Happy Birthday Son! And Daughter!

Technically, my babies do not actually turn one until July 6th, however, since we are moving to Tucson, AZ on Friday, we figured a little early celebration wouldn't hurt us one little bit. These aren't going to be in any kind of order, but I figure my descriptions out of order will be just as good.

 This is a picture on our porch of Cordy bear. She is 11 months old and we love her to pieces. My sister gave us these adorbs hair clips. They are easy to put in and Bruce just loves pulling them right out again. Probably because they are so beautiful.

 Bruce is such a sweetheart. If I put him on the front porch step, he will sit and kick his little legs. He waves from the step and waits for me. It melts my heart every time.

 Our friend Holly is so fun. She visits us. We eat treats and watch movies together. We also do crafts.

 The Ruiz's are some of our favorite people. They are such a caring bunch and thoughtful to boot. They were also kind enough to host the babies' one year celebration and our going away party. I was in charge of decorating and realized finally why party planning committees usually exist. Well played streamers and balloons. Well played.

 The Applins are super fun as well. We love to see them and play with them, but since we don't leave the house as often anymore, we didn't get to hang out with them as much as we would have liked. Charles worked with Brad though, and really enjoyed his time at Tapestry Solutions, learning valuable skills like nerf battles and other such top secret shenanigans.

 Flor and Heidi are more friends we didn't hang out with as much as we would have liked. However, luckily we did see them at girl's nights at Kiwi's house. They would also complement me on my cooking and make me feel really good about myself. Everyone needs friends like that.

 Our favorite pharmacist, just hanging out with Mark and remembering good times.

 Isabelle is such a fun and inclusive person. I am so glad we have such good friends here in San Luis Obispo.

Our friends the Krafts also came to celebrate with us. We love their sweet faces too and are so lucky to know such rock stars.

Really, I did want to invite everyone I know here in SLO to the party, but didn't want to overrun the Ruiz's house. It was a fun, laid-back celebration and we got to visit for a while. Mostly though, we just made sure the kids didn't get into anything they shouldn't and ate cake. Well, some of us ate cake.

 Cordy didn't eat her cake, she just crumpled it into nothingness with her hands. If you've seen the 5 Instagram videos, you'd see it took them a while to understand what was expected of them. Bruce actually never really got into it. He carefully picked off cereal pieces and ate a tiny bit of frosting. He actually preferred the watermelon we gave him to snack on. Secretly, it pleased me very much to see how they resisted the idea of making a mess. I guess that shows what a food control freak I am with these babies. We live in a carpeted enclosed space though, so I do it to keep our apartment sanitary.

 The beginning shot, before Cordelia played smash and Bruce delicately enjoyed his snack.

 Our friend Kim, who lovingly did our laundry for ages and taught us all sorts of great lessons about marriage and families. What a great teacher and friend!

 Our Costco cake specially ordered. I wrote "Can you do a spaceship please?" That's all the direction they got and I was insanely pleased with the result. Thanks Costco! It looked (and tasted) great!

 Our friends the Longs! We love them and their pizza nights. We also love their friendship and massages. Karol is also an Usborne book consultant. If you're looking for books, she's your lady.

 These are the moon cakes I made for the babies. I used this recipe for the cake and made cream cheese with yogurt frosting. I also added about 1/4 cup of powdered sugar to make it semi-palatable. Apparently they weren't as good as they look. I did substitute baby food for the dates and coconut oil for the coconut. Honestly, I tried Bruce's again today and threw it away. I am comfortable with the idea that I didn't load my babies up with sugar on their birthday though.

Cordelia mutilating hers with a couple nibbles in between and Bruce taking a piece of cereal here and there for munching was fine by me. I don't know if we caught it very well on camera, but Bruce did tentatively try and put his whole mouth on the cake. He reconsidered this methodology, and ended up taking very careful assessments of that cake.

 Here are my three sweet babies before bedtime. Look at those sweet smiles.

And finally, this is a picture of Cordelia with her bangs in her face. This is what I see every morning first thing- a big smile and hair in her eyes. Bruce is also usually in the background, semi-patiently grabbing our toes and telling us to wake up.

This was taken today. Charles spider-cocooned himself and the babies didn't even notice he was on the ground. Maybe I'll try this one day when I want to suffocate myself during a Sunday nap.