Our Saturday

For the first time in weeks, Little Mark slept in past 5:30 am!!! All the way until 7:30...he had snuck into our bed to sleep, but...he was sleeping!!! Another fun thing happened today, Mark (big) got to go snowboarding!!! He says it's the first time since we had kids that he's been able to go during the daytime (he would usually go night skiing)!! So I had an extra day to bond and play with the children. Bring it on.

We started out with a birthday party!! All the kids had lots of fun at Porters party. It was so cute and they had some of the cutest sing/dance along songs! All the kids sat so quietly eating all their yummies:

 I had to cut Mark off after 2 big cupcakes, he LOVES his cupcakes!!

 Porters mommy had the best idea...he had asked for lollipops and she decided to scoop cantaloupe and watermelon and put them on sticks!! They looked EXACTLY like suckers and Annie LOVED them!!!! She ate at least 15, plus a ton of blueberries:

She then used her sticks to play/eat her cupcake:

 We came home to let Annie nap, the twins to play and then we went outside to play. I just have to say that we have 2 of these small baby strollers and they are one of (if not THE) BEST toy we have ever bought for the kids!!!!!!! They have played with these things in so many ways for so long. Lately they treat them like race cars and race around the house, or in today's case, outside up and down the sidewalk. If you have little ones, go buy some!

Dog Bones and Green Paint

By far my favorite part of having two 3 year olds is taking part in their active imaginations!! It's a fun world to live in! Today Elizabeth found a bag full of 'bracelets' (rubber bands) and after making a big mountain with them she decided they were dog bones...and of course Annie had to follow along as you can see in the background!

Then I introduced the idea of St. Patrick's Day to them by reading them a book so that they could get familiar with the whole thing and then we did a fun activity. They loved it all! They were sooooo excited that I was painting their hands green, so happy that they didn't even cry when they realized that I wasn't going to let them paint anything themselves!! I think Annie was in shock that I was not only letting her play with paint, but that I was actually putting it literally in the palm of her hand!!

 Here are our shamrocks with Elizabeth on the top, then Mark's, then Annie's:

Today on our drive to the grocery store we also drove through an island (aka the valley beneath our neighborhood), drove by the big red barn, the Christmas trees, the airplanes, over the bridge, the river and the railroad tracks...half the time talking about things that are tall and the other half of the drive was spent convincing the twins that it really wasn't getting dark out (despite the dark rainy clouds)!!!! 

Mark was convinced that the wind blowing the tree branches outside was definitely putting some animals in trouble!! We had to rescue some with ropes. It was a success. Elizabeth likes to make 'nests' out of blankets and today she invited me into her nest to sleep. So we layed there and she told me there were eggs in our nest getting ready to crack! So we pretended they were cracking and baby chicks were coming out and then Mark comes running into the room and steps right where our pretend baby chicks had just been born!! Elizabeth started yelling....you can't squish the babies!!!! So cute. 

At lunch time today I ran to the bathroom and left Annie at the table eating. A few seconds later she comes walking in with her lunch and bottle, sits on the floor next to me and starts telling me all about her lunch, pointing to it, eating it (the only word I could understand was cheese) and then she stands up, hands it to me and says 'here you go'! So cute. 

Actual Birthday fun

The night before their birthday we went to Red Robin, our traditional birthday place! They love eating here and really love the ice cream that comes with it too!! Elizabeth slept through the first half of dinner but woke up in time to hear them sing to them both. 

 The next day (their actual birthday) was on a Sunday. We got all ready for church, how cute do these 3 year olds look?!!

Daddy made them each a cake because this was actually what they were most excited about, blowing out candles on a cake!!

 It was time to dig in!! Mark politely ate a slice from his plate while Elizabeth opted for the whole thing!

 Annie started off so delicately....

And of course made a big mess!!

 Then we let them open presents. Mark got a few Lightning McQueen things:

And Elizabeth got a few Dora things:

 And then we danced the night away!! It was so much fun celebrating. We are all excited for what this year will bring and to get partying for next years birthday!!

Mark & Elizabeth's 3rd Birthday Party!!

We held our 2nd annual pajama breakfast birthday party!!! This year we went with a music theme because they LOVE music, instruments and dancing. Here is what it looked like when you walked in the front door:

Here is a close up of my favorite decoration we did:

My second favorite would be the ruffled streamers I sewed:

I loved looking through and putting up all these pictures of the twins too!!

 We had our island full of good food!! We did pancakes, eggs and ham, banana splits (bananas, yogurt topped with your choice of fruits and whipped cream), juices and of course donuts!!! Mark made the donut bar and it was the hit of the party! I'm sorry parents, all the children wanted was a donut after seeing the food!!

Loved these cute forks:

 We just had to make some kind of stage because the kids love them so much!! So we brought in half of our ping pong table from the garage, covered it in a black plastic tablecloth, then put up this cool background we found at Oriental Trading!! We kept this up for 2 weeks after their birthday because they loved it sooooo much!! When the twins woke up on Saturday and came downstairs and saw all the decorations it made all the hard work worth it!! They were BEYOND excited about them, the fact that it was their birthday and that  they were going to finally have their party!!

 We had a station set up for coloring and stickers and lots of different instruments out for the kids to play with. We also sang and danced together to a few songs and this was just hilarious!! I hope and think that all the kids had fun....I know mine did!! Look at Annie flying around the dance floor:

This was the best part of the party:

 Elizabeth's cute panda banjo pajamas:

 The stage was a hit and they kids all loved dancing on it!

It was time to open presents and all the kids were excited about this part!

They got super spoiled!! Thanks to everyone who came and celebrated with us. We love you all and a special thank you to Grandma and Grandpa B for coming to help too!! As soon as the party guests left I went upstairs, layed on the bed, took a deep breath.....then accidently fell asleep for 2 hours!!

Mark & Elizabeth's birthday week

I tried really hard this year to have as much of the party prep done early so that I could really spoil the twins with lots of fun activities for their birthday week! We started it off with a trip to the zoo. They had a blast and loved that I let them go to the older part of Zoomazium to play!

Here is the only picture I could get of all 3 of them together inside the 'spooky cave':

 We also went to the Imagine Childrens Museum. This place is AWESOME and so much fun!!!! Even with the help of my neighbor it was still exhausting and hard! There is so much to see and do and very hard (understandably) for any toddler to stay together in group and patiently wait! One of their absolute favorites was playing on the stage. Here is Elizabeth with Timi controlling the lighting:

 Then all the kids dancing and performing on the stage!!

 Mark could've stayed all day in the train area!!

 And Annie probably could've stayed all day in the water area!!

 We let them have special treats, play special games and watch Cars, among other things. I think it was a successful week. But poor Annie was so sick throughout the entire week:( We finally took her in on Mark's birthday and found out she had an ear infection and sinus infection. Look how sad she looks: