Monkey See, Monkey Do...

Anna Claire and Mallory celebrated their second birthday Saturday with a monkey party! They were the cutest and most well-behaved little monkeys ever!

Family and friends all had a blast monkey-ing around with the girls despite temperatures in the upper 90’s! The girls loved their party and for weeks had been telling everyone they were having a monkey party with a monkey cake {two, actually}, balloons, and presents! As a matter of fact, the morning of the girls’ actual birthday, Anna Claire got a little confused and thought her party was going to be that day, Thursday.

I think the party turned out so cute, and Walter and I could not have done it without the help of our parents. THANK YOU SO MUCH for all your help with cooking, cleaning, painting, entertaining the girls, setting up, and errand running. We love you!

By the way, do you know how hard it is to throw a monkey party for little girls? I didn’t. Let me tell you…there is not a lot out there for twin girls {or girls, period} in the monkey genre. As a matter of fact, there isn’t an invitation on this planet that has two cute girl monkeys on it. I know. I’ve looked. In the end, though, I really liked our invitations even though I couldn’t get the bows to work out on the monkeys’ heads before I had to give up and get the invitations in the mail…and where’s the pink? These little monkeys are wearing orange {you know I like orange, but…}.

That’s when I found the dresses. Oh, my. Things were starting to come together ~ suddenly we had a theme and a color scheme! There is no more orange checked ribbon in Charleston, all the orange and green balloons are gone, too, and don’t even think about buying a lime green barrel of monkeys. {I bought out two Wal-marts and a Target!}

The girls were so excited when I showed them their monkey dresses. I saw these dresses at Gingersnaps before we made a final decision on our monkey theme {when I was still searching for invitations} and couldn’t believe they still had two dresses in the girls’ size when I went back almost two weeks later! Anna Claire and Mallory got all kinds of wonderful birthday gifts. Thank you, everyone! You were all way too generous. Anna Claire hung with me as we opened every last present. Mallory was outta there after the first few…she was ready to play!

They each got a new “scooter” as they call them, but the only picture I have so far is of Connor riding it. Lots of great puzzles and books… Silly new monkeys, Lollie and Clementine, for both girls…
Their first fishing rods… A big barrel of monkeys… And so much more!

After a wrestling match with a huge inflatable monkey from Connor and Dylan, it was time for the “Happy Birth-Cake” {as Mallory likes to call it}. My mom made each of the girls their own monkey cakes ~ so cute. We sang Happy Birthday and the girls blew out their candles with the help of their cousins. Then we all ate cake and ice cream. YUM!I was determined there would not be a trace of Curious George at the party, but what do you do when that’s the only piñata in town? You hand-draw eyelashes on his eyes and glue a bow to his head! Meet Georgia…
All the children left with their own barrel of monkeys as a “thank you” from Anna Claire and Mallory for celebrating their birthday with them.
Two years old…can you believe it??
A special thank you to our official party photographers: videographer Aunt Michelle and photographer Cousin Brandon. The girls watched the video three times yesterday and were fascinated, and Brandon took more than 100 photos, some of which are right here. I wish I had the patience to upload more. Thank you!!