It's a birthday...or two!

This past Tuesday was a celebration: Ben and Desi are two! It was the first birthday we were able to celebrate as a family (we brought Ben and Desi home at the end of November last year, so we missed their first birthday by a few weeks), and it was lovely. It was a quiet day, but it was nice to be able to spend the day with the birthday girl and boy. We started a bit early because Jessica, our nanny, brought gifts with her today. I managed to convince my employer that I should work from home three days a week, and I was home today. So we let Ben and Desi open their first round of presents right before lunch. Books and colouring books are always good!



I made hats. Don't pretend to be surprised or impressed; you knew I would.

After dinner, we invited the neighbours over to help us celebrate. There were balloons, and there was cake, and there was a whole flock of excited, sugared-up kids. It was great. Ben and Desi got some fun winter hats from our neighbours. Ben also got a paint-it-yourself car and Desi got finger paints. Yay for arts and crafts! A couple of cute Winnie the Pooh outfits and some socks from Aunt Kimmy and Auunt Missy made Jenni happy, even if Ben and Desi weren't so obviously excited. However, Ben was obviously thrilled with the wheelbarrow and shovel we got him. He loves to follow Jo (our neighbour) around as she gardens and waters, so we figured a wheelbarrow of his own would go over well. And it did (score a point for Jenni). He piled as many birthday bows and ribbons he could get into it and pushed it all around. He wanted to go into the backyard with it, but alas, it gets dark at four o'clock in the afternoon, and it's absolutely freezing, so we managed to talk him out of a round of late-night gardening.



In the past few weeks, Desi has become very interested in the army of dolls we own. Despite the fact that we could outfit an entire doll soccer team with our lot, most of the dolls that reside in our house have either been given specifically to Rhys or have been purchased by me as communial property. I wanted to buy Desi one of her own. We had to do a bit of searching for a doll that didn't have blond hair and blue eyes, and we eventually found one in a Toys R Us. We also managed to lose Ben in the Toys R Us; I thought he was with Eric and Eric thought he was with me. It scared the you-know-what out of us, but we found him a few minutes later, staring at a massive display of Lego kits for airplanes and trucks; now if that's not evidence in favour of the nature side of the nature vs. nurture debate, then I don't know what is! I suppose he's decided that he's not so excited about our army of dolls. But Desi is, and she was thrilled with her new baby and stoller. She puts "Bay-beeeeee" down to eat, and that's about it. She's slept with her every night and she shrieks at the top of her lungs if Ben or Rhys goes anywhere near the baby. Score yet another point for Jenni (and Eric).

I managed to whip up another cake, although I think I'm now fully comfortable admitting that cakes are not my strong point. It tasted fine, but it wasn't the fanciest or most elegantly decorated of cakes. Just like the Mickey cake, it was a bit on the oozy side. But it must have been tasty enough because Ben ate his piece is a record-breaking thirty seconds. Then he had a bit of Jo's cake. Then he managed to find two bowls that still had bits of cake in them, and he ate those, too. Needless to say, he was a bit wired for awhile, but hey, it was his birthday!


And you know it's a good party when there are girls drinking while perched on table tops!

This is Lara, the table dancer-in-training who lives next-door.

Aside from the table-dancing and the half hour of Sugar-Rush Balloon Madness, it was a relatively quiet birthday, but it was fun.

Happy Birthday, My Babies!