First birthday party

We started the big day off with a special breakfast for the babies and just spending time with them and reminiscing. After we put them down for their nap, we began decorating and getting the house ready for the party.


All the family and friends arrived around 4pm and we had such a good time. The babies did so great with the large group of people that came and didn't have any problems being passed around. We had a time of visiting and snacking before we opened presents and ate birthday cake. Since we did a western theme, we had country western snacks including beef jerky, peanuts with the shells on, lil smokies, pretzels, chips and hot sauce and boot birthday cake.


I had this crazy desire to attempt to make their birthday cakes - to save money and just to see if I could do it I guess. I spent so much time making 3 boot birthday cakes for their one year pictures, so for their birthday party, I was all caked out. Instead of doing 3 more small boot cakes and 1 big boot cake, I decided to just make 1 big birthday cake, cupcakes and 3 small round cakes for the babies. I think next year I will just buy a cake!

This is a picture of one of the babies' cakes I made for their 1 year birthday pictures.

We had a house full of people - a total of 39 people here for the babies big day and I just wanted to take the time to acknowledge them and thank them for coming.

-Mamaw & Papaw
-Uncle Byron and Aunt Lisa and cousins Victoria, Austin, Leah and Samuel
-Uncle Kyle and Aunt Michaela and cousins Michael, Tucker and Maggie
-Grandma
-Uncle Les and Aunt Kim
-Uncle Kevin and Aunt Jill and cousins Maddie, Haidyn and Caleb
-Friends Todd, Jennifer and Samantha
-Friends Mike, Ame and Blake
-Volunteers turned friends Jan & Dan
-Volunteers turned friends Jim & Carol
-Volunteer turned friend Cindy

Thank you all for coming and celebrating such a special day with us!

Look at all these cousins!! We have Leah, Tucker, Austin, Michael, Victoria, Samuel, Maddie and Caleb. Also shown are Mamaw, Uncle Byron and Uncle Kevin.

Cindy is on the left holding Tyler and Jan is on the right holding Whitney - they were both volunteers from our church who helped us for several months in the beginning. Jan's husband Dan in the recliner and cousin Tucker.
Papaw, Hannah and cousin Leah
Me dressing the part... well... sort of.
Todd, Jennifer and Sam
The kids having fun playing with the balloons.
Aunt Kim, Aunt Jill and cousin Caleb
This is Carol, my other volunteer from church and her husband Jim. Jim is holding Hannah.
Mamaw and Aunt Michaela
Uncle Byron and Aunt Lisa holding cousin Samuel
Next we opened presents and boy was that an interesting event! For the sake of time, we decided to open the babies presents rather than letting them open them. There were so many presents multiplied times 3 it was complete craziness! Thanks for everyone who helped video, take pictures, keep track of the list of who gave what and pick up the mess afterwards.

This was the beginning of the presents.

Hannah enjoying her new video!
Whitney just soaking it all in.
Hannah stealing the spot light - Tyler is back there in my lap, you just can't hardly see him.
This was the end of our present opening and there were a ton of other presents not shown in the picture!
Lastly we had cake and it was rather entertaining to say the least. All three of them digged right in as usual. Tyler was grabbing the cake by the fistfulls; Whitney was mainly eating icing and slinging it everywhere because she didn't want it on her hands; Hannah was having a grand ole time going to town on the icing as well. We started to take their cake away from them and begin the cleanup but Hannah got so upset, we decided to give it back to them and let them have a little more time enjoying their sugar rush.

Tyler and Hannah were crying - so upset and wanting their cake!

Much better - we just got sang "Happy Birthday" to and are enjoying our sweets.Digging in!
So serious Whitney!

Concentrating on the cake!Mmmm....good!

Tyler is a mess!Whitney looks like a kid caught in the candy jar.

What's wrong, Hannah?
Then we had a clean up crew assembly line. Thanks Jan, Cindy, Mamaw and Ame for helping us get them bathed, dried and dressed!

Whitney getting hosed off then moving on to station 2 to be bathed. Tyler waiting his turn to be hosed off before getting bathed.
Hannah waiting her turn to be hosed off.
After all our friends and family left, we spent the rest of the day with the babies just playing with them, loving on them and thanking God for them. After we put them down for the night, we finished off a perfect day in the most perfect way - we watched some never before seen video from the time I was in the hospital on bedrest until the present. We watched the progression of their lives from being in the womb until now - it was a wonderful video and what a perfect way to end such a special day.