around with  his tricycle.

We had a great day with no mishaps.  I think we will always hold the birthday party on a different day than their actual birthday.  Since they already have to share the spotlight, it is one little way we can extend the celebration and make both their party and birthday special, without the expense of the other.

Birthday Planning

I've started to ponder Sam and Anna's second (!) birthday celebration.  Last year was such a bust after this and my parents getting the flu, that our "party" had a total of 3 guests.  So far, we have decided that we're going to try something different this year and take the party to our relatives, instead of at our house and having them come to us (which involves juggling several sets of house guests).    Less stress of getting our house clean and hosting different sets of families overnight, but trading that for a 7 hour round trip drive and less than stellar sleep for Sam and Anna in a less than familiar setting. 
We'll see how that goes.

What I haven't decided is the theme for Sam and Anna's second birthday party.  I've had in the back of my mind basing it off of The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle for a long time. I have so many cute ideas stored on pinterest:



However Sam and Anna have really turned into Elmo nuts lately.  I don't entirely get where it comes from, since they don't watch Sesame Street and they just listen to Elmo's song at daycare from a CD (besides the characters being on their diapers).  Our daycare provider gave them plush Cookie Monsters, Elmo, Big Bird and Ernie for Christmas, and they have been some of the most popular toys in the last few weeks.  Regardless of where it comes from, they love Elmo. 

I've never been much of a characters-for-kids kind of person.  No judging for anyone that is- for me it's like the color pink.  Some people like it, some people hate the color pink.  If you don't like the color pink, it's not like you look down on people that do- it just isn't something you aren't fond of personally.  Sam and Anna don't have anything Elmo based except for the gifts they got from daycare.  I would kind of like to keep it that way.

BUT, I can kind of see why people buy into character stuff now.  The way their faces (Sam especially) light up when I play Elmo's song for them on you tube is priceless.  Their joy becomes my joy.  I'm growing to love that furry red monster too, because my kids do.  As far as characters go, too- he's not that bad.  He doesn't whine like I've read Calliou does, or act bossy like Ruby from Ruby and Max does, or promote the helpless woman rescued by a man theme from Disney.

And so, I'm now contemplating an Elmo theme for the 2nd birthday party.  After all, it is their day, and to see their faces light up with that much joy from the Elmo junk stuff all over would make me happy too, no?

Plus, I've pinned all this good stuff from pinterest so far.




This is gonna be a tough decision to make!

Now I'm Really Irate

So after my post about the self-inviting in-laws, my husband talked to his dad, and got them to agree to come Saturday instead. (Yay for the hubs!) I thought it was all settled.

Then this Friday afternoon (less than 24 hours from when they would have arrived), my husband sends me an email telling me that he just talked to his dad and they decided not to come. At all. Saying that it's too much to drive in two days, and also- my step MIL took a shift for someone so there's no changing their new plan to not come.

I'm so irate. First of all, of course we'd rather have them come and impose for an extra day over not coming at all. I'm irate that they (again) informed us of this last minute. I'm extra irate because the party was this weekend solely because they told us it needed to be because it was the weekend they both didn't have to work. And I'm super irate that because we had to do this weekend for them, my brother and his family are not able to come because my SIL is on-call this weekend. So in essence, when the party date was decided, we chose my FIL over my brother's family and now they are not even coming.

Grrrr.

You better bet it is going to be a long time before I haul my babies up to their house and go through all that headache and stress of a long road trip with toddlers if they can't even come down for their first grandchildren's first birthday.

Eh- They'll probably invite themselves to our home for a weekend in the near future anyway.

Party Plans

I am reluctantly starting to think about first birthday plans. I always thought I'd eagerly await the day they turned one year old because that would mean we had survived an entire year with twins. But now that it is so much easier to parent twin babies (than the early days), I don't want them to become toddlers! I want them to stay this way forever (well, maybe rewind a little to puree eating days, because, man- 100% finger food is extremely messy! We had spaghetti last night, enough said, I think.)

I won't go all out since it will be a pretty small affair because our family all lives out of state. I considered traveling to them for a party, but decided against that. I am guessing that just our 3 sets of grandparents will come and maybe my sisters-in-law, but only if they don't have to work. I want to do some fun stuff regardless of the small number of guests because, well, it will be fun for me. I am thinking about doing a sort-of Dr. Seuss Thing 1 and Thing 2 theme and here's my reasoning: This is probably the only year I have sole input on the theme. I have plenty of years ahead of me of pink and blue; princesses, characters, bugs and monkeys. I like the red and teal blue combo because it will be bright in an otherwise dull March world. And, Sam and Anna's birthday is only a week after Dr. Seuss' birthday and the week before that at my job we go all out celebrating reading and Dr. Seuss books. Time-wise, it is very fitting.

I did invitations already, with a photo deal from SeeHere.com for 24 free cards and paid only shipping of $2.49. They don't exactly match and I didn't have fabulous pictures, but they are teal and bright and that's good enough for $2.49., especially when I could just forgo the invites all together.

I want to get these shirts for Sam and Anna, and color-wise use red and light teal. I'll use the same colors for plates, cakes etc.

And I might splurge and get one of these banners. But that's probably it for bought decorations. I'll bring my stuffed Thing 1 and Thing 2 and Cat in the Hat from school for added decorations too. (cost=free).

I need to put thought into the bigger cake and their personal cakes yet.

Since their actual birthday is on a Wednesday, I decided I'd start a tradition of taking their day off of work (at least until they are school-age) and spend the day with them. I know I would have a hard time sending them to day care, and I know I will be spending a large chunk of the day reminiscing about their birth and the past year of our lives so this way I can do so freely. My husband is also taking the day off. Not sure what we'll do yet (although I'm thinking about going to the nearby cupcake shop and have that small treat on their actual birthday, maybe a nice long walk if the weather's nice, etc.). I can't wait to have our little midweek celebration as just our family of 4.