Oliver and Silas's Birthday

How can it be that my babies are FIVE! It seems like it really couldn't be that long ago that I was holding my brand new tiny little guys in my arms (here they are at 2 days old with a wasted, swollen mama after a nasty emergency c-section).

And I can still hold them - but just barely!

They had a great birthday. We had their favorite egg burritos for breakfast, they got to go to preschool and I came to the end of preschool with them, we got them burgers and fries to eat at the park for lunch (they think the drive-through is pretty darn cool). We picked up the big kids a little early from school and took everyone swimming at this big indoor pool with a waterslide for their main birthday activity. It was great - we had the ENTIRE huge pool and waterslide to ourselves and we all had so much fun. Then we came home to open presents and have their favorite mac and cheese and cake and ice cream.

Here are all the kids first thing in the morning, getting ready to open presents. The big kids were SO excited about the twins birthday and helped me set everything up and decorate the night before. There really weren't that many presents but when they're wrapped up in big boxes and bags, it makes for a pretty exciting birthday display!

Ashton and Isaac used some of their hard-earned money to give the twins some Transformers. Do you think they were excited? The new Transformers became the perfect birthday cake decorations.
Here's their exciting Transformers birthday cake. My cake decorating skills are non-existant - but the twins were thrilled and what the cake lacked in beauty, it made up for in taste - we all love homemade dense chocolate cake (when the cake falls, it makes some more interesting Transformers terrain...and makes the cake extra yummy and dense...maybe when the kids get older they'll realize how pathetic I am at making decent looking cakes but for now, they think my cakes are pretty wonderful).
Jared and I gave the twins some new costumes (they're so into dressing up). They were thrilled.

We had several free passes to the pool, the costumes we gave the twins were $5 each (75% off at a post-Halloween sale), we splurged on $3 kid meals at Wendy's for lunch (usually the kids just get a burger off the dollar menu, a big fry to share and water - so a kid meal is very very exciting for them - keep the expectations low and you get some pretty excited kids when you go beyond expectations!). They got thoughtful little gifts from their siblings, great new construction vehicles from their wonderful Grandma Loosli and they got to go on a special mommy date to Walmart the next day to pick out some more Transformers with their birthday money from Grammie. All in all, I think we spent about $30 on a full day of birthday fun and birthday presents for two birthday kids. Pretty good, huh? Yes, I'm cheap - but seriously, I don't think the twins could have been happier with their birthday. And with 3 adoring big siblings and two doting parents showering them with love and attention all day plus swimming and Transformers, the twins really had a fun day.

I love my little guys so much. They are more and more fun every day. Those first several years of super hard times have really paid off. All the crazy messes they made, all the diapers, all the feedings, all the getting up again and again in the night, all the wildness of so many little kids with so many mutually exclusive needs at all hours of the day and night - it was all worth it - SO worth it.