Bye-Bye Ba-Ba

We now have 3 year olds! I'll explain the title in a bit. First, the weekend!

Fourth of July is a really nice way to kick off your birthday weekend. Unfortunately, Friday was anything but relaxing. Since the weekend was going to contain multiple birthday parties, it was time to prepare. Mom, Oscar, Taryn, Jon and I all came together to get ready for the party at our house. We were more productive than any of us had ever expected. Jon and Oscar worked their butts off outside. The yard looked so wonderful! They mowed, cleaned up the weeds, built up the support on the deck and did so much to make the yard look great! While they were outside, we were inside. You never realize how much cleaning is needed until you start looking with that critical eye before a party. We put ourselves into it and the place looked great. Take a few breaks to go to Sam's Club and the grocery store and we were as ready as we could get. We decided to celebrate the 4th after all the work and bought a beautiful London Broil to throw on the grill. After all the hard work it was wonderful to sit down with a great dinner and some drinks to celebrate. OK, enough sitting down, we needed to get back on our feet and head out to see fireworks!

Aidan and Amanda have never seen fireworks. Until now they were just too little to venture out at 9pm. This year we thought they would enjoy the show and it was a wonderful way to kick off the birthday weekend. We headed to Beacon to enjoy the fireworks with the Meeker and Simmonds families. We parked our car at Simmonds' house and walked over to the park. It was a fun walk with about 20 people winding through the back streets to the field. The show was a bit slow to start but once it got going it was beautiful! Aidan did not like the noise. I had a feeling he would be upset by it. He is one of those kids that complains if the music is too loud. Once the show started he buried his head in my chest and slowly started peeking as the pretty colors grabbed his interest. He spent the entire time with his hands and my hands covering his ears but he loved the show. Amanda covered her ears for a few minutes but she decided it wasn't too bad and she had a great time! After the show was over we walked back and hung out for a while. An old family friend stopped by and it brought back so many memories. By 11pm we realized how late it was and we decided to end the day and get the kids home. The fun had just begun!

Saturday was the party in Beacon. We were up bright and early to get pulled together. I made baked ziti and we got the kids bathed and dressed. We had hoped to head out by around 10 and in typical fashion, we headed out closer to 12. After some confusion with picking up a keg for the party, we got to Mike and Julie's house and started the festivities. The guests were not expected until 3 but there was a lot to do in the meantime. The kids played for a while and we finally convinced them to take a nap at around 1:30 so that they would be ready for their party. They napped at my dad's house (who, by the way, is doing wonderfully after his bypass surgery! He came home last Tuesday and we're having trouble getting him to rest!). The guests started to arrive and everyone wanted to know where Aidan and Amanda were. We had some trouble getting them up from their nap but once they remembered that it was party day, they were ready to go! We all had a wonderful time talking, laughing, playing games and enjoying a beautiful day. There was a constant threat of a storm but it held off. We got a few sprinkles right around the time we decided to open presents but that was it. We tried on a few occasions to put the kids to bed but they refused! We finally convinced them to lay on the couch and watch a show. We visited with the remaining guests for a few hours. My cousin Mary ran home and grabbed her guitar and we had a great singalong. No Murphy party is ever complete without a few Irish tunes. At this point we had the kids out until 11pm again and we needed to get home since Sunday was another party.

Sunday morning started about the same as Saturday, party preparations. I made another baked ziti and we needed to start decorating and preparing for our guests. Jon's sister Mary and her son Charley arrived from Virginia around 9:30 (they left at 4:30am!!) and they were a wonderful help in preparing. Taryn arrived a few minutes later and also helped with the preparations. By around 11, I wanted to get the kids bathed and down for a nap so that we wouldn't have the same problem waking up as Saturday's party. Uh Oh, they had other things in mind. They did not want to nap. They were ready for the party. I guess we spent too much time getting them excited for their birthday. We put them down at 11:30. Aidan finally fell asleep around 1 and we took Amanda mom's room to try and get her to fall asleep. We finally had success around 1:30. I knew that would mean that they wouldn't be up by 3. Oh well! The guests started arriving and it was another wonderful day. We had so many friends and family that we hadn't seen in a long time. I had a hard time deciding where to spend my time. I was bouncing from conversation to conversation to try and visit with everyone. Before I knew it, it was 6:00 and people needed to head home. Crap! We hadn't even had cake or opened presents yet. We quickly brought the cakes out and fortunately we had time to enjoy that. The present opening waited until after we said goodbye to many of the guests that needed to travel home. We finished opening presents and were finally able to get the kids to bed at around 10. Another late night! Boy this birthday stuff is tough on those little systems!

