Happy Halloween! Twins Third Birthday, Pumpkin Carving Party, The Official End of Birthday Season

We have officially survived birthday season now that these two chaos monkeys are THREE

We went back and forth about a party... they LOVE a party.  But also, they don't go to nursery and they have very few little three year old friends because third-time parents don't have time to make friends for all the kids they have.  

We also have a favourite party which is our annual Pumpkin Carving Party.  We started this tradition in 2022 (according to photos, although possibly earlier?), skipped 2023, and held one in 2024, 2025, and now 2026.

I have no idea how we actually threw a party in any of those years with the respective ages of our kids, although at least in 2022 we had a 2 and 4 year old only so that was easy.  In 2024 we had 1 year old twins as well, and you can extrapolate out from there.

We decided to combine the birthday pumpkin party and make it a bit smaller and on a Friday afternoon (their actual birthday).  In the morning they opened presents

Then we did a pumpkin trail in the local village

I managed a photo of all 4 kids

Then we had cake at home, and Aubrey and Clara went for a nap while Ezra and Lily watched a the Shaun the Sheep film and I set up for our party

90 minutes of effort later and the twins were up

I tried to keep the food low key but couldn't resist a mummy dogs:

I was also super excited to find this Halloween set at the charity shop for £2 last week!

Andy finished work at 3 and arrived to a party already in process

One take home for next year is that I need to pre-empty the kids pumpkins, because having people arrive while 4 kids yell at me to help prep pumpkins is a lot of chaos.  

Also I have to hope no one comes to our house to avoid chaos.

We did some Halloween crafts, decided we had enough chocolate without birthday cake, kids enjoyed a party meal and indoor picnic

Many pumpkin were carved

All in all twins had a fun birthday and I am glad we got to have a Halloween party for them this year.  As kids get bigger it gets harder to host in our house... something we learned last year when we invited 10 families and ended up with 22 kids running around our house.  

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I'm excited the twins are 3.  I was really looking forward to 2 and really last year was not my favourite year.  I wouldn't say I'm looking forward to 3, maybe out of trepidation, but I am looking forward to it not being last year.

Clara (L) Aubrey (R): Newborn (2023)

Clara (L) Aubrey (R): One Year Old (2024):

Aubrey (L) and Clara (R): Two Years Old (2025)

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One more day of October (Halloween!)  and then we are into Reflection/Celebration season.  I do have some hopes and goals for the rest of 2026... but mostly I'm happy to be through birthday season this year and hoping for a bit of calm in November before the chaos of December.