The twins are 5! They had 3 awesome birthday celebrations...lucky ducks!
The first was a mini-birthday party while we were on vacation in August in northern Minnesota with their cousin Max, who also turned 5, four weeks before the twins. We did this so we could party with all the Vincelli family at the same time. We did a cute little and simple "build your own ice-cream sundae" party. It was a great time.
Next we had a birthday party with the Cox side at my parent's farm. We did this as a joint party with two of Eli and Will's cousins. Instead of doing a separate, individual party, we decided to do a joint party for all of them. I think my days of big themed parties are coming to an end. As much as I enjoy themeing and party planning, it just isn't feasible anymore. On the Cox side, there are 8 grandchildren. Three of them have birthdays within 2 weeks of each other in May and four have birthdays in August/September within 4 weeks of each other. Therefore, it is sooo hard to plan separate parties for all of them where all of our families members can attend especially since they are so close in the same time frame. And also because we live 3 hours away from them.
So this year we coordinated and planned all the food together and each had our own separate decorated tables with individual themes and cakes. I think it turned out great. And everyone could have pieces of cake from 3 separate cakes. Win-win-WIN! ;)
In May, we will do the same for the other three with birthdays then. And the other grandchild has her birthday all by herself in February, so we will see if she gets her own separate party. :)
And their last party occurred on their actual birthday, which fell on a Sunday. We had a little "friend" birthday party at a local park. It was a beautiful September day and the kids all had a great time. We asked for no gifts. We just wanted the boys to be able to play and enjoy being with friends. I made cupcakes with white frosting and used black/white checkered flag tooth picks. Simple!
The twins helped me put together cute little party favor bags, but I forgot to get a photo of what we put inside! There were crackers, granola bars, a pad of paper, a pencil, and a little gold toy trophy, all in a "race car" see through gift bag.
Here's the invite I created and designed for their friend party:
And......
I didn't realize until right now that I misspelled Chief. Ughh! Crew Chief not Crew Chef!!! Seriously. Party invitation FAIL! Oops! I guess all I can do about it now is laugh. ;)
When I asked what kind of birthday cake theme they wanted this year, they both said, "race car!" And they said the same thing each time I asked. Thank goodness they agreed with each other and didn't change their minds.
All smiles!
It took awhile to get a photo of them actually LOOKING at the camera. I thought this one was hilarious. Must be a twin thing. Their smiles and eyes looking to the right are exactly the same. Ha!
I saw what I thought would be a super easy cake in a "Family Fun" magazine. I looked at the photo and thought, "Easy peezy! Just bake 2 round cakes. Cut it in half. Make a tunnel. Cover with white frosting. And BAM! Done!" Well, once again, I thought I was a better cake decorator than I really am and it was a lot more work than I intended. I made a few mistakes along the way but was able to fix it...thankfully!
I also thought it'd be fun to do a red velvet cake. But what I didn't know was that the frosting was going to stick so much and it just kept pulling up the dark cake with it. So there were brown/red specks all over the white frosting. My sister saved the day and said, "Well, it's a race track, it just looks like dirt splattered up!" Yes, yes, nevermind. That's exactly the look I was going for. I totally meant to do that! Just don't look too closely and the cake looks okay. :)
Needless to say, I'm over cakes. So I will say I'm never making one again. Until I forget next year and start planning another one. Ha!
But turns out it didn't really matter what the cake looked like because the race track going through it totally rocked and worked great. The twins and all the kids LOVED it! Whew!
It ended up being soooo hot that day. Why does it always seem to be hot when my children have birthday parties? Crazy! I thought the cake would melt but it survived!
I threw in a few red accent colors to coordinate with the black and white. The punch worked great for that. I'm so glad I bought this glass jug for Caleb's birthday last May. I have a feeling we are going to get a lot of great use out of it over the years!
"Refueling Station!"
Here's a view of the whole table with cheap black and white checkered flag decor (flags, napkins, duct tape, etc.) I found at a party store and some at the Dollar Tree in my town. Great deals! And the 2 bigger nice race cars were a gift last year from a friend. Who knew that would end up being our theme and we could use them as decor!?
Little goobers! I can't believe they are FIVE!
Silly boys...
Shooting cars through the cake! We already had the hot wheels race track already so it worked out great!
Ryder turned 4 years old! She loves Sophia the First!
Eleanor turned 2! She had an adorable Minnie Mouse theme!
Happy Birthday Elijah
Happy Birthday Will
Opening gifts!
Silly cousins!
We had so many great celebrations with family and friends.
So grateful!
