Evie & R.J.'s One-year Birthday Bash
Aug 12, 03:13 PM
On Wednesday, August 18th, 2010, the babies turned one year old! We decided to have their birthday party on August 14th, the Saturday before. Grandma Teresa came out on the 12th to stay with us until the 17th. Uncle Jon had to get back to work, so he, Grandmom and Grandpops came on the 13th to stay with us until the 16th.
We copied from the decorative idea that Grandmom had done for Kristy’s twin baby shower. She had us pin up some of Rob’s old baby clothes, baby and tiny tot pictures of Kristy and Rob, and she bought some girl clothes too, since she hadn’t thought about getting Kristy’s old baby clothes from Grandma Teresa. So, we went back through and found some of our favorite baby clothes from Evie and R.J.‘s first year: preemie, newborn, and bigger. Our idea was to have them laying on a table with each baby book turned to the ‘my first birthday’ page.
Kristy was given a ball cake pan from Abby F. that had icing tips and decorations for several different balls. A few days before the party, Rob made a trial cake using one box of cake mix. One semicircle didn’t rise as much as the other, so when the edges were cut off and put together to form the ball, they didn’t fit together quite right. The next night, he made up two boxes of cake mix and filled up each semicircle. He felt like more should be added, so he made up one more and split it between the two. The extra was cut and each fit together really well. Mommy had to work on Friday, so she asked Grandma Teresa to decorate one of the basketball cakes. But only one, because she wanted to do the other one when she got home from work. Grandma Teresa did a fabulous job and Mommy was able to get the other basketball done that night. We borrowed some icing from Grandmom when we were out in NJ for a visit in July, so Kristy used some blue icing to write R.J.‘s name. Some of the icing on the ‘J’ dripped down and Mommy was sad that she forgot to fix it. The pink that we had for Evie’s name didn’t show up very well on top of the orange, so that was a little disappointing, but overall we were very pleased with how the cakes turned out! Grandma Teresa and Grandmom used to make us really fun cakes for us as we were growing up, so we want to carry on the tradition to do something special for the twins on their big day!
The evening before, Rob and Uncle Jon went to pick up the birthday cupcake cakes that Kristy had ordered. We decided on a basketball with a net because Evie and R.J. both learned how to dribble when they were very young by patting a ball on the ground. They also already knew how to ‘shoot’. We also had a duck cupcake cake because both babies love playing with rubber duckies in the tub and Evie would sometimes sign ‘duck’. They also got ice cream to go with the cupcakes.
Grandmom went out that morning and bought some decorations that she did not bring out from NJ, such as helium balloons and birthday candles. Kristy didn’t have time to go to the store prior to the party, so she was happy that Grandmom volunteered. Kristy fed the babies shortly before the party so they would be in good moods while Rob, Grandmom, Grandpops, Uncle Jon, and Grandma Teresa got everything all set up outside. We waited a little too long thinking that we didn’t have much to do to get ready, so there was a big scramble to get ready, but everything got done in time and it looked great!
Not including the four of us, thirty-eight people came to the party including: Grandma Teresa; Grandpops; Grandmom; Uncle Jon; our neighbors down the street: Al and Joy and their son, Adam, and his wife, Heather, and their two sets of twins: Hadley, Gretchen, Delaney, and Addison; our across the street neighbors: Debbi and Erin; friends from church: Doug and Pam, Mike and Jenny (and Baby K – Adelyn – in Jenny’s tummy), Matt, Ben and Suzanne and Karina, and Sam, Abby, Nour, and Alex; Mommy’s friends from work: Charlene and Doug; Angela and Bobby and their kids, Alex and Lily; Andrea and Zach; the babies first nurse (from the NICU): Chele and her fiance (now husband) Rick and Chele’s daughter, Jess; and our friend from Powershack, Nancy!
We set up the play yard outside on top of a big, blue blanket for the twins and any other kids to play in. Kristy gave them a bottle each of Pedialyte to keep them hydrated since it was so hot outside. It wasn’t too bad in the shade, though. We brought out the ice cream and cupcake cakes for everyone to enjoy and shortly after, we brought out the chairs with their booster seats on them followed by the babies basketball cakes. They were just in a diaper with their first birthday bibs on. We had everyone sing ‘Happy Birthday’ once with both names: “Happy Birthday Evie and R.J.” Kristy brought Evie’s cake to her and Rob brought R.J.‘s cake to him. Kristy was sure that they would start dribbling their cakes. They both tried touching the star candles sticking really high out of the cakes, but we quickly took them out. They both pretty immediately touched their cakes. R.J. kept lifting his hand high and patting it. He kept wondering what the gooey mess was on his hands! He had quite the look. Evie was patting it and then tried to pick it up when Kristy would tell her to “shoot” it. The cake was stuck to the plate and too heavy for her. She pretty quickly took a bite out of it and then several more over the course of time we let them play with them. Rob used some gentle persuasion after her first bite to try to get her mouth on it again. He also pushed her hand deep into her cake. Kristy tried persuading R.J. to bite into it by gently pushing his head toward it, but it didn’t work. So, Rob pushed R.J.‘s hand deep into the cake. Kristy then gave R.J. a piece of his chocolate cake and then he started licking his hands and enjoying it. Uncle Jon filmed the whole thing, so we have an excellent video to reminisce the event! After filming, Uncle Jon drew funny eyebrows on Evie with the orange icing. We got pictures of that!
After Evie and R.J. were done playing in their cakes, we hosed them down and wiped them with wet towels to get the icing off. They weren’t thrilled, but it got them cleaned up quickly. After most people left, the weather was looking ominous and looked like it was about to storm, so Doug and Pam and Andrea and Zach helped us get everything back inside. It was a very fun and successful day. We were happy to have quite a few of our family members here to celebrate with us and we are so happy we have lots of pictures and some video documenting the occasion.
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