Five.... Four... Three... Two...

ONE! They made it. Perhaps as significant, I made it.

The Cake... and The Competition

We celebrated with extended family over the weekend. Having done enough parties with Seville now to have learned that parties are funner for kids when they're age appropriate, I came up with a plan that was completely centered around them. We did it between naps, at 2 in the afternoon, so they'd be happy and energetic. We had cake first. We played a couple of games they were sure to love.

Game 1: We had a "Dance Contest" where each adult had to hold a child and dance with them to the music my dad played on the piano (he mixed it up between western, ragtime, classical, waltz-ey, etc). The babies/toddlers LOVED it! The two nephews who are too old to be held to dance were the judges panel, and they doled out treats as prizes for each dance section, making sure to give a prize to each child. They did a great job.

Game 2: Then we had a blanket toss, starting with the youngest and going to oldest. Even my 9-year-old nephew got a chance to be tossed, his gangly arms and legs flailing around almost knocking our glasses off. It was super fun for all.

Then we opened one present (they loved it, so there was no need to get out the others and overwhelm them.)  Then they went down for a nap. Super simple, and very successful. They had a great time.

We had a private family party the next night, with just Mom, Dad, and Big Sister. There was more time to eat cake and open (most of) the rest of the presents. Good times all around.

You really notice, now that they're exactly one, that they're not really one yet. Everyone's been to enough one-year-old birthday parties to know roughly how a one-year-old acts and what they can and can't do. It was marked, the difference between these boys and other one-year-olds. They're really 10-month-olds. And so sweet. I'm tempted, though, to have a second birthday party, when they reach their gestational first birthday. We'll see how I'm feeling in May, but I bet you I'll do it :)

Here are the rest of the pictures:

The 5 Kinds of Mommy Pictures

Every so often I need a recent photo of myself for something. A family newsletter, a facebook profile that is remotely honest, a family calendar. It never ceases to amaze me how difficult it is to find a picture of myself that isn't a complete embarrassment. Talking to some other moms I know and looking at the photos of myself from the past year or so, I am starting to put together why this is. First of all, husbands, for some reason, are not as trigger happy with the camera shutter as moms are. I can't think of a time that my husband has been like, "what a precious moment! wait. hold it there a moment, you adorable wife and children, while I fetch the camera and preserve this delightful scene for posterity!" I am almost always behind the camera, and by the time it occurs to me that this could be a good photo op of ME, specifically ask my husband to take a picture of me, spend a minute negotiating about whether it's a waste of time or worth the effort, he will get the camera and humor me but by then I've lost my sense of humor, and somehow cameras have a way of capturing that (okay, I might be exaggerating this scene a little, but still). Anyway, mommy pictures almost always fit into one of 5 categories, and I'm posting them here with examples, to embarrass myself once and for all.

The "I Am Looking At My Child and I Have 15 Chins"

The "I'm Trying to Hold and Arrange All My Children, But They're Pulling My Hair/Earrings/Shirt and I Am Trying to Adjust Myself Between Shots But Of Course That's When The Shot Was Taken. Yay."

The "I'm So Tired And Wearing No Makeup And This Could Have Been a Good/Fun Picture, But Honestly, Do You Think I Want People To See Me Like This?"

The "Snort-Laugh" (no explanation necessary)

The "I'm Mid-Sentence/Bite/Sniffle and I Look Like a Stroke-Survivor"

 

Unfortunately, my fear is that if 99% of pictures of myself look like this, maybe I just look like this 99% of the time. Perhaps it is time to come to terms with the fact that I will inevitably decline in hotness as I age, even as my husband gets hotter every day (curse the inverse-gender-age-to-hotness-cultural-bias!).  I may have 15 chins when I look down (which probably IS 99% of the time), but I have inner-awesomeness, and my super-hot-only-getting-hotter-as-he-ages-and-gets-more-rustic-wrinkles-and-distinguished-gray-hairs husband, fortunately, seems to appreciate that.