Annnnd they’re ONE!

Yesterday was Paisley and Adelyn’s 1st Birthday. They’ve been physically present in my life for 365 days, but present in my heart for thousands of days. Occasionally I still look at them and wonder if I’m trapped in a wonderful dream paradise. And if so, I never want to wake up.

This special day brought back the rush of emotions I felt one year ago, laying my eyes on them for the first time. I love going back and seeing pictures of their first hours of life. How delirious I was with joy… and percocet.

We started out the day with me trying my darndest to explain to them how exciting and special this day was! I wanted so bad for them to understand it’s their birthday! But of course, even just typing that out sounds absurd. They’re babies! It’s just another day to them! But we set out to make it amazing, even if the pictures would provide their only memories of the day.

I  made coffee cake for breakfast. The girls are having a birthday party later in the week, when they’ll be doing the cake-smashing business… and I didn’t really care for straight-up cake intake more than once. And coffee cake seemed like a great intro to a sugar-high.

We sang ‘Happy Birthday’ twice. First to Paisley and then to Adelyn. It just seemed like the right thing to do.

Nick and I loaded up the girls, and headed to Des Moines for some birthday festivities (and my friend Angie’s baby shower!). We took the girls to the Botanical Center, which is where Nick took me on our second date many years ago. We hadn’t been back since then, and it was wonderful to reminisce all the things that have taken place since that awkward event so early in our relationship.

I went a tiny bit crazy taking pics of all the gorgeous flowers and plants.

We didn’t go all-out on gifts this year, knowing that they would prefer the wrapping paper over the actual gift. We gave them the lace rompers that we purchased for their upcoming one-year- photoshoot with Molly Long (YAY!). As well as the photobooks we had made (using MyPublisher) that document the special moments of their first year.

I also painted a little something for them, but I’m going to share that tomorrow, along with a tutorial and things of that nature. I sort of love it, so you better show up to see it’s adorableness.

It was a fun day for all, and we even had beautiful and comfortable temperatures for once! Nature was celebrating their birthday too!