Birthday Girls

Another year passes by where I have unsuccessfully planned a birthday party. 

Last year, I was too tired and too pregnant to think about pulling one together for Alexia's 1st. Ugh. Failure. 

And this year, I was consumed with packing, moving and unpacking to even pull off a joint birthday party for the girls. Total failure. 

I had all these cute ideas running through my head....a Dr. Suess "One Fish, Two Fish" birthday party. Even came up with a cute rhyme for the invitations to the aqua and red fish-themed birthday party. 

But the weekends kept slipping away and I realized we would realistically be celebrating in July. So instead, I put in a request to Ryan's family to do a simple, joint party. Complete with family, food and chocolate ganache cupcakes. A princess tiara even got added into the mix, as we attended a Princess birthday party for a friend earlier in the day.

Naiya wasn't so sure about the whole cupcake thing. Uncle Ty tried to let her know what she was missing out on, by dabbing the cupcake to her lips. Not a happy camper.

But once she finally realized what all the hype was about....she was all over that cupcake: 

Alexia knows the sweet, chocolatey goodness all too well. Her Daddy is a chocolate junkie.

Here we are partying it up w/ the birthday girls' new shades:

And for the second year in a row, Uncle Ty had to share his birthday bash. Yes, there are 26 candles on that cake. He even let Alexia take a stab at blowing out the candles. The back-to-back birthdays are: Alexia-May 22, Ty-June 2 and Naiya-June 4. Ryan's mom was so sweet to host the shin-dig and capture pictures from that day. If it weren't for her, I wouldn't have had any proof of their 1st and 2nd bdays! Thanks Mom!

Here's 2009:

And I'd like to think this picture is the girls' stamp of approval for this year's celebration. "Good times, huh Sis?"