People, my twins are 9 years old. I JUST had those babies, and now they're 9-year-old third graders that are SO. MUCH. FUN. You know what the best thing about parenting is? It's watching your kids turn into people that are like you in so many ways, and yet so incredibly, amazingly, uniquely different. Right here is a terrible quality phone picture I took of the two of them at a church service project on the morning of their birthday. It's a little deceiving because Lucy is actually a good two inches taller than Sam. She's just slouching, so you can't really tell.
So, we don't normally do birthday parties. Okay, that's not entirely true. We have parties with all of my extended family which is party enough because there are 25 of us. But this year schedules just wouldn't mesh for my family to travel up for a party, so we celebrated locally with friends instead. One friend over to spend the night, plus their families to join us for dinner before hand. It was crazy and loud, but so much fun. I should have taken a picture of everyone that was here, but you know what? I'm terrible at taking pictures. It's because I don't really love my camera and get mad when stuff doesn't turn out, which is a poor excuse to never take any pictures because ANY picture is better than no picture at all, yes? (And also, I could just get a new camera. Will start saving right now.)
Anyway.
Here's Sam and Lu opening their presents. Sam got a satchel, (to replace the one he built himself out of paper) full of tape and scissors and paper and more tape, and even more tape. I should post about Sam's paper weapons arsenal. Seriously. The kid can build anything out of paper and a little bit of tape. I'm in full support of this hobby, though I've been crazy annoyed at how quickly my tape disappears on more than one occasion. But no more, because Sam got ten rolls of his own tape for his birthday. I thought he might weep with the joy of it all.
Lucy's big present was a HUGE surprise. For months and months the girl has pretty much launched a full scale campaign to convince me she was ready to have her ears pierced. I was hesitant because I was 12 when mine were done and I just assumed I would do the same thing for her. Except, her campaign was really convincing. She is responsible. She's capable and committed to the care and cleaning of her ears. She is regularly hygienic. And really, truly, she's the most helpful, wonderful, incredible little girl I know. When it came right down to it, I couldn't actually think of a good reason to make her wait. I let her open the earrings at her party on Friday night, then we went to get the piercing done the following day. It was fun enough, the actual piercing story warrants a post all its own. But seriously... don't you love her surprised face?
And also, my friend Della made the kids some incredibly awesome birthday cakes. She free handed the dragon, (she freehand the other one too, but seriously, do you see that dragon?) which I thought was awesomely impressive. She is always so willing to do exactly what my kids want. When Sam said blue dragon, even though I know it wasn't easy, she did an awesome job. (And also, I could eat Della's butter cream frosting with a spoon, out of a cereal bowl. And that from a person that doesn't generally like cake frosting.)
So. Happy Day. Can't believe my kids are so old.
