Jack and Anna turn 9!

On Monday, October 3, Anna and Jack celebrated their ninth birthday. We work hard to make birthdays special around here, so of course, there was no exception for our resident twins. Naturally, we lead up to the big day with lots of discussions about their birth story and clicking through hundreds of baby pictures on Shutterfly.

The actual day began with a leisurely breakfast of pancakes and sausage. They donned their birthday buttons and I drove them to school. Thomas came home so that we could surprise them together for lunch. They knew I would be there, but they weren't expecting their dad. He's the fun one (who pretends to be a snooty waiter when we have lunch with them, so they and their tablemates were thrilled). They handed out small cupcakes to their classmates and proclaimed that they were having a great day so far.

Aren't they cute? Luke was a bit jealous of the attention (and tried insisting it was his birthday, hence his sort of inclusion in this photo).

After school, we made sure to have their current favorite snack on hand--soft pretzels. We also let them open their birthday gifts. Their main gift is a trip to Great Wolf Lodge (stay tuned, they don't know when we are going...) We let them skip homework and go straight out to play. Finally, it was 5:30 and the Darrows came over. It was our month to host dinner, so we invited them to join us for the kids' birthday dinner. Jack wanted pizza and Anna wanted cheese fondue. Cheese fondue seemed difficult to finagle with so many people, so we had Jack's dinner with Anna's cake. For her cake, she wanted a "fall theme with at least one animal." I made some chocolate trees and bought some candy bears to stick on. It was not my best cake, Anna said she liked it, but it was not her favorite, which was a fair assessment.

I totally forgot to get a picture! Here is a half-eaten tree (just picture longer branches) on the last piece of cake.

We had dinner, the kids played, then we had our cake. It was a very pleasant day. The kids were appreciative of our efforts and both of them (separately and unprovoked) thanked us for making the day so special for them!

On Saturday, we had Anna's meal and Jack's cake. As mentioned, Anna wanted a cheese fondue. Jack tried really hard to talk her out of it, insisting we should only have cheese fondue on New Year's Eve to keep it special. But, she was immovable, and obviously Thomas and I had no objection. So, we had our cheese fondue, followed by Jack's Civil War themed cake. We followed it up with a family movie night and concluded the second birthday celebration. And, because we love to drraaaaaggggg birthdays out, we still have Great Wolf Lodge to come.

No Wilson cheese fondue is complete without at least 4 different kinds of bread.

Jack LOVED his cake, he even proclaimed it his favorite one ever! I felt like it was cheating because it had inedible parts. But, it was really fun to make.