The Twins' 1st Birthday Party

 Here are some pictures of the girls' 1st b-day party.  We had a wonderful day filled with sun and lots of laughs (& good food too!)!  They say the 1st b-day party is more for the parents and we had a great time celebrating our girls!  We are soooo blessed to have 2 beautiful daughters and we are so thankful for them!!!!  Enjoy the pics... 

Look at those fun birthday outfits.  They were so busy playing that I really didn't get a great picture. :) Grandma Nadine got the girls "cowgirl" outfits to wear.  We had a cowgirl/barnyard theme at the party...note Isaac's moo shirt. 

The highlight of the party was the pinata!   Here's Ava and Grandpa giving it a try.

Here is Isabella with our sweet French friend, Fatima.   

Isaac's turn!

Time for cake!  Ava was soooo tired....she was so excited for the party that she took a horrible morning AND afternoon nap so she was D.O.N.E. by this point.  :)

Oh, poor girl! She had a few bites of the cake and then it was off to bed.

Isabella was enjoying the crowd around her!  We had a total of 26 adults and 19 kids, so it was a houseful! 

Present time! Yes, Ava was in bed but our sweet friend Gwen helped Isabella with her gifts.   

The girls were blessed with some very sweet gifts.  

...and this is how the super fun evening ended...killing the million of flies that landed in our house! :)

What fun we are having...part 2

A Shafer family tradition is having an Armenian dish called Sarma.  It is ground beef with rice rolled in a grape leaf.  It is super yummy and one of the ingredients used in the meat is parsley.  Well, to have to parsley prepared right, you have to take off the stems.  Isaac was learning the fine art of stem removal here and he as doing pretty well at it!! 

He was trying to pass on the tips to Isabella. :) 

On the 24th was Grandma's b-day so we had to have a little party!

Isabella was intrigued by the hat!  Watch out Isaac! 

Oh, the hat... 

Thank you Grandma for celebrating your birthday with us.  We love you! 

How about a self pic? :) Marc and I were able to go to a wedding in Frankfurt on Saturday night.   My sweet friend, Lilli got married and it was a joy to be there.  I was her youth group leader in Frankfurt back in the day. :)  It is also neat because she came to our wedding in Seattle almost 9 years ago!  It was a beautiful wedding and we were blessed to have some pretty awesome babysitters take care of the kids....thanks Grandma & Grandpa!
Check back soon for "the big 1yr party" pics!

What fun we are having....Part 1

This is what Marc and Isaac were busy doing before we headed to the airport to go get Grandpa & Grandma Shafer.

Here's Grandpa & Grandma waiting for us...we sneaked up from behind! :) 

Isaac is showing Grandpa the trains he had in his pockets.   

Here is Marc, Ava & Grandma.

Look at the fun umbrella Grandma bought Isaac...he loves it!! 

 Grandparents are the best!!  They come with lots of fun goodies!

Isaac is looking at his new play car.

Some of the fun things about having Grandparents around is that they give you ice cream bars,

they play trains with you, 

and they teach you how to play golf!
We are having fun!!  We have lots more pictures to share (with lots more of the girls) so check back soon!

Where's Isaac? and Father's Day

Isaac is under his bed of course!  We find him most nights sleeping under the bed with his light on. My heart has dropped a couple of times when I have gone to check on him and he wasn't in his bed!  Those are the nights where his whole body is under the bed!   As you can see there is no carpet under there but he must like the cave-like feel?! :)

We spend a lot of afternoons outside (when it is sunny).  It has been so rainy the last few days that it hasn't happened much lately. These were a few cute pictures of the girls playing with Isaac's old car that also turns into a walker-thingy....they love it! 

We also want to say Happy Father's Day to our Dads!  We feel so blessed to have such awesome Dads and we are so thankful for you!!  I also want to say Happy Father's Day to Marc since this is his first as a father of 3 in Europe!!!  Marc, you are an incredible Daddy and the kids light up when you walk in the room!  Everyone have a wonderful Sunday.  We are off to pick up Marc's parents from the airport...we can't wait to hang out with them!

Cake Video

I decided to add music to this video but it was SOOO hard to do.   I will tweak it tomorrow.  Off to bed for me! :)

Cake Fun

The girls are ONE today which is hard to believe.  All day yesterday and today it has been "remember last year at this time when I was.....?"  We had a nice day with a fun family from Church.  We were pretty low key today because we are having a big party when Marc's parents are here (they come next week).  Here is Isaac showing off the yummy cupcakes...he was pretty excited! 

Here are the Birthday girls completely enthralled with the cupcakes.  Unfortunately, because of an almost dead battery we missed some of the cute reactions the girls had...we may have to do a cake eating part 2. 

It looks like they are just not sure what to think of it. :) 

Both the girls decided that they needed to be in each other's business and spent a lot of time on swiping and sharing cake.   Here is Ava trying to "share" some cake. :) Isabella decided that the marshmellow shaped ice cream cone on the top of the cupcake was YUMMY! 

Ava was just having fun playing with it. 

Once again it looks like Ava is trying to give some of her cake to Isabella but Isabella just wants the marshmellow. :) 

YUMMY and focused! 

Getting messy! 

Enough of the marshmellow how about some cake! 

 Ava thinks this is pretty good stuff.

 All done!  Ava was taking Isabella's cupcake and Isabella was DONE!
We were blessed with a fun day and I was so excited about the "1" shirts that were made by our friend Amy of HankOrange.  Love the cute shirts!!  We will have to get some more pictures once our camera battery is charged! :)

France Wrap-up, FINALLY!

Sorry for the break in blogging!  I have been having problems with my computer and I am hoping it is worked out now!  I also got my email hacked today so if you got a weird email from me...sorry! :(  So this doesn't get dragged out any longer here are a ton of pictures from our last few days in France...enjoy!

On Thursday we had a pizza picnic in the back of the OFAV on our way home from Cherbourg.  We had tried to go to lunch there but the restaurant we sat down to eat at was no longer serving lunch so this was our back-up plan #120. :) Ava REALLY wants some of that pizza!

I had to add this because there girls are always crawling over each other and it cracks us up.

On Friday which was my b-day we went to Caen in the morning and they had this ride that Isaac LOVED and rode a TON!  Although he wouldn't smile for the camera he was having fun and took the job of handing his ticket to the ride attendant very seriously!

He tried all the different "transportation" choices.

After Caen we went to Deauville and had a great time hanging out at the beach in almost 80 degree weather.  It was a fun b-day!!

On Saturday, our last night we went out to dinner.  Isaac was enjoying his strawberry juice.  He loves his cars and trains!

Isaac and Marc picked out this cute shell heart necklace for my birthday.  I love my little guy!!

Ava was chillin' in her carseat.

Isabella and Daddy.  Daddy was enjoying the week long shave break. :)

The highlight of the meal was dessert where Isaac was LOVIN' the piece of chocolate that came with it!

What a yummy way to end the meal and the trip!  We headed home the next morning....and that's it....FINALLY! :)