The Three Amigos

About once a week, my friend Melissa and I try to get together so we can get out of the house, have some adult conversation (about our boys), and let the boys play together!  Often, we meet at a nearby mall to walk around, grab a snack and enjoy a little window shopping (since neither of us are making any money!).  But, last week, while I was stuck in the house waiting for a repair man, Melissa brought Sam over to give the boys a break from their strollers and roll around on the ground...

Can you tell which child is the obedient one?  Not mine!

Poor Melissa had to nearly do a song and dance to get all three to look up at the same time!

Oh, Sam is so kissably adorable!

Sam and his beautiful mommy...

"Hey, kid, you know I'm five months older than you, right?!"

"Seriously, mom, I'm too old for this..."

Unlike my boys at 7 months, Sam is already determined to start crawling...

The three amigos!  Before you know it, these three little monkeys will start having sleepovers!

That Ottoman Isn't Going to Stop Me!

We knew the day was coming when the ottomans were not going to be enough to keep the boys from getting out of the living room!  This past Sunday was the day...

Here's Bryce planning out his escape plan...

"Hmmmm, this is going to be easier than I thought..."  (Coincidentally, notice dad in the upper right corner working quickly to install yet another safety gate!)

Almost there...

"Wait a sec, Bryce, don't leave me behind!"

"Okay, you go first.  I got your back..."

"No, maybe you should go first.  I'll wait..."

"Oh oh, is that mommy's hand on my foot?"

"What are we going to do now?  Mom is waiting to catch us on the other side!"

You can pout all you want, little guy, but you're not getting past me...

"Forget it!  I'm just going to watch tv and work out my legs..."

"Mommy, we're sorry for trying to escape!"

First Birthday Party!

This is the 4th blog post written about the boys' first birthday... can you tell we were excited?  Well, this should be the last and below are lots of pictures from the boys' birthday party!  For their first birthday, we decided to keep the party "relatively small" and invite only our local immediate family... which already adds up to 15 people!

Here we are decorating the house that morning...

Hats, streamers, plates, forks, napkins... oh my!

Mr. Giraffe took post by the front door to greet our guests...

Lots of balloons to match the colors of the birthday cakes...

A few more closeups of the cakes... incase you haven't seen birthday blog post #3!  :)

The chocolate cake...

The strawberry cake...

And, my favorite, the banana cake...

The guests started to arrive...

One handsome birthday boy...

The second handsome birthday boy!  You can have a sip of that in exactly 20 years, my dear...

It's a pizza party so let's eat!

The boys getting their first taste of pizza...

They weren't too crazy about the pizza (we recently figured out that the boys aren't fond of any tomato based foods!), but the crust seemed to make a good teether...

Six different pizzas... even one with anchovies!  Yummy!

The four male cousins...

Time to light the cake... I mean cakes!

They weren't too excited about their birthday hats...

Forget the hats, let's make a wish...

Mmmmmm... Bryce gets his first taste of butter cream icing!

It was so good that Benjamin nearly bit my finger off!

"I can do it myself, mom!"

Bring out the high chairs and let's dig in!

The poor monkeys never had a chance...

We discovered an evil side of cousin Grant...

The poor monkeys were eaten limb by limb...

Time to open presents!

Learning Farm, My Starter Laptops, rubber ball...

Wonderful chaos!

Lots of books...

Big legos and big trucks...

More trucks, more balls, more toys...

A thoughtful gift from Aunt Lizzy... she framed the cards created by friends and family at my baby shower last year.  I'm going to hang them in the boys' room!

Later that evening... we had two sticky, cranky and exhausted babies ready for bath and sleep!

All washed up and smelling good in their pjs...

A few books to read before bed...

The only survivors...

Thank goodness we have 12 months before the next birthday party!