His Birthday, My Birthday, and 2 More to Boot...

That's right...November is the month of birthdays for our family. Doug's came first...the old man is now 31 years old. The girls wanted to buy some birthday balloons and then we had a celebratory birthday breakfast at the Pancake House, a place Doug has been wanting to try out for a while. The food was pretty tasty, but it was pretty crowded and service was slow...maybe we'll try it again on a weekday so we can avoid the weekend crunch? We decided to do a birthday breakfast since we had a ward Fall Party that evening. The ward party was pretty fun...good food, great company, fun games. Afterward, we came home and sang "Happy Birthday"so that Doug could eat his cupcake of choice - yellow with chocolate frosting.

  

Then came my birthday...the BIG 3-0. I don't think I'm in denial of entering a new decade, but I really just didn't feel like doing much of anything for "my" day. I'm not sad, I don't feel old...I just figured I would have my act together by the time I turned 30...at least, a little better than I feel like I do. I will admit - I'm still learning this whole mom thing. Yes - even after having 3 kids, I am figuring things out as I go along...taking things one day at a time. But now I'm rambling...this is supposed to be about birthday celebrations. The girls were very excited when they realized my birthday had come, and while making breakfast for them before school, they stopped everything and insisted on singing to me...over, and over, and over again. Have I mentioned how much I love my twin girls? And, despite my best efforts to quietly forget this birthday, my sweet friend Nicole took sympathy on me and brought me a beautiful bouquet of roses, a delicious strawberry shortcake, some candles, and a sweet card. She absolutely made my day...even though I honestly wanted nothing made of it.

Next up came Aiden and Reilly's birthday. This year it happened to fall after Turkey Day, so they didn't have to share their special day with any other holiday...just each other. We started the day off with their breakfast of choice (pancakes of course), let them open their first present of the day - pink Razor scooters with light up wheels. They were in heaven...and couldn't WAIT to get moving on their flashy new scooters. We asked the girls what they wanted to do, and they surprised us by saying they wanted to go to the mall. So, we went...and they got to ride the carosel, pick out some flashy new headbands, and ended up with some fancy new kicks compliments of Doug (I should never have let them enter the Vans store). Reilly chose a pair of sparkly pink vans and Aiden went with sparkly purple ones...both were VERY excited for their "first" pair of tying shoes, and they immediately went to work perfecting the art of tying their shoes. We finished off their special day with a family dinner at Old Spaghetti Factory (of course!)...complete with balloon animals and celebratory ice cream dishes. The girls thought it was pretty cool that the waiters and other restaurant guests sang to them, although they tried to play shy at first. Before bedtime, the girls got to open their final presents - Hello Kitty pajama pants, T-shirts, and slippers (from our sweet neighbors). All-in-all, I think Reilly and Aiden had a wonderful birthday...I, however, am still trying to wrap my head around the fact that my sweet, little baby twin girls have turned 6. They aren't quite so little anymore, and I need to accept that and embrace the fact that they are growing up.

  

  

And that, folks, is how we spent our 4 birthdays this month!

**I should mention that our camera has been on the fritz lately, so these photos are all courtesy of Doug's phone...please forgive the less-than stellar quality on some of them...it's hard to get a non-blurry shot of our active little girls**