Mitch's 4th Birthday

My baby boy turned 4. He is my favorite little boy. (I can say that since I only have one boy). I told him he was my favorite boy once and he said, "What about Carter?" (his same age cousin). I love Carter, too, but Mitch is MINE. And he's getting big and older and there's nothing I can do to slow it down.

3 was actually a rough year for us with him- lots of changes for this boy and he wasn't sure how to deal with them. It was his first full year of no naps and that was hard on his little body. He is a great night time sleeper, but he started resisting naps right after he turned 2. That is also the age when he started sharing a room AND bed with his older sister (thanks to twin baby sisters being born) and if he'd nap at all (after a 2 hour fight to get him asleep), he then wouldn't be tired for bed and would pester Chloe and neither of them would fall asleep until 10:00 p.m. It was miserable for all of us. So the only way to get around that was to quit taking naps, which is hard on a boy who still could have used a nap. He also discovered leaps and bounds of energy this past year and became my jumping, throwing, running all over the house boy. Last week at the twins' 2 year well child check, Mitch climbed up on the exam table and at the top of his lungs yelled "To infinity, and Beyond!" and was about to jump off (no fear) before I stopped him (barely). His increased energy level was also coupled with a bit of an attitude and an urge to whine, back talk and throw tantrums. All normal for a 3 year old, I get that (and 3 years old was also hard for Chloe, too), but harder this go around with 4 kids instead of 1 or 2. And if anyone knows our Mitch, we gotta love him, but boy is this kid SLOW. He does not do anything quickly if he doesn't want to. We have tried every strategy we know to get him to move faster, but, in Mitch's words, "That's just what Mitch does."

But for all of his struggles, this boy is sure a sweetheart. He is our little buddy and we seriously cannot imagine our family with out him. He has so many sweet, cute and hilarious "classic Mitchell" things that are so endearing.

Since the babies turned 2 the week before and got 2 days of celebrating, Mitch should get 4 days for turning 4, right? Well, it happened that way, unintentionally.

Nana and Papa Andros came into town the weekend before his birthday and brought belated gifts for the twins, and Mitch's gift. So 4 days early, he celebrated for the first time by opening their gift.

A razor scooter- he loves it! Chloe has one and he likes to be just like her. He test drove it around the house.

The twins opened their gifts- adorable Nana-sewn dresses and little music/talking monkey and panda bear toy.

Mitch and his best pal Papa.

Day 2 of celebrating was on his actual birthday, the 17th. I hung this super cute birthday banner for his special day, made by my amazing friend Holly. I love it! I always put up a birthday banner for my kids, but the one I have been using since Chloe was a baby is old and not cute.

The birthday boy was extra spoiled this day. Nana and Papa were still in town, which is a treat in and of itself. Not living super close to family, we never have family in town on birthday's. It has only happened 2 times before and Mitch has been on the receiving end twice now.

Nana and Papa took him to McDonald's for lunch- he was in heaven!

They let him play on the playland toys for hours (3 to be exact).

They got Happy Meals for lunch. The food came in a Halloween bucket and the handle doubled as a mask.

After McDonald's and a trip to Costco for free samples (we Andros' love a good Costco run), they headed to the park to take advantage of the gorgeous weather.

With 3 sisters, Mitch doesn't get much special alone time with adults. On his birthday, he got Nana and Papa for 5 hours all by himself. Happy Birthday, buddy!

We ate dinner soon after he got home, then time for presents!

I was so excited to have him open presents- he is super obsessed with Toy Story lately and has been saying for months that he wants Buzz and Woody. My parents got him Woody (he was so pleased).

And when he opened the Buzz Lightyear that we got him, he screamed. So excited.

He certainly got spoiled. Love seeing my kids so excited to open gifts. It is one of the most fun things about being a parent, I think.

We also got Mitch a stand/holder for his homerun ball that he got last month at the Yankee/Mariner game. I made him his own baseball card online. It doesn't mean a whole lot to him now (he doesn't quite get it all) but we're hoping someday he thinks it's cool (I do!)

The back of his "trading card."

Leah LOVED the car rug that cousin Carter sent. All the kids have loved playing with it.

Alexis loved Woody and immediately got attached and thought it was hers.

Mitch was seriously in high heaven and could feel the Buzz Lightyear force with him, because with no prompting from anyone, made lots of excited gestures and movements in his pictures with us.

He flew Buzz around the house for the rest of the night.

I had to convince him to put his toys down to come have cake. He requested a Tiger cake for his birthday (his favorite animal) and when he saw what I had created he said, "Mom! I wanted to have tiger teeth on it!" Oops...

