Now we are six!

Royce and Adam are now six! We just are coming down off a big birthday weekend with, for the first time ever, separate birthday parties. Adam had a party from 12- 2 on a Saturday afternoon and Royce had her birthday party from 4-6 on the same day. While it might sound a little crazy, we all agreed that it was a fine, fun and manageable way to celebrate our six year olds. Royce and Adam and Tori attended all parties and basically loved having more parties to go to and more goodie bags to receive. I think I was the only one feeling a little sad when we sang Happy Birthday to just one child at a time.

In keeping with his recent “never go anywhere without a ball” phase, Adam had a baseball party. Adam had some friends over for hot dogs, crafts and actual baseball. All the little boys sat at one big table with Tori and Royce at a little side table. The girls patiently waited for the boys to get into the party, asking me repeatedly “are the boys ready for the crafts yet?” Once everyone decorated baseball hats, we went off to actually hit a ball. This was complicated by an amber (heavy) rainstorm but we made due with an indoor squash court. Phil pitched to some boys from Ecuador, China and Japan who had never hit before and we were pleased to have everyone hitting the ball by the end of the party.

Also in the rainstorm, Royce had a little luau party to celebrate her birthday. We used a little pizza restaurant at Stanley Main Beach, actually situated on top of the beach showers there. It is a fun casual place with its biggest selling point being proximity to the water. For us this past weekend, its biggest selling point was an indoor room with views of the ocean all around. The girls danced and played in grass skirts and flower leis with the sea, albeit a stormy sea, all around. Royce had a great time playing coconut bowling and musical beach mats. She told me wouldn’t it be nice to live at the beach? I told her we did. And she said that she meant closer to the beach. There is not much closer to the beach than our apartment but the pizza restaurant is closer and probably better in many respects.

While the birthday parties were apart this year, the twins of course remain very close. At school, I brought cupcakes in and we had a joint two classroom cupcake party. They wore matching “six year old” crowns around all day, which was adorable. Even cuter was the start of the birthday day. Early in the morning, well before the usual wake up time, we heard Roycie yell “Happy Birthday Adam!” I could hear Adam’s answer, not coming from his bedroom. He was standing just outside of Royce’s door, waiting for her to wake up.