Happy Birthday Babies

I'm a bit behind....Henry and Hudson celebrated their first birthdays last week.

We had a small family dinner and then let the birthday boys eat their cakes. Hudson dug right in!

Henry went at it a little more slowly....Here is Henry's first bite.And Hudson's bites were by the handfuls....HenryHudsonHenryHudsonHenryWhat a fantastic year this has been. These boys are delightful....that sounds like such an old lady thing to say but it is the most accurate way to describe them. They just make me smile! They are very different from each other. Henry is close to walking and Hudson will follow soon.

Hudson in a screamer...a very loud screamer. He also loves to eat - he shovels it in. He loves to drink water out of a sippy cup. Hudson screams when he sees someone drinking without him.

Henry is a laugher....he loves to be tickled and thrown up in the air. He loves his bottle still. We like to line them up and have them race for the bottles - Henry wins every time!

Happy Birthday Babies! We LOVE you!!!

Kindergarten Graduation

Yesterday Julius graduated from Kindergarten.....and yes, I cried. I'm a bawl baby by nature so when my baby boy sang a song about growing up I lost it....rather embarrassing....but oh, well. The music program was great - sweet and funny!
Mrs. Henry also had a special program. She had the students show us some of the fun songs and rhymes she taught them to remember the stuff they were learning. There were songs about each of the shapes and one about the Days of the Week, but our favorite was the Month's of the Year done with the actions to the Macarena - it was super cute! They also counted by 5's, 10's and 2's. What smartie pants they are!

This was the gift we all chipped in for...one of the mother's painted each of the children's faces on the pot.

Here is Julius with his dear Teacher -Mrs. Henry. We feel really, really lucky that he was blessed with such a wonderful person for his teacher this year. He's missing her already!

I'm so proud of this boy! He makes me happy everyday. He is sweet and kind and super duper funny! I love him so, so much...

11 Months

Can you believe it?!?Hudson and Henry are 11 months old today. Unbelievable.

What a lucky family we are...They are both standing now - but neither one is walking. Henry is getting close. Hudson still army crawls to get around. Henry has the crawling thing down pat. We've had to do some serious babyproofing around here. They also LOVE to eat - not baby food but real food. I just feed them whatever we're eating. Sometimes from a spoon - but they prefer to feed themselves with their hands. I don't mind the mess at all...but I can't say the same for my kitchen floor!Now that Henry and Hudson are moving and cruising the older kids really enjoy spending time hanging out in the babies room playing. They are constantly asking "Mom, are the babies sleeping or playing?" I even catch them hiding the babies in their own rooms to play.This is Hudson. He is hilarious! He recently learned to clap. I say "yay"- he claps. And grins...not just any old grin - it stretches from ear to ear. It makes me smile everytime.

He just learned to pull himself up to standing during the last week so he got lots of "YAYS" and lots of clapping. What a big boy! And Henry. Oh, Henry! Bender. Hender Bender. He is so darn cute with his new top teeth.

Be still my heart...

He does this thing when he's excited to see me he squeezes his eyes shut, shows his teeth, and breathes in and out of his nose really quickly. It works. I pick him up EVERY time.

What a love!

I'm coming out of the fog....the first year is a cloudy one with twins. Lots of joy, but so much work that my mind doesn't register much of reality. The fog is lifting.

We're looking forward to a magnificent summer ahead.

Happy 11 months babies!

May Showers

FABULESS PHOTOGRAPHY Giveaway

The gals at Fabulessly Frugal are hosting a giveaway from an amazing photographer - Shandy Vogt. Here is a link to the giveaway and here is a link to Shandy's blog. Check it out!

Happy Birthday to Julius!

We celebrated Julius's SIXTH Birthday last week. What a day! He requested a Godzilla theme this year (he's a fan). This is what we used for the invitations: Godzilla gifts are hard to come by...I've gotta thank Amazon and Ebay. Julius loves the old 60's versions of Godzilla (we rent them from Netflix). But his favorite so far is Godzilla - Final Wars released in 2005 because it has loads of Godzilla characters in it. So I ordered that, and the Matthew Broderick Godzilla. I also found a great Godzilla: 50th Anniversary Soundtrack that we used during his party. We let him open one present before school - so he could wear it on his special day.

And then he got to open this one during his party:

During his partywe had lunch: grilled burgers and hotdogs, chips, and cut fresh fruit. We drank a yummy orange (his favorite color) punch. After lunch we played a few games such as Godzilla stomp and Don't drop the Godzilla egg.

Then we had the cake...made by me. Obviously. It looked terrible. But it tasted pretty good. It was orange colored and flavored inside with caramel between the layers.

After the cake the kids played outside on the trampoline and bikes for awhile and then they took turns swinging at the pinata. The pinata was homemade this year...my children were enthralled with the process. We made it into a Godzilla egg and filled it with candy, dinosaurs, and toys.

After the pinata we went inside for presents.

Then the kids went home.

Then I crashed. So, so tired. Still am.

But, it was a great birthday...I love our Julius so much!

9 and 10 months

Henry and Hudson were 9 months in March...I wasn't as good about getting their monthly pictures the last two months...this is them at a little more than 9 months. At this point Henry was army crawling all over and Hudson was still just rolling to get around. Hudson
Henry

And here they are at 10 months...Henry is crawling on his hands and knees and pulling himself up on everything. Hudson is army crawling and does this hilarious pushup stance. They are eating table food now and using a sippy cup.

Hudson Henry
We took them to a great park and put them together in the bucket swing...I thought they would be scared - Henry was a little freaked out at first but he enjoyed it after that. Hudson loved every minute of it!