Twins' 1st birthday part 2 - by Bex

As I said in my first post about the twins' 1st birthday, Laura just took too many gorgeous photos for me to not share even more so here are the ones taken out in the daylight, outside the Sea Life centre and on Brighton beach.

Again, my favourites are the full size images.  I wish I had more walls in my house for more photo frames!!  I'm going to have to do some re-jigging.

When we came out of the Sea Life Centre, we had some fun with the shark cage, each twin took turns being the shark and when Kalyan headed for Priya and I, they shared their first kiss together!  (Their version of kissing looks like this!)  So cute and I can't believe it happened when Laura was there to capture it!

They also had a lot of fun playing with the stones in a big planter outside and Kalyan loved looking at the big flag and various other things up in the sky.

We then made our way down to the beach by the pier.  This is the first time I've been actually on the beach in Brighton.  Again, Laura blew us away with her amazing photos - she's captured our little family perfectly, Priya's cheeky smiles and Kalyan's excitement.

As much as I love bright colours, these muted tones in the photos of us down on the beach are just gorgeous.

Priya's selection of stones.  I've kept every one.

And before we said goodbye to Laura, Granny (who, if you didn't see on instagram, showed up the Sunday before as a huge surprise!) got in on the act too ;)  She also paid for the shoot as our Christmas pressie!  Thank you so much Mum & Dad and Laura, we'll treasure these photos forever!

Sea Life Brighton - by Bex

We had such a wonderful day in Brighton on the twins' first birthday.  We started off in the Sea Life centre and the amazing Laura was there to capture all the fun for us.  I am absolutely delighted with the photos she took, they are exactly what I had in mind when I planned our birthday day out knowing she'd be there to record it.  Despite some difficult, dark lighting in the aquarium, she's managed to get some truly gorgeous portraits of the twins as well as the photos I had hoped for in the tunnel and some brilliant close-ups and family shots.

I can quite easily say that she will always be my first port of call if we ever need a family photographer.  I only wish I'd known her sooner and booked her for our wedding.

Laura has kindly sent me way more photos than usual due to the tricky lighting so I had plenty to choose from.  I think she also knows just how much I love photos of the twins!  And anyone who reads this blog will also know that and the fact that I am useless at narrowing down my favourites.  As a result of my useless ability to edit down beautiful photos, I will write another post featuring the lovely photos she took of us outside the aquarium and on Brighton beach as they have a completely different feel anyway, back in the daylight!

I do have some super-duper absolute favourites which will be the full size single pictures below.  ;)

Anyway, about our day; other than Laura recording the morning so beautifully, we had a lot of fun in the aquarium!  It's the first time we've taken the babies to one and they loved it.  We'd never been to the one in Brighton before, and in fact, it's been years since I've been to one at all.  It was really good and the staff were lovely.

They even had rainbow effect lighting on the ceiling!

We particularly loved the touch and feel areas (I have no idea what they are actually called) where we could get wet and touch sea stars and anemones and a member of staff held up a crab for the babies to touch.  Priya wasn't convinced but Kalyan was very interested and gentle.  I love his face in the first one - like he's saying, "Really? I can touch it??" and in the last one - "what on earth IS that thing you let me touch?!"

They were both more keen on sticking their hands in the water to touch the sea stars and anemones.

There was also a sandpit full of "treasures" to find.

As well as plenty of other fish, terrapins and rays to see.

Priya again was a bit unsure when taken into the dome to see the terrapins.  She didn't mind being in the tunnel though but was happier when her and Daddy came back out.

One of my favourite bits was the underwater tunnel.  One of the main reasons I wanted to go to the sea life centre was because I thought it would be quite photogenic in the tunnel but also I love seeing sharks and rays swimming right above.  They didn't disappoint on any count, despite part of the tunnel being closed while they install a new area, there was even a huge turtle in there too!

All in all, we had an amazing morning exploring the centre.  I will definitely be going back (especially since we got free tickets to return due to part of it being closed on the day we went!).  I think it should be a new birthday tradition.  I can imagine the twins will love it even more when they're two!

Sneak Peek - The Twins' 1st Birthday Party - by Bex

SO MUCH FUN!  Many more to come soon but I just had to share a couple few of the amazing photos that Amy took for us at the twins' first birthday party!

 

Pin it do it - Pom pom wreath by Bex

I really wanted to make something out of pom poms for the babies' birthday and found a few pom pom wreaths I liked on Pinterest.  Obviously I wanted to make mine in rainbow colours so bought a few brightly coloured wools and got to work with my new pom pom making gadgets (Pompom Maker Kit)!

Mummy - can touch these?!?

These gadgets are so easy to use and SO quick!  I made lots of different sizes and colours (can you guess how many?) and stuck them all on to the 35cm Half Rounded Polystyrene Wreath with hot glue.  I've been using my hot glue gun a lot lately - it's fab!  (I have the Dremel 930 Glue Gun Hobby 7mm - Dual Temp.)

Before sticking any on though, I decided to wrap the wreath with the blue wool and I'm so glad I did.  Although it took about and hour and a half, while watching The Big Bang Theory, it meant I didn't have to worry about any white areas showing through.

I was really pleased with the final result.  I stuck on a number one I cut out of a shoe box and wrapped with the same fabric I used to add 1s to their white tops.

I plan to change this for a 2 next year!  ;)  By which time I'm also hoping to have our new blue front door!

I love it so much and enjoyed making it so I plan to make a white one for Christmas (like snowballs) using various types of white wool and stick on some snowflake decorations I have.  That one will definitely look better on the dark blue door.  I might not get it finished for this year anyway!

The twins' first birthday - by Bex

As I had hoped, the twins' birthday week was amazing!  I really need to spend some time editing my own photos of the week and write about what we got up to and our fun party but for now, here's a sneaky peek from the wonderfully talented Laura.  I am so lucky to have become friends with Laura since moving down south and as usual, she didn't disappoint when we hired her to document the babies' birthday trip to Sea Life Brighton.  You may remember Laura also took photos of us 16 days before the twins were born and 15 days after Kalyan and Priya appeared!

Anyway, Laura has kindly sent me over a few pictures as she started editing our shoot.  I already love them!  I cannot wait to see the rest in a couple of weeks!!!  Here are a couple of my favourites for now but I'll be sure to be back with the rest!

We had such a great day out!  The twins were so curious and interested in everything, touching crabs, anemones and sea stars, it was a brilliant place to spend their special day.