Birthday week 2012

With two January birthdays within five days of each other (closely following Christmas mind you), birthday week really is a big to do after a lot of other big to-do's at our house.  WHEW!  I am looking forward to a July baby and thus a July birthday.

But, without further ado...here you have Birthday Week 2012 in pictures (with *hopefully* limited commentary).

SUNDAY

We had a party to celebrate Gemma and Kolbe and their cousin Cooper's birthdays (yes, yet another January birthday) at my in-laws.

Cake.  It was nothing fancy or complicated, but it was easy to make and functional and the kids liked it.  

 The four-year-olds!!

 CANDLES!!

 Eating cake and ice cream.

WEDNESDAY

Gemma's actually birthday.  We had a spaghetti dinner party at my parents' with aunts and uncles and cousins to celebrate both kids' birthdays.

Birthday brownies for breakfast...daddy had been promising her these for months!!

My mom made some fun cupcakes for the kids to share!!  Gemma got to go shopping with her to help pick out the decorations and colors and such.

Cake time!

THUSRDAY

We had professional pictures taken.  I'll save those for another post though.

FRIDAY

Gemma's godmother came by to wish her a happy birthday.  No pics, but she got her some beads and string to make necklaces.  These have been very entertaining for Gemma.

SATURDAY

Aaron made sushi for dinner since this is one of Kolbe's favorite foods.  Gemma is not a huge sushi fan, but would stuff herself silly on edamame given the chance, so both kids definitely enjoyed the meal.

MONDAY

Kolbe's actual birthday.  He got an apple crisp for breakfast!  One of his favorite desserts.  

We decided to just have a small little celebration with the four of us and give both kids their presents from us the night of Kolbe's birthday.  We had lasagna for dinner and then Gemma and Kolbe gave their gifts to each other (Gemma got Kolbe a ball, and Kolbe got Gemma more beads and string).  After that the kids opened their gifts from us.  Gemma got a SCOOTER!!! and Kolbe a "mote-mote" (remote control) car.  They were both very happy with their presents!

Kolbe really liked the car.  It is a nice simple model for a two-year-old, with just one button.  It doesn't go as well as I had hoped it would on our carpet, but he still seems to really like it so no biggie I guess.  And yes, in the bottom right picture, he is indeed driving it from the toilet.  Told you he liked it.

Gemma was super-thrilled with her scooter.  She has been riding a "pretend scooter" since last summer after seeing so many neighborhood kids on them (real ones, not pretend ones). She is very excited to have her very own now.  And yes, she is riding it in the living room.  HEY, it was dark and cold outside, what else were we supposed to do, give it to her and then make her wait 'til spring?!

If you've hung with us this far that about sums up birthday week I suppose.  Like I said, whew!  Hard to believe we've been parenting for a cumulative six years now.  Wow.  Happy birthday to our big four and two-year-olds!!

And for those of you still interested, I was excited to find a whole stack of really fun birthday books at the library.  Here were a few of our favorites!
Corduroy Makes a Cake
A Little House Birthday
Curious George and the Birthday Surprise
Birthday Zoo
C is for Cake
Birthday Cakes
Otis and Sydney and the Best Birthday Ever