The Big Birthday Bash

We had a super fun double birthday for Vince and Zoë this year, and we were able to pull it off as a swim party again! I was holding my breath for the days leading up to the party, even the morning of, hoping that the clouds would roll away and sunshine would prevail. Well, it did, and we had a great day outside in the sun and in the pool.

Last year when we had our party, I think I shot all of two or three photos of the whole event (Our family is pretty bad with getting photos on celebrations). But... this year was different. First of all, my friend Jocelyn is starting a little side business of taking photos of kids, so she was there and took so many awesome photos of almost everyone! Jocelyn's photos are great, you can check out all the photos from our party on her blog: Candid Kids
Second of all, I gave my camera to friends so they could log the day, and wow! I have a lot of great photos!

Vince's birthday was actually a day before the party, so we had a little cake ahead of time for just us. Of course, whenever Vince sees a cake with a candle, he gets pretty excited.


Highlights of this year's party:

Highlight #1) My totally amazing, wonderful, awesome, creative, talented, and dear friend Danielle slaved in her kitchen all day making both Vince and Zoë each their own cakes! (AND.. she was able to keep Max away from the cakes, don't know how)

Brobee From Yo Gabba Gabba, chocolate cake with raspberry filling, yum! All the kids wanted this one of course, little people running around with green faces... priceless

Zoë got her own carrot cake with cream cheese frosting... so delicious, all the adults wanted this one

Highlight #2) The piñata - some serious entertainment for the adults, and fun for the kids! I bought one that had strings on the bottom that would pull open a trap door... so the little kids could still get the thing open even if they couldn't hit the candy out. the Lady at the i Party store offered some advice to let the little kids still take some whacks first before you let them pull the strings. That was a great idea, it was so cute watching them try and hit the piñata!

Vince found the piñata ahead of time and was pulling candy out, caught him in the act

finally they all pull the strings and out comes the candy

I put WAAY too much candy in there, but the kids didn't complain

Highlight #3) Having everyone over to enjoy our backyard and pool!







Highlight #4) Umm... I feel bad but I have to mention my friends girl getting her hair stuck in the bubble machine... yes, I think that goes on my highlight list! She was apparently "experimenting" with the fan in the back, noticing how it sucked in the air... so she tried her hair.... and... well.. it sucked in her hair. It got so completely knotted up that I had to go in and get scissors and cut a big gnarled ball of her hair or she would have been destined to have a bubble machine hanging from her head!! It was soo funny! I felt bad for Eloise, I think she was embarrassed. I begged her to let me take some photos but she wouldn't let me do it.

Mother's Day 2011

Aside from life being routinely busy as usual this time of year, we are also getting ready for Vince's 3rd birthday this Friday! We decided to have a joint birthday party for Vince and Zoë this year. Zoë will be one on July 7th (wow so quick!), so their birthdays are pretty close together. They talked it over..... and both agreed that it would be ok to share birthday parties together, but we'll see how long we can do this before one of them realizes what's going on here.

I'm PRAYING for good sunny swimming weather, as we are planning for a large group of friends to come over and hang out in the back yard to swim all day. It's looking very iffy right now, so I'll keep hoping.

Ok, now for continuing to get more up to date on the blog....really, am I still this far behind with blogging?

Wanted to give a quick chronicle of our wonderful Mother's Day brunch at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles. Having brunch here on Mother's Day has become a tradition for us. Joining along with my Godparents, I always remember how we would sit ourselves down for what seamed like hours and enjoy the buffet and champagne with orange juice.... finding it hard to get up and leave when it was time to go! After wards we'd walk around the hotel, enjoying the beautiful grand ballrooms and other party rooms where they have hosted past Oscar and Tony Awards, as well as other big name social functions. The halls are covered with pictures of "old timers" (as my mom would say) like Jimmy Stewart and Clark Gable enjoying dinner and dancing to Big Band music. Then we'd also hear the inevitable, "things just aren't the way they used to be".

Since I've lived in MA, I haven't been able to get back to LA for Mother's Day, but this year we were able to make it happen. And it was so special because it was my first time being a mom myself. Being able to bring Vince and Zoë to the Biltmore for Mother's Day made it the most special Mother's Day ever! (as well as the most hectic... but that's ok)

View of the buffet area from above

Some nice ice sculptures around the buffet

good looking desserts!

Here's our best attempt at getting everyone in a picture at once

Vince spent most of his time under the table, playing with trains

Luckily my mom never noticed that we had Zoë sitting on the floor playing for most of the time
(hey, whatever works.. she was on a blanket at least)

Vince is excited for this week and his birthday Friday. We'll be picking up my mom at the airport on Wednesday so we'll be busy!