One.

28 September, 2011. Minutes old.

Perhaps a month ago, we decided on a Cat in the Hat themed birthday party, with the emphasis on Thing 1 and Thing 2, properly. Google it, and it may be one of the most common twin-themed parties out there. I'm not one for popular, not one bit, but I am one for Dr Seuss. 

My, how I love Dr Seuss.

The options are endless with red, white and blue. Feathers and funk can keep it from looking patriotic. And if you really want to go crazy, there are mamas serving green eggs and ham with Grinch punch and Lorax cookies and, and, and. . .

Here's how:  carefully take the book apart, removing cover and separating pages.  Simply fold the pages in half width-wise so they are slim and tall, and cut diagonally from bottom left corner to upper right, ensuring the pages are the proper direction.

My husband was horrified I planned to disassemble and cut up the book,
so I made sure to get the one in the worst condition on Amazon. . .
Is that better?

I saved this pictured because well, did
Dr Seuss have twins? This is reality, the
equivalent of when they're released from
their cribs at the end of nap-time.

With a hot glue gun, glue across the top of each triangle, and press ribbon onto the glue. Voila.

My second must-have was party hats. I used this tutorial, with some minor changes to suit. We wanted red and blue hats, so only printed one of the provided templates, and traced it onto our red and blue cardstock. We did find the tabs folded in and glued weren't necessary, and really complicated things when forming and gluing the cone. I skipped this part after the first hat.

Once they were cones, I hole-punched the sides, added elastic thread, embellished as desired. 

These were time-consuming, but way too much fun, and every guest wore one!

I couldn't bring myself to dyeing the icing for our cupcakes, so I came up with some simple cupcake toppers. There are templates you can purchase online for this purpose, but we created our own. The idea is basic: card stock, Seuss images, extra-long toothpicks.

For the smash cakes, I knew a little Googling would produce mass amounts of vegan, gluten-free, sugar-free, anything-you-want-free cake recipes. Loads of searching, and I came upon this recipe for pear fairy cakes multiple times. It looked quick and super easy and so I took that as a sign. We substituted the golden syrup for pure maple syrup and the sunflower oil for coconut oil, and made each of the babies a 9" round cake instead of cupcakes. These really were tremendous! I plan to make them again as breakfast muffins.

For the babies' frosting, I sought high and low. I think I logged hours online searching blogs and cooking sites. It was a bit tougher to find an entirely soy-free, sugar-free and dairy-free recipe. Most recipes call for raw eggs. Or milk and icing sugar. And loads of it, and I'm not ready to throw all that at them. I was beginning to despair, and my eyes started to feel droopy and tired. You know, that restless feeling you have after sitting at the computer for way too long.

And then I found this and my eyes perked up a bit. I wanted white frosting, so we omitted the fruit. It really ended up not being what I was looking for as a smash cake frosting. I wanted the kind that really makes a mess, and the child needs bathed afterwards. Where there's white fluff everywhere. This was tasty, but not what I had hoped it'd be.

   

They opened enough presents to at least double our toy and book collection, and when sleepiness set in, there were more than enough arms open for snuggles.

                                   

And just like that, they're a whole year old. They're learning new things, discovering new places, and far less babies than they were yesterday. They share pacifiers and kisses and food, laugh at each other and scare each other. They hide from each other and chase. They have rug-burned knees from crawling so fast and shake their heads "yes" and "no". They say more words than I think one-year-olds should say, but then I pinch myself every so often and remember that I still don't believe they're one.

Just yesterday I called to my husband from the other room.

"You know, I think these two are one of the greatest things God's ever done for us." 

 "I. . . I think I'd have to say you're right."

And it is settled. Our darling twins, atop our list of greatest blessings. We are undeserving.