A&E 1st Birthday Party.

People have always dropped into our house over the years on New Years Day. This year we had a special reason to celebrate! My party planning

started exactly 48hrs prior and decorating consisted of some crepe paper, some balloons taped to the wall and these fancy plastic table cloths. I’m

sorry kids, I just can’t get into the lavish decor, especially when it’s just our immediate families. I like to set the expectations really low around here. 🙂

They just had a terrible time.

This is perfectly their eating habits. Ari takes his time and eats everything offered. Ezra swats and slaps and makes a flippin mess of everything.

Especially if you offer him something on a spoon, he smacks it 75% of the time and you wear whatever it is you were serving. :-/

The food in their hair was courtesy of Aunt Dale. 😉

Someone tagged me on FB with a pretty Christmas cake design. I dye batter often, but I’ve never used a Bundt pan. I just warmed up the icing for

a handful of seconds then drizzled it. Super easy! Of course, I stuck to their personal color schemes of hot and cold colors. The lighting is messed up

so my purple looks gray.

Adam always records our kids first birthdays. I love these and it was so fun to go back and watch the Bigs too!

[vimeo 152106045]

Ezra has so much personality, I can’t handle it. He’s absolutely hilarious. He fakes a laugh which turns into belly laughs all day and it takes little to

make him smile and clap. He’s a chatterbox speaking a bunch of nonsense. The last few weeks he’s been my “good sleeper,” unless Ari is screaming

so hard for so long, he wakes him up. But during the day, sheeeew, this kid is rotten. He is such a bully, it’s so hard not to laugh. He beats the

snot out of everyone. Constantly pulling Ari down and smacking him with his hand or whatever he’s holding, pulling hair and even sometimes he goes

in for the bite! But I guess it’s his love language? So if he greets you with a open palm to your face, he must really love you. 🙂 If I can’t find him, he’s

definitely soaking wet in the dog bowl, emptying kitchen drawers or running through the halls with his walker. Which, by the way, I’ve never seen

a kid navigate with one of those things so well! I make obstacle courses for him and he loves it. When he’s not pulling my hair or smacking me, he’s

resting his head on my chest and hugging me. Sweet and sour, all the way. They’ve both just started falling asleep on us again and. I. Love. It!!

Ezra lost almost a pound between 10mths and a year from activity, but he still has the lead in weight. I blame it on the super boob and my fatty milk

because the kid barely eats solids. You can see the snaggle tooth on the left. It’s amazing even though a certain friend of mine likes to call him Sloth

from Gooneys. :-/ HA! Foreshadowing him at age 7 when he’s missing a front tooth?

Ari is the opposite in multiple ways. He’s often tired all day from being up all night so he isn’t as into everything. He’s so sweet and the only trouble

he causes is sprinting up the steps when the gate is down or finding his way behind the furniture to get to the electrical cords. When Ezra beats him

up, he just takes it then usually gets up and offers Ezra the toy from his hands. He’s a little bit of a tougher crowd to our silliness, but is still always

happy. Then night time comes and his horns come out. I cut out their second nap recently to make them more tired for night and he doesn’t care.

Whether it’s teeth, snot, coughs, dry mouth, whatever the heck his problem is, he’s up at least once an hr. Then usually at some point for mutiple

hours straight. Believe me. We do all the tricks. Lavender, vics on feet, all kinds of meds, their breathing treatments, nose frida constantly, crying out

(which wakes up the other 4 so that’s a hell of a fail in my book, having 4 up instead of 1!!)  nothing keeps the kid’s eyes closed. Even when he’s a total

butt at night, he lets me get in extra snuggles with him, which I’ll never get enough of. The last month he’s mastered the puppy eyes and arms raised

and open, signaling, “up.” He’s super ticklish and loves Nori holding him all the time.

I’m so proud of my body for nourishing these boys into healthy strong, smart and individual toddlers. To think it was exactly a year ago we were

walking out of the NICU at Children’s with two RSV babies, barely back to their birth weights. Picturing the heatbreakingly motionless, scrawny bird

Ari was when we checked him into the hospital, caught right up and is high on the development charts. So thankful, God is good!

Both boys can walk the distance of our family room now, so it’s just a matter of them going from sitting to standing and they’ll walk full time. Yaay.

(Said in a very non enthusiastic voice) But as more complicated it may get, at least I wont have to lug them around on my hips all day? Silver lining?

Another year has flown by and our hearts are so full. We are still just “surviving” around here, but I’m pretty sure that’ll be the story for years to come.

It’s always crazy, but we love it. Couldn’t imagine how boring life would be without the circus in town.

Heart, Melanie.