He also got Toy Story socks and Toy Story pajamas and he of course wore them to bed that night.

He also slept with Buzz for the first 3 or 4 nights after his birthday. Buzz has a button you push that says 4 or 5 different sayings and Mitch has all of them memorized.

His 3rd day of celebrating came the next day at Preschool. He got to take a birthday treat (pumpkin shaped sugar cookies), but his teacher said he refused to wear his birthday crown.

It was also his show and tell day and I asked his teacher if he could bring in our little pups. Mitch was actually disappointed that he couldn't bring Buzz... he was almost in tears.

Mitch sat at the front of the room with the pups in a basket and explained what he had brought.

I then passed out a pup to each of his 5 classmates. Mitchell refused to even touch them. I don't know why. He is usually very excited about the pups.

He wouldn't touch the one in front of him either. Too much attention, I guess. His classmates loved it though. It was so cute to see how excited they got about it.

And a random picture of Mitch at his 4 year well child check that same day. They did an eye test and had to patch his eyes one at a time. He hated the 5 shots he had to get, but getting 5 stickers helped make up for it a little bit.

Happy Birthday to my favorite little buddy. Coming soon... celebration #4.

2 Girls turn 2!

It really can't be so... but it happened. My babies turned 2. My younger sister informed me that I no longer have babies (sad!) She's right- 2 year olds aren't babies anymore, but they are MY babies and we will probably call them the babies for awhile longer.

The girls' actual birthday was today, but weeks ago, we found out that Ben would be traveling out of town for work and that he would be leaving the morning of the babies' birthday. Ben simply suggested we celebrate a day early so he could be there. Of course I wanted him there to celebrate with us, but in my neurotic, controlling head, having to celebrate on a day other than their actual birthday made me crazy to think about. Weird, right? I know, I know, I have issues with things like that, but that's a whole other post. As an adult, I am fine to celebrate my own birthday on another day- heck, a week late or early is totally ok. But for my kids, we have always celebrated on the child's actual birthday. Living away from our parents and siblings, we have never had to work around anyone else's schedules and have always been able to celebrate on their actual day, which makes me happy (and keeps me out of the looney bin). I know it's not a big deal at all- my kids would never even know the difference, especially a 2 year old, but I know the difference, and being a controlling date and numbers freak, it really bothers me (to put it mildly).

Luckily, I had a few weeks to prepare for this change of date and in the end I was just glad to have Ben there to celebrate with us (and secretly glad it was just one day difference than a week. I might have needed therapy for more than one day.)

Anyway- we celebrated as a family yesterday, the 5th and I made myself pretend that it was their birthday (I wasn't fooled) and treated them as though it was.

The birthday girls eating their breakfast cereal of choice- Cinnamon Life.

I kept asking them throughout the day "Who's birthday is it today?" Leah kept replying "Cynde?" Our adopted Grandma Cynde had a birthday last month and we took her over a treat on her birthday and Leah is still remembering that.

Also, when asked how old they are they both reply either "Good" or "One!" We've got a whole year to master saying "Two!"

I surprised the girls with a birthday bath- they love baths and we don't do them very often because they are such a mess (water covering every square inch of the bathroom) and time consuming. They loved it.

They got dressed in their party outfits- Lexi in her color, pink, and Leah in her color, purple. These have been the girls' colors since birth and they know it. Their summer shoes were these colors and they knew which shoes were their own. They also have identical baby dolls, one pink and one purple, and they know which one is Leah's and which one is Lexi's. I love it. (This goes along with my controlling mind problems).

I then painted their toe nails in their color. They were so excited and I was amazed at how they sat so perfectly still while I painted.

They turned out super cute.

We headed downstairs and I made their birthday cake, and let them lick the batters. They were so excited with that too and kept begging for more.

They kept looking in the oven to check out the progress of the cake.

My plan was to put the girls down for their naps and then decorate their cake. Things didn't go as smoothly as I had planned. They talked and/or cried the entire time in their beds. I kept thinking/hoping that any minute they would calm down and go to sleep (at least one of them!) but no such luck. After 2.5 hours, I went in to get them up and found Leah completely naked and Lexi half undressed. No wonder they couldn't sleep! Leah just wanted to be in her birthday suit on her birthday, I guess.

Needless to say, decorating the cake was not as easy with 2 tired toddlers running around. But I went with the cupcake cake again- I am loving this new found way to do cakes. There are so many ways to shape cupcakes into fun designs and so easy to serve it too- no cutting pieces of cake, no plates or forks. Just pull a cupcake off the board, eat it and you're done.

