V is for Valentine

NOTE: This post was started 2 weeks ago. Yes, I'm a little slow lately.

Don't ever tell us Ellermans that there is cake to be had, 'cause we'll show up at your house. Honestly, promise to feed us and we will come. And this is how we ended up at Val's birthday party. Val is MG's husband, if you've forgotten, MG stands for Momma Gwen, good friend and mentor. Val was born on February 14, hence the name Val. And no, his name is not Valentine, just Val.

So, Val, known to me as Poppa Val, since he is married to Momma Gwen, turned 70. Happy birthday Poppa Val! The pictures here are certainly not in order of party events, but rather in order of importance. We begin with cake.

PV required the help of some of his grandkids to blow out the candles, so a few gathered to do the task bestowed upon them. They waited patiently.

It took three Ingrahams to light the candles.

 And then they made a wish and blew!

And we feasted. Cole and Grady joined their buddy Jonah for a little cake eatin' at the table. As a responsible parent I felt it was my duty to taste some of the cake before the boys ate, and I tell you, it was delicious.

Jonah got wise and decided to ditch the utensils in lieu of nature's most-useful utensil. Atta boy, shovel it in.

Here somebody was checking out the crumbs that did not make it into Jonah's mouth but instead hit the floor, while us moms chatted. Why do I look up so much when I talk? Am I thinking that hard? I must be saying something incredibly profound, Holly is hanging onto every word. I ooze wisdom.

As a funny sidenote: I do have at least a few dozen pictures of my mom  and Karen making the same hand gesture when we talk.

 Brothers Andy and Chris caught up. At some point during the party I walked past these two, and they were reminiscing about their room-sharing memories. I couldn't help but wonder if our two would be good friends as adults, and if they'd remember sharing a room. And sharing everything else.

 And Andy caught a few quiet moments outside with his eldest.

And I cornered Bobbie for a picture with her girl.

Elsewhere people wore funny hats and explored new toy closets. Momma Gwen thought of everything for this party, and had the cutest Valentine favor bags for each of the kids. The bags were filled with goodies, and for the older kids those goodies included these fun balloons that you can turn into animals, hats. etc. Jamie is stylin'!

If you're concerned about Grady's cheek above, don't be. No one slapped him [though I'd be looking at his twin brother as a first suspect], he just randomly gets a red cheek. Or red ear. Another Bothma thing. We're an odd people.

It was really nice to sit back and watch people chat. Friends and family from far and near came to celebrate PV's life. I've not mentioned it yet, but PV had quite a health scare over the Christmas holidays that landed him in very bad shape in the ICU. It's been a long recovery, but he is now doing well,  and this birthday truly felt like a celebration of life. I am sure everyone felt especially thankful to have him here so all could spend time with him. That pretty lady in gray in picture 2 below is his Mrs.

Oh. There was this incredibly handsome guy there. I really hope to be at his 70th birthday party someday.

Birthday, Part 4: Sock Monkey Sweatshop

This post will bring us to our final installment of the birthday mini series. I promise. Then we're on to other things. What those things are, I cannot remember right now. It'll come back to me.

At some point when I decided what I, err...we, wanted the boys' birthday theme to be, I decided I wanted to make sock monkeys for favors. I love doing favors, it's not necessary for all parties, but I think its an easy gesture to show your guests that you thought of them and wanted to give them something fun to take home. Since we're already juicy enough and honestly I can't think of a kid nowadays that needs more sugar in their diet, I did not want the favors to be candy. Not pretending we don't eat bad for us goodies, but if anything is making my butt bigger, it's going to be these. And besides, I already did candy last year.

So how did I decide on the theme and favors?

Each year we do professional shots a little before Thanksgiving for the Christmas card and to have and frame and see how much better looking we get each year. I just re-read that sentence and I made it sound like its some grand tradition, but bear in mind it's only been two years and we only do it because we found a photographer in Athens that offers a short family photoshoot for a steal. She does crazy good work. See how cute the boys were November of 2008? Try not to pinch the cheeks through your screen.

And here are two of my favorite from 2009.

 

  

In the batch of 2009 pictures, there was a very very cute picture of the boys playing with stuffed animals. I had originally wanted to use a pic of them playing with a giant 4 foot stuffed dog, but the picture only showed Cole, and that wouldn't be fair to Grady, now would it? So, next best option were the two pictures below. Seeing the monkeys reminded me of a craft I saw on one of my favorite blogs. You might know that blog as the source for the fudge pie recipe I mentioned back in January. [NumNum]. 

  

These pictures and those monkeys swirled around in my head until I decided that monkeys would be the theme, and monkeys we would make. I said this to Keith in a very dramatic manner, as I imagined Moses might have done when he came down from the mountain with his two stone tablets and ten commandments. My memory is a little fuzzy on how the Jews reacted, but Keith barely looked up from the couch. Perhaps I've overused my dramatic room entry, and it's no longer effective?

