Colin & Leah's 1st Birthday - The Twins Winter ONEderland!!!!!

Well after months of planning (literally I started jotting down ideas and looking online right after Halloween), Colin and Leah's first birthday was definitely a HUGE success :).  There was lots of eye rolling by my adorable husband at my obsessive compulsiveness over the streamer wall and, well, every other little detail but he did admit today, after their party, that he was glad we did everything we did and that it turned out pretty awesome.

We went with a "Winter ONEderland" theme which was awesome for all the after Christmas sales.  We also made their birthday banner which I decided we were doing after looking on Etsy and then finding a how-to on making them.

We made it with 8 inch letters and the ones on Etsy with 5" letters for this banner were like $50.  I definitely did not spend that making ours and it was fun to pick out the backgrounds for the letters.  Yes, I'm kind of a control freak especially about minor details such as the giant birthday banner ;).

We also had a hot chocolate bar with "melted snow" (white hot chocolate), peppermint chips, mini chocolate chips, marshmallow, and whipped cream garnishes, "snowballs" (cake balls), and "icebergs" (oreo balls).

Oh the infamous streamer wall.  My plan was to make the wall behind the twins' highchairs filled with streamers for the background of their smash cake session.  After 3 hours, 2 rolls of tape, and 10 rolls of streamers, we pretty much had it.  Brad asked me if I was done beating the dead horse at 10:00pm the night before their party as I'm continuing to tape up streamers, but I was pretty darned happy with how it turned out.

Colin & Leah before their smash cake session. This was the only pic of them both smiling with their party hats on! My sister, Bridget, snapped it just in time!

The twins had a blast opening presents although Colin tried to escape the living room altogether a few times :)

 The grand finale....the cake smash session!!!  Their cakes were so beautiful (thank you Merritt's!) and I just loved their little smash cakes.  They of course had such a great time diving in.  Leah actually stuck her face down in the cake at one point and was also trying to sniff it, like up her nose.  Colin somehow made an icing beard on his face and looked like a baby Santa which was too cute.

Such pretty cakes I actually didn't want to cut their big cake hehe :)

The icing beard...

I love my birthday cake!

Definitely have to say a big THANK YOU to Brad of course for putting up with my craziness over having the perfect 1st birthday party for them and staying up late and getting up early with me to finish everything.  Also, to my mom who made the adorable treat bags (all 30 of them), helped decorate, and got up early to do all of the running we had to do the morning of their party.  Thank you to my sister, Bridget, who helped the morning of the party watching the twins, sewed my dress up (how did I not notice that spot that was torn when I tried it on?), ran to get ice for us, took all of the pictures, and was my right hand gal during the party :).  Last, but not least, thanks to my Aunt Peggy who also helped to decorate the house and treat bags, and serve the beautiful birthday cake so we could watch our babies eat their smash cakes.  THANK YOU and LOVE you all SO MUCH!

 HAPPY 1ST BIRTHDAY COLIN & LEAH!!!!  Your dad and I love you so much and agree this has been the best year of our lives!