One Young, Two Youngs, Three Youngs, Four: Birthday month

Birthday month in our house is March...and not just because there are now two people with March birthdays. Birthday month means that Mommy goes through the entire month of February and most of the month of March planning on paper, in my head, on the computer, and with my credit card the birthday parties for my babes. I feel like this was probably the easiest year for party planning and execution. As Reese gets older, she will expect (and we will provide, of course) more elaborate and themed parties. But for this year, fun was still had by all.

Emma had a SwiM&M party combining two of her favorite things - swimming and M&M's. She swam at the Kroc Center, which has a GREAT pool for littles, especially littles who have spina bifida. The pool bottom is made of some sort of non-slip stuff, and the edge very gradually slopes so that Emma could actually sit in the water where it was around one foot deep.

After all that swimming, the kiddos made M&M sundaes - chocolate and/or vanilla ice cream with whipped cream, chocolate and/or caramel sauce, and 5 different kinds of M&M's. And of course, there was was M&M cake.

Emma was thrilled to go to school on her actual birthday; it's one of her very favorite places!

Birthday love from her friends and sweet teacher:

Emma's birthday was on a Monday. Mid-morning on Tuesday, I came down with the stomach flu. It. was. awful. But I did manage to get Reese to the ENT because for-the-love she had to have tubes as soon as possible or I was going to go postal. Antibiotics and ear infections were taking over our lives. See her pitiful reaction to Emma's pool party below:

So yeah...

Saturday party for Emma
Emma's actual birthday on Monday
ENT consult Tuesday morning
Stomach bug and near-death for Mommy Tuesday afternoon
Tube surgery for Reese Wednesday morning (yes, that's correct, less than 24 hours after our initial consult)
Reese's birthday and 1-year pictures on Thursday
Back to work on Friday for me
Reese's birthday party Saturday night
I have no idea what happened after this because my body and mind shut down.

I don't really know how to document Reese's first birthday without appearing to be partial to her, based on the sheer volume of pictures. Let me explain. I was planning to be off on Reese's birthday anyway to keep Emma because she was out of school. I had a lot more opportunities for pictures. And for her birthday party, we had lots of friends and family with hands on babies, including Reese and Emma, so I actually had more chances to take pictures. Besides, it's her first birthday - what would it be without a few sappy pictures no one but me cares about?

Mischief is written all over her face first thing in the morning...