The Party

AKA, the post of pictures.  Fairly self-explanatory, but I'll fill in here and there.

We had food and family.

There were plenty of photo opts, since we were all in the same place, and I could hand the camera to another adult to ensure that my face would surface in a picture or two.

(I think it's funny that their mouths look exactly the same in the picture below.  Notice Hannah is pulling Jayce's hair as well.)

I was a little unsure about how to do the order of events for the dual birthday.  Sing to each kid individually?  Sing together?  I didn't want Hannah to do the cake smashing while Jayce was blowing out his candles, and for him to feel overlooked because she was getting more attention or something.  But I realized that the main event was different for each of them: for him it was the presents, for her was the cake, so I just split those up.

The guests arrived, we ate lunch, we sang to Jayce and he blew out candles, then he opened presents while we served cake.  

Also, in true "morning of the first birthday party" form, Hannah didn't have a nap.  She was completely spent by post-lunchtime, so we just put her down for a nap after we sang to Jayce, and then we could focus completely on the birthday boy while she snoozed.

Jayce was thrilled over each of his presents. Four is such a fun age, you really can't go wrong with anything.  One of the funniest things about Jayce opening his gifts was that he got really excited about the cards too.  He would go, "Mom! Look! This present has a card too!" and everyone would chuckle.  Hey, the boy likes to get mail.  It was like two gifts in one.

As we were playing outside an ice cream truck drove down the street.  As I was shaking my head "no" I glanced towards Chris who was nodding his head "yes" and pulling out his wallet.  

"He needs to get ice cream from that ice cream truck."  Chris said, sheepishly with a smile.

We don't have ice cream trucks in Lincoln, so this was his first.  I guess his birthday party was a fair enough occasion.

By this time, Hannah had woken up and was significantly more pleasant.  We gave her the cake, which deserved it's own post, but I'll just ruin the suspense now and say, she liked it.

Then she opened her gifts, sometimes with help from her brother.

 All in all, it was a super successful party and I was so happy with it.  Chelsea, Mom, and I had been planning for it for longer than I'd like to admit, and were feeling the stress the night before trying to get everything ready and not kill each other.  But they were perfect co-hosts and it went off without a hitch.

We were able to grab a few family photos as well. 

(Don't feel too bad for Chris for not being invited to the "striped shirt party."  At this point in the day, Jayce and Hannah were both in their second outfits, so really, in the beginning, the stripe shirt party was my party alone.)  

Happy birthday kiddos!!