My Boys...

... we'll, the oldest two to be exact. This has been a very busy last couple of days as we've celebrated Noah and Luke's b-days. You see, Noah and Luke are exactly 2 years apart. Officially they're two years and one day, but I'd call it two years for sake of ease. But ease is not what you get when you have two boys' birthdays the day after each other. Okay, in some senses it's easier. Yes, we have done joint parties for them the past two years but I still want to make sure that they each get their own special day and cake and that they always know they're special by themselves, not just with their brother. Okay, they're probably a bit young to really understand that, but I want to start it now so that I can easily continue it as they get older.

But it's a long couple of days when you count party time for friends, party for family and then all the other jazz that goes along with it all. This year it almost came and went without us realizing it. We've been a little preoccupied with a million other things and only really clicked on Tuesday of last week that Sunday and Monday were the boys b-days and we needed to do something about it. So we quickly found a fun place that we'd been wanting to check out and invited along some of Noah's best friends and brought cupcakes and told him it was his birthday party (and Luke's too). Okay, I really didn't do anything for it and didn't have official invitations or goody bags or any of the other things that usually go along with birthday parties, but hey, for us it worked just fine. We also went shopping Thursday with all the kids in tow and bought the boys presents. We had a few ideas that we'd been thinking about for a while so that worked well.

Generally in our family we do a small party for a few family friends sometime around the actual birth-date and then do a small family party on the actual day. The family party usually includes balloons, a special cake and presents, which according to the kids are all necessary for a birthday party. So, this year we did just that, with one little change. Because Sunday's are the craziest day of the week for us (we basically spend the entire day at church other than home for a quick lunch and nap and then head back to church for the night service) we decided to have Noah's family birthday party on Saturday. And because Luke is still too small to really understand the whole "my own day" thing we did his then too. But to ensure that they still got to be their own person, I made special cakes for each of them.

I like to decorate cakes. At least, I like to do it when there aren't a few kids jumping at my heals and needing anything and everything. It's my fun, creative outlet and right now I get to do it 4-5 times a year and that works well. It's a little crazy doing two at the same time, but it works. This year I made both Noah's and Luke's Friday night while all the kids were sleeping. I'm totally going to have to do it that way again, it's so much less stressful than doing it at nap time and knowing that the kids are going to wake up at any minute.

So I made Luke a figure eight race car cake (he still can't really tell me what he wants so I just looked around the web and found one that I liked) and Noah requested a

"Sucker Puncher" from Wipeout so I attempted that. Actually, it turned out rather well if I do say so my self. I really need to take my cake decorating to the next level and figure out the whole fondant thing, but I'm just not quite ready to take the leap and I've heard that although it looks really good it doesn't taste all that good, and really, who wants stuff on the cake that doesn't taste all the good?? But maybe one day I'll venture into that arena.

Anyways, this post was supposed to be about the boys, not about how crazy everything was or how great my cakes were (which they were!, sorry.).

So without further ado... my boys, the last year, in pictures.

Noah:

The most sweet, soft hearted, loving, crazy, "Wipeout" loving monster.

Luke:

My little giant, a rough-and-tumble, all-boy, completely cuddly and adoring of his big sister and baby brother (and loves Noah in the brotherly way, fighting one minute, loving on the next).