Anyway, for weeks I planned the monkeys in my head. Invites went out, and I decided against the monkeys. RSVP's rolled in, and I decided to make monkeys. A day or so passed, and again I decided I would not make them. And so on and so forth for several weeks until the day before Grammie and Grampie arrived for the boys birthday. That morning a burst of energy hit me and I thought, let's do it! 15 monkeys can't take that long, right? And, as Keith likes to tell me "think of something to keep Grammie busy". Done and done! I bought socks and gathered supplies. 

Fast forward one day to when the elder Ellermans arrived. They played all day, and after dinner, were put to work. I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised at the enthusiasm the men showed in starting the monkeys. I was pretty sure at the time the enthusiasm was there because they had no clue how long it would take, but I wasn't about to squash anyone's mojo. See how nicely everyone is working?

 

At some point the giggles overtook the elders and they took to comparing sizes. It doesn't take much to entertain these two.

We had a nice system of machine sewing, stuffing and assembling of monkeys set up, and the 4 of us spent the better parts of two nights watching Olympics, complaining about the skinniness of the sewn monkeys' arms, and the pros and cons of various monkey stuffing objects. Seeing that I waited until the last minute to get this project started, there was no way all the monkeys would get done without the team effort. We all toiled, but Grammie definitely took one for the team and stayed up two late nights and one long Saturday sewing limbs onto bodies and eyes onto heads. Thanks Grammie! A lesser crafter might not have been able to let someone else do all the heavy lifting, but I was blessed with my dad's attention span and my mom's ability to boss people, so I felt very comfortable delegating. I imagine Martha does the same thing.

In the end the monkeys turned out pretty cute, no?

Birthday, Part 3: Party time

Before I tell you about the boys' birthday party, I'm sure you all want to know that I got to hold Baby Alex again this past weekend. Yes, he loves me as much as he did before and I got a shoulder snuggle. Love me some baby Alex. Not heard of Alex? Click here.

Now, on to my no-longer-cuddly children. Keith and I are strong believers in celebrating with friends and family. It's an opportunity to sit back and think about how grateful we are to be part of a loving family and to be expanding the family with two little ones of our own. Lots of people have their own opinions about having [or not having, rather] birthday parties for little ones who don't even know its their parties, and I'm not even going to go into my opinions of those people. To each his own, and for us that means a fun celebration. And let me tell you, the benefits of twins are slowly starting to show themselves. One party a year? Easy peasy.

So we had the party at one of those bouncy places. Talk about easy. Show up, have fun, eat, go home to let tired kids pass out. Whoo!

I'll tell you who else was tired. Keith. Grady has long since decided that one does not need to climb the stairs by ones self when you can convince an adult to carry you. G-baby is no dummy.

Cole on the other hand has developed a very independent streak, and prefers to do it himself. As the person who would normally carry him, I'm totally OK with that.

Here is Adam helping Cole.

Grady did spend a lot of time on the slides, but you want to know where else he spent time? Walking around with 'Manda.

Party animal Piper and her little sister Gracie, and their parents Justio and T-spot, were also there to celebrate. These two girls are so cute and so tiny. Below you can see their Momma, T-spot, helping Cole up and onto a slide. T-spots girls, and T-spot herself are both slight little things, and hoisting our dude up was no small effort. Lift with your legs, Tracy! Sara was the spotter.

When you have twins, you tend to find other people in a similar situation so you can commiserate. Here are one of our twin set buddies. Morgan, and her brother Mason. Morgan took to the slides, while Mason took to the chalkboard.

Cousins on the Bothma side,  having a good time. Cole, Rhett and Greg.

Entertaining your little cousin will wear a dude out, and sometimes you gotta just chill.

Rhett does not do much chilling. Where does he get the energy?

After working up an appetite, we blew out candles. Aunt Karen is holding Cole, Dada is holding Grady [in orange shirt]. I unfortunately did not get a better picture than this.

Morgan is our organizer, and took it upon herself to pass out the party favors, sock monkeys. Thanks Morgan!

Here is Grady, checking out pictures Ms. Carla took. He loves the camera.

In the blink of an eye, the party was over. We had a great time, thanks for coming to celebrate the boys' first two years with us, everyone.

A Different Birthday

Interrupting the marathon birthday celebration recap for a birthday of a different, but not unrelated person: Aunt Karen! The ole lady turns &* this year, so join me in wishing her a very happy birthday!

The boys say Happy Birtay, BellyMomma!

Birthday, Part 2: Snow

 

Friday brought us several inches of pretty snow. Snow that thankfully melted and let everyone make it to the party birthday the next day.