The 4th of July weekend marks a very important milestone for me – the end of 2 months of celebration!  With B’s birthday, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Matthew’s birthday, and Bryson’s birthday, we have a very busy May and June.  It’s no secret that I go a little crazy for the boys’ birthdays, and I start planning months in advance.  For Matthew’s first birthday, I think I was planning in February.  This year, with two birthdays to plan, I started in January.

May was my “practice cake” month and B got a (to die for) chocolate cake for his birthday that made us learn that Matthew doesn’t like chocolate cake.  “Just white cake, pwease!”  I tried out an orange mimosa cake that was terrific, but a little more involved than I wanted to do with so many other things needing to be done leading up to each party.  We settled on a terrific white cake (wedding cake recipe) with real buttercream frosting.  By the end of Bryson’s party – we were all caked out.  Matthew didn’t even want cake for his own little birthday party with family after Bryson’s party.  “No cake.”

I cleaned up the party decorations in record time this year.  I couldn’t get them down soon enough.  With Matthew’s first birthday, his banner hung for MONTHS before we finally took it down.  Bryson’s hung for 24 hours.  HA!  I was anxious to move his banner into his room though, so that’s really why it came down.  But by Sunday afternoon, there was no hint of birthdays with the exception of the poms and stars hanging from our entry light because we just really like them.  🙂

I’m anxious for next year – we won’t go crazy for Bryson since he’ll be turning two and won’t have a bunch of friends to invite because, well, he’ll just be two!  We’ll probably just do a family party for the two boys together and then Matthew’s birthday party.  I’ve already decided that the family party will have that wonderful chocolate cake I made for B’s birthday this year – they deserve something different!  I need to start thinking of themes for Matthew’s party.  We have plenty of time for that… but come February, I’ll be ready to start planning out the details!  😉

Matthew’s Party:

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Bryson’s party:

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