Now that I’ve covered the decor and food, it’s time for the actual part-ay! Saturday morning was just as hectic as the previous few days. My dad ran around town picking up all the food and balloons, my cousin, Allison, helped me finalize the table decor, her husband, Zack quickly hosed down lawn chairs and set up outdoor tables, and my Aunt Lynn and I frantically prepped the food items that needed to go out at the last minute.
Oh, and did I mention transporting the rosette cakes and smash cakes from my house to the party locale? That required a few painstakingly slow trips with one person driving and another (usually Aunt Sarah or Uncle Mike) holding onto the cake for dear life. I’m sure my reassuring comments that if so much as a dent was made in the cakes, I would kill them, and what a shame it would be for them to be dead on Samantha and Amelia’s birthday, really rallied the troops.
To summarize, the whole day was pretty much a chaotic blur of food, sugar, babies and lots of people! I was running around so much that I definitely regret forgetting to snap pictures with everyone there. Between the twins getting fussy, trying to make it around to chat with everyone and making sure the food got out on time, documenting every detail and guest went to the wayside. At least my sister, Sarah, and my cousin, Allison, had my back by getting pictures of almost everyone for me. To those we didn’t get a snap shot of, we are so happy you came to celebrate our big day.
Let’s be real, people. This day may have been Samantha and Amelia’s birthday, but this party was mostly for me and Jake to celebrate surviving one year with the twincesses! After all, they won’t remember a thing.
Shout out to Allison and Great Auntie Lynn for helping out replenishing the buffet and cleaning up so that I could get around and talk to people. Samantha and Amelia are so excited for their new cousin coming this July!
Uncle Mike vs. balloons.
While the rest of the family was putting the finishing touches on the food and decor, Jake and my mom were back at my place, having been assigned the most important task of them all– making sure the twins went down for their morning nap on time! They did a great job and were only a few minutes late to the party, which didn’t matter, since not a lot of people had arrived.
The grand entrance! This picture pretty much sums up what it’s like to attempt to carry both girls:
We’re not in Kansas anymore!
Samantha and Amelia’s fan club: Grandma, Aunt Sarah, Great Uncle Johnny, Great Aunt Linda, Great Uncle David, Great Aunt Annie and cousins Jack, Eleri and Rhys.
Oh no! Time for Samantha’s most hated part of the day…sun screen application.
Great Grandpa with two monkeys.
The highlight of the party was seeing my friend, Katie, who happened to be here visiting from Michigan. I hadn’t met her twins, who were born in November, since she had already moved from California at that point. I was so ecstatic to finally hold the darling Iris and Elizabeth! Samantha didn’t share my enthusiasm, but that’s ok. I couldn’t believe how light they felt in comparison to my girls! Fraternal twins, Iris and Elizabeth just turned four months old and were as sweet as can be. Katie wins the award for most calm twin mama on the planet…I can’t even imagine traveling across the country on a plane with four month old twins, or coming to a birthday party with a million strangers wanting to squeeze their little cheeks. I was barely getting out of the house at all when Samantha and Amelia were that age. She is one brave mama!
Our friend, Marsha, was in baby-heaven.
Allison and Zack practice their baby holding skills.
Our friend, Diana and her husband, Phil, live down the street from us and it’s been a blast seeing their little Maya get bigger over the past few months whenever we see them out walking. One 4 1/2 month old baby and two four month old babies…I can’t handle the cuteness!
We really put the “baby” in the “Baby Love” theme! Babies, babies, everywhere! The girls’ bestie, Maliyah, and our friends, Jodi and Jared were there to celebrate.
Woo hoo!
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Daddy and Amelia.  |
Party animals.
We set up a little photo booth in the backyard and set out some photo props that my mom painted. It was a fun addition to the party, but next time, we will have to remember to use two rolls of seamless paper since one roll wasn’t wide enough to fit more than two people. Amelia wasn’t in the mood for pictures, so Samantha became our “only child” for a few minutes.
My friend, Michelle, brought her two boys, who were too cool to try the photo booth with us.
Me, Amelia and fellow twin mama, Venus!
Venus and one-half of her twin-set, Rachel.