They received so many wonderful gifts. These two kids don't have a clue how wonderful their lives are (or maybe they do! They are such happy kids). There are so many people that care about them. It makes us feel so blessed to have such wonderful people in our lives. They received a two sided kitchen/grill set from Grandma and Papa Oscar, food and cookware for the kitchen, a basket ball hoop set from Aunt Taryn, dress up costumes, books, waterguns, clothes, play-doh, a monster truck, badminton rackets, a "waterpiller" sprinker, bubble machines and so much more! In addition, Aunt Mary (Jon's sister) brought a bunch of Charley's old toys for them too! We needed to hide about 3/4 of the gifts so that they would not be too overwhelmed.
Yesterday (which was their actual birthday), while I was at work, they started the day with the race cars and trains, then moved to the play-doh, out to the kitchen set, back to the play-doh, out to the sprinkler, back to the books, over to the kitchen and back again! Aunt Taryn was exhausted when I came home from work. I ran around in the sprinkler with the kids and we had a blast. There was so much stimulation that we could see that it was starting to take a toll. We did one last birthday celebration so that we could officially end the birthday madness (and so that I could have an excuse to buy a Carvel ice cream cake). Putting them to bed was a task in itself!

That brings me back to the title of this post... Bye-bye Ba-Ba... Aidan and Amanda have always had pacifiers. When they started to talk, they renamed them "baba." We're not sure where the name comes from. I'm sure it has something to do with their bottles or something like that. They love their Ba-Bas. When they were about 18 months we transitioned to just using them at night and during naptime. Jon and I decided a while ago that we needed to get rid of the Ba-Bas entirely. It was decided that the birthday would be the time. We explained to them that big kids do not use Ba-Bas and we should give them to babies. Since they got lots of big kid presents for their birthday we used that as leverage. When we went to bed last night, they were very willing to give them up. I was shocked. They actually told us that they wanted to give them to baby Michael and baby Chloe. They said that they were big kids and the babies wanted them. I was so proud of my big kids! We sang our songs, tucked them in and closed the door for the night. Whew... We made it... Not so fast! They were not ready for bed. Too much excitement, too much sugar, not enough sleep. They were running on empty but they were bouncing off the walls. The birthday celebration was over but the kids had massive stimulation overload and they did not know how to settle down. We tucked them in numerous times and they kept popping up to play. Finally, at 10pm, Jon and I were going to bed (since we were EXHAUSTED from the weekend) and I noticed that the kids were still giggling! I decided to lay down with them to try and keep them quiet. It took a while but we settled down. I'm not sure how long I was there because I fell asleep in Aidan's bed! I woke up, both kids were asleep, so I headed back to my bed. Ahhh, it was finally over... Nope... Aidan woke up crying at 12:30. I went to calm him and he was so upset. I couldn't tell what was wrong. He begged for juice. I brought him a cup of water. He chugged it! Wow! He was thirsty. He seemed calm, I put him down and went back to bed. I must have only been asleep for a few minutes when I woke up to Aidan crying again. I went back to his room and layed with him again. This is very unusual for Aidan. I tried to calm him, it didn't work. He begged for juice again. It was now 1:30. I got him another cup of water. He chugged it again. This time he fell asleep! I left for work this morning with Amanda playing with grandma and Aidan was still out cold! Poor baby! Birthdays are hard work!

Here are a few pictures from the weekend...


Meekers! Enjoying ourselves for some fireworks.


Julie made 50 cupcakes! They were all devoured. Aidan and Amanda probably had 3 or 4 each!


Aidan and Amanda both received bubble blowers. Everyone enjoyed them!



Princess Amanda allows Daddy to adjust her crown :)


Aidan could not tear himself away from the book. He did not care that there were more presents to open.


Just because they share a birthday doesn't mean they need to share a cake!





This has got to be the coolest kitchen set ever!






Aidan was BBQ'ing while Amanda was heating up leftovers in the microwave!






Amanda enjoying her cupcake at Saturday's party






Aidan really liked his cupcake too!






Presents galore! Julie is on the right next to Liam. Aidan is hiding behind a pile of presents!






Amanda loves to cuddle with Kelly.






Aidan stopped playing hockey long enough to smile for a picture!