Yesterday we finally had a party for Miranda and Eleanor’s first birthday. It was a little late, considering their birthday was on the 2nd, but things were pretty busy this past month. The plan was to give our kids breakfast, head down to Irvine, and let them nap in the car. Agnes’ mom would watch them while we worked on some of the preparations, and then they would take a good afternoon nap at 2:30PM before going to the party at a local park at 5:00PM.
Everything seemed to be going to plan. We had one small mixup where it looked like there were no more available tables at the park, but ultimately we found one and Agnes’ dad sat at the table to reserve it for us. Finally, I drove out and picked up the food and balloons, and then came back to Agnes’ parents’ house to pick up the girls. They were still sleeping. Soon, it was 5:00 and they were still sleeping. We waited, and at 5:30 they were still sleeping.
Finally, Eleanor started to stir, and we picked up Miranda as well. We got them changed, and we went over to the park where most of the guests were waiting.
Everyone was excited to see the kids. We gave them each a biscuit and a cup of juice, and everyone else sat down to eat. We didn’t do anything fancy for the food–we brought two family meals from El Pollo Loco with a bunch of sides, Agnes’ mom made a salad, Agnes’ cousin brought the drinks, and we had a whole ice chest full of food for Miranda and Eleanor.
From left to right, here are Miranda, Eleanor, Jasmine, Jean, Agnes’ mom, and Chris.
Here’s my mom feeding Eleanor some mashed potatoes and gravy. I think Miranda ate more of it. Both of them had a tiny bit of the chicken, but it’s still pretty tough for them to chew on chicken.
Then it was time for cake! You might not be able to see it clearly, but in this picture, Eleanor is holding a corn cob that she nibbled and Miranda is holding a slice of peach (Eleanor didn’t want her slice of peach). The cake itself had two candles–one for each of them. This is their first birthday, though, not their second.
Agnes did the cutting. Miranda seemed quite interested.
Miranda had her first taste of cake. She seemed to like it okay, but mostly she went back to eating her peach. Eleanor liked the cake as well.
When it came time to leave, we packed everything up. Agnes’ dad gave the girls some red envelopes. Eleanor crumpled up her envelope while Miranda took a bite out of hers. Later on, we took the money out, and we put the equivalent amount into their college savings accounts.
We managed to get everything back into our minivan, and we headed home.
Right after we got onto the road, I thought something sounded funny, but I couldn’t quite tell what it was. All I could see when I looked behind me was the balloons. I had forgotten to close the trunk of our car! That monkey balloon in the upper left corner of the trunk had disappeared.
We made it the rest of the way home safely, and the remaining balloons are sitting in the corner of Miranda and Eleanor’s room (not over their cribs). A quick bath, a final night time bottle, a quick book, and our girls were off to sleep. The long afternoon nap turned out to be quite good luck–the girls were in the best of moods during the whole party.