Not one…not two..but THREE sets of twins! Katie had to leave with Iris and Elizabeth, or else we would have had four sets in this photo!
Cousin love.
We’ve been friends with Lucero, Ryan, and their adorable protégés, Kennedy and Sebastian, basically since we moved to California and were both kid-less! It’s hard to believe we used to go out to movies and dinner whenever we wanted without having to call a babysitter.
The craft table was a huge hit!
Ball pit: best purchase ever. The ball pit was the twins’ birthday present and worked out great at the party, giving babies and kids of all ages something to keep them occupied!
Feeling like a third wheel next to Amelia and Maliyah.
Here, have a ball!
Wrestling match!
And now, the moment we’ve all been waiting for…cake smash!
We got Samantha and Amelia all cued up in their tutu-adorned high chairs and prepped them for their cake smash. I had originally planned on having everyone sing Happy Birthday to Samantha first, and then Amelia, with the intention of switching off who gets sung to first every year, but in all the excitement, I completely forgot to tell everyone, so we just sang to them both at the same time.
Samantha wasn’t too sure about the whole singing thing.
Amelia wasn’t either.
It took a little bit of prompting, but I eventually got the girls to try a little bit of frosting, thinking that once they realized this giant pink blob in front of them was edible and super sweet, they’d go crazy over it.
You want me to EAT this?
Boy, was I wrong! Complete FAIl! The girls were absolutely hysterical with fear/rage/GET ME OUT OF THIS HIGH CHAIR NOW-type sobbing for a solid five minutes before we finally pulled them out.
It’s MY party and I’LL CRY IF I WANT TO.
THIS…(SOB)…IS….(SOB)…TERRIBLE…(SOB)…WHERE…(SOB)…ARE…(SOB)…MY…(SOB)…ORGANIC…(SOB)…BLUEBERRIES…(SOB)?
The girls’ reactions were disappointing to say the least, and it took quite a while to get them calmed down after the cake-tastrophe. Fortunately, we saved the smash cakes and snapped some hilarious pictures the next day when they were in better moods (cake smash attempt #2 pictures to come in another post).
While Jake was calming Samantha and Amelia, the rest of us enjoyed the pink ombre rosette cakes I made, along with strawberry and vanilla ice cream cut into heart shapes. My dad was hoping I would forget all about the ice cream, since I had assigned him the job of cutting out all the hearts. No such luck!
The cake, one more time, just because it makes me smile:
We waited a while for the twins to wipe away any traumatizing cake smash memories and be happy for opening presents. By the time we finally got around to it, most people had already left. The twins received so many cute outfits, awesome books, and creative gifts, including some cds with Beatles and Coldplay lullabies (LOVE) from the girls’ mentor, Marisa and her mom, Lori, and some personalized name books from Allison and Great Auntie Lynn. Jake and I even received cash and a few gift cards to restaurants for ourselves…I’m thinking we need to throw more birthday parties, STAT.
Our absolute favorite gift was the tabletop play fort my mom made for the girls. How adorable is this? I have no idea how she made it, but I do know she had been working on it for months. The detail on it is insane!
When all was said and done, Samantha and Amelia’s party was a smashing (minus the the cake smash part) success! What took four days to set up came down in about 45 minutes with everyone’s help. Everyone, that is, except for these two party poopers:
Sugar coma!
Thank you to everyone who was able to come celebrate with us! We will forever treasure all of our memories from Samantha and Amelia’s big day and everyone who made it possible, from Aunt Sarah capturing all the details of the party in photos, to Grandma tying ribbon on a seemingly endless amount of chocolate heart lollipops, to Grandpa for scraping black char out of my double ovens so that I could get my baking done. It was truly a team effort. Even though it was time-consuming, I loved planning the party and am so happy we were able to celebrate one whole year of life with the girls. I hope they can look back on the pictures from their party one day and wish they could remember it!
Now that the big ONE is over, on to start planning for next year’s party…
Lots of love,
So fantastic, love it all! The secret garden you mom made is gorgeous! Also the picture of Jake holding the girls by the opposite leg cracks me up. Genius!