A Birthday Celebration: Cake! and a Carousel!

I couldn't believe how these boys devoured their cake. They had just eaten a big dinner! No problem, they were all over it! We used whip cream for the frosting which was nice and messy without being overly sweet and thick, thumbs up.

 Bryson could not wait to dig in.

 Quinn was little more hesitant but got into it later, he didn't get very messy though just straight in the mouth

 They just loved the cake. When they finished their cake and you were holding a baby, they tried to lean way far forward to the cake you were eating (Oreo of course for the adults!)

 So lucky to have my mom there! And Katie is literally a family member in our home right now, she's  a HUGE part of their lives the past year.

 Bryson digging in.

Quinn digging in.

 The next day we made it to the carousel! That's our 1 year birthday celebration for our kids. It was way too little and fast and totally made us adults sick, ha. But they loved it, both babies had huge smiles on their faces :)

The end of birthday celebration week!

A Birthday Celebration!

I was so excited to celebrate these babies! We began the morning with candles on our waffles, a birthday call from Grammy and Grandpa where they opened the cutest books in the whole wide world. We went for a walk with friends, they took a nap, played a while, and then took another nap.  When they awoke we opened presents, ate dinner (lasagna), and then invited friends over to eat cake and sing happy birthday to the babies. It was a great day!

 Bryson's faces

 Quinny's faces

 The birthday boys!

 Casey's Grandpa and Grandma sent them $1 each, so we had Max and Casey go to the dollar store to pick out gifts for them. He found them (really annoyingly loud) little toy trucks they they immediately put in their mouth. Max was SUPER eager to help them open gifts..and then play with their gifts, ha, luckily the babies did not mind.

 Granny and Papa gave them some PJ's and sparkle sticks

 And lastly we got got them these bog stuffed animals that they were over the moon about.

 Our Aunt Katie got them THE CUTEST jackets in the whole wide world. So beyond adorable I can't stand it. Wish they came in my size!

 I'm hoping we'll get lots of use out of them!

Tomorrow: cake!

A photographer's family picture fail

So this year's family photos were an epic fail. Mistakes I made:

1. Not hiring someone or trading with someone. I was too lazy to hire someone because I prefer to trade and I couldn't find anyone to trade with that I felt comfortable trading with.

2. My camera was not charged. 15 minutes before our designated "start" time i realized this, frantically tried to charge it, borrowed a friend's camera that is a few versions lower than mine. This compounded the stress and then my camera died half way through anyways and I had to use the other camera which again, was not as good which led to blurrier photos

3. I had plans to use a tripod and remote  but was too flustered to set it up and hoped that the person taking the pics would do good enough. They did great (thanks mom!) but just not exactly the way I would have, which I knew which is why I wanted to use the tripod and remote and that would solve problems, BLAHHHHH

4. I had plans to have our friend, Katie, and my mom there. One to take the pictures and one to entertain the kids to get them to look and smile and laugh at/near the camera. Well I forgot to tell Katie we were doing pictures that night until RIGHT before we left her house and then she heard the wrong cross roads of where to meet on the phone and wasn't able to make it

5. Most families I photograph have maybe 1 uncooperative child. We had 3. End of story

Parent's looking, pretending to smile, too much open space between mom and dad, Max not looking and refusing to smile in all photos, babies not looking or if they do look then a very unpleasant face.

 Parents waiting/hoping/coaxing Max to come back once he got bored after 4 photos.

 Space fixed, but again, children. There's literally not possibly a way for me to photoshop faces into one picture to make it work. The kids were all that terrible. And cropping and boring lighting.

 Even when it was me behind the camera and Casey next to me entertaining them, children still were uncooperative. Max too physical, Bryson unhappy being hugged, and Quinn there fighting for his life.

Maybe we'll try again next week...or next year

The happiest of birthdays to my TWO birthday boys!

Bryson, Quinn- 1 years old.

My babies are one years old, ONE, ONE, ONE! I can't believe it. I mean, I can and I can't.

Not going to lie, this last year has been a long slow one at times. It has been more work than I could have ever imagined. There was so much crying. A lot less getting out. More depending on my husband and others.

BUT!!! It has been so much fun to have two babies at the same time. Two times the fun and love for sure. It has been a circus but the circus is fun, right?! Watching twins develop together has been so hilariously cute.

It has gone so fast, the days and months have been a blur just running into each other and suddenly it's been a whole year. It fees like just yesterday I was that huge pregnant girl that was huge for 4 months.

But it really has been so wonderful. These boys bring the biggest smile to my face, their relationship with each other is the most amazing thing, one you could never forge any other way than being a twin. They've made me laugh so much. I love them so dearly.

Quinny and Bry Bry, you have stretched me to be a better mom in so many ways and my heart has truly grown 3 times in size having you two as my babies. I'm glad you survived all my threats to eat because you are so cute. Don't grow up, you're so gosh darn cute!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, QUINN AND BRYSON, I LOVE YOU OH SO MUCH!

The pumpkin patch

Yes, we joined the other 42 gajillion people on IG and Facebook and went to a pumpkin patch this weekend too! We trucked our way out to Roca's Berry Farm (akin to that of Cornbelly's Utahinians). It was the perfect brisk weather, (overpriced) pumpkins around us galore, cute little kid fall stuff, pig races, corn pits, corn maze, tractor rides, face cut outs, bounce houses, a bail/mountain of hay to climb in, and a scary section at night that we didn't go to. Once we got in the car both Casey and I were like "Oh my gosh, this is why we don't go that many 'fun' places with our little family very often, it's so much work and so tiring!" It was fun, but our kids are just exhausting, if you'd like to walk my shoes for a day I'd gladly allow you to rent them ;) onto pictures.

 They had about 4 different very large different kinds of slides that were really fun for one and all to do. Casey would go down once with Max, then I would go with him, and then Casey once more. I'm so happy we took the stroller in, we debated on wearing the babies in ergos but this worked so much better.

 The whole time  in the corn pit was spent trying to stop the babies from putting the corn kernels in their mouths

 gerbil race

 This slide on the right was so fun and FAST sitting on burlap sacks.

I am actually so glad we went. All our other years here we told ourselves we'd wait until our last year to go to a Halloween/pumpkin patch in the area once Max could actually enjoy it and enjoy it he did!