We're having a party!

Happy Birthday, Babies!!

Happy, happy birthday to our babies! It's hard to believe they're one year old. One thing about their birthday is that it will often fall on a holiday weekend--so we had three days to celebrate! Today, we opened presents then had fun playing with all of our new toys (inside and outside). Here are some pictures from our day!

What a sassy little one year old!

Daniel's been trying to convince the babies that they like being tossed in the air--Addison sometimes plays along.

Spud wants to play too!

Our little Dodgers fan, sitting atop his new scooter (one of their birthday gifts!).


Then, in a rite of passage for one-year-olds, the babies each got their own piece of cake. We had a birthday classic--funfetti cake with rainbow chip frosting. As you can see, the babies really like cake, though each of them took a different approach to eating their cake.

Addison thoughtfully went in with both hands...

And then went at it with both hands.



Jackson took a bit more of a methodical approach, eating the entire piece from the top down.


And then, being sufficiently covered in cake and frosting, we had extra long birthday baths!

One year ago today...

you two came into our lives. What a year it's been--both the most challenging, as well as the most rewarding and exhilerating year of my life. Happy birthday babies--you have brought so much love and happiness and so many smiles into my life.

It's hard to believe that this is who you guys were one year ago:


You've grown so much in one year! You're such unbelievably fun, sweet, happy, funny little people--your mom and dad love you so much!!

Come on, Irene!

So many song titles work here...from REO Speedwagon's "Riding the Storm Out" (which is what we did last night) to the Doors' "Riders on the Storm" (which we were), but my favorite of the bunch lent it's name to the title of this post (Irene is close enough to Eileen, right? Thank you very much, Dexys Midnight Runners, circa 1982.). Hurricane Irene came and went last night, and we made it through relatively unscathed. The rain and wind were intense throughout night--it made it difficult for the adults in this house to sleep through the worst of the storm (the babies slept right through it, no problem). Unfortunately, our bedroom window sprung a bit of a leak during the storm. Besides that, we all are fine (*Jackson did take a tumble last night before bathtime, resulting in a minor cut above his left eye--but that was not hurricane related, and he was feeling much better this morning). Our neighborhood sustained some damage, from tree branches down (Spud found a good one) to huge trees falling and crushing cars (poor red Jetta). The wind actually turned a streetlight, making the intersection near our house very complicated (if you were approaching the intersection, the light on the right side of the street was red, the light on the left green--very tricky).


By this afternoon, the sun had come out and it was a hot, humid August day. With the storm past us, we were all eager to get outside for a while!



Anyway, a hurricane and an earthquake all in one week?! We've had our fill of natural disasters for a while...

Updating...

Hey guys--I'll be updating our blog througout this upcoming week, and not in chronological order--so keep checking back for more pics of Addison and Jackson and more stories from our traveling adventures!

Love to you all!!

We're back!

We miss everyone already...but it feels good to be back in our own high chairs!

So sad, it's our last day on the farm.

We had one last afternoon of playing on the farm before we fly back to DC tomorrow--we took full advantage of the big yard and the nice weather and played outside for much of the afternoon (and Aunt Rachel and Uncle Andrew came to the farm for the afternoon, so there were plenty of people to play with)!