Celebrating Our Birthday Girls

We had the best day celebrating the girls' birthdays last weekend.

In days of old I'd throw one family party, one friends party, one school party and one family dinner for a child's birthday, and with the girls' birthdays six weeks apart, that meant eight celebrations in six weeks.

This is the second year we've done one big shebang and it's just right.

I hired a face painter on a whim the day before the party and it was a huge hit. If you're local and ever need a recommendation, I would highly recommend Carolina--she was so great with the kids, she brings her own face-painting chair/table setup, and does great work.

Party baby, I can't even stand it.

The candles wouldn't stay lit on the ice cream cake even after two tries, but the girls didn't seem to mind.

Of course the cake was from our beloved Penguin. No other ice cream game in town!

Toddler present-opening: does this make anyone else break out into a cold sweat? In years past we have learned the hard way (e.g., gift-related tantrums, an unappreciated gift hurled across the room, etc.) to do "no gifts, please" parties. This works out great because it keeps the focus on the celebration and as a bonus, less stuff in our house!

Of course there are family and friends who choose to still give a gift, and they're usually the ones who stick around for the after-party anyway, so gifts can be opened in a more leisurely manner and there's no pressure to perform when present-opening.

Late-night ukelele playing to cap off a wonderful celebration.

And can I add that NONE of this would've been possible without my amazing sister and brother-in-law who came out from NYC early in the morning and helped us child wrangle, set up and later clean up, getting back to the city close to midnight? What would we do without those two? I can't wait for them to make the leap to the 'burbs so we can be neighbors :) (a topic I may or may not be extra pushy about).

And now our month of celebrations (George's christening, Mimi's birthday, my dad's retirement, the girls' party) is over and I am in party withdrawal! Celebrations are making my world go around lately. Maybe I need to plan a Christmas party now!

We love these amazing little humans and are so grateful they are ours!