The babies like butterflies, so this was a great cake for them (in their colors of pink and purple, too!)

The no nap was really hard on Leah. I tried getting a birthday picture of the two of them but she was not having it.

Finally, a good one!

Our pizza and milk dinner- a family favorite!

Leah did not eat more than one bite of dinner and was sobbing after 10 minutes. Uh oh... the party had just started. I was pretty nervous.

But as soon as we started opening presents, she calmed down and the rest of the evening was fine. The girls opened Grandma and Papa Blakeslee's gift first and the candy tied to the front of the gift was more exciting to them than the actual present.

After they ate all the candy, we got them interested in opening gifts. It was so fun to see and hear their reaction to the simple gifts we had for them.

Hooray for books!

They love their play kitchen, so a play toaster was a hit.

So was the mixer!

We also gave them some new tennis shoes and they could not wait to try them on and run in them.

Finally, a happy shot of the sweet birthday girls!

Opening their last gift together.

Grandma and Papa got them play cupcakes. Here they are trying to blow out the pretend candles.

Amazingly, I got them to sit together for a group shot with all their gifts.

And a quick shot with their biggest fan.

Then it was cake time- finally! They watched me make the cupcakes earlier in the day and asked every 10 minutes if they could have a "muffin."

They loved the candles, especially after we lit them.

We sang to Leah first, then let them blow their candles out, then sang to Lexi and let them blow them out again. They asked to do it over and over.

I love Lexi's face here- pure joy. Oh, the simple things of life!

Blow!

Leah went in face first.

The frosting was their favorite part. They would ask for more after just eating all the frosting off.

After cake, we packed our tired babies up to bed. What a fun and memorable day.

Today, on their actual birthday, I knew I wanted to do something to remember it by.

Since Ben was flying out in the afternoon, he stayed home this morning and we went out to breakfast. The babies were a riot in the restaurant- every time the waitress came to our table they would yell and wave "Hi!" And every time she walked away they would yell over and over "Bye! Bye!"

We dropped Ben off at the airport, Mitch off at school, then came home to have naps. I was nervous of having a repeat of yesterday, but luckily they slept today and kept their clothes on.

When they woke up, and before we picked up the big kids from school, I gave each of them another cupcake and 2 candles so they could blow them out. It was a hit.

Leah had a hard time blowing hers out, so Lexi stepped in to give her a hand. The look on Leah's face says she does NOT appreciate this, but she was actually excited when Lexi got it blown out.

After dinner, Grandma Cynde came over with gifts for the girls. They were thrilled to discover books and an extra special treat- their very own container of Bee Bar hand and body lotion bar. Cynde has one of these that she brings to church and a few months ago she started getting it out during sacrament meeting when they girls got restless and they absolutely love it. They will rub that lotion bar all over their bodies until they are greased up like a pan of bacon.

The babies knew just what to do with it- Lexi rubbed it all over her face.

And so did Leah. It was the perfect gift for them and so cute for them to have their own.

Leah admiring the card from Cynde with 2 cupcakes on it- one for each baby!

Lexi gave Cynde a big hug and kiss after opening presents. The two of them have always had a special bond.

Leah loves Cynde too (she talks about her all the time) but is not as lovey dovey as Lexi and we had to talk her into getting a picture with her. We were so glad to have Cynde stop by on their special day. She has helped with these girls since the day they were born and is truly a member of our family.

We headed off to Chloe's soccer practice after that, and when we got home we found some bags, a card and 2 balloons on our door step waiting for us.

The babies immediately started playing with the balloons and loved them.

Inside the bags we found a carton of ice cream and gifts for the babies. I was absolutely baffled at who could have dropped this off! I opened the card to find out it was from a member of our stake presidency and his wife. I was really touched by this generous and sweet gesture. I had no idea they even knew it was the twins' birthday and for them to stop by on their actual day was very touching, especially with how busy the two of them are.

I was originally planning on putting everyone straight to bed when we got home, but we now had some Rocky Road ice cream that needed to be eaten. No one complained about this change of plans!

As I was putting the girls to bed, I held each of them individually for just a minute, remembering 2 years ago when they were born and how it felt to hold each of them for the first time. Having twins has been such a unique and special experience. They have each been a true blessing in our family and I can't imagine life without either one of them. The hardest part of having twins has been watching them get older, quickly, and not being able to to do anything about it.

What a fabulous 2 days of celebrating we have had. 2 days of celebrating for 2 girls turning 2. Happy Birthday to my sweet babies.