Happy 1st Birthday Samuel and William

Well, the day has come and gone.  The first birthday already over.  I still can't get over how fast the last year went.  Oh well, you've heard that from me over and over again.  I'll never get used to how fast life goes these days.

Welcome to the party!

Friday was the day and we really did nothing out of the ordinary other than try to take everyone out for dinner for the big day.  This process is getting harder and we might have to take a hiatus from it for a while.  Needless to say, it was a giant waste of money.  I think John and I will have to just take our dinners out when Grandma is here and be content with a restaurant meal every 6 to 8 weeks.  The older child cannot sit for longer than 30 seconds, even at home.  And the younger two enjoy turning over glasses on the table or twisting around in high chairs to laugh at the table next to us.  It is a circus.

Birthday bunting and a couple presents that sister helped to wrap.

So thankfully we had another celebration planned.  We had a small party with just some family on Sunday.  I still decorated and tried to make it as special as possible, even though there weren't that many people here to celebrate with us.  Obviously the boys don't really know the difference, but they still need a celebration.  And frankly, I enjoy the heck out of making tissue pom poms, birthday bunting, cupcakes, food, and decorating the house.  And their sister was so excited to help wrap the gifts only to want to open them herself the minute we finished!

Speckled cupcakes with a set of buns.

John smoked some pork, we had some BBQ sides, a bunch of appetizers, drinks and finally cupcakes from scratch (I always want to be the home made cake mom!) and ice cream.  The boys are to always have their own cake, so I have a feeling that instead of me making two giant cakes every year, I will likely go the cupcake route most of the time.  

Sadly the best picture of mom wrangling a boy to try to help open gifts.  Cousin Patrick is trying to control Sam.

Before dinner we opened presents.  As usual my mother, brother and sister-in-law all spoiled the kids to no end with all the gifts.  Lillian even made out with her own gifts and her birthday is only a month away.  The boys got new clothes, new chairs, 2 lawn mowers and other yard toys, blocks, water sprinkler, Little People toys, a fire truck for riding (this one is a BIG hit - Thank you cousin Patrick!!) and even some cash from the relatives that couldn't make the trip.

Sam's trip on the new fire truck!

Lillian got a new pink flower light for her bedroom, a set of golf clubs (they should really make left handed golf toys for kids!), a beach ball sprinkler, AND she believes every last bit of her brothers' toys are also hers.

William's turn on the fire truck!  Wooh Wooh!

After presents we did dinner, which went over quite well.  Even Sam and Will liked their Daddy's BBQ.  Then before the boys' got too antsy in their chairs we busted out the birthday song and the candles, which we did not light for good reason.

What the heck is this Mom?  It has green on it...green = i should throw on floor... but this looks too good to throw!

The boys are really pretty good eaters and we've spoiled them a little lately with a taste or two of a peanut butter cookie or bites of mommy's Sheridan's.  But cupcakes were new to them.  There was some hesitation, but they finally got the hang of it.

Sam the Cake Destroyer

I think Sam got a little stage fright towards the middle of the ordeal and turned his head to the side and sucked his thumb for quite some time.  But eventually his love for that cupcake over came his fear.  He got over the stares and laughs pretty quickly and moved on.

Will the Cake Enjoyer

Will has always been the cleaner eater and it was quite obvious by the end of the show.  Sam had icing everywhere, including most of the back of his head, unseen in pictures here.  Will had a little around his mouth and a little on his bib.  However, Will let us know that he was done by throwing the wrapper quite far to the floor a few feet away, while Sam hugged that paper close until we decided it was time to get them both into the bath.

You can't get much cuter than these big guys having one of their daily "talks".

It was a great time.  I think Sam and Will both enjoyed their day.  They took their baths and bottles (they will be getting bottles for as long as we want as these are our last babies) and went off to dreamland quite nicely.  As did their very tired and over-excited big sister.

From sweet cuddly bundles to speed crawling stinkers. 

I love birthdays.  And celebrating with these little babies and their sweet big sis is going to be so much fun over the years.  So as it is a little bittersweet that these babies of ours are already one and going to be walking on their own very soon, it is still the most fun I've ever had celebrating a birthday.  Happy Birthday Samuel!  Happy Birthday William!  We love you both so much!

What goes around, comes around

I've always been a big fan of this phrase.  I like to try to apply it to my life whenever possible, a reminder that karma is a powerful thing.  I don't always live up to what I preach to myself, but when I don't, I'm not surprised if something comes back around to bite me in the ass.

Today however, I'm not writing about the phrase to preach life lessons to everyone that reads this.  I'm applying the phrase to something else entirely.  Something all of us with little tiny kids know all too well.  Germs.  Yucky, sticky, sour, slimy, stuck to the teeny, tiny fingers and noses of our little babies.  Germs.  I hate them.  They enter our homes, get smeared from place to place, person to person, doing their damage, leaving an aftermath of babies with too much well energy to burn and sleep deprived parents with no way to catch up.

We had the stomach flu in this house this week.  It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to get (though I'm not really sure we're in the clear yet).  But my mind was reeling on Monday at 4:30am when Lillian started vomiting in her bed.  What if the boys get it?  What if I get it while the boys or Lilli have it?  What if John gets it with everyone and I have 4 people to chase with puke buckets?  And then I get it when everyone is well and John can't take any more sick days to help me?

Thankfully, not much of this came to pass.  Lilli puked for 36 hours, maintaining a pretty good fever for a good 24 hours of it.  Pretty much the minute Lilli was well, both boys started in with fevers at almost 103 degrees for 24 hours if not more.  They were crying and fussy and just wanted to be held.  Which then put a very attention driven almost 3 year old into a tantrum tizzy because she's not getting the attention she's used to since her brother's have been mobile and not held as much.  We waited and waited, but thankfully the boys never got the stomach part of it that Lilli did.  I have no idea what the difference was because they clearly all had the same bug.  I do think the babies have stronger immune systems now because they eat better than she does.  I worry about her.

She has a habit, like a lot of kids, of sucking on her last two fingers on her left hand.  Most kids find a thumb, this one found these fingers at about 3-4 months old and hasn't looked back.  I have no idea how to get her to stop, but I worry this habit is allowing her to bring home junk on a weekly basis from Mother's Day Out.  Or anywhere really. 

But I can't place this all on Lillian.  Neither John nor I got sick.  So it is quite possible one of us brought home something we've previously been exposed to.  Obviously there is nothing one can do to stop this stuff, it is going to happen, and in a lot of ways it is good they are exposed because their immune systems just get that much stronger over time.  I swear my husband has the most amazing immune system.  I've only seen him really sick one time in over 6 years.  He will beat a cold in a day when the rest of us will have it for a week.  I hope the kids grow to have his immune system.  AND he was formula fed (there you go - props to all my formula feeding mommy friends!).

In the midst of all the chaos and sheet changing and laying in bed with a burning baby next to me, I could not help but think we really are pretty lucky to have the flu.  After all, it is only the flu.  There are families out there that deal with this kind of stuff all the time.  Families with handicapped children or terminally ill children.  Parents who go on 2-4 hours of sleep a night, every night.  We had a rough week.  The germs came in, got passed around, and went on out the door, likely to infect some other lucky family that we hope will only get the flu.  Sometimes things we don't ask for come around to bite us in the ass, but life could be a lot harder.  I'll take it this way any day.