on the thirteenth of october, twenty twenty one, our babies became one year olds!

this milestone felt huge for our whole family – we survived one year with twins (not to mention the international move thrown in there!) !!!

we are big on birthday traditions in our family, and for a while we couldn’t figure out what we wanted to do for auggie and evie’s birthday. one day in early october i remembered how much fun we had as a family going bowling in the summertime, and then i also remembered that the babies were born on my grandma’s birthday – and she was a legit champion bowler! so, bowling it is, on or near 13 october every year, as part of the celebration of august and eve 🙂

we went bowling the day before the twins turned one, and all had a blast at the byu bowling alley!

that night, i cut some flowers from our garden because it was supposed to get below freezing overnight. the gorgeous blooms were the perfect decorations for a double first birthday party the next day 🙂

also that night, the boys helped me fill the twins’ bedroom with balloons 🙂 (we had just moved into our house the day before!) we were all so excited when we heard them wake up on their birthday morning, and we all rushed in to sing happy birthday to our sweet babies.

then it was on to breakfast and presents (which auggie and evie’s twin brothers had so lovingly wrapped for them!). moses and gabriel were so, so, so excited to give presents to their baby siblings.

that day was really, really tender for me. reflecting on the twins’ amazing birth and the three hundred and sixty five intense days that have followed just made my heart so swollen and a bit raw. i was filled up with all kinds of emotions.

after we dropped off moses at kindergarten that day, i decided to take gabriel and august and eve on a drive up the canyon, because it had snowed in the mountains and the fall foliage colour was fading fast. all three kids fell asleep in their carseats so i got an hour to drive and marvel at the mountain beauty and grieve my babies growing up and celebrate that i survived and occasionally thrived in their first year.

that evening, we had a big birthday party with all our family members that live in utah (unfortunately ian’s sister who lives here and her family couldn’t come, so it was just the eyre side, and one of our best friends – who became our family in london and had recently moved to utah – with her kids). in retrospect, this wasn’t my best idea – to have a big gathering on the twins’ actual birthday. it was just pure chaos, which wasn’t great for my tender heart or ian just getting home from a busy day at work or the boys’ deeeep need to have cake asap. but – i am glad that august and eve will always be able to look back at this picture and know that, from their very first birthday, they will always be completely surrounded by so many people who adore them and support them. what a blessing.

my awesome niece hazel, who is a total star baker, made the most darling smash cakes – perfectly presented even, on beautiful cake plates – for the babies. it was a raucous happy birthday sing and candle blow out, and then august and eve dug right in.

for all of august’s life, his younger-sister-by-fourteen-minutes has done almost all things a little quicker / earlier / louder. but auggie was not about to be shown up by little sis on eating birthday cake, ha! while eve daintily poked at her cake, august attacked his aggressively.

i mean, he really went for it. we were all laughing so hard watching him shovel in that chocolate and frosting goodness. i think in the end he put away about three quarters of the cake. and yes, he did barf in the middle of the night that night. but i really think he’d say it was worth it. homeboy had a goooood time. eve was sweet.

some snaps from my sister saren’s phone after we came inside – the twins with her twins (sixteen years between the two sets, just like sixteen years between saren and i!), and all the loosli clan (including my cousin’s daughter addy who has become best friends with saren’s daughter eliza at byu, and one of our beloved babysitters – love her!):

august continued devouring after we came inside – he was still chowing down after the last guest left!

some extra birthday love from grandfather:

the day after the twins’ birthday, ian took moses and gabriel on a six day trip to new england. although being surrounded by family was so wonderful, we were all a bit sad that our big celebration of august and eve’s birthday had been so chaotic – so we had a little re-do / extra celebration when ian and the boys got home. can you believe these helium balloons were still in mint condition a week later?! we got some little cupcakes and did the song and candles and cake smash all over again – just our little family this time. it was really great. and the twins definitely didn’t mind having cake again, as you can see 🙂 (you can also see that i struggled mightily in narrowing these photos down … and in the photos at the top of this post that we attempted our traditional birthday-photos-with-the-parents at both celebrations and succeeded with each of the babies on different days, haha!)

one year of august and eve! what a wild, wild first year with these two in our family. ooooh man was i terrified (i’d even say horrified) to have twins – but there is no way i could have ever anticipated how much joy having both of these amazing souls with us would bring to our family. here’s to year two – what a ride!