¡Feliz Cumpleaños!

With three birthdays within three weeks (Chris', mine, Jon's) we went ahead and just threw one big bash with the family. Of course, in my usual fashion, I was less prepared than I should have been (and tried to do way too much) and it was a bit chaotic on my part.... Unfortunately, this time that meant that I got almost NO pictures of the night. Bummer, because it was kind of a cute party. You'll just have to imagine with me...

We had a FIESTA complete with a taco/burrito bar. Shredded beef and chicken, tortillas, and all the fixin's (wayyyy too much of course, the usual). Along with delicious homemade Spanish rice and cheesy refried beans. I totally have been craving GOOD Mexican food (haven't been impressed by the selection here) and it was so good.

(something like this)

We ate out back under the big tree and the kids gorged themselves on Tortilla chips and queso dip and ran wild on the partially built swingset.

Later we opened presents and broke open the pinata. Chris chose the pinata, can you tell? I found these pull-ribbon ones at Party City- a lot cheaper and no kids are swinging a stick around? Perfect. So each kid gets to pull on a ribbon, and one of them randomly pulls open the hatch to release the loot. Only problem for us was that it released on the second pull. Not so fun for the other kids, but they forgot pretty quickly when they saw the little toys and candy all over the floor!

Then, on to cakes! Christopher chose chocolate with chocolate icing and chocolate ice cream (naturally).

Jon had his own little banana cake with whipped cream. He was intrigued by this thing...

Stuck his fingers in it, checked it out, tasted a little...

and shared some with Daddy...

A better response then we got from Chris when he turned one...

More like the reaction from Ben at his first birthday...

Look at these beautiful boys of mine, I feel so very blessed! It's hard to believe how much they are growing... where did my babies go?

I did make a third cake (see, did WAY too much) for me since it was my party too. It was a peach cake, similar to one my mom makes, but I didn't use her frosting recipe. It was a buttery yellow cake (three layers) with really good buttercream icing with peaches in it. I was in a hurry mixing the icing and totally messed it up. I had a hard time because the frosting wouldn't go on the sides (which is probably why my mom makes it as a sheet cake!) But anyway, later when we cut the cakes, I thought I should see if it tasted good, even though it looked pretty bad. Oh man, it was SO good. It was a hit with the family too. I'll have to experiment with that one and find a way to make it pretty too!

In all, it was total chaos, chatter, laughter, noise, delicious food, and a huge mess. Awesome. We'll have to do this again next year ;) Actually, maybe next year we'll just throw one big bash since our birthdays all fall in a three month span. Thanks everyone for coming and partying with us!