celebration

Saturday dawned bright and clear and windy.  The morning was spent rushing around checking items off my list, decorating and cleaning and taking breaks to feed Miss M and Whoops!  the tent is going to blow away! but somehow it didn't.  The wind battered my carefully considered decorations, and even before we left for church half of my rainbow of balloons had popped.  The border of twisted white crepe paper was so stretched and whipped by the wind it looked a lot like... toilet paper.  Amazingly we all piled out of the house only six minutes late!  And then halfway to church I looked down and realized I forgot to wear my shoes.  Yep.  I left the house in my battered, neon ORANGE flip flops that I wear around the house.  Too late to turn back, so I just laughed and decided it was a fashion statement.

The christening was beautiful, a church full of family and friends.  Miss M slept through the whole thing, and the Babes fussed until the Holy water was poured over his head, and then he laid there and grinned hugely up at our priest.

Back to the house, and miraculously the tent was still there, although levitating periodically.  The 50 or so guests we had did not seem to mind.  They were too busy eating the enormous amount of food we somehow ended up with.  Barbeque, veggies, fruit, chips, fresh goat cheese our neighbors brought, 3 huge cakes and about 100 cupcakes.... we all ate well, to put it mildly.

authentic Belizean BBQing right here. 10 whole chickens, 20 burgers, and I don't know how many hot dogs were cooked here

The biggest hit of the party was the piñata   I don't think I ever encountered one as a child, but seeing these kiddos attack it with such joy made me wish I could have experienced it.  The babes was scared of it at first, and ran away, until we put his favorite stick in his hand and told him to yell "Vaca! Vaca!" ("cow, cow"-- he loooooves to chase cows around).  Then his face lit up and he spent the rest of the time gleefully whacking, no where close to actually hitting the thing.  Imagine, being 2 years old, handed a stick and actually given permission to smack away!  Heaven.

We are so, so blessed in our family and friends.  Without exception everyone has accepted our babies with as much love and joy as we have.  Miss M was passed around and cuddled and enjoyed by everyone (and continued to sleep through it all).  Everyone sung Happy Birthday to the babes, and the look on his face was indescribable.  It was such a wonderful, wonderful day.