Mermaid Mayham and a Non-Scarey Clown

Vegan organic mermaids.
Mermaid onesies. Reeses said "Birthday Girl".
Stairs = No Mermaids Allowed.
Scariest pinata in the world. Devilles mom was nice enough to mention that Ms. Mermaid has the face of a blow-up doll. EW. Did we just go there?? (She does though!)
Stylin' in the sock monkey pj's. Thanks sock monkey. You aren't such a jerk after all.

So here are some birthday party pics. I don't have many since I was running around after at least one one-year old. Rich and I think they had a great time as evidenced by thier total anarchy when it came to naptime. They just wouldn't take one the whole day. Loved the clown (sorry no pics) and so did Ella, Deville, and Aunt Joanie! Ok a side-bar about the clown. Rich and I sooooo did not want to get a clown. But we were walking around Christmas shopping and realized we were going to have all of these kiddies (and adults) stuck in the house for a couple hours. What else could we do?? So I started calling around, pricing clowns. This is quite a complicated business. I was offered puppet shows, face painting, cotton candy "circus style", helium balloons, story time, sing-a-longs, and magic tricks. I really wasn't looking for more than 1/2 hour of baby entertainment without freaking any of the kids out. One place offered me a 90-minute clown. Seriously? I can barely sit in a movie for 90 minutes. I broke it down as just give me a couple puppets, sing-a-longs, and jokes, no dare to be great situation. All in all, lots of fun. Luckily he didn't show up intoxicated. (One company ASSURED me that they screen all of thier clowns so they don't show up "intoxicated". You thought that was just a clown stereotype. Apparently not.) Ok, back to the party, the girls got to boogie down to thier favorite tunes like "Old MacDonald", "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" and the "Ho-key Pokey". They did love the spinach lasagne for lunch the next day and also all of thier awesome friends and family that made thier first birthday so special and fun. Thanks Slappy. That was his name. Kinda wierd right?

Rich and I have decided not to buy them anything for Christmas thanks to all of their friends and family too. Our living room has been taken over by Ollie the Octopus (ok, we gave them him) and activity tables and animal trains and shape cookie jars and a mini-kitchen (hopefully they will not go into nutrition like thier mom although we have ruined them as far as thier food tastes. No cupcakes, goat cheese and cucumbers pleeeaase mom!!